Speaking Feedback

[MarianoM]

I have been practicing my English speaking for some time now, and I would like to upload
them so native English speakers can listen to them and give me their feedback. They are
not very long, just 10 minutes each recording.

Do you know where can I do this? Or is anyone interested in hearing them? I tried to
upload one speaking here but I see that its not possible. It would be very usefull any
guidance.

Thanks!!

[PeterMollenburg]

I'd be happy to listen. I'm Australian, but we are very accustomed to American, Kiwi and British accents here through media and in person contact.

If you look at page 23 of my log, 3rd post from the bottom:
http://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=784&start=220
you will see how the program 'Soundcloud' can be utilised to embed audio in a thread.

It's free, and in conjunction with dropbox i was able to get the recorded audio file to where I wanted it.

[MarianoM]

Great! I will send you my speakings.

Thank you very much!

[MarianoM]

Let's see if I did it correctly.

In this record the topic I chose to speak is about the advantages and disadvantages of having a family.

https://soundcloud.com/user-848291766/voz00033

I'm completely open to criticism and suggestions. So don't worry just say what you think.

Thank you!

[MarianoM]

Here I give you a couple of my English speakings more so anyone who is so kind to hear them can give me their feedback. Thank you very much!

https://soundcloud.com/user-848291766/voz00035

https://soundcloud.com/user-848291766/voz00034

[Sizen]

This post might look intimidating, but do understand that your pronunciation is very understandable and I would be happy with it. There are, however, a few things that I noticed that you might want to work on. I've added a lot of links to wikipedia articles on International Phonetic Alphabet symbols and terminology, and I suggest you listen to the recordings on each of those pages if you're unfamiliar with the notation or wording. In fact, reading and learning about the International Phonetic Alphabet, Spanish phonology and English phonology would probably help you better understand the points I bring up in this post.

1. (0:22 [have]) Your /h/ is the Spanish jota. This doesn't pose any problems comprehension-wise, but does definitely contribute to your accent. The English /h/ is a lot softer than the Spanish one and is pronounced deeper in the throat (the glottis to be precise).

2. (0:30 [year]) You don't differentiate between /ji/ and /i/. That is to say, you pronounce the words "year" and "ear" the same. If you can't hear the difference either, try practising with minimal pairs. These words really do sound different to an English speaker.

3. (1:26 [bad], 1:32 [valuable]) You don't always differentiate between /b/ and /v/. Keep in mind that the voiced bilabial fricative that appears between vowels in Spanish (think /jueves/ or /haber/) doesn't exist in most dialects of English as a phoneme. In other words, /b/ is always pronounced as in /brújula/ and not in /abogado/. The English /v/, on the other hand, is always a voiced /f/. Your top teeth should be touching your bottom lip. This sound doesn't exist in most dialects of Spanish, so you'll need to practice.

4. (1:36 [they]) You often replace the voiced /th/ by /d/. This doesn't make you hard to understand as its common for learners of English from many countries to make this mistake and some dialects of English use this pronunciation, but you might want to learn to consistently make the voiced /th/ sound correctly. You can do the voiceless /th/ just fine (/thanks/, /thought/), but the voiced one doesn't always sound right (/they/, /that/).

5. (1:12 [need], 1:25 [sad]) The being said, you often pronounce /d/ as a voiced /th/ when it is as the end of a word or between two vowels. This is normal in Spanish, but not in English. You'll need to practice consistently pronouncing /d/ as a stop in every situation.

6. (7:12 [grow]) The soft /g/ of Spanish also doesn't exist in English. /g/ is always pronounced as a stop.

Otherwise, there are certain words that just have the wrong pronunciation.

(0:36 [authority]) You pronounce the first vowel sound here as a diphthong, whereas in reality, it's a monophthong. Here's a page with the proper pronunciation: http://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/authority?q=authority.

That's all from me. If I were you, I'd focus on points 2. and 3. as they are the most glaring problems. Otherwise, I'm not really all that competent in matters of prosody, so maybe someone else would be willing to tackle that subject.

[MarianoM]

Wow, that was great.

You really took your time to answer. I knew my pronunciation was not good, but I didn't know it was so wrong I'm glad you opened my eyes. I have never studied phonetics because I didn't thing it was so important, but considering what you wrote, I will.

If someone else has any other opinion I will be very glad to hear it. And if someone wants to post their spanish speakings I will try to help too.

