Accents vs. Mispronunciation

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bobgon55
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Post by bobgon55 »

annise wrote:I'm not sure you really need to mimick English accents , I find the main problem with understanding other versions of English happens because of people reading quite fast , it takes the brain a little longer to recognise the word if it is said in a different way and by then the reader can have read a couple more words and I can get lost. I think Indian speakers do tend to speak fast , and Australians are supposed to speak r e a l l y s l o w l y :D but a good rule is to speak slower if you want to be understood by people not of your country , it is more important than whether your w sound sounds like v and your a sounds like ah or ay :D

Anne
I agree entirely with this. Another thing that you can do, which is helped by speaking slower than normal, is to articulate as clearly as you can all the consonants you are saying. It is almost inevitable when one is speaking quickly that words get slurred, but articulating all consonants will slow you down and slowing down helps you have the time to articulate all consonants. You will probably find, however, that it usually feels really strange to speak at a slower pace than you are used to. It will also feel really strange articulating every consonant. But you can at least shoot for articulating most consonants. The more you can do for your listener means the less the listener has to do to understand you and the more likely they will enjoy listening and listen longer. But really, there's no need to mimic any particular accent - unless you want to, that is. :wink:

People from the southern and western U.S. also tend to speak slowly, at least in contrast to New Yorkers. I wonder why. Big wide open spaces?

Bob
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Post by annise »

Maybe fewer people - country folk speak slower - there are not as many people to interrupt them. But I suppose on that theory only children should speak slower than children from big families :D

Anne
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Post by Guero »

bobgon55 wrote:People from the southern and western U.S. also tend to speak slowly, at least in contrast to New Yorkers. I wonder why. Big wide open spaces?
We New Yorkers have so much to say and so little time to say it! :wink:
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Post by jollyrogered »

Having moved to the South, I can honestly say its just too damn hot to get excited and talk fast. Its hard to get a message out when you feel like your melting onto the sidewalk. I prefer the Nebraska (home state) method- you just dont talk to people. Its either too hot (105) or too cold (-45) to talk to anyone outside, so we can talk fast, we just dont say much to each other.
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Post by Timothy Ferguson »

Lilith1966 wrote:There may be a Britsh or American pronounciation and you would pick one according to the setting of the book.
Respectfully there's rarely a single British pronunciation of any word. Consider the word "lunch" for example, as one chosen at random because I'm on lunch right now. The Scots pronunciation of the word is not very similar to the Esturine English pronunciation, and both are different from the Irish version. Near me I can hear some other Australians discussing lunch, and one has a broad accent, one a general accent, and one lived in England for long enough that his accent is close to Cultivated, and none of them seems to be noticing that the vowel in the middle of the word is wobbling all over the place as they talk.
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Post by Miss Avarice »

Having moved to the South, I can honestly say its just too damn hot to get excited and talk fast. Its hard to get a message out when you feel like your melting onto the sidewalk. I prefer the Nebraska (home state) method- you just dont talk to people. Its either too hot (105) or too cold (-45) to talk to anyone outside, so we can talk fast, we just dont say much to each other.
Well, speaking as a Nebraskan (who used to live in North Carolina, funny enough!)... we talk a lot when there's air conditioning available. :P The past winter has been rather hilarious however, one minute snowing and the next being 70 degrees...
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Lilith1966
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Post by Lilith1966 »

Timothy, that is just my point-that mispronunciation and accent are two different things.
I am referring to difficult words that most people have either never seen or heard, because of the age of the text ( words no longer in comman usage) or the language they are reading is not their first language. In these cases, I personally do not feel that it is too much to ask a volunteer to do... Look up one or two words....but that is just my opinion and I am not here to tell anyone what to do :)

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Tara

Edit: I do see the difficulty in the circumstances you gave regarding accents, it is probably not realistic to attempt that!
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Post by cynm1788 »

Pardon my in-barge:
Lilith1966 wrote:I personally do not feel that it is too much to ask a volunteer to do... Look up one or two words....
The words I heard most frequently growing up were "Go look it up!" {Mom will vouch for it.} Maybe it's in result of that, but I don't feel like I'm reading "at my level" if I don't hafta look sumthin' up. I own my own OED on CD, twice over, once for Windows, once for Mac. For my 43rd birthday, this past May, I treated myself to "The Big" [Liddell & Scott] Greek-English Lexicon. But I've observed there are those who regard "having" to look something up as some kind of shameful stigma, and them sorts I tries t'fix. :twisted:

Remembering what thread this is in, for the record, as an American-speaking ex-Texan, everything I say, however I say it, can and will be adjudged WRONG by any deeply invested critic. [EOF]
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jollyrogered
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Post by jollyrogered »

I think most people look up words when they don't know them, but what about words that you've been pronouncing incorrectly your whole life?

Did you know that puma is pronounced pyooma. I'm the only person I know that says it correctly. Everyone else Ive ever heard says it incorrectly. Now, a person reading that on librivox isn't going to think that they are saying it wrong and go look it up, and you know what? As long as its recognizeable does it matter? Not really in my opinion.

If I hear someoone say something incorrectly when I'm PL'ing, I'll let them know, and I've never had anyone go back and not change it, even though I only present it as a suggestion.

I think most of what people considering mispronunciations on Librivox are actually accent differences, I mean, how can you be sure its not? I really think that the whole question is blow out of context because if it was really such a huge deal, we wouldnt be a very popular site after more than 5 years with over 5000 works recorded.
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jollyrogered
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Post by jollyrogered »

Remembering what thread this is in, for the record, as an American-speaking ex-Texan, everything I say, however I say it, can and will be adjudged WRONG by any deeply invested critic. [EOF]
Exactly correct. Some people are nitpicky. Some are not. It really rests on the listener, because I truly believe that our volunteer narrators are doing the best that they can do. They aren't here because they are lazy, they are here because they are passionate. There are some professional audiobook recorders that I dont like, no one is going to be happy with everything.
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Post by catrose »

jollyrogered wrote: Did you know that puma is pronounced pyooma. I'm the only person I know that says it correctly. Everyone else Ive ever heard says it incorrectly.
I always assumed that that was just the British way of saying it. Until I came here, I didn't know there was another way of saying it :) (It isn't a word that comes up very often)
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Post by ExEmGe »

catrose wrote:I didn't know there was another way of saying it
Neither did I. What is this other way?
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Post by TriciaG »

POO-ma.
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Post by philchenevert »

TriciaG wrote:POO-ma.
And let's not forget the "PEW-MA" pronunciation.
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Post by peegee »

What makes you think that there is one, and only one, correct way of pronouncing words like puma? I'm not aware of any official body that sets down the correct pronunciation of English words. There's not even an official body that dictates written English (e.g. like the French have with the Académie française) let alone spoken English.
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