Ask MetaFilter posts tagged with Speech

How do I fix my "accent?

champthom — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 22:09:43 -0800

How do I fix my "accent"? When I was born, I had so many ear infections from allergic reactions that I was deaf until I was 3 or so, when it miraculously cleared up. As a consequence though, I wasn't able to speak until then and I still have a speech problem to this day.

My voice vaguely sounds like the voice of a deaf person who can speak. I've been told that I sound like Elmer Fudd and Homestar Runner. In either case, my voice is that of two of pop culture's favorite idiots.

Anyways, my problem is that it has started to become really old for me when people tell me "I like your accent." But see, it's not an accent. I can't help that even after 10 years of speech therapy as a child I still cannot say pronounce "r" words correctly. It's not an accent, it's a speech problem. The worst part of it is that as a result, people start assuming all things about me. For example, a co-worker of mine assumed I was from England without asking me because she said I "sounded" like I was from England (even though I've never been to the country). Likewise, it's a bitch when I go through US Customs and after I tell the customs officer where I was born, they ask "No, where were you REALLY born? You don't sound like you're from the US."

Frankly, I don't see why I have an accent is relevant. I'd rather have people judge me on my character than the way I sound.

So my question is - how do I/should I deal with this? This may seem a bit trivial thing to get worked up about but I have a very hard time fitting in to begin with, and my voice has always exacerbated things. That's one of the reasons I don't like talking to begin with, because I hate the sound of my voice and having people approach me about my "accent." Is there anything I can do so my voice sounds better?

Just to clarify, to the best of my knowledge, the extent I have a genuine accent is the fact I pronounce "Mary," "merry," and "marry" the same and apparently people from upstate NY pronounce "roof" differently.

RSS to Audio in Automator

jasmarc — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 09:49:55 -0800

How can I operate on individual articles from an RSS feed in Automator? Ultimately I am trying to create audio tracks of my feeds - one track per articles. I know that you could do "Get Specified URL" then "Get Text From Articles" and then "Text To Audio File" however this will create a single audio track of all the articles. I want to bust the articles out as individual tracks.

Bob Fleischburg's Gettysburg Address, as Read By Lincoln?

Shepherd — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 07:46:21 -0800

When did professional speech-ghostwriting start, and how confident can I be that those who delivered "classic" speeches and letters actually wrote them themselves? I was heartily impressed by Sherman's letter to Atlanta, as linked in this Metafilter thread, and was thinking about it when it occurred to me that I assume that all speeches, letters, and discourse beyond a kind of fuzzy 1950-ish date were actually created by the person that delivered/sent it.

By contrast, I don't think anybody expects that even the most "inspirational" people in public life and politics actually write their own material these days; U.S. politicians certainly don't now, nor, I expect, do the leaders of corporations or huge social movements.

So how far back can I be confident that public figures actually did write their own speeches? Or did they ever?

Who's the woman speaking on NWA's "Gangsta Gangsta"?

redteam — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 19:50:00 -0800

Who is the woman sampled speaking on NWA's "Gangsta Gangsta"? She says "hopin' you sophisticated motherfuckers here what I have to say", "he'll fuck up you and yours - and anything that gets in his way", and "he'll just call you a lowlife motherfucker and talk about your funky ways." I've checked http://www.the-breaks.com/ and the samples section on "Straight Outta Compton's" Wikipedia page.

I remember at Lollapalooza '93 in Los Angeles, the sound guys played the source of those samples in between bands. It was like a series of speeches by a woman. I'd really like to hear it in its entirety but I've never been able to find it.

Transcribe to Mac

segatakai — Sat, 17 May 2008 00:17:41 -0800

Please recommend a solution for transcribing voice to text on my Mac. Ok. What I want to do is to have a (relatively small) device that I can carry with me, and, when the mood hits, speak into the device and have it record my voice. Later, I want to have my voice transcribed into editable text on my (PowerPC) PowerBook G4, which is running OS 10.5.2. Ideally (though perhaps unrealistically) I'd like to not spend more than about $250. Questions like this have been asked before, but are either outdated, inconclusive, or recommend $400 and up machines without really addressing the transcription issue (or all or the above).

