Pronunciation Diary: Learning from Cowboys and Sitcom Characters

We all know that there are many varieties and accents in every language. Well, there are also neutral "accents" which often serve as a basis for language learners. But once you have mastered them, why not go for specific accents? The thought of speaking various English accents sounds really awesome to me. After all, my parents always wanted me to talk Standard German, which is why I am really bad at pulling off Austrian accents -- even if I try really hard.

So, besides accents I think sound charming while listening, I looked for accents I would like to speak myself. Generally, I prefer American English, maybe because I am listening to it a lot. For example, I recently noticed that I really like the way George Costanza in the 90s sitcom 'Seinfeld' talks.


I really like the way he is saying "coffee". It sounds like there is a /w/ between the /k/ and /o/, which really makes a huge difference. And when he is saying "clock", he seems to pronounce the /kl/ sound further in the throat. I like how clearly he voices voiced sounds, and also his intonation is very interesting. According to the internet, the actor Jason Alexander is from New Jersey, therefore speaking the New Jersey accent. So, this accent is definitely on my list for further research.

Another actor I love listening to is Clint Eastwood when he was young. His reputation actually is to not speak very clearly as he tends to talk through clenched teeth. Not so much in this one though:


I noticed that he tends to stretch voiced sounds, which somehow sounds really beautiful in a linguistic kind of way. He also pronounces the /h/ in /wh/-words, like in "which" or "white" towards the end of this video. As for intonation, he rarely raises his voice (as opposed to George Costanza above), and speaks in a slow and regular rhythm.

I tried to find out which accent he specifically speaks. People on the internet say it's Standard American English, so nothing specific I could research further for. However, I think he doesn't speak entirely Standard American, as he stresses certain sounds a bit more than other people would.

Actually, I think trying to talk like a bit young Clint Eastwood (without clenched teeth), as far as this is possible with a different voice and being a woman, sounds like a good plan. 

Mastering Vocabulary Learning: Inspired by Others

In my previous post about vocabulary learning I tried to explain my own strategy of how I study vocabulary. I am still convinced that this is the most efficient way for me, as I can be really flexible using my flashcard app on the phone when I am on the bus or tram (and staring on my phone anyway), or when I am using my laptop (which is the case most of the time). The only thing I really need to change about this: be more consistent and go through my vocabulary decks more regularly. The more often I go through my word decks, the shorter and less painful my revising sessions will be will be.

However, I was looking through other strategies on the blogs of some fellow students to find further ways to improve my strategy. One thing I definitely want to include in my daily routines is what Nina mentioned in her post. She reads through interesting newspaper articles, collects interesting phrases and words from them and adds them to her personal glossary. Actually, it is less the fact that she collects these things from articles than that she has a personal glossary. 

I sometimes also write down phrases I come across and find interesting, but never try to study them in fear of occupying too much brain capacity I'd need for my studies for university. But after reading Nina's post, I felt encouraged to actually do study them. After all, there is a reason I find them interesting, so why not include them in my active vocabulary? My English skills should not solely depend on what I learn at university. However, most phrases I've collected so far are from movies or fiction literature, therefore more colloquial. That's why I will now try to include words from more sophisticated sources, such as newspapers or other articles.

In short, what I try to improve is: learn to be more disciplined and go through my vocabulary more often, and don't shy away from collecting and studying words that are not asked in exams. These sound like really nice resolutions for 2015.

Pronunciation Diary: Workout for your Tongue Muscles!

 (picture source: Matteo Maggiore)

You know, not too long ago, I thought my English pronunciation was quite alright. Almost good even. I was pronouncing voiced and unvoiced /th/-sounds correctly, and most of the time, I distinguished the /w/-sound and /v/-sound. So when I signed up for a pronunciation course at the Department of English Studies last summer semester, I thought it would be a piece of cake. Gaining ECTS-points the easiest way ever. Boy, was I wrong.

Quite at the beginning, we had to read out difficult texts in front of our teacher, who would then analyze our pronunciation mistakes. According to the teacher's feedback, the thing I most struggled with was voicing certain sounds. When I said "in the", my /th/ always became a barely voiced /d/, and basically all my /d/s at the end of words became /t/s. Surprisingly, even after knowing my weaknesses, I still could not pronounce these sounds correctly. Well, I could produce them individually, but not while speaking. It just didn't come out naturally. It felt like I needed to re-arrange my tongue between sounds in order to produce them, which resulted in awkward pauses between words or syllables. At this point I realized: theory only wouldn't get me anywhere. I needed to train my tongue like a muscle. It had to get used to new movements and positions.

During the pronunciation lessons, we repeated word pairs and dialogues we heard through headphones, while a computer program recorded our own voices individually. The program would then automatically repeat our recorded voices, therefore give us immediate feedback at how well we produced the sounds. This was immensely helpful, as I often concentrated on producing the sounds without paying attention to how they actually came out. However, the real work had to be done at home: by reading out (!) dialogues and word pairs, you really physically train your tongue and get used to producing the sounds in the way you should. In the end, it really paid off: I got a B on the oral exam, and I felt that my pronunciation had really greatly improved.

However, during the summer, I didn't practice talking English loudly that much anymore. When I talked English again, I was shocked at how worse my pronunciation had become after such a short period of time. I still know the theory of when to produce which sounds, but my physical ability to produce the sounds correctly the moment I needed to sadly worsened. So now I am back to reading texts out loud again and recording myself while doing it. Hopefully, I will soon be again on at least the same level I had reached before the summer break.

My impression is: mastering pronunciation is not like learning how to ride a bike. You have to consistently practice it, or you soon get out of practice.

