| Archive for langcafe2.myfreeforum.org Come in and have your daily cup of languages! |
| Julian |
The voice of an old friendDo you guys (veteran langcafeinos) remember this little exercise?Audio 1 Audio 2 Audio 3 Audio 4 Audio 5 Audio 6 Audio 7 Ah, memories ... 
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| André in Zuid-Afrika |
Re: The voice of an old friend
Is that Yann? 
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| Deborah |
Re: The voice of an old friend
Yes, being (1) a news reader, (2) a drunk or braggart or some other unpleasant person, and (3) very sad. There were several other voices as well. We were supposed to (a) write what he was saying and (b) guess what he was trying to project with each voice. I believe all of this was in response to someone saying that swearing didn't sound like swearing in French. |
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| André in Zuid-Afrika |
Re: The voice of an old friend
Yeh, I remember that.  I so wish we just knew if Yann is OK...
And we've come a long way, haven't we? |
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| Julian |
Re: The voice of an old friend
Yeah, I guess we have. And while we're taking this trip down memory lane ... Titi le mistigri de Paris ... 
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| Deborah |
Re: The voice of an old friend
And who could forget le boeuf niçois... |
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| Deborah |
As long as we're talking about an old friend, allow me to introduce myself to new friends. Here's a recording of my voice that was in the old langcafé -- a sample of standard American English, Californian variety.
[Edit]Rats! My data transfer limit has been exceeded, thanks to my own trip down memory lane. |
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| greg in noord-frankrijk |
Souvenirs, souvenirs... 
J'espère que nous aurons des nouvelles de Yann, un jour. Deborah : t'as vraiment une très belle diction — limpide et habitée. |
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| Deborah |
Merci! (Habitée signifie quoi?) |
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| greg in noord-frankrijk |
Literally, that it is inhabited  — that something surfacing from within radiates outwards. No less ! 
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| Deborah |
Well, then, thank you again! I'm pleasantl surprised that you used limpide, because when I listen to that recording, I think I hear a bit of tightness in my voice that I'm pretty sure isn't there when I'm actually conversing with someone, rather than forcing myself to talk. But I might be sensitive to it just because of actually feeling it every time I've recorded my voice. It happens even when I do something as brief as recording my outgoing phone message. It gets ridiculous -- I'll attempt the message a dozen times before I can manage to say a couple of sentences without my voice cracking. | ||||
| André in Zuid-Afrika |
So when do we hear the voices of our newer members? 
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| Benjamin [inactive] |
I don't exactly count as 'new' anymore, but I haven't managed to post my recording yet because I'm not sure how to save it as a small enough file. I use Mac OS X — does anyone know? | ||||
| Porthos |
Who is the "old friend"? Is he a member of Langcafe? | ||||
| Porthos |
I don't know how to record my voice and transimit via the internet, so I'm afraid you'll have to go without my audios. If you think Deb sounds like a Californian, then you should hear me talk. I would definitely rock your socks with my Californian slang and accent, lol.
But for those of you who are fortunate enough to have the tech-know-how, please do post some audio self-recordings. |
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| Benjamin [inactive] |
The 'old friend' is Yann; he used to be the owner of LangCafé, but then he suddenly disappeared.
And Josh, I'll see if I can help explain to you how to record yourself and upload it tomorrow — you shouldn't have a file size problem if you're using Windows, which I assume you are. |
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| Deborah |
Oh, I sound Californian, alright, but Californian from a much older generation than yours. |
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| Porthos |
To be honest, for all I could tell, you could be from North Dakota or Wisconsin. Nothing about your speech or accent betrayed any particular "Californian" accent. But yes, you are right. You are from the generation that uses "why" at the beginning of a declaratory sentence, lol!
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| Deborah |
That's because back in my day, Californians were considered to have a General American accent -- the California accent hadn't developed yet.
Why you'd say that is a mystery to me. Is that what you mean? Or do you mean something like "Why, I have no idea what he means." |
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| Porthos |
Yes Deb, the latter one. | ||||
| Deborah |
Well, I never! | ||||
| André in Zuid-Afrika |
Right, here I am speaking Afrikaans and some more | ||||
| Akoni |
I like the sound of Afrikaans
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| Shouga |
Thanks for that André! Afrikaans is a cool sounding language
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| Pauline |
I've listened André's voice on my computer!!! I think that afrikaans sound very pleasant and André has a nice voice.
Afrikaans klinkt wel helemaal anders dan het nederlands, wat verbaasd me! Omdat ze zo veel dezelfde hebben, heb ik automatisch gedacht dat ze ongeveer gelijk uitgesproken zouden zijn , maar dat is zeker niet zo weet ik nu!! Afrikaans heeft iets dat vriendelijker klinkt -het spijt me, Akoni!!! |
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| Akoni |
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| Pauline |
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| André in Zuid-Afrika |
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| Travis |
Here is my version of the whole Comma passage. It is not completely natural due to it being read off of something, but it does give a good picture of how I speak (albeit probably a bit more understandably than if I were just speaking unscripted in an informal fashion due to being more careful). | ||||
| Walker |
Jeeze, your intonation sounds Swedish at times! What caught my attention most was when you said "when she got there"; that's how I might've said it in Swedish if I'd wanted to be specific about it. | ||||
| Travis |
Weirdly enough I tend to talk like that more when trying to speak carefully and or formally. My usual everyday speech is not as strongly intonated in that kind of way, even though it is still present to some degree or another (for instance, I would intonated "got there" similarly, but just not as strongly). I am not sure about the role of such intonation, but it does make it easier to speak carefully and acts to help delineate the overall structure of what is being said more clearly than in my usual everyday speech, where individual words and borders between clauses and like are far less clear. And note that the area here has practically no North Germanic influence either, with the closest area with historical North Germanic influence having Danish influence, and thus would not have gained any such intonation from such. (This is unlike some areas further up north or out west from here, which have had Norwegian or Swedish influence.) |
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| André in Zuid-Afrika |
Hey, like your voice, Travis! ABout time I hear it! Now, can we hear some of our newcomers? |
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| Liz |
Here is mine:
1. English: I'm reading out the Comma Passage: http://putstuff.putfile.com/79078/8898414/3 2. Hungarian: http://putstuff.putfile.com/79079/9895589/3 I'm not reading anything out aloud in German as it would be even more horrible than my Hungarian and English accent together. Although Hungarian is my mother tongue, my tongue got twisted at some parts of the text. What a shame! 
Sorry for the background noise...I live in a dormitory.
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| Liz |
Sorry, my tongue got a bit twisted on "goat", too. 
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| Didier69 |
You have a pretty and clear voice. I understood everything you said. |
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