Hey! In this lesson we're going to pronounce names.

Try to understand what I say when speacking English in real time.

Tomasu Hellstorm!

I understood what you said just fine

But I still prefer typing

Your pronunciation is sometimes a bit strange.
But I could understand you perfectly.

As others have said, you are certainly understandable. Some of your vowel sounds are a bit off, but not so much that you can't be understood.

The surname's that you have trouble with - Kalliokoski and Fjellstrom are not of English origin, which why you may be having trouble with them. I'm sure Thomas and Arthur have a better sense of their origin, but I'm pretty certain that Fjellstrom is a Swedish name and to me Kalliokoski sounds either eastern European or perhaps Finnish.

Your English is perfectly understandable. Yes, the vowels are slightly off, but even native English speaking people use very different vowel sounds. For example, in my rural Midwestern accent, the following words have the same vowel sound: bag, egg. I would say "progress" like "prah-gress", where others would say "proh-gress" (long sound). And so on.

But you messed up my last name, and that is not forgivable.

Nice to meet you James Bond & MS Marry.

Yup. In sweedish I'm told the j makes it sound like "Fee-yell" at least sorta. And the o really should have an umlaut on it, and the r should probably be rolled a bit. But we do none of that! Three generations of canadians really couldn't care less about the proper pronunciation. We just say Fell-strom. Silent j, no rolled r, and no umlaut.

Besides it's not even the families original name. Apparently my great (great?) grandfather (the one that immigrated over) changed his name at the border to Fjellstrom from Larsson.

My talking skills aren't great and the slang that I've picked up from rap and shit don't work for me so well. You'll probably find it hard to make out a few words here and there... I know I do. I meant to say that a native English speaker probably wouldn't be bothered having a conversation with AMCerasoli because he speaks English quite well (though it does seem like a bit of a workout for him at times). In any case, on the recording I think it sounded more like I said it would bother people.

I made some other embarrassing mistakes, I think, but I don't remember what they were. I can't edit the audio and if I'm talking then I'll probably make a bunch of mistakes or sound muffled anyway no matter how many takes I do... Part of the problem is that I speak too fast at times and fail to enunciate. Enjoy!

I attempted to rap at the end of the recording. It's a song that I'm not overly familiar with and basically read the lyrics as I spoke them so there are some obvious pauses and mistakes where my rapping outran my ability to read. I imagine if I practice some more I'll memorize the lyrics and should be able to do better...

(I think the Ogg Vorbis version is too large to be uploaded )

Perfect opportunity to play with the microphone on my macbook.

Here's how I pronounce Thomas Fjellstrom.

Not clicking on any of those. Don't want to ruin the fantasy of these ridiculous voices you all have in my head .

Doesnt work so well on my Android tablet browser. Have to keep clearing the memory after listening to a single recording otherwise the browser "locks up" and I cannot browse further or click any links

I can't seem to get the audio thingee to show up.

Disclaimer: I've had a cold for a month.

And here's for SiegeLord:

Woo.

Very strange hearing everyone's voice -- they are not what I expected.

New one for you. I know it doesn't really sound like him.. but what can you do. I still like making this voice.

You make up voices in your head? Sounds crazy.

AMCerasoli: I can understand you just fine. You speak English very well.
bamccaig: I had to turn my speakers all the way up to hear your recording. Then of course I forgot to turn them back down for the audio clip, and now my ears are bleeding. So, thanks for that...

Oh, and I'd share my voice, but I was born without head so I can't speak. Sorrry.

AFAIK, many people think by having a 'monologue' inside their heads.
I believe it's called 'internal monologue'.
Many also read this way.

But it seems like an unnecessary step that only makes your thought process slower.

I do that, but there's a difference between thinking with an internal voice, and thinking with a different internal voice depending on the source of the words you are thinking.