Thank you!

[Tomás]

In the US, "poor" rhymes with "more". It is an o sound, not a u or oo sound.

I agree with Peter that your "v" sounds too much like "b".

I have no trouble understanding you, but uneducated or racist people in the US might have difficulty with your accent.

[MarianoM]

Thanks Tomas! Yes, I have to definitely improve my pronunciation, I'm going to work on it and upload another speaking in a couple of months. This has been extremely useful for me.

Thanks you all !

[PeterMollenburg]

Okay as I said, i'd comment on your English....

You say:

At 0.05, 0.06 "There was a kid who was... "
the 's' in 'was' sounds like an 's' in snake /s/.
In this position it should sound like the 'z' in 'zebra' /z/. I honestly don't know why this is. Being a native speaker I would find this difficult to explain. I'm not familiar with my native language grammatical rules- i just speak and know what sounds right.

I agree "poor" doesn't sound right and it should rhyme with "more". Oh, you are very easy to understand by the way, and your accent is quite pleasant. It's not strong, so comprehension is not hindered, and there's no need to perfect it further if you feel you're not going to be understood (as that's not the case in my opinion- you're easily understood). However if you want to sound more like a native speaker then there are things you can improve on. I emphasize again though, that I have no issues understanding you at all.

"country" at 0.13 is again perfectly understood, but the intonation or something is off somewhat. It sounds like you are diphthongizing the 'ou' sound or dragging it out a little. 'ou' in 'country' should be clearly a single sound that doesn't rise or fall, transform slightly into another sound or drag out. That's the best I can explain it.

I think for yourself, like me with French, the best thing you can do is just to continually aim to work on your accent and intonation. if you keep aiming to improve, you will, provided you consciously apply the changes that are required. Be patient, with plenty of practise and effort your accent will improve with time. I cannot recommend Learning IPA enough. It's not difficult to learn- if you can speak English this well, you can learn IPA with a bit of time and patience, and if you then get a hold of a dictionary with the English words represented by IPA you will get much better at perfecting your accent in relation to particular sounds or words (in my opinion) and won't always need feedback- you'll be able to perfect 90% or more of your own accent by being able to increase the accuracy of the sounds via IPA association of letters to sounds.

I too can hear that you're sounding the 'v' in 'very' more like an English 'b' (or more like the Spanish 'v'), which obviously comes from your Spanish speaking background. Unlike 'country' this is probably arguably one of the most obvious traits of a native Spanish speaker in your accent when you speak English.

at 00.20 "...and many people thought that..."
I can't hear the 'd' in 'and'. I know it's a tendency in some Spanish speaking areas to habitually drop the 'd' at the end of words ending in 'd' or to weaken them considerably. The 'd' being missing from 'and' here doesn't hinder comprehension but it made me have to focus slightly more to realise you said 'and' (without sounding the 'd'). The next time you say 'and' in the recording you pronounce it perfectly fine, so it's perhaps a little habit that comes and goes being a native Spanish speaker perhaps.

The word "professional" at 0.44. The -al on the end shouldn't sound like -al but like [əl] - this is the IPA representation of it, which in plain English means the vowel sound prior to the letter ' l ' on the end of professional is what is called a 'schwa' (an unstressed vowel). I don't believe unstressed vowels exist in Spanish, but they are very common in English and do exist in German, French, and Dutch from my experience. The word 'butter' contains a schwa in Australian English on the -er ending but I don't believe it does in American English. I do believe however that 'professional' contains the schwa as suggested in both dialects (American, Australian). Australian English tends to contains more schwa's than American English.

In "effort" at 0.58/0.59 '-ort' sounds over-emphasized for English. In Australian English this would again be an unstressed vowel sound like this in IPA for the whole word I believe : [ɛfərt] not like you say [ɛfɔrt]. Perhaps in American English it wouldn't be quite as unstressed as in Australian English, but you're still over-emphasising the 'ort' sound on the end.

I hope my discussions comparing American and Australian English are not are source of confusion.

In summary I could continue but the thing is your (Spanish) accent is present almost entirely throughout the audio recording BUT don't be discouraged as it is quite subtle, you speak English clearly and are very easy to understand. It's simply that your accent although subtle is present enough to be noticed throughout the recording.

Golden tips:
Learn IPA
Keep aiming to improve
Anything you learn to improve should be applied to your language immediately and integrated from then on.