I mentioned a while back that I might record myself speaking a little Finnish:
Obviously, since I don't speak Finnish natively, I can only just barely hear my own accent. Rather, I hear that the things I say don't come out quite the way I intend, or the way in which I hear them in my head, but I'm unable to do much about it.
I'm reading the text, enunciating* as clearly as I can, and I realize I sound a bit stilted and odd. My normal speech might not be so clear or so stiff. Again, though, I can't really say objectively.
[I also apologize for the somewhat loud clicking of my mousepad.]
So, that brings me to this: if you speak Finnish -- just a little, fluently, natively -- I encourage you to record yourself speaking a short text. Post it in the comments, or on your own blog. Come to think of it, all languages (and accents) are welcome. It'll be a language and accent extravaganza.
*I have noticed that my English spelling is getting, well, embarrassing. It's as if Finnish is pushing whatever spelling skill I had out of my brain, and I often don't notice my mistakes at first. I initially wrote "annunciating." I wasn't proclaiming the coming of Jesus, so, yes, consider this corrected.
Obviously, since I don't speak Finnish natively, I can only just barely hear my own accent. Rather, I hear that the things I say don't come out quite the way I intend, or the way in which I hear them in my head, but I'm unable to do much about it.
I'm reading the text, enunciating* as clearly as I can, and I realize I sound a bit stilted and odd. My normal speech might not be so clear or so stiff. Again, though, I can't really say objectively.
[I also apologize for the somewhat loud clicking of my mousepad.]
So, that brings me to this: if you speak Finnish -- just a little, fluently, natively -- I encourage you to record yourself speaking a short text. Post it in the comments, or on your own blog. Come to think of it, all languages (and accents) are welcome. It'll be a language and accent extravaganza.
*I have noticed that my English spelling is getting, well, embarrassing. It's as if Finnish is pushing whatever spelling skill I had out of my brain, and I often don't notice my mistakes at first. I initially wrote "annunciating." I wasn't proclaiming the coming of Jesus, so, yes, consider this corrected.
You have a pleasant voice! ^.^
ReplyDeleteThank you. :)
DeleteIt's very slight. Mostly the word "miltä" sounded a bit foreign.
ReplyDeleteThe rhythm and stress sounded like a old-school radio reporter, though. Perhaps you should go work for YLE.
Ha, thank you. It's possible that I watch way too much YLE TV news. I did notice that I emphasized the word "miltä" quite a lot, and that it sounded weird. Perhaps I was trying not to say "mitä" by accident?
DeleteYep. Not much axe scent there.
DeleteHey, sounds fine to me! Much better than when Finns speak it. That shit's impossible to understand.
ReplyDeleteThe only reason for that is, I think, that I spoke very. very. slowly!
DeleteI agree that you have such a pleasant voice (and agree with Lasse about your having a radio voice) and I LOVE how precisely you enunciated the Finnish words. WELL DONE!!!! :-D I don't really catch any accent, either...
ReplyDeleteYour comment had the appreciated effect of reminding me that I had spelled "enunciating" incorrectly. I have made so many of these embarrassing mistakes since I began studying Finnish, it's pretty crazy!
DeleteThanks again for the kind words, too. :)
Hey, NO worries, you're not the only one having the trouble. My UK friend has had the same problem with her English. I've also got similar troubles with my English, particularly with "him, her" and "she, he" because in Indo language, we also use "dia" which is the equivalent of "hän". And I've also noticed other regress in my English knowledge 'coz sometimes I only remember the Indo/Finnish words and I forget the English ones. ARRRGGHHH...but I suppose that means our Finnish brain is working, then? :-D
DeleteYour speech is a little stilted, but actually you sound a bit like I do when I'm fuming. I don't yell, but I start to enunciate very clearly and switch from lazy spoken drawl to hyper correct book Finnish :D Pronunciation-wise you did really well and I think "miltä" and "englanniksi" were the most foreign with the "ng" being a little too sharp.
