Arthur the Rat

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Ryusenshi
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Arthur the Rat

Post by Ryusenshi »

I wanted to record myself reading a text. I don't like Please Call Stella because of its weird prosody, so I used Arthur the Rat instead. You can find the text here:

http://www.howtodoaccents.com/sg_userfi ... e_Rat.docx

I recorded myself with two different accents:
http://vocaroo.com/i/s0T2geRHhLNo
http://vocaroo.com/i/s0eiZHHE950p

Now, can you guess where I'm actually from?

(Also: holy hell does my voice really sound this nasal in real life???)

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Re: Arthur the Rat

Post by jmcd »

Liverpool? The first one sounds a bit Ringo-ish.

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Ryusenshi
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Re: Arthur the Rat

Post by Ryusenshi »

Someone else? Please? Pretty please?

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linguoboy
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Re: Arthur the Rat

Post by linguoboy »

I couldn't tell you were French from the first one, only that you were non-native. (As someone else said, the intonation is wildly off.) But I heard it right away in the second version.

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Pole, the
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Re: Arthur the Rat

Post by Pole, the »

Okay then.

Here's me: http://vocaroo.com/i/s1vMJMjETfF4

Can you guess where I am from (without looking at my username, duh)?

(It is slighly edited as I had to remove a few bloopers. Also, the [r] is due to listening to too much Scottish English.)
The conlanger formerly known as “the conlanger formerly known as Pole, the”.

If we don't study the mistakes of the future we're doomed to repeat them for the first time.

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Ryusenshi
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Re: Arthur the Rat

Post by Ryusenshi »

linguoboy wrote:I couldn't tell you were French from the first one, only that you were non-native. (As someone else said, the intonation is wildly off.) But I heard it right away in the second version.
Thanks for the feedback. I guess I was focusing too much on the vowels, and screwed up the overall intonation. At least I know what I should work on.

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Re: Arthur the Rat

Post by Sumelic »

@Ryusenshi:
Well, I already knew you were a French speaker before listening, and I also read previous people's comments, so both of those may have biased me. That said, I did hear a bit of "sing-songiness" in the first recording, and I heard more of a French accent in the second. I am an American English speaker, so part of that may just be my greater familiarity with rhotic accents. The vowels phonemes generally sounded distinct from each other to me; just some of them were a bit off from what I would expect--for example, the /aʊ/ in the first clip in a few places, such as in "down came the whole roof."

@Pole, the:
Well, I saw your username and also I'm not familar with a Polish accent So it's not really possible for me to guess. It did sound non-native, mainly I guess because of the /r/, the a-like realization of /ʌ/, and maybe some of the realizations of /oʊ/ and /eɪ/ which were off in some way, although I'm not sure how (maybe not diphthongized enough?).

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Re: Arthur the Rat

Post by Ryusenshi »

Sumelic wrote:@Ryusenshi:
Well, I already knew you were a French speaker before listening, and I also read previous people's comments, so both of those may have biased me. That said, I did hear a bit of "sing-songiness" in the first recording, and I heard more of a French accent in the second. I am an American English speaker, so part of that may just be my greater familiarity with rhotic accents.
I think my English accent is better than my American one, anyway.
Sumelic wrote: The vowels phonemes generally sounded distinct from each other to me; just some of them were a bit off from what I would expect--for example, the /aʊ/ in the first clip in a few places, such as in "down came the whole roof."
I was aiming for a London-ish [æʊ].

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Re: Arthur the Rat

Post by linguoboy »

Ryusenshi wrote:
linguoboy wrote:I couldn't tell you were French from the first one, only that you were non-native. (As someone else said, the intonation is wildly off.) But I heard it right away in the second version.
Thanks for the feedback. I guess I was focusing too much on the vowels, and screwed up the overall intonation. At least I know what I should work on.
That was very much the impression I got. Youn nailed the vowels, but at the expense of prosody.

To be fair, prosody is also the hardest thing to master. You have to learn a whole new way to express yourself and it sounds so fake to your ears.

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