Advice needed.

[mricon.livejournal.com]

Hey, everyone:

This is something I've been considering doing for quite some time now: record a couple of Russian audiobooks, mostly for kids and for people wanting to learn Russian. I finally got around to actually recording some of it today, and I would like to know how you find it, particularly those who are advanced non-native speakers. Unfortunately, I have been concentrating too much on "for the kids" part, so I speek too fast in places, which I fully realize, and I'm going to slow down quite a bit. :) However, I would like to know if people find my diction, intonations and recording quality good enough for a project like this.

Here you can find the story, one of my favorites when I was a schoolboy, and my 5-minute test-run to go along with it.

Thanks in advance! :)

Comments

[rooskiyroulette.livejournal.com]

This makes me so happy :)
You have a clear voice and appropriately enthusiastic intonation for a piece like this. However I would note that the sound quality of the recording changes around the 3 minute mark.
And I will agree, at times you do speak a little fast. I understand that this is simply you reacting to the excitement of the tale though :) For non-native speakers, I would recommend a slower overall pace, even if hinders the story's natural flow.

[aclarar.livejournal.com]

love the idea. even if i don't get to understand that much. It is so hard to find listening material in russian.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

I'm a native speaker, and it's way too fast even for me - sometimes you literally "swallow" the words or glue them together too tight, like "ифквотытакой" instead of "и в кого ты такой" etc. Don't be shy to read slower, it will definitely help. IMHO non-natives just cannot keep up with the pace this fast :)) It's also helpful not to try everyday speech imitation: it's better to sound a bit less "natural," less everyday-ish, but more understandable ;-)

[friendlic.livejournal.com]

Why do you think the shop seller asking: "А что тебе здесь надо, мальчик?" was a Caucasian? :))
I like your intonations, they make the story lively. But it actually seems too fast for non-native speaker.

[temcat.livejournal.com]

I think it's better to use "from Caucasus" for "кавказец" ;-) The word "Caucasian" can be misleading here, since it also means "of European race".

[beowabbit]

This is great! Thanks so much. I didn't have time to listen to the whole thing (or look up the words I didn't know), but I'm really looking forward to listening to it. One big problem with learning Russian from text on the web is that the stress isn't marked (and lingvo.yandex.ru's dictionaries don't mark it either — if anybody knows an online Russian-English dictionary that does indicate stress, please let me know), so that’s just one reason it will be great to listen to your reading.

What I listened to I had no trouble following if I was also looking at the text. I suspect if I didn’t have a printed text in front of me I’d have a much harder time picking out words at this speed.

[lexabear.livejournal.com]

I agree with the others -- your intonation and enthusiasm were great, but the speed was too fast for me. I would be completely lost if I didn't have the text in front of me, and even with it I lost my place sometimes. My advice is to slow down a lot.

[taosu.livejournal.com]

That sounds great! Are you a native speaker?

[russiangitar02.livejournal.com]

You are reading a bit too fast. Though, I can understand everything, but then again, I'm a native speaker. Mostly, you just need to work a little on the overall speed and pauses in the right places.
Your diction is very nice.
recording quality is good too.
Intonation is very nice in places, but sometime you slip.
Overall, I liked the recording a lot. I think that as you'll be doing more and more of it, you'll improve.