I ran into this a couple of months ago. It's pretty neat to hear how people who live relatively closely can sound so different.
Funny, I expected there to be an example in each language, but they're all reading an English text which is strange... And the first French girl who reads it has much too good an accent, she can't really be French...
There's a guy from Birmingham, UK, who certainly does not have a Birmingham accent - sounds more like bog-standard generic English that so many people speak these days in the UK. My favourite so far is the first South African voice, think it sounds really interesting and nice to listen to.
My favourite so far is [i:cf5b5a1e5a]icelandic1[/i:cf5b5a1e5a], just gotta love those r:s! Also, [i:cf5b5a1e5a]german5[/i:cf5b5a1e5a] sounds like John Malcovich.
Right, after going to a football game on Wednesday, and going to a concert yesterday, I've nearly lost my voice. Anyways, here is me reading the text: please call stella (voice gone).mp3
Wow KK, that's one gone voice I'm actually having fun with the synthetic voices my company makes, and I realize that we have done this before, make a voice read a text in a different language to see how it pronounces it... and it's fun You can have a go on our on-line demo if you like...
It would be great to hear everyone from the boards doing this. If I can figure out how to record an mp3, you can all hear me and Garner reading 'Please call Stella'. I just played a Brooklyn one and Garner thought it was Marcia except that it was too slow!
[quote:a997dfbd5a="Buzzfloyd"]It would be great to hear everyone from the boards doing this. If I can figure out how to record an mp3, you can all hear me and Garner reading 'Please call Stella'. I just played a Brooklyn one and Garner thought it was Marcia except that it was too slow![/quote:a997dfbd5a] As long as you have a microphone and an audio card (which you probably have, since you've been listening to accents) you can get Audacity, an open source audio recorder and editor.
Very good software, but I do need a new micro. I don't get that ugly sinitus tone underlying my voice away. And no, it's not in my ear.
[quote:bc3680eb2f="KaptenKaries"]Sinitus, you must mean either sinus, tritonus or tinnitus?[/quote:bc3680eb2f] Tinnitus! That was it, yes! *slaps head*
Quick-and-dirty explanation of the three concepts. Probably all wrong too, but it'll give you the basic ideas. [b:684b1f9a8f]Sinus[/b:684b1f9a8f] is the name of a waveform with a perfect curve through it's peaks and lows. A perfect sinus wave is the cleanest and simplest tone you can get. [b:684b1f9a8f]Tritonus[/b:684b1f9a8f] is a musical interval in western music theory. Just like fifth, third and seventh, tritonus is the name of a distance between two tones. It was, during medieval times, named The Devil's Interval by the church, because of it's distinctive sound. This sound comes from the fact that the two tones in a tritonus interval are as far away as possible from vibrating in sync with eachother. Jimi Hendrix's Purple Haze begins with two bars of tritonus intervals played on the guitar. [b:684b1f9a8f]Tinnitus[/b:684b1f9a8f] is a medical condition, usually caused by exposure to too much noise (either be it a very loud burst of noise during a short period of time, or a moderate level of noise over a long period of time). A person who suffers from tinnitus has had one or several of their hair cells in their inner ear broken. The broken hair cells will constantly send signals to the brain, and this will be percieved as a high pitched tone. Tinnitus can also be caused by stress. That ringing you hear when you leave a loud concert is tinnitus, and if you wake up the next day without the ringing, you should consider yourselves very lucky, as a permanent tinnitus currently is uncurable. In my mind, either of the three concepts would make sense in Hsing's sentance. (paraphrasing) I can't get rid of that nasty sinus tone. I can't get rid of that nasty tritonus tone. I can't get rid of that nasty tinnitus tone. [b:684b1f9a8f]Edit:[/b:684b1f9a8f] Just found out tritonus is the German and Swedish word, while it's called tritone in English. [b:684b1f9a8f]The return of the son of Edit[/b:684b1f9a8f]: Incidentally, tinnitus sounds like a sinus tone.
I see. The only thing is, I would refer to the first on your list as a [i:79baf34bfe]sine[/i:79baf34bfe] wave (pronounced the same as 'sign'). I've never heard it called 'sinus', which is the cavity behind your nose that gets filled up with mucus and makes you feel deathly ill and sound horrible to boot.
[quote:4edb6e52e1="Buzzfloyd"]I see. The only thing is, I would refer to the first on your list as a [i:4edb6e52e1]sine[/i:4edb6e52e1] wave (pronounced the same as 'sign'). I've never heard it called 'sinus', which is the cavity behind your nose that gets filled up with mucus and makes you feel deathly ill and sound horrible to boot.[/quote:4edb6e52e1] Yep, it's probably a language thing, in French Sinus is the nose-cavity thing, and a sine wave would be sinusoïdale. How to speak French in one easy lesson: take your english word and add a random number of random letters.
