My sound clip

[Shelley]

I listen to your recording and have to agree with the helpful comments. As to accent why not try Canadian. I was born in Cananda, have lived in the US and now live in the UK. People are often unsure of my origins. One of my chinese teachers once said the combination of my accent sounded good when I spoke chinese. Canadian is softer than US, and not so stiff as UK. Shelley

[Hofmann]

Why do you want a British accent? British English is probably easier to pronounce, but translating between spelling and pronunciation is more complicated. If the amount of learning materials is the same for British and American accents, I'd recommend American.

[imron]

Well, the language is called English You can't fault people for wanting to learn the pronunciation of the language as spoken in its place of origin.

[Kenny同志]

Oh, thanks everyone. I am so happy my post has garnered so many comments.

Special thanks go to 盖云 for the time and effort you will take for me.

As for the accent I am going to attempt, it’s purely out of my personal preference. And I am willing to go the extra mile to learn it. But thank you Shelley and Hoffman for your suggestions. I appreciate them.

[semantic nuance]

nice to have eventually met your voice!! Kenny!

[Guoke]

semantic & skylee,你們也來一個怎麼樣？我想聽聽不同地區的中國人的英語口音 ;)

Edit： 还有xiaocai

[马盖云]

Kenny,

So a few places I noticed an extra syllable sound... I hear sometimes the '-ed' ending of words sometimes sound repeated. For example, 'published' @ 0:59s and 'added' @ 1:14s. Listening again, I think what I hear is also just a stray '-a' sound at the end of many words. This is similar to what some people consider a stereotypical accent of Italians speaking english with an accent. (see 'graduate' @ 0:33 and 'must' @ 1:36.

A few other words needing some pronunciation work: 'documentation' @ 1:37 (doc-u-ment-a-tion) and 'reproducability' @ 1:46 (say re-pro-duc-a-bil-i-ty)

again, it is still very good. And in listening again, I can understand it even better. :rolleyes:

[Kenny同志]

@ SN

I am expecting to hear yours.

@盖云

Thank you 盖云. I will take note.

[semantic nuance]

deleted.

[Kenny同志]

Wow, SN, you have a very nice voice. Your pronunciation is much better than mine!

[semantic nuance]

Kenny, 你過獎了。We're all here trying to learn languages and improving better and better. There's no 比較好or不好, to me. All, or most of the members, I think, aim to make progress as each day goes by. Thank you for your compliment though.

[xiaocai]

How about you, Guoke? But I'd agree that it is always interesting to find that how someone's voice differs from what you may have perceived before actually hearing it...

I can not comment on both of your's pronunciation as I'm not a native speaker, obviously. But as a English learner of Chinese background, kudos to your willingness and effort to improve your language skill, because I don't know if I would have the same level of courage to put my recording under scrutiny here or not, especially considering how many experts we have...

[Guoke]

semantic, 贊！有練過！I like your accent. It's pleasant and easy to understand.

xiaocai, I'm too embarrassed to do that. My English is nothing to write home about.

[Glenn]

That was pretty good, Semantic Nuance! It sounded really good in spots. The only thing I thought of while listening that I feel I can comment on was that it seems like it's pretty hard for Mandarin speakers to get the syllabic /l/, particularly in consonant clusters, like in "syllaBLE". That would make sense, though. As far as I'm aware it doesn't occur in Mandarin. But it's like saying "black" without the "ack", if that helps. It's probably pretty hard to get conceptually at first (like unaspirated initials was for me), but I think if you practice it you can get it.

And I agree with Kenny -- you do have a nice voice.

[semantic nuance]

@xiaocai, and Guoke: Thank you for your boost.

@Glenn: Thank you for your comment and compliment. I'll practice more next time when I encounter~ble words.

Sorry I have to delete the audio clip for some reason.