【话匣子英语】采访珍妮

学习语言很重要的一点是发音问题，听听珍妮是怎么说的.....

Suzanne:

Today, we are very happy to talk with Jennifer Foote, or rather Dr. Jennifer Foote, from the University of Alberta. And we’re going to speak to her today about her specialty¹, which is pronunciation in English and pronunciation research. Now, there were moments of this audio that weren’t the best quality, so I apologize ahead of time for the quality of this recording². Just bear with us because there’s some really great content. Here we go.

Hi, Jennifer.

 

Jennifer: Thank you for having me on your podcast.

Suzanne: Yes, welcome to Culips. So introduce yourself, Jenn.

Jennifer:

My name is Jennifer Foote, and I’m an assistant professor at the University of Alberta, in Edmonton, Alberta, in Western Canada. And I study, for the most part, I study second-language pronunciation, and I look at ways that we can improve how teachers teach pronunciation and how people who are learning a second language can improve their pronunciation. And I also look at what it is about somebody’s speech that makes it easy or difficult to understand.

 

Suzanne:

I think that a lot of our listeners can relate to that. I think, even if we’re a native speaker of English, we have been misunderstood, or have been told, “What? What? What? I didn’t understand what you said? What exactly are you saying? Can you say it again?”

 

Jennifer: Absolutely. Yeah. I’ve certainly experienced that a number of times.

Suzanne: Yeah. And it doesn’t have to be in your second language. It can also be in your first language, where, you know, sometimes even in a very noisy place, right? “What? What did you say?”

Jennifer: That’s right. Or if somebody’s talking about something and you don’t really know the context very well or different first-language accents. I remember when I was younger, I was visiting a friend of mine in Ireland, and I was playing a game with her family that required you to answer a lot of questions very quickly. And every time they would ask me a question, I would just have to say, “pass, pass, pass” because I couldn’t understand their accents. I wasn’t familiar with their accents.

Suzanne: It can be difficult. You’re right. There are many accents I don’t understand as well, or it takes me time to acclimate³, or get acquainted with, or get used to the accents of people.

Jennifer:

That’s just it. I think getting used to it … Getting used to it and becoming more familiar definitely helps.

 

Suzanne: Yeah. So you work in pronunciation, and what are some things that have been very interesting to you, that you’ve discovered, or things that you might be working on currently in the research of understanding speech, of pronunciation?

1 specialty   

n.(speciality)特性，特质；专业，专长

参考例句：

• Shell carvings are a specialty of the town.贝雕是该城的特产。
• His specialty is English literature.他的专业是英国文学。

2 recording   

n.录音，记录

参考例句：

• How long will the recording of the song take?录下这首歌得花多少时间？
• I want to play you a recording of the rehearsal.我想给你放一下彩排的录像。

3 acclimate   

v.使服水土，使习惯于新环境

参考例句：

• I help them acclimate to living in the U.S.我帮助他们适应在美国的生活。
• How much time does she need to acclimate?她需要多少时间才能适应？