Sixth recording

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This week I concentrated on three things; vowels, consonants and connected speech. since I have been working on vowels and consonants for some time, I focused more on ensuring that my speech flows and that I do not stammer in between words.
To do this, I transcribed my archetype's speech. Then, I played the audio and read along for practice. The transcript allowed me to record myself continuously without having to revisit the archetype.

Fifth Recording

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This week I have practiced the same segment of my archetype's audio but with an additional sentence at the end. I decided to focus on my intonation and reduction of vowel and consonant sounds. Reduction proved particularly difficult for me. Pronouncing words such as interview, important and family required me to be attentive enough to remember that I had to omit a particular sound. Otherwise, such as in my natural speech, I caught myself pronouncing all sounds in these words.

Fourth Recording

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This week, I paid more attention to my body posture as I practiced and I noticed that allowing more flexibility for my articulators helped me get closer to my archetype's pronunciation. Faster jaw movement, lip spreading and tongue movement played a big role in improving my pronunciation. I read the article on "vowels of North American English" and this was such a useful resource for me this week because it clearly described the postures for lax and tense vowels.

I practiced repeatedly and recorded myself many times, listening to each recording and noticing problem sections, then trying to fix them. I also practiced the shadowing technique, where I recorded myself over my archetype practicing to keep up with her rate of speech. I found this helpful because then I could move my articulators faster.

Listening to my latest recording gives me much hope that I can actually improve my pronunciation. Practicing consistently and repeatedly while paying attention to single words or phrases turned out to be so helpful. Deliberate practice indeed works! I am convinced I will improve more over time.

Third Recording

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This week has been a continuation of last week's practice on Voice quality settings. After noticing the areas where my pronunciation varies most from my archetype's, I started focusing on one feature at a time. I have practiced openness/lip spreading when pronouncing back vowels and retroflexion when pronouncing /r/. I hope one can notice a slight improvement in pronunciation of the words "prom", "job" and "over"

Generally, reductions and producing the rhotic "r" are the greatest challenge I have. I feel that reductions are so random and that makes difficult for me to pay attention to all of them.