However, I'd think that subvocalization is a more fitting concept to apply here, as it's specifically the act of reading using an internal voice. And using a different voice depending on who's words you are reading is definitely something that I do, although I usually only bother to do that when I'm reading novels.

Wow, well I can't answer to everyone using my voice, it was a little bit difficult to say all what I said whitout too many errors, it's not something that comes out naturally, maybe with more practice, but speacking in real time is a little bit hard right now. Besides now there are some people here and I'll sound like a crazy .

So I have just answered to Matthew and Bamcaing.

@Matt

@Bam

I want to answer Miquel but I'll do it tomorrow. Nice to hear you guys

That made my day!

I just opened this thread and ALL the media players auto-played on their own. Scared the crap out of me.

In my head, everyone sounds like me. Quite boring.

Well, that name should be easy at least:

And here I thought it was "Lar-son".

For reference:

Yeah, I don't know why that is... I guess you could say because I'm soft spoken, but still I don't think it should be that quiet. I assume something is wrong with my hardware/software configuration, but fuck if I know. The volume on the microphone itself is full, and the volume controls in the software that I can find are full too. Halp.

Append:

@AMCerasoli: The reason for recording a cappella is that the only way that I know how to record with the music is by playing the original song in the background, and in that case you can't easily differentiate my voice from the real vocals. Even with that aside, I don't know how to do it well. I have tried with my stereo playing in the background, but the music is more quiet than I am with the volume cranked pretty much as high as I can without getting kicked out.

I basically just don't know how to do it so that it'll be useful. I much prefer having the music too, but I don't have a sound crew and lack the tools/skills to do it myself. Normally when I'm practising I do play the song, but I also want to hear myself so I often have one side of my earphones off. When I'm actually recording it I find that I do horrible if I'm being masked by the original artist so I go a step further and plug my headphones into my mic so I'm hearing myself directly (and therefore can't be listening to the song in my headphones). I also find that if I'm singing along to a recording with vocals that I can sometimes have trouble staying in sync with it. If I do it a cappella then I can somewhat control the speed of things.

Basically, I am in need of learning to make better recordings. I have no idea what else to do.

Did you remember to turn the mic on?

Audacity's amplify can put it at a decent level. Just click ok, and see if it's loud enough.

I hate the way my voice sounds on the phone and recordings. The remedy for this is that apparently my headset/microphone combo isn't detected by Ubuntu as being connected to my sound card so I can't record anything on mic, but can hear everything just fine.

@bamccaig: Not sure what your mic configuration is but you could make sure it's in the right jack (mic jacks are powered as you may know, so it would work differently from a line-in type). I didn't have any trouble understanding what you said for the most part (the volume being the main factor when I couldn't), and your rapping was neat to hear too .

@Thomas: Your Optimus Prime voice reminded me of batman from the newer movies .

This is a fun thread. I don't have a mic set up on my computer, and all the ones I have (where ever they are) are horrible, so I guess I'll be sitting out on this one.

About the same with seeing everyone's real face in a photo after seeing some avatar for years.

What the hell do you imagine I look like?

A gopher?

I really am 1 1/2 foot tall.

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But then the question becomes, is that your wife and kids or your mom and dad and you are one of the three kids?

I do have a wife and three kids.

Just a wife and one son for me. Can't handle anymore.

I have a son-wife. It's a hybrid.

You married your hermaphroditic love child?

You married your transgender son?

<mumbles>Try not to judge! Try not to judge! Try not to judge!...</mumbles>

Side Note: I know why my mic didn't work. Apparently, a Compaq Presario sound card set up of rear and front jacks throws Ubuntu for a loop.

Got my mic working under Ubuntu. I hate my voice so don't expect me to do this more than this one time.

His wife is pregnant?

I'm from the future. I concede that things may appear a bit strange to you now, but you will come to accept them... in time...

Epic thread!

Don't remeber if anyone mentioned before (maybe I did myself), but fjellström (or actually fjällström) and kalliokoski both mean practically the same thing. Hill creek.

