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