I thought that this would be relatively simple (though I guessed the transcription might be somewhat less than 100% accurate), but I'm having trouble finding any clear-cut solution. I'm willing to be open-minded about solutions, including jerry-rigging (sp?) something. What exactly are my choices here?

First I looked at speech recognition/transcribing software for the Mac. It appears that IBM's Via Voice was discontinued some time ago, and anyway it seems to only be compatible up to OS 10.3 (maybe it was discontinued before 10.4?). MacSpeech seems to have replaced iListen with Dictate, which is apparently not-compatible with PowerPC macs (like mine). iListen, from what I can tell, would work with my Mac. However, my Googling has come up short; where can one find iListen for purchase (or steal)?

Next I looked at digital voice recorders. Wow, what a swamp! Only a few products specifically mention that they are compatible with Macs, but ultimately I'm not even sure what that means. Does this mean that the recorder and the Mac can't communicate at all (like the Mac won't recognize the recorder when its plugged into USB)? Or is it just that the included software is not compatible (i.e. the Mac will recognize the recorder, but you have to use some other software to listen/transcribe the files)?

One last side note: My wife has an old micro-cassette Olympus recorder. I presume that if I could get iListen (or something similar) working on my Mac, I could sit the recorder next to the built-in mic on my laptop (or buy a line-in adapter??) and proceed from there. Any thoughts on that?

Language-Related Equivalent of Empathy?

amyms — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 09:23:41 -0800

Is there a word or a phrase, other than the too-broad "understand," for when a listener understands what someone else is trying to convey even when the speaker doesn't express it clearly and/or correctly? For instance, if someone uses a double negative like "I ain't got none" or "I didn't hear nothing," we all understand what they mean, even though syntactically the sentences mean the opposite. Or, if someone misuses a common phrase, like the examples in this thread, we still know what they meant to say. Or, if someone is peppering their speech with lots of slang, we may not know exactly what each slang term means, but we can still get the gist of what they're saying.

I'm not looking for response-type phrases that mean "I understand what you're saying" (e.g. "I got ya," "I hear that," etc.)... I'm looking for a general term for the understanding itself.

The best way I can describe what I want is that I'm looking for the language-related equivalent of "empathy."

The beets did really weird stuff to me, like to my poop and stuff. Anyway, red wine does seem to be all I drink these days, but that's ok, because....

TheManChild2000 — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 21:35:30 -0800

I say and write the word 'Anyway' too often as a bridge between a previous thought and the next one. I knew I did this on the page a lot but didn't realize I was saying it too. It's clear that I've got some reason why I can't just start into the new thought. How can I stop?

text to speech to mp3

D-ten — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 11:15:40 -0800

What's the best quality method for doing text to speech to mp3? In OS X 10.5, the Alex voice is able to make good quality speech output, plus a utility like Orator can turn text into an mp3 with the Alex voice.

The good: it's free, it's fast and it works. The bad: the voice is a bit clipped on the ends of words and the phrasing is a bit clunky. Overall, Alex is pretty good in pronunciation and rhythm, better than I thought it would be.

I'm wondering how else I could do this? Does Vista Home Premium have better speech voices? If so, how to make the step to an mp3 file.

Are there any other methods available for doing this? I don't want to spend any money for software on this project, though that could be a possibility in the future, so it would be useful to know if there are any killer commercial techniques for doing this.

Is my girlfriend a robot?

chill — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 09:52:08 -0800

Why did my girlfriend sound like a robot last night? I came home last night and my girlfriend's voice sounded odd. When she spoke there appeared to be an additional out of phase version of what she was saying that was also audible, and she sounded a bit like robot. Maybe a better way of putting is that she sounded as if she was speaking into a vocoder and I could hear her voice along with a slightly tinny mildly modulated version of her voice coming from the vocoder.
It was very strange and quite disconcerting. She could hear it too, so it was apparently not a hearing issue on my part. It lasted about 30 minutes I think (could have been longer - not sure).
Can anyone sate my curiosity and explain what might have caused this?

