Record yourself for science

[Chuma]

I'm doing a project in my prosody class, and I need some more data. I of course turn to you, trusted ZBBers.

I will tell you more later about what the project is about, but we'll leave it for now, lest I influence the test. The only requirements for taking the test is that you have some sort of recording capability (such as an ordinary computer microphone) and that you don't speak Swedish (at least not natively).

What I would like you to do is:
1. Go to
https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B3Hg1B ... ZDVi&hl=en
to download a zip file with some sound samples.
2. Listen to each sample, as many times as you like, and then record yourself imitating it.
3. Send your recordings to me: flygetyg@gmail.com. It's probably best if you save them in a non-compressed format, such as .wav, and then put them all into one zip file.
4. Also tell me in your email what languages you speak, and to what extent. And perhaps your age, while we're at it. And your ZBB username, unless you're shy.

I'll be very grateful for your help. Feel free to enrol your friends too. I'd be particularly interested in people with East Asian native languages, but any other is good too.

[finlay]

I might, but a) I think my dad will want me to be quiet now because it's late and b) shouldn't you be getting people without knowledge in linguistics to do this sort of thing?

[Chuma]

I suppose, but I don't think it will make all that much difference. I'm happy as long as I have something.

[sirdanilot]

Sounds very exciting ! I will see what I can do ! I speak absolutely not a word of Swedish. Dutch is my native language.

Non-linguists would be better, but I doubt if people who don't find this interesting, are very willing.

EDIT: I know someone else who wants to participate too, so expect two mails shortly

EDIT: Done !

[Chuma]

I've received one so far. Thanks!

[Ossicone]

I'm doing this now and having my dreams of speaking Swedish crushed. XD

EDIT: And I feel like an ass doing it fyi.

[Chuma]

Feeling like an ass is a common reaction.
Thanks!

[Viktor77]

Alright, I did it for you but you owe me haha! I had to do this on my iPad and then lost the order of the samples and had to go back one by one and figure out what was what. Anyways, hope it helps and isn't too terrible!

[sirdanilot]

It was indeed a lesson in humility and patience to do this, yes. Though patience mostly because I'm a perfectionist and listened to each of the samples at least 3 times...

[finlay]

3. Send your recordings to me: flygetyg@gmail.com. It's probably best if you save them in a non-compressed format, such as .wav, and then put them all into one zip file.
4. Also tell me in your email what languages you speak, and to what extent. And perhaps your age, while we're at it. And your ZBB username, unless you're shy.

Oh yeah... can't be bothered emailing it. Doesn't make much difference though, I just thought it'd be more fun to let the others hear it too.

Praat compiled it into one WAV file automatically, so i'm just going to upload that. There aren't really large gaps between the different sentences, but you should be able to tell where the breaks are.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/15543016/sweeedish.wav

age: 23
languages: native English; intermediate but rusty French; rusty high-school German; beginner's Japanese; small amount of Dutch that I picked up from 2 months in Holland.
nb: extensive IPA/phonetic training, including 4 hours or so (in lectures last year) of very precise annotation of Norwegian. (a couple of the sentences still ring in my mind – they were very silly, like "hun vaskar eplar" meaning "she washes apples", or "bijane surre" meaning "the bees buzz" [although I should note that I have no idea how to spell them properly – I can only remember them phonetically]. anyway it was very similar to this, except without me having to say it back, so... make of that what you will) I should also point out that while "2 months in Holland" doesn't sound like much, I think it's rare for an English speaker to go there and fool a Dutch person into not detecting the English accent and speaking back in Dutch (if that makes sense). This definitely happened once or twice...

[Qwynegold]

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/15543016/sweeedish.wav

Lol, this sounded like Maybe there's thunder on the hill. That's when Oscar goes to the party. Oscar is in the hallway; goes one way one of the times. The soda goes down the hill. The soda is at the hill. Dan parties completely. But the other one is wrong. Looking for one toe after the other. He can see Norwegians. He sees on land, and on land then. He sends the letters to the letters. That's when the soda crate is on the hill. to me. Hmm, looking at the what the sentences actually were, I still can't make out what nr 3, 6 and 12 are supposed to be.

[faiuwle]

I'm trying to download the zip file, but google apparently sucks as a file-sharing service. Could you upload it somewhere else?

ETA: Never mind, I managed to get it to send it to me as an attachment, and it can figure out how to you open those.

[*Ceresz]

Thanks for posting that, Finlay. It was fun listening to .

[din]

I'll participate. I have a head cold and stayed home from work today. Hope it doesn't sound too muddled.

I felt very lost. My native language is a Germanic language with a pitch-accent too (Limburgish), but I'm not sure if I picked up on the tones

You can download it here (so all the Swedes can laugh at me)

http://cpanel03.blueyellow.nl/~neuteboo/Fakeswedish.zip

[Chuma]

Oh yay, a pitch accent language! Which, to be honest, I had never even heard of. Thanks to the rest of you as well.

I've started compiling the data now. So far it seems that the answer is "no" - people who speak tonal languages are no better at picking up the pitch accent than others. Now I just have to figure out a way to turn that "no" into a six-page essay.

If you want to participate, you probably need to do it quite soon. If you have any tips for what I should write about or where I should read about it, that's also appreciated.

[Chuma]

If I've counted correctly, I have seven samples in total, five of which from this thread. One has a tonal natlang, one has pitch accent, and five have neither. Better than expected.

Sirdanilot, Din and Viktor - I don't think I've got your age, if you don't mind telling me that might be useful. Also Viktor, you're American too?

[Viktor77]

If I've counted correctly, I have seven samples in total, five of which from this thread. One has a tonal natlang, one has pitch accent, and five have neither. Better than expected.

Sirdanilot, Din and Viktor - I don't think I've got your age, if you don't mind telling me that might be useful. Also Viktor, you're American too?

Sorry about that, forgot. I'm 20 and I speak American English (Great Lakes dialect) natively as I'm from Michigan in the USA. I speak Spanish conversantly and French intermediately. I have studied Swedish, but only to the extent that I could make out the word "fran."

[din]

I'm 22

And to support your hypothesis, my entire Mandarin class had great trouble distinguishing between the tones, even though most of us are from Limburg.

I did pick up the samples were trying to get me to distinguish words with a different tonal pattern, but I can't really say I could hear it very well

[Chuma]

Okay, thanks!

I have studied Swedish, but only to the extent that I could make out the word "fran."

As far as I'm aware, there's no such word. But good work anyway!

[Ossicone]

Från?

I could make out some words but I felt very flat when speaking. If that makes any sense.

[Shrdlu]

---

Funny: You sound very, very much like I imagine a dutch would sound like when speaking Swedish.

[ekobor]

Uhm, I'm probably too late, but I sent it anyway. I know how hard it sucks to not have enough data for sciencey things...

I didn't feel so much like an ass doing it as trying to keep my mouth from making a phlemy cooing noise. Oh, and like I was turning a seven course meal of gorgeously cooked food into a take-out dinner from McDonalds, if that makes any sense.

I apologise profusely for the battery of background buzz (yay alliteration?) that my files bring. Listen to it and know that I hear that (only slightly diminished) the whole time I am anywhere in my house except the basement. Is it any wonder I have near constant headaches when I am home?

Good luck!

[Chuma]

It's not too late quite yet. I'm at a loss for what to write, since there doesn't seem to be any connection at all. It also turns out that you need pretty good sound quality to do this analysis; some of the recordings are sadly not much use since there is far too much noise.

[Chuma]

By the way, did any of you hear the tonal patterns at all?

[Ossicone]

Definitely not.

Tones are the devil.