improving pronunciation?

[purplefolk.livejournal.com]

Hi all,

I was wondering if anyone knows of a good site or software that focuses on Russian pronunciation?

I was raised in a Russian-speaking household in the US, so I'm fairly good with grammar, reading, carrying on conversations, etc., but my accent is just awful. What's frustrating is that I used to have a much better accent, but it slipped away a bit when I left home for college... so now I can hear the mistakes, which makes me self conscious, which makes it worse, which makes me more self conscious, and so on. Drilling sounds/words with people seems to help a lot, though.

So ideally, I'm looking for something that will play a word, have you speak into a microphone, and let you play back and compare the two. Free software's preferable, but I'm ok with paying for something good.

Or, if anyone has other tips on improving pronunciation, those would be greatly appreciated as well! :)

Thanks in advance

Comments

[shimshoni.livejournal.com]

My husband had the same problem. He started to listen and sing songs in Russian when he notices he lost his Russian pronunciation skills. It helped a lot. So try to listen your favorite music and sing.

[purplefolk.livejournal.com]

Ooh, you're right! Singing along in the car does help... and with the self consciousness too :)

[crimeanelf.livejournal.com]

Maybe, it's a good idea to listen a lot and try to repeat after what you hear? Youtube is a great source of different videos, if you'll describe your tastes, I'm sure the community would help you choose some videos to start with.

As for your own pronunciation, I recommend free software Audacity for recording mp3's and playing them back.

[wolk-off.livejournal.com]

Just make sure you're singing along with the artists who, in their turn, have a nice Russian pronunciation. Andriy Danilko a.k.a. Verka Serdyuchka won't do :)

[surasure.livejournal.com]

and finally, some people in ru_learningenglish will be more then happy to skype with you hence correct your pron. in real time )

(so could i, btw ))))

[shimshoni.livejournal.com]

;)
btw you can try audiobooks too:) read along;)

[archaicos.livejournal.com]

Also get yourself a Russian TV channel.

[sbgskl.livejournal.com]

I'm finding Pimsleur's Russian lessons pretty good for pronunciation. They break the words into syllables, and there are both male and female voices. The CD's are expensive, but you may be able to find them at a library.

[spiritrc.livejournal.com]

That's a bad idea, taking in account the quality of their Russian on TV channels. :) The audiobooks idea proposed above is much better, I think. Especially if those are some classic books read by some good actors like Vitorgan, Kazakov, Filippenko, etc.

[53miles.livejournal.com]

The general rule is - listen to as much Russian as you can. It can be music, audiobooks, Russian movies. You might want to try cartoons - they are children-oriented, so the enunciation will be pretty good.
Try this website http://childrecords.km.ru/ for old Russian vinyl records :)

[sbgskl.livejournal.com]

There are also these free Russian podcasts of assorted conversations by native Russians: http://www.tasteofrussian.com/