How to speak with someone who stutters

HotPatatta — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 21:35:10 -0800

What's the proper etiquette when you're speaking to someone with a stutter? Do you stutter? What are you thinking as it's happening? I have a student with a stutter. When the word he's struggling to spit out is obvious, do I pretend he's not stuttering and just look him patiently in the eye and wait for it to come out? Would he feel offended or relieved if I finish the word for him?

Do you stutter? What does it feel like when you're trying to say a word but can't quite get it out in one piece? Can you see the word in your mind's eye but it just won't come out or does the word look fuzzy?

It seems like it might be one of those important moments..

bluejayk — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 09:29:10 -0800

Where can I watch the Barack Obama speech from this morning online in its entirety? barackobama.com linked to cnn.com/video, which has, as far as I can tell, only snippets. I'd really like to see the whole thing. Unfortunately, I can't watch it on youtube (if it's there) because that's currently blocked here in China. Any other sources? Audio would be okay, video even better. I'd really like to see it. I'd download a torrent, even.

Remotely controlled presentation?

zaebiz — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 15:06:47 -0800

I need to make an oral presentation with slides (preferably PowerPoint) to a small audience (about 15) in a room in a neighboring country. What is the best way to achieve this requiring minimum effort on their end? I was thinking a speaker phone and some software that allows me to remotely control Powerpoint? I have no idea if such software exists but though it was likely. I will be presenting from a fast connection at a company office that is well-equipped. They have the usual gear for people giving presentations in person (projector, fast laptop running Windows) and their connection is usually fast but not always so (its a University).

Head devices for better enunciation?

long haired lover from liverpool — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 14:18:57 -0800

I hear that trainee actors sometimes use head-mounted contraptions to build up their tongue strength, for better enunciation. One was a small ball on a string. Is this true? What are these devices?

Where can I see Stanley Donen's 1997 Honorary Academy Award acceptance speech?

h00py — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 20:39:38 -0800

I've been trying to find online a video of Stanley Donen accepting his honorary academy award in 1997 without much success. I have a very vague memory of it and I'm longing to see it again. It's been taken down from YouTube and I was wondering if anyone knows where else it may be hiding. My search skills are crap. It's the best acceptance speech I can remember seeing, legendary director of musical films starts singing "Cheek to Cheek" to his golden man, and I've been wanting to see it again for ages. Recommendations for online resources are good but also I'd be prepared to buy a decent compilation of Oscar moments if that's the only way I can see it again.

OH MY GOD MAKE IT STOP

Pants! — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 18:15:16 -0800

Why is my iMac running the latest operating system talking to me? It's repeating everything I type so I'm going to make the question short. I think it thinks I'm blind... It also reads titles of windows as I switch between them out loud... Please make it stop.

Muttering : where do you cross the line?

stinkycheese — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 10:37:42 -0800

Muttering to oneself : how much is too much? And what if the muttering consists largely of profanity? See also.

Brass tongue

pwally — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 09:57:18 -0800

Why can't I articulate thoughts as crisply as I would like to? Some people can expound on their thoughts for a long period of time without a hitch. I usually express my idea in one sentence, maybe two if I can manage. Life would be better if I were able to ask/answer questions and have the other person/people be satisfied with my answer because it addressed everything that it should have.

I can answer very specific questions perfectly fine, its not lack of knowledge that is holding me back. Rather it's broad questions where I find myself thinking "sh%t where do I even begin". This most likely has to do with my predominantly divergent thinking style, meaning I do not think linearly unless I force myself to do so.

I've got this feeling that most people just have some procedural knowledge built in and for some reason it's lost on me. So how do you go about organizing what you are going to say before you say it? What are strategies for speaking like a pro?

I can haz stutter. Do not want.

Phyltre — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 00:46:06 -0800

I stutter. I don't want to. Maybe you can help. I've had a stutter pretty much all my life. It comes and goes, frankly. Sometimes I'm a perfectly smooth talker, other times I can't get a sentence out. It doesn't seem related to stress level, or concentration level, how fast I'm talking, or who I'm speaking to--some days are great, some are bad.

