Athenaze 1 Alpha Audio Recording

[Ursinus]

χαίρετε,

I, very quickly, made a recording of the first story in Athenaze chapter one alpha. I am attempting to use restored pronunciation with tonal accents, so I would like the critiques of others in order to better my pronunciation. This was produced very quickly, so you will notice I stumble over my words in a couple places.

Audio here: https://archive.org/details/Athenaze1aStory

[bedwere]

Εὖγε, εὖγε

[Ursinus]

Thanks, Bedwere, for the encouragement. I hope when I get time and my pronounciation gets better to do audio for all the stories in the book. One of the hardest elements for me in restored pronounciation is pronouncing the iota subscript without making it sound identical to the short dipthong.

[jeidsath]

My solution for iota subscript, after much pain, was to pronounce the following:

ῳ -> οοι
ᾳ -> ααι
ῃ -> εει

and similarly

ηυ -> εευ

The second diphthong gets slightly compressed, to make it sound as two mora rather than 3. Allen suggests using a qualitative difference, but I never got that to work. And I don't buy the disappearance of iota subscript as result of a vowel quality process. Regardless, that's how I do it.

Your audio sounds great. It sounds like pitch and aspirates are still giving you some problems. I can't say that I've perfected them myself, but I feel like after much unrewarded practice, they both started to click.

I've recorded my version of your story in the hopes that it would be helpful. If not let me know and I won't do it again next time:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B23NN- ... sp=sharing

[Ursinus]

Jeidsath, thanks for the critical feedback; that's why I posted this. What in particular do I need to work on relative to my pitch accents?

[Ursinus]

Part of the problem in learning this pronounciation is the lack of audio resources. I'm pretty satisfied with my restored Latin pronounciation, but I gained that mainly from listening to hours and hours of Latin with restored classical pronounciation, which is possible thanks to Evan der Millner and many others.

[jeidsath]

Jeidsath, thanks for the critical feedback; that's why I posted this. What in particular do I need to work on relative to my pitch accents?

I can't pretend that I'm an expert on it, but right now I mostly hear an increase in loudness (stress). Perhaps instead concentrate more on the fall (low tone) after the accent than on the high pitch itself? Listen to lots of Japanese.

And maybe watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSIwo5v5vnw

[Ursinus]

Jeidsath, thanks for the critical feedback; that's why I posted this. What in particular do I need to work on relative to my pitch accents?

I can't pretend that I'm an expert on it, but right now I mostly hear an increase in loudness (stress). Perhaps instead concentrate more on the fall (low tone) after the accent than on the high pitch itself? Listen to lots of Japanese.

And maybe watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSIwo5v5vnw

Thanks for the help. I am going to work on that video for awhile and see if it helps with my Greek. Thanks a lot. Also, you should consider doing more audio for Athenaze It would be a real help and service to Greek learners. It is a very popular book and actually pretty good in terms of modern textbooks, emphasizing learning through induction and reading.

[Ursinus]

Also, what do you think of this gentlemen's recordings? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbAnHCDUDiw

[Ursinus]

I retried a couple lines of the audio this morning. I tried to focus on the drop in pitch on the circumflexes. Let me know if it was improved or not. Don't be afraid to be honest. https://archive.org/details/Athenaze1alphaRedo

[jeidsath]

It's not going to be an overnight process. Try following the video's advice, and read this Athenazde section as fast as you can once a day for the next three weeks, and see where it gets you.

You are varying pitch now rather than loudness, which is an improvement. But it's not going to sound natural until it becomes natural.

[Ursinus]

I'm going to take your advice. I'll check in in about three weeks to see how much I've improved.

[Markos]

Εὖγε, εὖγε

τὸ αὐτὸ αὐδῶ ἐγώ.

[Ursinus]

Another attempt. Admittedly, I have not been practicing as much as I'd like; I had to get done with school, which was getting really busy at the end. I focused on being a bit more natural, trying to be more subtle in the intonation, as if I was speaking English in a way (even English is intoned to an extent). I also took Jeidsath's advice on trying to focus on the drop in pitch after the acute. I hope it is an improvement!

https://archive.org/details/Athenaze1alphaRedo2