Comments on: Scarier Than Halloween

By: Edwin

Edwin — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 16:01:32 +0000

Thanks for asking. We had set up weekly calls. I had 2 more calls with him so far. He missed the call last week.

I was going to post a follow-up on him, but then I also have many draft posts piling up. I have a lot of things in my mind but I just don’t have the time to write them down!

By: Marcelo

Marcelo — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 15:52:25 +0000

Hi Edwin,
Thanks for the compliments.I was a little self-conscious about putting an audio clip of me speaking Cantonese but everyone seems to have liked it.I might put some others in the future. Thanks for adding me to your blogroll! Now I live in Brazil.
BTW, what happened to the conversation with Ziad Fazah you were going to have?

By: Edwin

Edwin — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 04:35:06 +0000

Marcelo,
Congratulations! Your Cantonese sounds very good! I am adding you to my blogroll. Hope you don’t mind

BTW, where do you live now?

By: Marcelo

Marcelo — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 01:16:18 +0000

Hi Edwin,
You are definitely not alone. I myself don’t like the way I sound, especially when speaking a foreign language.When I talk to myself my pronunciation and accent, from my own ears, sound native-like.However, one day I recorded myself and then realized that was really not the case.Anyway, now I just don’t care too much about the way I sound like.I mean, I still try to improve, but I don’t expect any outstanding change. I made a post on my blog which is kind of along those lines. You may want to check it out http://cantostories.podbean.com

Best Regards

By: Edwin

Edwin — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 14:50:43 +0000

I have a feeling that it is a problem to many people.

As you have mentioned, people around you are already used to your voice. So the only person who still complains is you. The reason is that you rarely hear your own voice.

So I believe the simplest and most straight-forward solution is to listen to our own voices more.

I am trying it out for a few days already. I will probably follow up with a post later on.

By: Geoffrey Barto

Geoffrey Barto — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 22:19:08 +0000

Edwin,
When we got a new voicemail system, everyone required multiple takes to record their messages. A lot of people don’t really like their voices. (Me included.) A big part of the problem is that we will of necessity sound different to ourselves than to other people because of the way the vocal apparatus is put together. This makes it very hard to tune the way you talk.

I have tried recording myself for mp3s to listen to for drilling vocabulary lists. It’s always a shock. It sounds like a completely different person. Worse, it’s not necessarily a person I want to listen to for an extended period of time. (I wonder how my coworkers do it!)