[quote:90e58939fc="Buzzfloyd"]I see. The only thing is, I would refer to the first on your list as a [i:90e58939fc]sine[/i:90e58939fc] wave (pronounced the same as 'sign'). I've never heard it called 'sinus', which is the cavity behind your nose that gets filled up with mucus and makes you feel deathly ill and sound horrible to boot.[/quote:90e58939fc] Again, it's me messing up Swedish/German and English words. How good to have you correct me, Grace.
[quote:cafdb7d550="Ba"]And only pronounce about half of them.[/quote:cafdb7d550] Aha ! Ba is a specialist I see Edit to add lesson 3 : Also, pronounce some of them twice...
[quote:8e86cff900="Maljonic"]There's a guy from Birmingham, UK, who certainly does not have a Birmingham accent - sounds more like bog-standard generic English that so many people speak these days in the UK. [/quote:8e86cff900] The New York guy and the guy from Brooklyn have generic American accents.
I thought the New York guy did, but the Brooklyn guy didn't. He may not have a full-on Brooklyn accent, but his vowels are definitely very north-eastern. Maybe it takes someone from outside the region to hear it? I've been disappointed with some of them and their lack of different accent, but there are plenty of good ones. I was interested to discover that I can distinguish a Georgia accent from other American southern accents.
That's unusual, I normally find that it's 'outsiders' that cannot detect subtle differences in dialects, or spot a phony accent.
The Sydney guy sounds more like someone from a lower socio-economic group than someone representative of Sydney. The level of education tends to influence accents more in Australia than location does. this is something that doesn't appear to be controlled for in the recordings. I lived in Sydney for years and I don't think I talk like that... If I do I'm very depressed.
Spiky, social class is as important as region in defining accent in parts of England. Where I live, working class people are more likely to have a Hastings 'estuary' accent or a rural Sussex accent, while middle class people are more likely to have a standard South-Eastern accent. (We don't have upper class people in Hastings, in case you were wondering. Except for me, of course. )
Grace is in a class of her own The same is true in France, the higher up the social ladder you are, the more you sound like a TV presenter... Which, considering that the lower down you go the more TV you watch, is rather paradoxal...
Don't forget that HAstings also has some very nice and helpful Welsh boys and a yank (but we don't mention it in case he gets ideas of trying to sound like a local)...
I think accent is influenced by social class everywhere. That is sort of what I meant when I said that the New York accents sounded generic. They sounded like people who had trained themselves to sound more "American", and hide their regional accents, something that would be associated with education. So while there would still be traces of Northeastern-isms, which Grace noticed, they weren't really proper full-on New York accents. Accent is also influenced by ancestry. Someone from Brooklyn with Irish grandparents will have a different Brooklyn accent than someone with Jewish or Puerto Rican grandparents.
I would really like to hear some sound recordings of people with strong regional accents. The BBC sound archives would have them, but I don't know how you access them or if you have to pay. I noticed there were a lot of recordings of people from Virginia, which provided the chance to compare them. Did you listen to that old guy? He had a much stronger accent than the young men, and it was slightly different too. Interestingly, the closest to his accent was the seven-year-old girl, I thought. I think there's a strong tendency for accent modification among young Americans with regional accents. Garner has a modified accent because he got teased at school for his 'dape Sayowth' accent, so he worked on changing it, which I think is a shame. He still sounds like a southern American to me, but apparently, when he still lived in America, he had people ask him if he was British!
[quote:8a3e299134="Buzzfloyd"] I think there's a strong tendency for accent modification among young Americans with regional accents. [/quote:8a3e299134] I would not have been allowed to graduate from uni with a strong regional accent.
[quote:8e69b422ab="Marcia"][quote:8e69b422ab="Buzzfloyd"] I think there's a strong tendency for accent modification among young Americans with regional accents. [/quote:8e69b422ab] I would not have been allowed to graduate from uni with a strong regional accent.[/quote:8e69b422ab] Huh? Why not?
You have to pass a speech screening to graduate, and if you don't pass, you have to take speech classes. (For people with strong foreign accents, as well.) We also had our speech screened in high school. I had assumed this happened all over the US.
[quote:bf2e0e2d56="Marcia"]You have to pass a speech screening to graduate, and if you don't pass, you have to take speech classes. (For people with strong foreign accents, as well.) We also had our speech screened in high school. I had assumed this happened all over the US.[/quote:bf2e0e2d56] :shock: Woah... That's tough !
That sounds really weird, Marcia. Language fascism, like. What difference does an accent make, really?
I think it was done as a way to help a student succeed in the future. Just as you would probably not be considered for a good job if you misspelled words on your resume, you probably wouldn't be considered for a good office job if you spoke with a strong Brooklyn accent at an interview. I think Plaid's local accent is pretty close to being the standard American accent. Unfortunately, my local accent is associated with being lower class and uneducated. I suppose in other areas where the accent is considered sub-standard, an intelligent person might just take the initiative to "correct" it himself - like Garner's experience.
