The University of Waikato - Te Whare Wānanga o Waikato
Student Learning
Waikato Home Waikato Home > Student Life > Student Learning > Pronunciation
green pron image

Pronunciation

Click along the gray tabs below for instructions and links to other pronunication resources. Please note: For these pages we recommend using Safari, Firefox, or Internet Explorer. Some features in the pages are not supported in Chrome.

/θ/ - earth, thousand, author

/ʒ/ - casual, measure

/l/ - flower, yellow, lollies, label

/v/ - valve, velvet, violin

How to use this tool to record your voice:

You need a headset and microphone to use this tool, (and the latest Java plug-in installed on your computer).

Each pronunciation page has sound files of a native speaker saying words and phrases using the target sound. You can use the Nanogong recording applet, demonstrated in the image below, to record your voice and compare your pronunication with the native speaker.

image with four instruction boxes with instructions on how to use the nanogong applet to record
The image above shows how you can 1) click on the red button to record your voice. When you have finished recording your voice, you can 2) click on the black square button to stop recording. To listen to your voice 3) click on the triangle play button. You may 4) record as many times as you please. When you close the browser your recording is gone. (You should see short green horizontal lines while you are recording your voice. If there are no green lines then the program cannot hear you. You should check the microphone setting on your computer, or update your java plug-in.)

The author of these self-access pronunciation pages is Katherine Gilliver-Brown of the University of Waikato Student Learning department. They provide a tool by which students can actively compare their pronunciation of English sounds with that of a native speaker by recording their voices into the browser.

Thank you to the following people:

  • WCeL (Waikato Centre for eLearning), particularly to Derek White, and Troy Williams. To Derek for helping identify Nanogong as the ideal recording applet, and to Troy for helping me understand multi-dimensional arrays in js and the odd tweak at my code to make it better!
  • The University of Waikato Webteam particularly Georgina Allbrook and Douglas Davey, for being inspired enough by my first prototype to make suggestions to improve the appearance and usability of this interface.
  • My colleagues at Student Learning for their encouragement.

The tools used in these pages are Nanogong, the voice recording applet provided free on the web, and jquery jplayer.

Enjoy - Katherine