Post a sample of your pronunciation here!

[马盖云]

Kenny, no problem! Glad to help. I will record a few more paragraphs tomorrow night. Going to bed now! I will try to slow down a little. I talk way too fast in real life, too, so I can use the practice s p e a k i n g s l o w e r!

[Kenny同志]

Excellent! Thanks!

[hbuchtel]

Jumping on the bandwagon a little late here, but here is another recording of the 'gei li' passage. I did this without having read the passage first - only having listened to a couple of previous posters' recordings, so there are plenty of goof-ups!

Gei Li Henry.mp3

[hbuchtel]

And a recording of my 'study partner' reading (not entirely willingly) the first line.

Gei Li Momo.mp3

[David Wong]

@yonglin, on reflection that was a creepy thing to say. I wish I could take it back. 对不起。我后悔不已。

[David Wong]

@hbuchtel, your tones are pretty much spot on. Just curious, have you spent any time in Taiwan at all? Momo sounds adorable.

[hbuchtel]

Thanks, that is good to hear! I've been living in Guangdong and Hunan since 2001, but have never been to Taiwan. Had a few Taiwanese classmates between 2008-2011, but that is all.

Momo has only been 'studying' half as long as I have, but I think she'll take a lead pretty soon!

[anonymoose]

Well that puts to rest the adults vs. kids learning argument then. You've officially been beaten by a 3-year old. Congratulations.

[hbuchtel]

@anonymoose Now it's not quite as bad as all that . . . she is 5 years old!

[马盖云]

@kenny2006woo - Kenny, I sent the remainder of the Ryecroft preface to you as separate mp3 files per paragraph to your gmail account.

Please let me know if the files do not get to you for any reason, and/or suggest another way of transferring.

I think the forum attachment size limits would prevent me from attaching the whole piece here, so I went with email. If anyone else was interested, for whatever reason, I can send them privately to whomever wants it.

It's interested listening to the criticisms of peoples' "gei li" readings, as regards flow, stress, emphasis, etc... This is really my first time recording myself reading (in any language) and I find it easy to get "lost" or confused while reading text off the screen. (and in my case, keeping from constantly speeding up! ) I should add that this Ryecroft piece has extremely long, rambling sentences; with many elliptical and parenthetical thoughts set off by comas. I found myself gasping for breath at the end of some of them!~

Even in one's own native language, I think it would require some dedicated practice to get good at it. I have a newfound respect for those who record audiobooks, podcasts, etc.

[马盖云]

天哪！ 128 downloads so far of some random hyper-caffienated white guy reading the preface to the memiors of... well, I don't even know what it's about... I'm an internet superstar!

Henry. I really liked your reading as well. And what could be cuter than MoMo's attempt at 给力?

[Kenny同志]

Gaiyun, great recordings. Received them this morning. Thanks for your time!!

[cababunga]

If anyone else was interested, for whatever reason, I can send them privately to whomever wants it.

Maybe it would be easier to upload your clip to one of the free file sharing sites and post link to it here. http://www.sendspace.com/

Some are even specifically designed for sharing audio. http://soundcloud.com/ By the way, Soundcloud has a very useful feature allowing to place comments on the timeline.

[creamyhorror]

After much re-recording because I cannot read texts without making a boatload of mistakes, I finally finished a recording of 'Geili'. Corrections and comments appreciated, especially on lazily pronounced tones.

geili recording

Hey guys, I've been living in China for about three years. I've never been much for formal study, but I think my Chinese is very good anyways. Plenty of Chinese people tell me I sound real good. Check it out. Would appreciate the feedback.

Here it is. ExpertChinese.mp3 699.63K 232 downloads

Regards,

West Texas

You know, re-reading this now, I'm thinking it could describe our friend Benny's attitude quite well (if he spends 3 years and not 3 months in Taiwan)

edit: Recording attached for those who can't use MediaFire

creamyhorror - geili reading.mp3

[Guest realmayo]

creamyhorror, to my ears you don't really have the breathy/earnest-sounding voice of a typical male laowai (myself included); I wonder if that makes any sense, and if so if you've ever paid special attention to speaking like it seems you do, more from the front of the mouth in what sounds to me a more Chinese way, rather than from further back in the throat which I think is more normal for English and lots of other European-language speakers?

[creamyhorror]

To contribute, I'll give feedback on imron's piece (which is very well read really). It's all just my nitpicky opinion, by no means authoritative.

----------

removed because I really went overboard here

----------

To summarise:

1) Your 2nd tones aren't really rising enough, to my ears

2) Your 4th tones aren't forceful enough, ditto

3) Your 3rd tones should dip lower, and they should usually be half-tones except when ending a phrase

4) Work on the ü

5) In bo/shuo/etc., emphasise the 'u' more: "bu-wo" / "shu-wo"

Your reading is completely comprehensible, of course - I'm just picking up what I perceive as foreignness in your pronunciation. Don't know what native speakers think.

creamyhorror, to my ears you don't really have the breathy/earnest-sounding voice of a typical male laowai (myself included); I wonder if that makes any sense, and if so if you've ever paid special attention to speaking like it seems you do, more from the front of the mouth in what sounds to me a more Chinese way, rather than from further back in the throat which I think is more normal for English and lots of other European-language speakers?

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by 'breathy voice', but it could just be my natural voice. I do speak more from the front of the mouth, but I've never really paid attention to it. I'm not quite a laowai either, as I'm Chinese Singaporean. Nonetheless, even if you speak from the back of the throat, there's absolutely no problem if you get the tones and cadences all right - you should sound perfect to anyone (imo).

edit: Added additional suggestions to analysis of imron's recording

[anonymoose]

creamyhorror, could you possibly attach your file directly to your post? That website you've linked to is blocked in China (or at least I can't open it).

[imron]

@creamyhorror, thanks for the detailed breakdown. There's always something to work on

[jkhsu]

@creamyhorror:

I listened to your recording several times and it sounds pretty native to me. I didn't hear any tone mistakes either. Just a couple of comments:

1. When you say the 国 in 中国, your "g" sound is a bit soft. I think you do this both times in the text.

2. In 使用了很多网络语言以及方言, you should probably do a slight pause after 语言. I think you just sped through the sentence. Perhaps you were just reading fast.

Just curious, did you grow up speaking Mandarin or perhaps another Chinese dialect? Or did you learn Chinese as an adult from scratch? Your pronunciation sounds like the former to me.

[gato]

Creamyhorror's 让 sounds like ruang, for some reason.