Comments on Recordings

1. The Winter Olympics (00:43)

- Since 1924: pronounce r better, intonation should go down not up
- These activities: longer e sound in both these and activiTIES
- Television: a sh sound, not a zh sound
- Participate: t is kind of missing
- Competition: o is not pronounced well, it shouldnt sound like a u
- Gold: stronger l sound
- Hearts: s is missing
2. The Passionate Shepherd (00:45)
- Shepherd: the d cannot be heard
- Christopher: er sound is missing a clear r
- Valleys: vah-lees is heard, the a should not be pronounced ah
- Dale: the a should be pronounced exactly like the letter sound
- Their: eir needs to sound more like air
- Rivers: reevers is heard, make sure the I is accurate
- Silver: l is too light, make sure to feel it in your throat
- As precious: r is not clear enough
3. Babe Ruth (00:39)
- Born: r is not heard
- Traded: trated is heard, the d does not have to be strong here but please
make sure it doesnt end up sounding like a t instead
- 714: this is spoken too fast, numbers are quite important to emphasise
- Legend: d is missing
- Last: pronounced in the British way lah-st, for consistency try to use the a
that we have learned instead
- 1948: foh-ty is heard, the r needs to be emphasized although the t can be
reduced
4. Peter Pan (00:58)
- Peter: the e in pe is a long I sound so this word should sound like peeter. Right now it sounds like pitter.
- Fairy: sound too much like fery, make sure of the ai
- Adventures: the d cant be heard
- James: Sounds like Jims, make sure of the ai sound
- Presented: ed should be pronounced

- Legend: d is missing as in Babe Ruth

5. Dear Dad (01:01)
At: t isnt clear enough
Fabulous: the bu should be said as byew
Telegraph: te-lee-graph is said, which is wrong, the lee should be
pronounced leh
Taxi: the ks sound in xi is unclear
Alcatraz: the second a should sound the same as the first
Cable car: for some reason car is said as cor
Yesterday: the ter is not clear enough so it sounds like yeserday
Passed: the t ending here is too strong, make it more of a stop
Park: really sounds like pork, careful of the a sound
California: the for sounds too much like foh, be sure to growl the r
Well be back: the well is rushed so fast that it sounds like will
Need: sounds like nid, make sure of the ee sound
General comments:
a) Babe Ruth sounds much better than the previous time you recorded it! Just
be careful not to rush through the paragraph.
b) Consonant blends (st, rd etc.) are all much clearer, but not consistently so
make sure to be aware of these sounds.
c) Intonation is one of the biggest issues here remember to intone
downwards with commas and full stops, and upwards with questions and
exclamation marks. In general it is a good rule of thumb to imagine a
sentence as a staircase going down try going progressively lower with
each word. Your tone tends to keep fluctuating between low and high (a
common problem for those who speak Cantonese as a first language), which
results in a singsong tone that sounds quite forced and awkward as opposed
to natural.
d) Your vowels still tend to not be round enough at times, it seems that your
mouth and jaw are still too tight sometimes. It may help you to stretch and
exercise your mouth a bit before doing pronunciation exercises.
e) Unfortunately, r seems to still be a problem sound for you it seems to
fluctuate between sounding too forced to not being sounded at all. Revision
needed here, luckily l is done quite well overall.
f) You do make good use of pause in these recordings (I assume because you
were trying to sound out each word very clearly), but at times you still place
short pauses in the wrong areas be sure not to pause within an idea.