Potato, Potahto? Before you call the whole thing off, consult Chuala
October 23, 2007
My senior year of high school, my family hosted a Thai foreign exchange student. Some mornings I spent the entire ride to school modeling pronunciations for her. She was endlessly fascinated with the sequence of sounds in “oil” (and endlessly frustrated trying to produce them herself) and would have me toil through “boil, broil, coil” ‘til my tongue felt despoiled by the moil of it. I was not always the most patient instructor.
If only I could have offered my eager student the services of Chuala.com, where you can hear looped recordings of standard pronunciations: voila (which looks like it rhymes with “oil” but thankfully doesn’t), tireless tutor. My favorite part of the site is that you’re able to record yourself saying a word and listen to it in comparison to the site’s pronunciation in turn. Students who come across difficult new words in their readings could look them up here, or you could check on the pronunciations of words that have always given you trouble (I practiced with “accompanist”… I never say that right!).
The site offers pronunciations in 9 other languages, so it could potentially be of service in foreign language classrooms. My own searches in Spanish were disappointing, not even the days of the week were offered, but Chuala is a “language community,” so if you find words that are missing you can register to add them yourself.
One word of warning: the woman who speaks the samples is no computerized voice, she’s a total sweet-talker… monitor your time on the site, if you notice yourself looking up words like “cat” you may have fallen victim to her siren song. –MARIELLE PRINCE
Related Stuff:
Say it Like You Mean It – howjsay.com
