I found that frequently recording my voice and playing it back immediately afterward helps immensely.
Up through the start of my junior year of highschool I did a very poor job with pronunciation in general and what I thought I sounded like, sounded nothing like what I did in fact sound like. I got a portable voice recorder midway through my junior year.
I like poetry, so a few times a week I would spend a while (maybe a half hour) in the evenings reading poetry into the recorder and playing it back a stanza at a time. If I didn’t like the way it sounded, I would repeat the stanza (or the particular line in that stanza that sounded wrong) until it started sounding right.
Within a few months I very much liked the way my voice sounded, and instead of having people telling me I talked funny, I occasionally had people complimenting my enunciation.
(As I side effect I also became able to read out loud which was something else I used to have a lot of trouble doing)
Just noticed this thread after someone linked to it. For the last year and a half, I’ve been writing and recording a 100-word story every week, in response to a prompt word, and sending it off to a web site that runs a weekly drabble challenge. I use a proper voice recorder for this (the Edirol R-09), and do as many takes as it takes to get the best possible result.
I don’t just record them once a week, with 80 stories in my head by now I often just recite them for practice when I’m alone. Less work than picking up a book to read aloud from. If you don’t write, memorising poetry would provide the same advantage.
I used to find that my voice was fine first thing in the morning, but tended to get very hoarse by mid-morning, but that has abated substantially. Maybe I just don’t talk enough otherwise to keep it exercised. I don’t actually do enough talking in everyday life that anyone has spontaneously commented, but I have had a few compliments in the comments at the web site.
On the other hand, some recording technologies make your voice sound higher and thinner than it really is. Voice answering machines are really bad about this. But for enunciation, rhythm, and that sort of thing, this should be very helpful.
Do you know of a modern recording technology that would make this kind of recording convenient? An iOS app would be best, I think; alternatively a computer software.
I can well imagine recording myself reading the poems with a cassette recorder, but not with any software that I know.
Maybe useful—Everyday Looper is an iOS app for recording short looping samples, up to four at a time. That is, you record a sound and it plays it from start to finish over and over in a loop, and you can record another sound up to the same length and play them next to each other, or adjust the volume on them individually.
It’s intended for musical use, but might do for what you ask. It is not free, so you might check it out on Youtube to see how it works and why it might be good for quick record-hear-compare feedback.
(iOS / iPhone does have a basic sound recorder in it, as you may know).
I found that frequently recording my voice and playing it back immediately afterward helps immensely. Up through the start of my junior year of highschool I did a very poor job with pronunciation in general and what I thought I sounded like, sounded nothing like what I did in fact sound like. I got a portable voice recorder midway through my junior year. I like poetry, so a few times a week I would spend a while (maybe a half hour) in the evenings reading poetry into the recorder and playing it back a stanza at a time. If I didn’t like the way it sounded, I would repeat the stanza (or the particular line in that stanza that sounded wrong) until it started sounding right. Within a few months I very much liked the way my voice sounded, and instead of having people telling me I talked funny, I occasionally had people complimenting my enunciation. (As I side effect I also became able to read out loud which was something else I used to have a lot of trouble doing)
Sounds good. If anyone else reading this tries this, please report back on how well it works for you!
Just noticed this thread after someone linked to it. For the last year and a half, I’ve been writing and recording a 100-word story every week, in response to a prompt word, and sending it off to a web site that runs a weekly drabble challenge. I use a proper voice recorder for this (the Edirol R-09), and do as many takes as it takes to get the best possible result.
I don’t just record them once a week, with 80 stories in my head by now I often just recite them for practice when I’m alone. Less work than picking up a book to read aloud from. If you don’t write, memorising poetry would provide the same advantage.
I used to find that my voice was fine first thing in the morning, but tended to get very hoarse by mid-morning, but that has abated substantially. Maybe I just don’t talk enough otherwise to keep it exercised. I don’t actually do enough talking in everyday life that anyone has spontaneously commented, but I have had a few compliments in the comments at the web site.
On the other hand, some recording technologies make your voice sound higher and thinner than it really is. Voice answering machines are really bad about this. But for enunciation, rhythm, and that sort of thing, this should be very helpful.
Do you know of a modern recording technology that would make this kind of recording convenient? An iOS app would be best, I think; alternatively a computer software.
I can well imagine recording myself reading the poems with a cassette recorder, but not with any software that I know.
Maybe useful—Everyday Looper is an iOS app for recording short looping samples, up to four at a time. That is, you record a sound and it plays it from start to finish over and over in a loop, and you can record another sound up to the same length and play them next to each other, or adjust the volume on them individually.
It’s intended for musical use, but might do for what you ask. It is not free, so you might check it out on Youtube to see how it works and why it might be good for quick record-hear-compare feedback.
(iOS / iPhone does have a basic sound recorder in it, as you may know).