Revisited Summary: The Crisis of Credit Visualized

The video "The Crisis of Credit Visualized" is a really helpful guide through the land of businessmen sitting on bags full of money. Unfortunately, or perhaps luckily, I know hardly anything about this world. It seems to be full of numbers and bad, bad, really bad people, so I don't want to be part of this world. But the more I learn about it in English class, the more I feel that I, or generally people not interested in this, people outside of this world, really should know more about it.

Well, but the real thing is: we had to write a summary about this video as a homework. My words above still remain true, but with almost no background information, I really had a hard time grasping the concept of this topic. However, as it turned out, that wasn't the problem when I summarized this video. The problem was that I forgot about the word count of 200, and therefore produced a summary of more than 300 words.

Version 1:

The video „The Crisis of Credit Visualized“, written and directed by Jonathan Jarvis, is designed to explain the Credit Crisis in a simple way. 

After 9/11 and the dot.com crisis, the U.S. Federal Reserve dropped interest for treasury bills to 1% to make lending money more attractive, consequently strengthening the economy. This low interest not only attracted consumers, but also bankers who could now lend money easily without losing much profit during deals. This led to a system called leverage: lending high amounts of money, make high profits and pay back loans easily.

The leverage system was also applied on the estate business. A mortgage broker would connect potential house owners to a lender who gives them a mortgage to fund the house. Because of constantly rising house prices, an investment banker sees a potential deal in this and buys numerous mortgages from the lender. This establishes a monthly flow of money, which is cut down into three parts: safe, okay and risky. This separation is called Collateralized Debt Obligation (CDO). If one homeowner defaults, the money flow gets weaker, which stops the risky part to be filled. However, as long as there are enough homeowners, the safe income will still be filled, which is why it is attractive to investors. This results in more CDOs and more investors willing to buy CDOs.

If homeowners default on their mortgage, the lender receives the house ownership. As the value is covered by the default, lenders can add risk and lend sub-prime mortgages to less responsible homeowners. However, this leads to more homeowners defaulting as they cannot afford their houses, which in the long turn makes house prices plumbing. Consequently, money stops flowing through the CDOs as there are more houses than mortgages. The system freezes, as no party invests into the other anymore and investors are not able to pay back there high amounts of loans and go bankrupt.

Version 2, the shortened one:

The video “The Crisis of Credit Visualized” by Jonathan Jarvis simply explains the Credit Crisis in 2002.

After 9/11 and the dot.com crisis, the U.S. Federal Reserve dropped interest for treasury bills to 1%, which attracted bankers who could now lend money easily without losing much profit during deals. This led to a system called leverage: lending high amounts of money, make high profits and pay back loans easily.

The leverage system was also applied to the estate business. Mortgage brokers connected potential house owners to mortgage lenders. Because of constantly rising house prices, investment bankers bought numerous mortgages from the lenders to establish a monthly flow of money. If one homeowner defaults, the money flow gets weaker. However, as long as there are enough homeowners, the safe income is still established, which is why it is attractive to investors.

As the value of a house is covered when the homeowners default, lenders can lend sub-prime mortgages to less responsible homeowners. This leads to more defaults, which in the long turn makes house prices plumbing. Consequently, investors stop receiving money as there are more houses than mortgages. The system freezes and investors go bankrupt.

To be honest, I think the shorter version is missing some details (that were mentioned in the first version) that would be essential to understand the concept with no background information. However, with background information in mind, I think it can help get the overall image of this topic.

Mastering Vocabulary Learning: Routines

Before I started university, I had no system for learning vocabulary efficiently. I would usually just write down a list of words and their translation, and hope for the best to magically memorize them. This lack of a system soon turned out to be insufficient for my studies, and so I tried out several techniques to find one that helped me. Not too long ago, I finally found a method that works well for me: digital flashcards.

Prior to making flashcards, I analyze the words I need to study thoroughly: I look up explanations, synonyms, common collocations and, most importantly, example sentences. My favorite tools include Vocabulary.com and the Merriam Webster Online Dictionary, and for further collocations, I have recently started using COCA. Unfortunately, collecting all this information is very time-consuming, which is definitely a drawback. However, in the long term, I benefit from it immensely, as I really get to know the contexts the words are likely to appear in and therefore get a feeling for how to use them properly.

Based on this analysis, I put together digital flashcards in a computer program called anki. It works just like physical flashcards: you put one piece of information on one side of the card, and put its definition on its on the other side. I usually type in collocations or phrases, rather than a single word, on the front side, and use synonyms or English explanations for the flip side. For words I don’t know how to pronounce, I also insert audio files, most often taken from the online pronunciation guide Forvo.com. After having typed in my list of words and their explanations, I can start studying these cards right away.

There are several reasons why I prefer anki over other flashcard programs. Firstly, anki exists both as a computer program and as an app, and will synchronize changes and learning progress across the devices it is used on. It also lets you modify the way you review cards: you can either simply look at the answer after guessing it in your head, or force yourself to manually type in the answer and compare it to the original solution. However, what I like the most about anki is that after answering a question, you have to rate how well you actually knew the answer. Based on these ratings, the program will ask you cards you were not so sure about more often and cards you knew for sure less often. It generally restricts the number of cards you revise per session to a realistic amount, but also provides a “cram mode” for emergencies. I think all these features really make a difference as I feel I am learning more efficiently now than before I started using anki.

In my experience, what really counts when learning vocabulary is discipline. It’s the true key to success. It is crucial to start studying early enough and to do it regularly; otherwise, there is simply not enough time to get it into your long-term memory. Unfortunately, discipline is not something a computer program can provide me with, so this is one factor I still have to work on. However, if I keep my motivation up, I think I will get better in learning vocabulary, especially now that I finally have an efficient method of doing it.