They have a lot of those on Oahu if you mean "a river on the hills".

Ok, I mentioned I was going to sing something, too. Remember this song?

Yes, that's the rest of my family singing in the chorus.

Aloha,

Here is another voice . At the end there is a rap song (as we rappers used to do), talking about people that I sometimes don't even know and for example a fried of mine talk him about me and about me trying to create videogames and immediately they think is stupid, you know, those assholes. yhea I didn't have anything to do this weekend.

PS: There are A lot of errors that I couldn't edit...

Sounds like a modification on EA's anthem .

Doing audio takes up more space than a text post. Talking maybe easier than typing, but if you compare the file sizes for a text document versus a audio file the audio has been bigger. Yes I tested this, I typed 3 different document files and then recorded me saying them word for word and cut out dead space where I could, but ultimately the audio was larger than the text. With text I could (just an example) rant for paragraph after paragraph, where as audio I would have to attach multiple files or one huge file to do the same thing. Then you have to figure into the equation that almost everyone says 'um' or 'uh' or leave dead space while thinking of what they are going to say next.

Audio is easier to do, but text is easier to fix without re-recording the same point or statement over and over.

Also, I don't think I ever actually talked in the forums, more like fantasized and made remarks to posts. I still do the latter of the two. I don't use my mic because as I said I hate my voice so I avoid any circumstance where I have to talk on the phone or on a recording.

Pretty good song man... I heard it for first time reading a post which redirects to http://www.allegro.cc/music and there is a list of really strange music .

I do.

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Summary:

• I attempted to increase the volume of the recording using Audacity's amplify feature. It seems to have worked relatively well. Let me know what you think. It also seems to amplify dead air, which is a bit annoying.

• Nice singing Johan and family (did you also perform the music or was that the old recording?).

• Nice rap track, AMCerasoli. Post the lyrics if they're English.

• I attempt to sing Staind's, "Something To Remind You", from their self titled album in 2011.

• My iPod is feeling neglected and acts out.

Any noise/sound at all will be amplified. Kinda goes without saying.

AMCerasoli, are you philippino?

I tried a couple of singing takes. They were awful, so I put them in at the beginning and end.

I've uploaded my voice to the Internets before, but I kinda doubt I posted it here:

That's a single ukulele. I plaid that first, then sang the voices. Yes, I did all voices. Family didn't.

About, sorry, been. Three great Canadian words, eh!

I do notice I imagine a voice for posters, mostly based on the avatar. Johan has a deep voice for a squirrel. I also tried to listen to two clips at the same time: there was a normalization issue. MiquelFire's voice is almost exactly what I had in my head.
This should speak for itself:

I used Audacities noise removal at lowest setting.
BTW I always read over the first 'i' in Kalioski.

It was In English... I don't have the lyrics in this PC so, maybe latter. Good song, which isn't a rap btw, even when is sung by a rapper, and don't forget to throw that iPod out of the window and get a new one .

No, and you van_houtte are you Czechoslovakian?

Yhea we all already know how to pronounce Kalliokoski in his original language and in English. Now that this problem has been addressed I feel much better so I can move on... is a relief, I couldn't take it anymore. The same with HellStorm (A videogame about Thomas).

Question to non-native English speakers: do native English speaking people seem like they talk fast compared to people speaking in your native language? I ask because English seems like such a slow language to me; however, when I hear somebody speak Spanish (lots of that here), it sounds like they are talking at least three times faster.

And I even know a little bit of Spanish, but that doesn't really help.

Well, I think that may happen because you don't know completely the language or don't have the enough practice, so once you "lose" a word the rest just don't make sense and it may give you the impression that the person is speaking too fast. It happens to me sometimes when I'm seeing a movie or something. But since most what I hear is a radio channel to learn English all the teachers there talk very slow but they do it intentionally. However I have heard the guy at radio Paradise and damn that man speaks incredible slow.

