My voice sample

Hello,

This is me reading a passage from the Mysterious Island by Jules Verne. Can you please comment on my voice sample. Here's the link to it. http://rapidshare.de/files/38638594/me1.wav.html

Here's the transciption for better understading.

"They both walked to the foot of the enormous wall over the beach, far
from which the tide had now retreated; but instead of going towards the
north, they went southward. Pencroft had remarked, several hundred feet
from the place at which they landed, a narrow cutting, out of which he
thought a river or stream might issue. Now, on the one hand it was
important to settle themselves in the neighborhood of a good stream of
water, and on the other it was possible that the current had thrown Cyrus Harding on the shore there".

Roger

I am a non-native too, so I don't know how much my opinion counts, but I have two things to say:

1) You intonation is very weird, even funny. It sounds to me like you are reading a novel using the exact same intonation correspondents use on news channels. No matter what you are really reading, what kind of structure or sentence you are dealing with, etc., you seem to use an intonation pattern that has nothing to do with what you are reading, but it sounds like what you hear on news channels or radio.

2) You are good at reducing vowels to reduced sounds like schwas, but you seem to reduce too many of them, even in words where you should use other kinds of vowels.

That's just a non-native opinion, but I wanted to tell you how that sounds to me anyway. :)

Don't pronounce 'er' sounds so much. It sounds like "othEEEEEEEEEEEr", pronounce it shorter and with less emphasis. Not to bad on the whole, only the intonation is not great.

Your pronunciation is clear but you need to listen and imitate natural speakers from the Anglo world to sound better, this way you'll sound less foreign. Very good but you do have a lot of room for improvement I am quite sure you'd improve greatly if you spent regular time with an natural English speaking person.

THIS SITE HAS AN AD and women disrobing. I didn't see any file. Hope it doesn't have a virus. Nice try.

I'm not a native speaker of English. To me it sounds good. As others have said it your intonation pattern may seem closer to what one can hear on news channels. On the whole good work. Just keep it up!

Your intonation is really strange and distracting, like a newsreader as somebody has already pointed out.

You need to work on some of the vowels (especially in words like "north" and "enormous"). Also you are stressing the -ER sound entirely too much. You're saying oth-ERRR and riv-ERRR when it's OTH-er and RIV-er. I'm American and your R's are too much even for me.

Roger, I think some of the other posters are demanding a little too much.

While the intonation is a little off and the "r"s a little too over-pronounced, overall, your pronunciation is very good for a non-native---accented, but clearly understandable.

I think you might benefit from some shadowing work.

Thank you guys for your prompt attention. And yes there is a lot of room for improvement. I’ll try to get back in a couple of weeks with the same passage.

Roger

Jasper,

Thank you for your commentary. Hope you don't mind me asking about your own experience with shadow speaking/listening. What language do you study? Has this shadowing work really got you closer to a native-like sounding? Is this a regular work? Is it a reading work? Can you say more on that? I'm really curious to learn more.

Roger

Are you all joking? When I looked at that site, there was NO file there.

Roger, first of all, please don't get discouraged by some of the posts here. You are doing very well for a non-native; not perfect, but very good, indeed.

Shadowing was pioneered by Leonard Newmark, a world-renowned neurolinguist at the San Diego University. I believe it to be the most underrated method in existence. Here's how it works:

Get an audiotape of a man you want to model; I chose Peter Graves, for his clear, resonant voice--a man who speaks good General American English. Now listen to the tape, and speak ALONG with the speaker (NOT after him!). Try to match your voice exactly with his. Repeat each sentence as many times as necessary to get a perfect match; 10-15 times is not too many. Then go to the next sentence.

Roger, this method is really the only method I know to enable you to completely hear your accent. Our brains have "mirror" neurons that allow us to hear the tiny, minute differences between our accent and the speakers.

Be prepared for a shock. You will detect all kinds of differences you never heard before. It can be a disappointment. You will hear it all--differences in intonation, in spacing between sentences, in speed, etc.

When I was shadowing Mr. Graves, I heard all kinds of differences in dialect I never knew I had. I spoke with a mixed Southern/Western accent, and, for example, my "l"s were all wrong. Until I shadowed, I had NO IDEA about this.

My jaw ached very badly after each exercise, because I was using muscles I never used before. I shadowed about 10 hours, before a major life event interrupted my studies.

I never resumed my studies because--I'll be completely honest with you--I'm just too lazy. Shadowing is easy, but it's a lot of work.

Since you're a non-native, this technique will take longer for you than it would for a native. In one month--done one hour a day---you will notice a big difference. Big success would come in six months, with (for you) a nearly-native sound in one year.

Roger, I suggest you try this method for just for one hour. Try it, and you'll be convinced.

Please let us know of your progress.

Roger, you might be interested in hearing about some of my other experiences with shadowing.

Just for fun--just to pass the time--I have shadowed French, Spanish, and German for a few minutes. (In the case of French, it was a few hours).

There were some surprises.

German was the easiest to shadow. Apparently, Southern English speakers already possess the vocal talents to make most of the sounds. English is a Germanic language, so this makes sense.

French was difficult, in spite of the fact I had two years of French. I just couldn't manage to produce some of the sounds, especially the growelly-r, with proficiency.

Spanish was by far the hardest! Yes, folks, Spanish is very difficult to shadow for a Southerner. Every sound I made was wrong. The speed was wrong. Everything.

Now I know, all this goes against conventional wisdom. Spanish is supposed to be easiest, then French, then German. Wrong!

Shadow, and you'll see for yourself.

Do you record your own voice too?

It's useful to record a "before" sample of about 30 minutes of your own voice--but not essential.