Speaking Feedback

[MarianoM]

Thanks PeterMollenburg! I will take your advices and tips. Great post.

It's the first time I write in this forum and it has been great. I never thought there would be so many people willing to help me (and for free!)

Thank you all.

[Dragon27]

I've listened to your first recording. The accent is, of course, very noticeable, but OTOH your articulation is very good (i.e. I don't have any problem comprehending your speech). As already been mentioned, your 'h' sounds too spanish and fricative-y, and you often pronounce voiceless (instead of voiced) "s" at the end of such short words as "is", "was", "as" etc. Also, you pronounce ligh L at the end of words ("all", "feel", "normal", "well"), where it should be "dark" (I myself have problem with pronouncing proper dark L, even in my native Russian, so I usually resort to some kind of semi-vowel velar L, as do many native English speakers, actually), you mispronounce the pronoun "of" (it should have the "v" sound, not "f"). Your short I (in words like "sick", "live", "kid") and U ("good") sound like the long ones. The main difference between short and long I/U is not in the duration of the sound, of course, but in the quality. Short "I" sound should sound more "closed", more resembling "e". Same with "U".
For some reason you pronounced "harder" like "hardier" multiple times.

[MarianoM]

Thanks for your feedback Dragon27.

I have already started studying IPA and also downloaded a book called "Mastering the American Accent"

I will upload another recording in a month or two to see if I have improved.

Thanks again!

[Ani]

Thanks for your feedback Dragon27.

I have already started studying IPA and also downloaded a book called "Mastering the American Accent"

I will upload another recording in a month or two to see if I have improved.

Thanks again!

You can start a log over in the language logs area if you'd like to keep one continuous thread and keep posting updates on your progress.

[MarianoM]

You are right! I'm going to do just that.

Thanks again!

[AlexTG]

I suggest you try to find an introductory book on English phonetics and phonology for Spanish speakers. There's lots of crazy small things you would never work out yourself or by asking natives. For instance English speakers actually put the tips of our tongues on the top of our mouth when we say "d" and "t" whereas Spanish speakers put the tips of your tongues on your top teeth. No way would I have ever worked that out if I hadn't read the book Fontetica y Fonologia Españolas.

[MarianoM]

Yes! I realized with this thread that phonetics is much more complex than I thought and I really need to focus on it. I downloaded two books to start studying "Mastering the American Accent" and "English Pronunciation Made Simple – Paulette Dale and Lillian Poms"

As you said I'm never going to reach near native accent by myself or just asking around. So I have a lot of work to do

[MarianoM]

Hi guys! I have been practicing my English speaking and trying to apply all the valuable advises that you gave me. I have set for myself a target of speaking 1 hour per week, so what I do, is to prepare a speech during the week and every Thursday I try to give it and record myself. For now, I can only manage to speak for 30 minutes because after that I get very tired, it's much harder than I thought!

So anyway, I have this new podcast here that I would like you to evaluate, it’s a little bit long so you don’t need to hear it all, just what you need in order to give me your feedback. And it would be great if you could rate with 1-10 points each area as below.

Fluency: xxx points
Accent: xxx points
Grammar: xxx points
Words used: xxx points

https://soundcloud.com/user-848291766/voz000491

Thanks!

[Ani]

Well I don't know how to rate it on a 1-10 scale but I can already hear a marked difference in your pronunciation from last time. I just went back to check the first recording and your vowel sounds are more accurate and the flow of speech is improved. It's a good improvement for a short time

[AlexTG]

Fluency is good.

Word choices are good.

Grammar is good, only small hiccups maybe once a minute or so. One problem is you sometimes use plurals for non-countable nouns (for instance in the description you say "advices").

Accent is perfectly understandable, but not light. You need to fix your 'v', which often sounds like 'b' ("berry, berry" instead of "very, very"). When you pronounce 'h' you shouldn't feel a closing of the throat, just let the air out like you're sighing. "words" should rhyme with "birds". You're pronouncing 'j' as the Argentine 'y' but it should be quite different.

A common feature of Hispanic accents is that the long vowels aren't drawn out long enough, but your problem is that you're drawing out short vowels sometimes.