Now, there is another BIG factor that I think is the reason you're not able to understand Spanish-speaking there in your country and the reason is that the 90% of Spanish-speaking people there doesn't come from Spain but South America and many of those guys are very difficult to understand even to us . They don't use correct pronunciation and in countries like Puerto Rico people tend to speak REALLY fast, and instead of the "r" they use the "l", which make it even more difficult to understand them.

It happens the same at "República Dominicana" and other countries. Just as a joke, in Mexico you don't say "Hola" but "Holaaaaaaa", So in this case they speak SLOOOW and when you hear them you just want go to sleep.

Here in Spain we have a funny accent you can distinguish from the rest of the Spanish speaking countries in all the world and it's the way we pronounce the "s". In South America and even here at Spain in some provinces the difference betwen the "s" and the "z" is very noticeable, but here we pronounce the "z" as it was a "s" so there is no difference, and that makes a very huge difference, yhea just one letter.

Don't know honestly. Wife says I talk 90 mile an hour when I get going on a subject I'm passionate about. She compared me to the old micro machines guy who talked real fast.

I speak the Queen's English. The rest of you are not worthy.

[edit]this player sucks a bit, doesn't support ogg or wav

Hmm, the player here doesn't support wav files. Actually, I think it only supports MP3s

To me they sound like the same speed as German. But German also feels slow to me.

I remember as a kid before I could understand much spoken English it sounded somewhat croaking to me, something like everything they say is "gouwowougowouoagowogo...". Today that's completely disappeared though and both German and English sound rather clear (unless the speaker is from certain parts of England). Anyway, the point is how the very same language sounds completely different to me depending on wether I understood it yet or not, so this makes me agree with AMCerasoli. I also was never able to say how German sounds - since it's just spoken strings of words without any actual sounds behind them, to my ears

English is slow. My middle school English teacher had to point out English isn't spoken so rapidly.

Now that you mention it. I often find it comical to hear German television, when they sometimes use words which are related to Dutch or English, and they stress the word by elongating it over a (to me) ridiculously long time.
I guess that makes German slower than English Or maybe the boundaries of acceptable speed are a bit more apart in German than in English.
On the other end is French.

Woo voice thread!

Samuel Henderson: There's a little echo on your recording, intentional?
And too bad you didn't sing, I was getting ready to criticize you.

Maybe there should be a dedicated karaoke thread.

Exactly what I thought! I was like "terrible American Idol audition moment, here we come!" and then nothing.

What do you mean echo? That's just how he sounds...

Wait... God, is that you?

I think that has to do with your knowledge of the language. I remember having the impression that people talked English very fast and I couldn't follow, but I don't feel that any more. Although there are a few things that may make English slower (existence of long vowels, and maybe the need to exaggerate the pronunciation of some words so it doesn't get confused with a different, similarly pronounced, word).

There's some people that speak Spanish really fast. But when I hear some Italian... now that's fast.

You're generalizing a lot there. Some people from the South can't pronounce 'z' (and pronounce it like an s), but in general most Spanish people pronounce it correctly. A lot of south Americans pronounce 'z' like a "sonorous s" (I don't know if that's the correct English therm).

Yeah, sort of. That's what the default 'Voice Project' gets you in Garage Band. I kind of liked it so I didn't bother messing around with stuff to remove it.

I think you've known this for a while

That would be pretty interesting!

"Hello. This is my voice. I'm not sure if it's my normal voice because I'm sick."

Edit: Oops: .wav avoid for now

Pfft. 80 posts and still no "My voice is my passport. Verify me.".

Un? What does that means? A movie?

More of my voice....with the machina!

AMCerasoli: Sneakers or Uplink. Take your pick.

Mmmh Sneakers, such a classic.

My favorite scene from that movie:

Well as I said I hate my voice, but since I was told to say something else I said something else, thought not much longer than the first one.

Found it!

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