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Use YouTube to improve your English pronunciation

youglish.com

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Re: Use YouTube to improve your English pronunciation

#121

Post by 333c »

mnw21cam wrote: post #116
333c wrote: post #18

I wouldn't normally point this out, but considering the site is about learning languages, the mistake on the homepage: > (Advance search) is glaring. That should be "Advanced search" as in "click here to perform an advanced (adj) search," not as in "click here to advance (verb) [a] search," which is nonsensical.

Okay, context makes you mostly right. But. Advance is also a adjective, as in "Advance booking", which is a booking in advance. Lots of people incorrectly write "Advanced booking" instead, which is a technologically superior booking, and probably not what they meant.

Advance as an adjective (as in advance booking) means "ahead of time," whereas advanced as an adjective (as in advanced search) means "highly developed or complex," which is what is appropriate here.

I was not trying to suggest in my original comment that "advance" as an adjective was inherently incorrect. All I was saying was that the phrase "advance search" is meaningless.

Re: Use YouTube to improve your English pronunciation

#122

Post by jeanmichelx »

simias wrote: post #66
dennisgorelik wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only about 1 in 8 speakers uses incorrect "excetera" pronunciation: https://youglish.com/search/%22et%20cetera%22/all ? Even 12% -- is far too many for my taste. But at least I can use "et cetera" pronunciation as a quick "literacy level" test.

It's an extremely common deformation I think, "excetera" is also a very common pronunciation in French. I really doubt it's heavily tied to literacy level at any level, it's probably more comfortable to pronounce. Remember that basically every word of your language (regardless of the language) was probably at some point considered some low-class corruption of the "proper" language. When it comes to English in particu…

> "excetera" is also a very common pronunciation in French.

Not in my experience. Where are you from?

Re: Use YouTube to improve your English pronunciation

#124

Post by [deleted] »

personlurking wrote: post #32
lone_haxx0r wrote: post #26

Am I the only one that uses Google Translate "listen" option for learning pronunciation of weird words?

I recommend forvo.com (like another commenter mentioned), as GT doesn't work that great for certain languages (ex. Catalan is just a robotic voice).

[deleted]

Re: Use YouTube to improve your English pronunciation

#125

Post by jedmeyers »

iiv wrote: post #59

Interesting. I found one problem, though. (Or is it a feature?) All examples I listened to of "coup de grâce" pronounced it /ku də ɡrɑː/, while the "correct" way (if there is such a thing)is /ku də ɡrɑs/. This kind of thing must come up in more examples. I'm not usually on the prescriptive side of things, but I think it's important to know the "right" way to do things, at least when you're learning a language. On the…

“Coup de grace” caught my attention as well. It showed a speaker with a very notable RP pronouncing this phase with a very fake sounding French ‘r’ and no ‘s’ in the end, when the s sound is clearly present in the French and modern English pronunciation. Some might say that he butchered it.

Re: Use YouTube to improve your English pronunciation

#126

Post by karaokeyoga »

lone_haxx0r wrote: post #25
jalgos_eminator wrote: post #5

Wow, this seemed to work very well for all the words I typed in. I would love to try something like this for German, as it can be hard to pronounce those massive compound words they have. The one criticism that I have is that many of these videos are from ted talks or speeches by politicians. During speeches people will inflect words differently than in everyday conversation, especially politicians. I got one Theresa…

> many of these videos are from ted talks or speeches by politicians. I think that's a plus, but it depends on your needs.

Also televangelists. They have an unusual way of enunciating. Reminds me of a road trip with my father through the US. He was listening to an evangelist on the radio and I asked him why. (He's an athiest.) He answered along the lines of "just listen to the beauty of that voice!". He felt the same way about Gospel music. Left an impression.

Re: Use YouTube to improve your English pronunciation

#127

Post by wyclif »

noja wrote: post #85
selune wrote: post #11

I always used forvo.com for this kind of thing. Edit: It's a "pronunciation dictionary". Ppl just record how they say words and indicate their geography. Super useful for languages like English where there are a lot of regional varieties. And you can contribute too to the dictionary of your language. :) I'm no affiliated w/ it btw, just really love this website, have been using it for years.

Is the American pronunciation of "communal" correct there? https://forvo.com/search/communal/en_usa/

No, this is wrong. It sounds like it's being mispronounced by a native German speaker. There is no hard initial vowel sound; the first syllable is not emphasized like that. There are three syllables in the word: com-mun-al and it's pronounced "kəˈmyo͞on(ə)l,ˈkämyənəl/" so the stress is on the second, not the first syllable.

Re: Use YouTube to improve your English pronunciation

#129

Post by groks »

sandworm101 wrote: post #14

If you want to learn to speak english well, watch those programs that use English properly. Blackadder. Archer. Sherlock. Even some of the marvel movies (GOTG) are very careful in how they pronounce and articulate words. Then watch every Brian Cox and Attenborough documentary. You might come out with a bit of a British accent but that is far far better than any youtube-derived accent. Better you sound like Stirling A…

A bit of Fry and Laurie, on language:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MWpHQQ-wQg

Re: Use YouTube to improve your English pronunciation

#130

Post by gustavorg »

SilasX wrote: post #102
jalgos_eminator wrote: post #5

Wow, this seemed to work very well for all the words I typed in. I would love to try something like this for German, as it can be hard to pronounce those massive compound words they have. The one criticism that I have is that many of these videos are from ted talks or speeches by politicians. During speeches people will inflect words differently than in everyday conversation, especially politicians. I got one Theresa…

Seconded. I still can't tell apart the first a's in Ratte vs Rathaus, and Germans assure me they're different and the difference breaks any attempts to make puns based on the two (Rathaus=city hall, but to my ear feels like Ratte-house/haus).

Sounds the same to me.

https://translate.google.com/#view=home&op=translate&sl=en&t...

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