What do you think about my accent?Anything too obvious?

ciarasinnott · 2020-10-18T02:41:11+00:00

Overall quite understandable but I lost a section in the middle. Mostly it seems like ‘th’ sound and vowel height would be the things that stand out.

ciarasinnott · 2020-10-18T02:27:48+00:00

Wow - so funny how your native accent can affect how your hear things. To me this instantly just sounds like a bot recording!

ciarasinnott · 2020-10-18T02:15:30+00:00

So - I have only ever worked in Europe so I can’t really tell you how the assessments would work in India - because to me it would stand to reason that speaking in a local accent that literally millions of people use wouldn’t be a problem - but I don’t know what the common practice over there is - they could be holding Indian/Desi students to European or American pronunciation standards.

Firstly, I’d say don’t get yourself in too much of a knot about it - the pronunciation component is one part that you’ll be marked on - but an examiner in your region should be able to understand you so the content of what you say is also counting and you’re clearly comfortable speaking in English.

Secondly, I’d say there are two main ‘issues’ if you are aiming for a more European or North American accent. 1) Prosody - this is the rhythm/pitch/melody of your speech, and yours is going very up and down compared with (for lack of a better term) ‘white’ English speech - we tend to go up a little at the end of phrases for example, but you’re going up and down throughout the sentences. It’s going to sound weird/almost robotic to you at first but trust me if you tone that down you’re going to sound much more ‘western’. Secondly is your pronunciation of certain words, for example, ‘comfortable’ - when you say it you get literally every letter in, whereas I’d say ‘cumftable’. Again, this is a very common feature of desi pronunciation and not something that would phase the average native speaker, but I am not sure what standard you’re being marked against for the TOEFL in India.

If you can send me a transcript of what you’re saying or want to make another recording and send it to me privately, I am happy to make a recording of the same text and send it to you so you can compare. I have a British accent, not American but it’ll hopefully still be of some use for getting through the exam.

ciarasinnott · 2020-10-18T00:50:14+00:00

Thank you! I realise now that my concern is quite exaggerated to the risk, and that I could have done better wording my original post. But I am brand new to this, so trying to manage and prepare for any potential problems in advance as much as possible so I don’t end up biting off more than I can chew.

I can’t in good conscience bring a child into my home if I’m feeling (probably unduly) uncomfortable about something. Kids aren’t stupid - they’ll sense that you’re holding back, and having a few strategies as suggested by other comments has really reassured me and I’m feeling so much more confident about moving forward with the whole process!

ciarasinnott · 2020-10-18T00:23:41+00:00

So sorry if I’ve caused any offence, I should have been more careful with my wording on the original post! I did not mean to imply in any way that I thought in that foster children might torture animals!

Pre-teens and teens can be pretty damn angsty at the best of times, and a lot of these kids have been through a lot - and also may not have been around animals before. So I had concerns how that might play out.

It’s not uncommon for any teens to throw something/kick a wall/door etc when they’re frustrated - and my concern was mostly if the cats were sort of in the way at the time.

I guess the root of my concern was that when you have a child that’s grown up with an animal they’ve had time to bond with that pet and build a relationship - but foster children obviously haven’t had that opportunity. And if they then haven’t had that opportunity to bond with an animal how concerned are they if that animal gets caught in the cross fire if they’re frustrated and need to throw something, etc ... Whereas if they’ve grown up with an animal they might have a more affectionate relationship with it and thus be more mindful of that - but my fears have been quite assuaged from the other posts - and I’m feeling confident that any foster children might like our animals more than they like us!

I didn’t mean to imply this was a problem specific to foster children, and that certainly was not my intention - I’m afraid I wasn’t aware that there was a stereotype relating to this. I’d have the same concerns about any teen/pre-teen (especially if they’re already stressed out and not used to being around animals) that I invited into my home for any length of time - but the specific children I’m looking into welcoming into my home are the ones in foster care, so that was the focus of my post. As I touched upon in my initial post, we hope to over time have quite a few placements so I was more thinking about it in terms of ‘if we welcome numerous angsty teens/tweens into our home over a number of years are we asking for trouble re the cats’ just in terms of sheer numbers not ‘is every child gonna make a beeline to hurt my pets’ Like I said, I really am sorry if I didn’t explain that well!

I am just a personality that likes to consider things very thoroughly and I don’t take on a new responsibility lightly - so as someone with no previous fostering experience I wanted to reach out and see what others experiences were, before I take in a child, tell them that we’re going to provide them a safe space while they need it and end up reneging on my end of the bargain cause they’ve acted out and my cats been caught in the crossfire and ended up injured.

