Working on my Pronunciation

[MosMus]

Hello, all below are two short recordings, first is German, second English. I am just curious how my pronunciation is for both, any advice would be great.

http://vocaroo.com/?media=vqoC6i37ckMTLhLK5

http://vocaroo.com/?media=vKM7D5Am0DvduLB79

[TomHChappell]

The English has a slight but easily detected accent; but one can't easily tell what kind of accent, perhaps because it's too slight.

Some sounds seem to be pronounced over-carefully, others not carefully enough.

Sorry, I just can't be more precise without multiple listens; I've only listened twice so far.


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I'm not the guy to ask about the German.

[cromulant]

Your English pronunciation is very good. I'd say it was excellent if it weren't for the few slips you made here and there, e.g. "Immanuel's Kant's." There were a few pauses. These aren't really pronunciation issues, though. You can clearly hit all the sounds, and the phonotactics don't give you any trouble. You have an obvious accent, but that goes without saying, and you don't have [x] for /h/ or [4] for [r\] or anything like that.

What jumped out at me as distinctly marking your English as...well, non-Englishy, was your intonation. Particularly toward the end, you were emphasizing what struck me as 'odd' or 'wrong' words and syllables, and in non-Englishy ways. It's hard to explain, and I wouldn't know how to illustrate this for you. There was a sing-song quality to "confronted such widely differing subjects." You stressed the correct syllables, but I think too much so (for their importance in the sentence), and with too much reliance on pitch.

But this might be due to the fact that you were reading aloud--something I find a bit difficult and unnatural. Maybe your conversational English sounds different. I know if I'm reading an unfamiliar text, I'm certain to stress the wrong segment from time to time, since they aren't my thoughts, and I don't know what's coming up next.

[MosMus]

Your English pronunciation is very good. I'd say it was excellent if it weren't for the few slips you made here and there, e.g. "Immanuel's Kant's." There were a few pauses. These aren't really pronunciation issues, though. You can clearly hit all the sounds, and the phonotactics don't give you any trouble. You have an obvious accent, but that goes without saying, and you don't have [x] for /h/ or [4] for [r\] or anything like that.

What jumped out at me as distinctly marking your English as...well, non-Englishy, was your intonation. Particularly toward the end, you were emphasizing what struck me as 'odd' or 'wrong' words and syllables, and in non-Englishy ways. It's hard to explain, and I wouldn't know how to illustrate this for you. There was a sing-song quality to "confronted such widely differing subjects." You stressed the correct syllables, but I think too much so (for their importance in the sentence), and with too much reliance on pitch.

But this might be due to the fact that you were reading aloud--something I find a bit difficult and unnatural. Maybe your conversational English sounds different. I know if I'm reading an unfamiliar text, I'm certain to stress the wrong segment from time to time, since they aren't my thoughts, and I don't know what's coming up next.

Thanks for the feedback. I know it's difficult to "describe" one's pronunciation but I appreciate what you've said. I too have noticed that some of my intonations are incorrect, and other people have sometimes told me that my pronouncing of 'a' is sometimes to rounded or soft. I have noticed also when conversing, that I sometimes run out of breath even if I still am not finished with a sentence it's pretty weird, though that has happened to me in other languages also.

[kodé]

You definitely sound Armenian! Don't know if I'm biased due to already knowing you're Armenian, but you sound like most native Armenian speakers who have acquired English as a second language. On that note, your English sounds very good (by which I mean intelligible to a native speaker) on a first hearing.