PRONUNCIATION MISTAKES IN A DIAGNOSTIC PASSAGE
Alejandro
Cediel Giraldo
Clifford A Prator’s diagnostic passage
When a (I pronounce this article as /ɑ/. The good form is /eɪ/) student
from another country (I pronounce /Kaʊtri/, The
correct form is / ˈkʌntri/) comes (sometimes I omit
the pronunciation of the /s/ at the end) to study in the United
States, he has (sometimes I stopped here because It was difficult
to pronounce both /h/ quickly) to find out for himself the answers (I pronounced always the semivowel /w/. The correct pronunciation is /
ˈænsər /) to many questions, and he has many problems to think
about.
Where should (sometimes I don’t pronounce good the phoneme /ʃ/) he live? (My Intonation in the questions was
not quite similar to the audio)
Would it be
better if he (Reading these words quickly was difficult to me.
I had to read the question several times to pronounce the words correctly)
looked for a private room off campus, or if he stayed in a dormitory?
Should he spend
all of his time just studying?
Shouldn’t he try
to take advantage of the many social and cultural (This word is
difficult to me ['kʌltʃərəl] because sometimes I pronounce it similar as is
pronounced in Spanish ['kulturəl]) activities which are offered?
At first it is
not easy for him to be casual in dress, informal in manner, and confident in
speech.
Little by little
he learns what kind of clothing (/ ˈkləʊðɪŋ/ In some cases I
pronounced the phoneme /t/ instead of /ð/) is usually worn here to
be casually dressed for classes.
He also learns
to choose the language and customs that are appropriate for informal
situations.
Finally he
begins to feel sure of himself.
But let me tell
you, my friend, this long-awaited feeling doesn’t develop suddenly, does it? (My tag question intonation
sometimes doesn’t sound as the audio sounds. I think that I could be caused
because I don’t use tag questions usually)
All of this
takes will power (Usually I pronounce a semivowel in the middle of
the word / ˈpawər /, the correct form is / ˈpaʊər /).
Listen my
recordings of this diagnostic I found such quantity of problems in my
pronunciation that I felt a little upset with myself. However that encourages
me to practice a lot to improve my English pronunciation. I identified several
problems in the following aspects:
-
Harmony of speech: It was difficult to me reading the text fluently in a
normal velocity. At first I had to read it considerably slower than the guide
audio in order to pronounce word by word correctly. After almost twenty
repetitions, and when I had almost memorized the text, I reach an acceptable
speed in the speech. Despite that, some mistakes were difficult to avoid,
somehow because I wasn’t conscious of them. On the other hand, in some cases I
was thinking so much about the correct pronunciation of every word while I was
reading and that aspect produces a loss of harmony in the lecture, the lecture
was not natural. In addition, when I read the passage aloud in front of my
classmates that makes feel a little nervous and I lost the concentration as a
consequence many mistakes were evidenced. Finally, I realized that sometimes I
read without taking into account the meaning of the text trying to pronounce
good each word.
-
Stops in lecture: When I was presenting the text to my phonetics teacher,
after almost 30 repetitions, I had necessity of stopping in many parts of the
lecture because some combinations of words were difficult to pronounce.
Example, “Would it be better if he” The repetition of the syllable “be” and
after the alveolar flapping[1] in
the word better done in the guide audio were sounds difficult to emit.
-
Ability to identify phonemes[2]:
Mostly, my mistakes
were related to recognizing some phonemes in words. As you can see in the
corrections, many of them are confusions between sounds influenced for Spanish
phonemes. I have to be more critical in my learning process and I should try to
look the transcription of confusing words.
-
Intonation in questions: In the first
lectures my intonation in questions was really different to the guide audio
intonation questions. I had to do a considerably effort to sound similar to the
audio.
[1] Phonological process found in many dialects of
English, especially North American English and Australian English, by which
either or both prevocalic (preceding a vowel) /t/ and /d/ surface as the
alveolar tap [ɾ] after sonorants other than /ŋ/, /m/, and /l/. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intervocalic_alveolar-flapping
[2] A phoneme is a basic element of a
given language or dialect, from which words in that language or dialect are
analyzed as being built up. The phoneme is defined by the International
Phonetic Association as "the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to
form meaningful contrasts between utterances" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoneme.
