ZBB accent archive

[Io]

I've decided to record myself in German, English, a little bit of Swedish (I have no idea how the words are actually pronounced, I've just read it how I perceive Swedish sounds), Greek and Maltese.

http://ireylo.free.fr/accent.wma

And again I notice there is something weird with my /f/s, not sure what but it sounds strange when I listen to it.

Guitarplayer

That WAS fast, I had trouble following the text :S

[Torco]

You have a cool-sounding voice, btw. Your English text was a bit "bumpy" though

yeah, that's because I write way more than I speak, my english voice is a bit weird and foreign-sounding.

[Shrdlu]

I've decided to record myself in German, English, a little bit of Swedish (I have no idea how the words are actually pronounced, I've just read it how I perceive Swedish sounds), Greek and Maltese.
-----.S

Your Swedish sounded like you were an Icelandic trying to speak Swedish, almost down to the accent.

[finlay]

I haven't spoken German in a while, and while I know that I've done this recording before, because GP et al commented on my pronunciation of 'sechs', I couldn't find it in this thread. It may be on the wiki or something.

Here it is. I'm speaking a bit fast for myself and got tongue-tied a couple of times.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/15543016/zbb/stella-de.wav

This is the English link again:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/15543016/zbb/stella.wav

And French; again, definitely recorded it before:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/15543016/zbb/jeunemarin-fr.wav

how'd i do guize??

[MisterBernie]

Not bad, though you pronounce <Stella> and <Snack> more German than most Germans do

[finlay]

Not bad, though you pronounce <Stella> and <Snack> more German than most Germans do

Oh, how do you pronounce them? I did notice that GP said [st]ella rather than [ʃt]ella, didn't catch the beginning of 'snack' though. I only pronounced it [snak] because it's an English word.

[Jipí]

/stɛla/ and /snɛk/ for me. I've never heard /ʃtɛla/ for the name. It's not terribly common here anyway.

[Io]

And how did I fare?

[MisterBernie]

Not bad, though you pronounce <Stella> and <Snack> more German than most Germans do

Oh, how do you pronounce them? I did notice that GP said [st]ella rather than [ʃt]ella, didn't catch the beginning of 'snack' though. I only pronounced it [snak] because it's an English word.

What GP said; basically, recent loans often don't get their initital /sC/-cluster adapted to [ʃC] (most people I know have a minimal pair of [staː] (movie) star and [ʃta:] starling, for example); with Snack I wasn't referring to the cluster, but the vowel.

And how did I fare?

Not bad, your /r/ sounds properly German. You voice too many of your /s/, though.

[Jipí]

And <ng> is [ŋ] usually, not [ŋɡ]. Which a trap for German learners of English.

[finlay]

So tempted to try and butcher Swedish or Spanish or Welsh, or one of the other languages with a translation up that I don't actually speak...

and ohhhh yeah, you borrow /æ/ as [ɛ]... which is terribly un-useful for me that actually has a more central [a] in my dialect of English. I was teaching a Russian woman a few weeks ago who was surprised that I said [hav] for 'have' rather than something more like [hɛv]... I had to then explain that the second one is the way that Americans pronounce the word. Conveniently, this was backed up by a listening exercise where an American man pronounces the word 'can' like [kɛən] or whatever.

[MisterBernie]

So tempted to try and butcher Swedish or Spanish or Welsh, or one of the other languages with a translation up that I don't actually speak...

Butcher Swedish, you say?
(I apologise in advance to all native speakers of Swedish)

Conveniently, this was backed up by a listening exercise where an American man pronounces the word 'can' like [kɛən] or whatever.

How Bernie fakes a Southern American accent: go crazy on the rs and diphthongise everything.

[finlay]

Still tempted, but I'm massively procrastinating now.

ARgh it's rubbish i know. and I got a bit tongue-tied towards the end.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/15543016/zbb/stella-sv.wav

[MisterBernie]

I use this kind of thing AS procrastination, which is also why two days ago, I recorded the first 34 lines of the Canterbury Tales

[finlay]

Exactly – the point is i'm meant to be doing other shit, and I'm not.

[Shrdlu]

Butcher Swedish, you say?
(I apologise in advance to all native speakers of Swedish)
.

This is so fucking strange: You sound even more Icelandic than Io. Sometimes you nail the accent spot on.

[Izambri]

I was teaching a Russian woman a few weeks ago who was surprised that I said [hav] for 'have' rather than something more like [hɛv]...

Fortunately for her she hasn't herd me saying have [af]... XD

[Io]

Not bad, your /r/ sounds properly German. You voice too many of your /s/, though.

Too many? I thought I only voiced the ones I'm supposed to i.e. before vowels, you're Austrian you probably don't voice any /s/s

And <ng> is [ŋ] usually, not [ŋɡ]. Which a trap for German learners of English.

Wut?

[Jipí]

And <ng> is [ŋ] usually, not [ŋɡ]. Which a trap for German learners of English.

Wut?

Apart from the 'is' I left out (at the moment I somehow often do that with short function words ), yeah. E.g. English finger has [ŋɡ], German Finger only has [ŋ], at least that's how we learnt it in school. Might be a BrE/AmE thing, though.

[Io]

Weird, I've never noticed/heard this.

[MisterBernie]

Not bad, your /r/ sounds properly German. You voice too many of your /s/, though.

Too many? I thought I only voiced the ones I'm supposed to i.e. before vowels, you're Austrian you probably don't voice any /s/s

True enough, but it still strikes me as a bit too voiced. It gives me a French-ish impression.
...
I r eloquent

[Jipí]

E.g. English finger has [ŋɡ], German Finger only has [ŋ], at least that's how we learnt it in school. Might be a BrE/AmE thing, though.

This wasn't meant to say that all English words with <ng> have [ŋɡ]. It only applies to some AFAIK. Singer, for example, I learnt as [sɪŋɚ], without a linking [ɡ].

[Io]

By the way, can someone point me to examples of Carinthian? I tried searching myself but I didn't find anything.

[finlay]

E.g. English finger has [ŋɡ], German Finger only has [ŋ], at least that's how we learnt it in school. Might be a BrE/AmE thing, though.

This wasn't meant to say that all English words with <ng> have [ŋɡ]. It only applies to some AFAIK. Singer, for example, I learnt as [sɪŋɚ], without a linking [ɡ].

Correct. I can't think of an English dialect with [ŋ] in finger. Might occur in some Scots variety somewhere, that's the only exception I can think of... However, the opposite isn't true; there are some areas of England (Liverpool and Birmingham stereotypically, and most of the area inbetween) where you get [ŋg] everywhere, including in final position.