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: Me as a Language Learner

Dear Fiona, 

Compared to what I wrote about being a language learner last year, there aren’t that many differences in comparison to the learner I am today. Obviously, strengths and weaknesses don’t change overnight, but I had hoped that there would be a bigger difference compared to my thoughts from last year. 

I’m still mighty proud about my passive language skills such as listening comprehension, and I would still consider them as my strength, whereas I’m still stuck with my low self-esteem when it comes to talking. I just can’t get out of my comfort zone and, for example, do pronunciation exercises on my own. Especially in Russian, my second foreign language, talking out loud is something I’m afraid of, while writing a text spontaneously is not difficult for me, even if it might be full of mistakes. Sadly, I feel that the fear of embarrassing myself has become even worse since last year. However, generally, my strengths and weaknesses are still the same. 

When it comes to studying, I luckily have found a good way that works for me: writing texts in which new structures and vocabulary are used. This way I get a context in my head, which helps me memorize these better. Unfortunately, I still tend to procrastinate so much that I’m usually left with great amounts of new information that is nearly impossible to get into my head in a short time.  

Therefore, the real threat to studying efficiently is my laziness. This is actually the most crucial thing that I need to change to become a successful language learner: get off my lazy bottom and reach my full potential! 

- Alexandra

The Lernen To Talk Show!

This is what it looks like to learn a language in one year. from Mickey Mangan on Vimeo.

A few weeks ago, we were talking about language learning in class and came up with several approaches and qualities that are more or less required to learn a language successfully. One of the more useful qualities we mentioned was the joy to talk and to be sociable in the desired language.

An ideal example for becoming successful by being talk-active is Mickey Mangan: he moved from the U.S. to Germany for a year in order to learn German by simply talking to native speakers. He documented his process on camera week by week on his blog. By that, he created an interesting series of episodes which show how a person with hardly any German skills becomes quite fluent within a year. I think he also proves that talking is helpful to attain a language.From a language learner's perspective, it is really motivating to see how much progress can be made in a relatively short time.

For comparison, here is the first and the last episode of his series:

On his blog, he also listed his personal favorite episodes (you need to scroll down a bit further). When you click on the blog entries, you can also read his commentary and thoughts about particular videos, in which he also corrects himself or explains what he was trying to say.

One episode I liked is one in which he talked to the the German voice actor William Cohn. It is not only my favorite episode because I like William Cohn, but also because he says such nice and motivating things.

Inspired by this series, I have realized that talking in the language you are trying to learn is so much more important than I thought. Talking cannot be compared to simply reading or writing a text. When you talk, you have to be quick in your thinking to make correct connections. I feel that I sometimes memorize things better when I say them out loud than when I just write them down.

In my second foreign language, Russian, speaking is still something I am scared of. So talking out loud is definitely something I should do more in Russian.

Pretending to be in an Infomercial: Online Dictionaries!

Hearing your recorded voice is one of the most awkward things there is. It always sounds so much different from what you expect from your own voice. It gets even worse if you hear it in an other language than your mother's tongue, and far more worse if you know that your fellow students will listen to it. Probably over and over again. And that they will point and laugh at you for sounding like Arnold Schwarzenegger (you have to watch this video). Well, the last bit might be a bit exaggerated, but this is basically what I felt after having heard my recording from when we were presenting and reviewing online dictionaries.

There was not much time to rehearse or write down what we were going to say. And naturally, we were all very nervous. To make things worse, I could not stop thinking about these infomercials on television with their over-excitement and over-fascination for their products. And then I could not stop pretending to be one of them. This is a transcript of what I said:

Hello everyone! We want to introduce you to OneLook, the Dictionary Search! Okay, at first it really looks scary and very ... white. And this is why we do something very important in the beginning: we change the background color! So let's change it to pink. Now it looks much more friendlier, doesn't it?

Okay, so we have several ways to look up a word. For example, you can just put in the word, or you can put in the end or the beginning of the word. Or maybe, when you are just solving a crossword puzzle, you can type in the first and the last letters and it will provide you with a solution. But we will just stick to the basics and type in 'bird'. Okay, Christine, what is this all about?

Okay, but what about the following situation: I have a definition or I want a synonym for something ... Christine, eh, sorry, Suzanna: do you have a solution for this problem?

So that's really great, but in conclusion: what are the several positive things about OneSear-- eh, OneLook.com?

Okay, and the negative aspects? Maja, do you know any negative aspects?

So, all in all, we can say: take one look at OneLook!

I have to admit that talking like that made things a bit easier and more fun, but it made me concentrate less on my speaking. With my grammar and my choice of my words, I am quite satisfied though. It was not overly impressive, but I think I used a nice variety of sentence structures and talked quite fluently. There is definitely room for improvement, but after the first shock of hearing my voice talking English, my grammar and word choice were one of the more pleasant parts of this kind of experiment.

Less pleasant was my pronunciation. There were a few words that I pronounced horribly and in a very German way, like "dictionary" or "aspects". I now fear that I might be always talking like that and that it was not just out of nervousness. Prior to hearing myself, I had actually thought that my pronunciation had improved a while ago. Having now being proved the opposite, I will definitely record my English-speaking voice more often and work on getting rid of the vibe of a Hercules in New York (no, really, you have to see this video) in my pronunciation.

"I cannot knot!"

While we were talking about pronunciation and the silent "k" in certain words today, I couldn't stop thinking about this scene from one of the Winnie the Pooh movies. I actually never really watched or read the Winnie the Pooh series or films or books, but I often heard that there are always brilliant puns in them. This is one of them, dealing with the words "not" and "knot".

Learning Languages Online - Busuu

We all know that learning a new language is not as easy as it seems. Studying a language at university might be one of the most effective ways to do that, however, there are of course many more ways to accomplish that. People want to learn languages faster, easier and without much effort. For those, books like "Learn Russian in 30 Days!" or "Becoming the Master of the Spanish Language in less than 14 Days!" are written and published, although most of these look more promising than they are in reality.

And then there is Buusu. I heard about it in a commercial on television and they instantly got my curiosity. Basically, it's a community connects native speakers with language learners. People can share their texts or audio recordings and get these corrected by native speakers.

I have tested it for about a week with Russian as my learning target as an additional exercise to university. As soon as I had signed up, I had access to several lessons relating to basic topics such as family or emotions. For each lesson, I could choose between watching a slide-show of pictures with topic-related vocabulary on them, reading and writing dialogues and -- most exciting -- chatting with native speakers.

Unfortunately, it is the most basic thing about this community that had disappointed me: their lessons, which are supposed to take you step by step to a higher language level, are translated by and therefore dependent on the online dictionary PONS. Their dependence on PONS is one of the major reasons why their computer-generated lessons are hardly helpful, because the vocabulary is often taken out of context, often providing a wrong translation.

I decided to take the opportunity to interact with native speakers instead. When I had shared a little introduction text with my Russian knowledge from university, I almost instantly got several suggestions and corrections on my text which were incredibly helpful. In the end, I had even found a tandem-partner who wants to study German while being a Russian native-speaker.

All in all, Busuu might not be the place to learn a new language starting by zero, but definitely the right place to find language-interested people from around the world who are very happy to help you on your way of learning their native language.