Chinese Student 2 American English Accent Evaluation

a student from China has sent me a video

of her speaking English she did a great

job but I would like to point out a few

things

the first the aw as in law vowel sound

this occurred twice in her passage on

the word all and the word long nowhere

in this passage was the AH as in father

sound but I have a feeling it would have

a similar issue and that is the jaw does

not drop enough on this sound here is a

still of both she and I saying the word

long which has the aw as in law vowel

sound you can see her jaw is not dropped

enough as her teeth are barely apart

when she says I know you can help me and

no you can’t help me I don’t hear the N

in the word can this sound can’t be

dropped in fact when the word is

unaccented the word is mostly this end

sound can I know you can help me another

thing that I noticed that I have noticed

in many other students is a tendency to

skip over unaccented syllables in

certain words for example pronunciation

is five syllables and I heard

pronunciation four syllables I did not

hear the sea before Asian pronunciation

also in the word University

I heard University straight from this to

it sound we have to have an it vowel

sound there these photos come from using

a software that does the vocal analysis

it is a free software that comes from a

university in the Netherlands I will put

a link to it on my website the top voice

is her voice and the bottom is mine this

is of the word University the part that

is highlighted in purple is the s I T

cells you can see that her voice slides

straight from the s into the

without a vowel the avowal is what I

have circled in my voice below it is

short and it is unaccented but the vowel

must be there this photo shows part of

the word pronunciation the part

highlighted in purple shows the amount

of time given to the syllable see just

before Asian the accented part of the

word pronunciation you can see that she

gives such a short amount of time that

means that the ear may not pick it up as

my ear did not and doesn’t hear it as a

sound or as a syllable pronunciation

again it is unaccented but the vowel

sound must be there

and finally the dark L this sound

occurred several times in the passage

for example in my name Rachel the word

all and the word help as I said before

the dark L consists of two sounds a

vowel like sound all and then the well

when the tongue has moved into the

actual L position sound the all before

the all is actually the defining sound

for the dark L so it’s important not to

leave it out help I will put a link on

my website to a more in-depth

explanation that I did of this sound I’m

going to play now a clip in slow motion

of her saying the word help followed by

me saying the word help and I want you

to notice how quickly her mouth goes

from the a position to the people closed

down at and then in the clip following

of me saying the word you can see how my

mouth transitions

through the dark L and into the P sound

you

so in conclusion the aw as in law sound

the jaw has to drop more the n sound

cannot be left off the word can make

sure that you pronounce vowel sounds in

unaccented syllables and make sure you

make the all sound before the all sound

in a dark L thanks for your video