ReplyDeleteI was trying to listen if your voice got higher when you switched to English cos I'm told I sound very different when I speak English. My own mum didn't even recognise my English voice! And a friend visiting from France said that my voice dropped a lot lower when I switched from English into Finnish. Have you noticed anything like that with the people around you?
I'll come out of lurkdom with a bang and give you my English pronunciation in return: http://youtu.be/46YWhihncLw
Thanks for coming out of lurkdom!
DeleteYeah, I can definitely hear a bit of weirdness in those two words specifically. I also kind of thought that I didn't lengthen the double "ii" in "viime" enough, but no one has mentioned that yet.
Yes, I have absolutely noticed that my voice becomes somewhat lower and (to me) noticeably more "gravelly" or sort of rough sounding. I can't hear it much on the recording, but I notice it frequently when I'm speaking. I'm not sure why; I might be subconsciously mimicking Finnish speakers, or maybe there's something about the Finnish phonology that necessitates this type of sound production. I'll have to dig deeper into this, now that you mention it.
You have a really pretty (and subtle) accent. I can just barely hear the Finnish in a few words, and otherwise you have what sounds to my American ears like a British accent tinged with a bit of Irish.
Thanks :) I'd blame my Irish friend on that bit of Irish, but since she lives in London and is one of those people who automatically copy the surrounding accent, I don't really have any excuses. But it's curious that you should mention that cos a friend of mine works at the airport and she's often been asked if she's Irish. Should I conclude that Finnish shares some Irish features? BTW I've also been asked if I've lived in Australia...
DeleteYour "viime" is just perfect, really natural!
I think you have a lovely accent in Finnish. In fact, most Finnish-speaking foreigners have accents that are much less pure than yours.
ReplyDeleteI would post an example of my own accent (I think my Australian accent might be as interesting as my Finnish one!) but I am completely clueless about using voice-recording software. I'll try to figure out Soundcloud!
Elena, btw, a few weeks back I took a video of my 6 year old speaking in English, so that you could hear her bizarre accent! Do you have any good ideas how I could extract just the sound? It's a normal mpg file.
Soundcloud's super easy. Just register an account and upload. As for recording, you might want to try Audacity.
DeleteAudacity will also import mp3s from mpgs. I believe VLC Player will, too.
You should definitely give it a shot, as I'd love to hear your respective accents. :)
Depending on the type of MPEG, you could also try demuxing it with ProjectX. It handles MPEG2.
DeleteCut demuxed audio with mp3DirectCut.
Your budding Finnish skills pushing English out of your brain, is just a symptom of it not quite catching up to that it's not either-or but both.
Yeah, I think the real reason is that I'm less vigilant about English spelling, since my focus is occupied with other (Finnish) things. Once Finnish becomes more automatic, I hope that my spelling skills will return to normal -- once it becomes a "both" sort of thing.
DeleteIf you have a PC, you could also just play the video file and rip the audio by setting your PC system to record the stereo mix (not microphone), thus recording the internal audio (and not external). Then you can edit the file if you wish with Audacity. If you have Mac it's a little more complex as you need to download SoundFlower and LineIn but once you do it once it's easy-peasy. Good luck!
DeleteYour Finnish sounds great! You definitely speak like a Finn with the nasalisation :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks! I guess it's just pure mimicry. :P
DeleteI'll give you somewhat humorous reply, but you sound like our local Turkish kebab-guy. Although you pace it better than they do, they always seem to be in a hurry and try to swallow some of the letters when pronouncing. Just relax a bit, other than that it's great!
ReplyDeleteHaha, well, I have been looking for an ammatti...I definitely do need to relax, though!
DeleteYou sound like a finn trying to speak very clearly. Pretty amazing. Good work!
ReplyDeletehttp://yle.fi/selkouutiset/
Tosi hyvää suomea!
ReplyDelete