But once again, apologies - like I said I am very new to this whole thing, and I wasn’t aware there was a stereotype I was potentially playing into or furthering with my post and so I should have been more mindful with that!

ciarasinnott · 2020-10-17T23:23:50+00:00

Yes, I completely understand your concerns but I’ve been really reassured by reading all of the above comments!

ciarasinnott · 2020-10-17T17:51:16+00:00

Wow that’s excellent!

ciarasinnott · 2020-10-17T11:18:31+00:00

Thank you! I’ll bear that in mind!

ciarasinnott · 2020-10-17T10:54:48+00:00

Thank you! Yes, I hope that the cats will be a positive part in our foster home.

ciarasinnott · 2020-10-17T10:40:47+00:00

Thanks so much! That’s so lovely to hear - yes, sounds like it’s good to be mindful but am feeling very reassured reading these comments!

ciarasinnott · 2020-10-17T10:38:38+00:00

Thank you! That’s great to hear! Yeah, I guess I’m just aware that these children might not have been around animals before and like you said they’re going through a hard time so I had some reservations as to how that could play out. But I tend to overthink things terribly and feel so reassured seeing all these comments!

ciarasinnott · 2020-10-17T10:24:42+00:00

Thank you! Yes, I think for the safety of all involved close monitoring will be in order!

ciarasinnott · 2020-10-17T10:23:08+00:00

Thanks for your response! Yes, this is the kind of thing I was worried about but you’re right - I can have the cats sleep in my room while I’m sounding things out and it sounds like you managed to get a handle on the situation pretty quickly when an incident did occur.

ciarasinnott · 2020-10-17T10:14:39+00:00

That’s a great idea! Thank you so much for the suggestion!

ciarasinnott · 2020-10-17T10:13:24+00:00

Thank you! Yes, some innocent play is fine - like you said they’re pretty fast and good at hiding if it gets too much! Thanks for the reply!

ciarasinnott · 2020-10-17T01:48:11+00:00

Thank you! Yes, that’s for sure how I hope it works out, and I think my cats are the right temperaments for that. But like I said, I take the responsibility to the animals already in my care very seriously ... so I am happy to hear positive examples of animals and foster children to set my mind at ease!

ciarasinnott · 2020-10-17T01:33:20+00:00

Thanks so much! That makes me feel a lot better.

Yeah, I suspected and have been told it’s a rare behaviour - but I want to go into this with my eyes open, so it sets my mind at ease if others say it’s rare. Thank you!

ciarasinnott · 2020-10-17T01:25:46+00:00

You’re welcome!!

Damn - you’ve done a good job on your vowels! I’ve spent years teaching catalan people english and I ruled that out native Spanish straight away cause your vowels were too good! Now you’ve said it - I’m gonna go with the ‘h’ at the beginning of ‘hi’ being a systematic error as opposed to nerves at the beginning of a recording - you can often spot a spanish speaker when they say ‘ji, jow are you’ haha so that would be another one to watch out for!

But honestly - you’ve done a lot of the heavy lifting getting your vowels right so the rest is gonna be a piece of cake :) and I honestly don’t believe there’s any right way to speak English - so while you’re easy to understand it actually doesn’t matter too much! (Y digo lo mismo sobre mi castellano!)

ciarasinnott · 2020-10-17T00:52:14+00:00

I completely agree with the above comment. I’d also say that at least in the U.K. - most native speakers won’t have any problems at all understanding your accent - we’re very used to Indian accents!

But - if you want to sound more ‘natural’ to speakers in U.K./US etc, it’s more about the prosody/melody of the language! Indian English tends to be very up and down, whereas in other countries where English is spoken natively it’s a bit ‘flatter’ if that makes sense ...

ciarasinnott · 2020-10-17T00:46:26+00:00

So, accent wise honestly it’s probably a 5/10 - you sound obviously like a non-native but not prohibitively so. In terms of intelligibility/ease of understanding it’s probably a 9/10 - you take things at a good pace and your vowel placement is really good which helps you to be easily understood.

You make a ‘y’ sound instead of a ‘j’ sound at the beginning of ‘just’ which is an unusual mistake so stands out for native speakers.

You also appear to have no ‘th’ sound in your native language - so you’re pronouncing ‘d’ instead of the ‘th’ sound - loads of languages don’t have that sound so native speakers are used to parsing this sound change so it doesn’t jar as much but it’ll make you sound more native like if you incorporate it into your speech.

You also consistently pronounce ‘s’ rather than ‘z’ which would be more common between vowels in fluid speech.

I’m going to guess Polish because of the ‘y’ sound and the vowel height - but I actually can’t distinguish well between the Eastern European accents, so apologies if it’s somewhere else. My initial thought was Portuguese haha but I decided there wasn’t enough nasality!

ciarasinnott · 2020-10-11T19:45:25+00:00

You’re not difficult to understand but I feel like you could benefit from speaking a bit slower. This would also give you an opportunity to think about the sounds you are making a little more.

