Connected speech + r sound

The first practice of the connected speech was sometimes quite challenging as normally I don't pay so much attention to it while speaking. There are some phrases that I connect together without even thinking about it, it is just natural and automatic. On the other hand, there are some words that are difficult for me to connect them, and it just took me more time to practice them. At the end I think the recording isn't so bad. The individual task for this week is the "r" sound, because sometimes I just pronounce it in a different way than I should. I found some exercises on Youtube that really helped me to use the muscles in my mouth properly. And I have to admit that after practising the sound I felt so much pain in my mouth and tongue, just like I went out of a gym! I wouldn't ever believe that it's so difficult. I spend quite a lot of time with the "r" sound, so I hope my muscles would remember what to do next time.

TH sound

Today I focused on TH sound again because it is the most problematic sound for me. I believe that by practising again and again I will never make a mistake in the future. Sometimes I just concentrate too much on what I want to say and I completely forget about the pronunciation of TH in some words. I really want to get rid of it and make the TH pronunciation automatic for me.

20 names

This task was quite funny and entertaining for me. I have to say that I really enjoyed it. It is interesting to hear the proper pronunciation of words that are pronounced differently than I thought. It was useful because I use names of actors, singers, cities, etc. quite frequently in my speech, so I hope I wouldn't use the Czech pronunciation ever again. Some names from the list were easy for me. On the other hand, some of them were surprising.

TH sound

For my individual recording I decided to focus on the TH sound, which is the most problematic one for me. After practising the sound in various exercises I recorded the most difficult sentences, where the sound appeared in more words than just one in a sentence. Unfortunately, my laptop is not the youngest one, that's why the sound might be a bit weird and not 100% real. After my practice I feel a bit more confident about the sound, but I still need to concentrate on it when I speak fast. I hope it'd improve with the time, and it'd be always 100% th sound.

Pronunciation

This task was quite difficult for me, mainly because my most serious problem is the pronunciation. I practiced the words many times before I had started the recording, but I ended up recording this task five times and then finally I was almost satisfied. I say almost because I still know that I don't sound like a native speaker, but I really tried to do my best. I'm still in the process of getting used to my own voice, and I hope it'd be more bearable soon. I think that this recording was really helpful :-)

Introduction

This is the first recording and I really hope that the last recording I publish here would sound much better than this one. I'm aware of my pronunciation problems that I try to make better. I made a resolution to concentrate on the sounds much more than I ever did before and I want to finally improve my pronunciation and sound more natural. Introducing myself wasn't as easy as I thought it'd be. I had to record it twice, because the first time I started speaking and then I suddenly stopped and didn't know how to continue. But the second time I had an idea in my mind and it was a bit better, even though I have a problem to actually listen to myself. But the beginnings are always the most difficult...

what if there were no Google...

Can you imagine how your life would be without Google? I Google, therefore I am. In our technological world Google is our best friend, always. We don’t spend hours and hours in a library searching for some information, we are too lazy. That’s why our friend Google is here to provide us whatever we need. Try to imagine your day and think for how many times you searched for something on Google. It's hard to say exactly how the world would look without Google, the world's most frequently visited Web site. Google is a big company, employing around 30,000 people as of this writing. It also tries to share the wealth; in 2010, Google's charitable giving topped $184 million.

Google offers a whole suite of applications (too many to list here), and a lot of them are free. You can use Gmail for e-mail, Docs for sharing all sorts of documents, Maps for navigation, Earth for geographic information, Calendar, Blogger to set up a blog for both personal and professional purposes, etc. Google simply offers a lot of ways to accomplish a lot of different tasks, for not a lot of money. When Google first appeared in 1998, search engines were a matter of personal preference. Some people opted for the visually busy layout of Yahoo or others. But then Google arrived, with its supercharged algorithms that returned more relevant results, and suddenly, it was the fastest and easiest way to find Web-based data. Older search sites located relevant information by finding keywords on Web pages. The company was following through on its stated mission, which is to "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful," and to be an engine that "understands exactly what you mean and gives you back exactly what you want." Google became a part of our life, that is for sure. And I would be positive about it, because it has so many advantages as I listed. It makes our life easier in some way, and sometimes it can be fun to try to search for funny phrases.