Individual task

I decided to describe pictures this week, because I think it is good to produce some language. I randomly found some pictures on the internet and tried to describe them. I always try to describe more the atmosphere and background of the picture than describe people’s clothing, some items in the picture etc. I found out that I hesitate a lot when describing a picture. And this doesn’t sound naturally, I think this is the main thing I should work on in the future. When describing a picture, I have always many ideas in my mind, but it is quite difficult for me to express them all, so I say something differently. I don’t like the word position in ‘He has some card with his name and position’ – I should have said work position, employment status or something like this. And I pronounced bed more like bad, I should focus on pronunciation of bed. As for the second recording, I used wrong preposition – I said satisfied of and that should be satisfied with. On the other hand, I tried to use expressions like could have been…, might be… and so on to describe what people in the picture could have been doing and I think I succeeded.

Individual task

A story for children - The lion and the mouse

I enjoyed recording this task. First, I found a nice fairytale that I found interesting and appropriate to record for my purposes. Then I found the pronunciation of some words I did not know, because when telling a story for children, it is important to understand everything. And finally, I found some sound effects to make the fairytale more interesting and beautiful. I recorded the fairytale many times, because I tried to combine sounds and narration and it was difficult for me for the first time, as for my technical skills… But I think I was successful. I think I was successful in linking words. My pronunciation was simple and clear concerning the language the fairytale is written in. I hope I said ´laugh´ correctly, because I have problems with the pronunciation of the word. And the pronunciation of ´roar´ was sometimes problem.

Individual task b) GA

This time, I decided to compare RP and GA pronunciation. I found two recordings of the same text by two different people, one speaker speaking RP English, the other speaking GA English. We did this kind of exercise on our Phonetics lessons, so it inspired me. I imitated the native speakers, I tried to sound like them concerning the accent, the tempo etc. RP pronunciation is about linking words, not pronouncing ´r´ sound and it was difficult for the first time I recorded it, but then I liked it. I got used to it. In the b) recording, it was something completely different. I said ´r´ at the end of words like car and year, I said /hostl/ instead of /hostail/ in hostile, I said /grainding/ instead of /grinding/ in grinding etc. Also, I pronounced words like utterly or unforgettable with ´d´ sound, but in RP I said more like the ´t´ sound - /ʌtəli/ with clear ´t´. It was interesting to record this type of recordings, I liked it. I noticed that I have problems with long texts to read sometimes. Endings of texts make me problems, I read slowly and with pauses.

Individual task a) RP

The party - Mr Bean

Firstly, it is important to write that I recorded this party with Kateřina Kobylková. We took it quite seriously, we agreed on the day, place and time when we will be recording and we met. Our party lasted for 3 hours. We spoke only in English during these 3 hours, except 2 interruptions by family I think. But we really tried to say everything in English, including asking for water, making fun while recording and so on. But there was one let´s say mistake. We both are quite crazy and we love irony, sarcasm etc. and that kind of influenced our recording, because we laughed half of time. We described some photos of our childhood, we played English activity and then we played a game created by Kateřina. Unfortunately, we had to cut our one hour long recording to just about 6 minutes. Anyway, I was quite satisfied with what we recorded. I noticed that I used quite a lot of question tags, which I think is important in this kind of speaking between two people, it shows some interest. On the other hand, I used completely wrong phrases sometimes. Sometimes it was hard to find some word for us, so we had to look it up in a dictionary, but before, we tried to explain it in English and it was fun.

The party - activity

The party - photos