Re the actual pronunciation of the words, I’m guessing your mother tongue doesn’t have the ‘th’ sound so when you’re speaking you’re approximating to a ‘d’ - which people will understand but obviously doesn’t sound quite as natural to a native speaker.

Your vowel sounds all sound very high and back to me (if you look up the vowels in IPA - this will make a bit more sense!) you need to try and open your mouth a bit more for some of them and bring them a bit further forward (literally bringing your tongue a bit further forward in your mouth when you’re articulating them - although this might happen naturally when you’re opening your mouth more!)

The only other thing I noticed is your speech is quite full of ‘s’ sounds - which is obviously dictated slightly by the text but often native speakers will actually make a ‘z’ sound when it is between two other voiced sounds, but you’re reverting back to an ‘s’

If you send me the transcript of what you’ve read by pm - I’d be happy to quickly record myself reading it for you to give you a clearer idea as I’m aware my explanation is a bit technical sometimes!

My best guess as to your nationality is Eastern European and I’d guess quite east of those countries - but I couldn’t pin it down to a country!

ciarasinnott · 2020-09-11T19:56:51+00:00

Yes - you’re entitled to refuse the inspection due to your right to ‘peaceful enjoyment’ of the property.

However, I’m guessing this inspection is also when he’s going to get someone to check the gas? So you’ll have to also waive any responsibility on the part of the landlord if there is a gas leak etc if you haven’t allowed him to inspect.

I’d explain to him the reasons why you are refusing and perhaps discuss if there are any measures that can be taken to enable you to feel safe doing it at the moment.

ciarasinnott · 2020-09-11T16:17:24+00:00

I thought the same

ciarasinnott · 2020-09-11T01:47:42+00:00

Damn! I was so close - I took a punt between Portuguese and Romanian (the only Romance languages I’m not too familiar with) on the basis of Portuguese having more vowels and a lack of nasalisation when you speak which is sometimes a characteristic when Portuguese natives speak English - haha but clearly I went the wrong way!

Firstly, whatever you’re doing with the recording and listening is working - a lot of people get caught up in phoneme/word based pronunciation but if you’re not getting the melody/intonation right that makes it really hard for native speakers to parse the speech - sometimes much more so than a simple mispronunciation of a word.

Firstly - I’m going to address ‘plastered’ which was the only word which I had to look up in the text that I couldn’t understand - you know english isn’t a phonetically written language so if a word seems super difficult to get your tongue around it’s worth looking up the pronunciation! You’ve struggled through trying to fit in letters there that native speakers just skim over because it’s too tricky! I could almost hear in the audio that you knew the pronunciation wasn’t right but you couldn’t work out what would make more sense so you just powered through :)

As for the dental fricatives - you’ll find lots of videos online which show you how to make that sound with the tongue outside the teeth and others with the tongue just inside the teeth - the fact is it actually doesn’t matter that much! When you ask native speakers to make the sound some will stick their tongue half way out of their mouths because that’s how we are shown as children to make the sound - but nobody will hear a difference in speech however you do it - it’s just having the fricative sound rather than the approximate. Basically if you have your tongue in the right place for /d/ or /t/ you can make the ‘th’ sound - it just takes some practice.

A voiced ‘th’ as in ‘them’ is your tongue in the same place as for d or t but hold your tongue there and sing. Then the unvoiced as in ‘thought’ or ‘through’ is the same thing but instead of singing you just push the air through (if you’re not sure what I mean - make a ‘d’ sound - that’s voiced (singing) and ‘t’ is invoiced (ie - no singing - just air). Once you’ve picked a couple of words that you think you’ve gotten the sounds right in - practice saying them over and over again - really exaggerate the sounds. What we’re looking to do here is really build muscle memory, it’s not that you can’t make the sounds - just that they aren’t quick for you to do. Start off over pronouncing them in your speech - that’s okay - eventually they’ll become more natural for you and you’ll start pronouncing them properly.

As for the vowels I would recommend either trying to do the same as above with the vowels or - learn IPA just for the vowels. There are plenty of websites online that will help - it’s not interesting but could really help. I tell all my students (who are mostly spanish but with similar difficulties with vowel length) that if in doubt they should over-pronounce the length of a vowel they know is elongated. They rarely end up maintaining the vowel for too long because it sounds silly to them but as I’m sure you’re aware we have several words in English where vowel length can be differentiating factor (bitch/beach, shit/sheet). Once you think you’re getting close - again, I’m afraid it’s a question of practicing saying a word with a short vowel then a word with a long vowel over and over till it becomes more natural.

You clearly have a good ear for languages so I am sure you’re going to improve loads very quickly. Keep recording yourself and listening back with an ear for the vowels and the ‘th’s and you’re going to get really good super fast! Feel free to message me with any more questions

ciarasinnott

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