It's always the beginnings of words, and I can almost always say the word if I hear someone else say it (for instance, if I were to pause as I sometimes do to avoid stuttering [usually this doesn't help] and you were to say the word, I could them say it without a problem most likely.) No particular sound or situation appears to be the trigger. Slowing my speech down doesn't help, unfortunately; I've tried to start a word for ten seconds before and was just plain unable to get the syllable out. Sometimes I repeat the first syllable (as in a common stutter) and other times I just can't start the word, I'm basically unable to speak.

The stuttering is really getting in the way of my communicating with others. I have always been a quiet person (perhaps for just this reason) but my job requires pretty much constant talking to customers and coworkers. I'd love to be able to actually say what I'm thinking--something I've never been able to do, frankly. I'm very easy to get along with, fairly gregarious...but having to minimize/simplify things I say to avoid confusion and embarrassment is a serious impediment now. My father and grandfather both say they stuttered as children, but outgrew it. I'm almost 23 so I don't see that happening anytime soon.

I'd love your suggestions and any resources you might have. I can't afford speech therapy, unfortunately...and I won't be able to for the foreseeable future. So pretty much anything other suggestion would be great.

Me No Speaky Good, Help Me MetaFilter!

willie11 — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 09:46:16 -0800

[ConversationFilter] Me no speaky so good no more. Please help! I've become what I can't stand... a boring conversationalist. Don't get me wrong, I have things to say. I just can't seem to say them in an engaging way. I have trouble structuring stories, anecdotes, or even simple statements of more than a few sentences in a way that keeps anyone's attention. I feel like I just end up either talking in circles, repeating the same points over and over, or going off on uninmportant tangents. The result is always that same "get to it" look on people's faces.

Things haven't always been this way. I've been hunkered down for the last few years spending most of my days and nights with my girlfriend, cat, and laptop, so it's obvious that lack of social interaction is behind this. But when I go out to be social, I'm at a loss for conversation.

Anyone have any ideas or resources? Been through something like this before? Should I just give up and adopt more cats?

Wyh can't I produce coherent speech any more?

jacalata — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 04:50:01 -0800

Why do I seem to be increasingly mixing up my words/letters in writing and speech? I seem to be noticing a growing tendency in myself to switch around words and letters when speaking or writing. I've always made regular typos (teh, frist, etc), and last year I noticed that I would often get the space in the wrong spot while typing as well (eg; th espace). That seems pretty straightforward typing-faster-than-thinking stuff. However, last year I also noticed that I would occasionally do the same thing (rearrange both letters and spaces) when handwriting, which doesn't seem equivalent - I have to consciously shape the letters, not just time the speed of my fingertips. I attributed this to the complete lack of handwriting in my everyday life, and moved on. However, I began to notice that very infrequently, I would switch around the position of words in a sentence when writing as well. I've also begun confusing homophones (I actually wrote their for they're!) and then a few weeks ago, I heard myself saying words in the wrong order (it was something like 'until work I get to' for 'until I get to work'). What's with this? Do other people do this as well? Should this be anonymous so nobody finds out about my fatal brain tumour this way? Or is it possible that I've always done these things and never noticed until now? (seems unlikely, it would have been noticed at school).

Background: 22, native English speaker, good at foreign languages as well, normally very articulate, excellent speller, never even the shadow of a previous problem reading/writing.

How can I keep a long talk interesting?

so_necessary — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 19:58:33 -0800

I've been invited to speak at an event - for an entire hour. How can I keep the audience awake? I have a ton of flexibility on what exactly it is I talk about (although it will have to relate at least tangentially to The Music Industry) but I need to make it work in a 45 to 60 minute format.

My usual schtick is to do a "big" presentation fast - a kind of blitzkrieg of patter that leaves the audience chewing it over after I'm done. The obvious approach is to expand the scope of the talk even further, but then again, even TED knows to keep the greatest thinkers of our time to a 20 minute limit. Also, there are other challenges - like, it's harder for the audience to remember and grok an hour of talk than 15 minutes worth, and while pace might make a presentation exciting in shortform, over an hour it would probably get overwhelming and hypnotic.

It feels like it will affect the entire process (how I prepare, remember, and rehearse; how I deal with an possible bad vibe early on knowing I have 55 minutes to go rather than 10, and so on) so any help is welcome - what's worked for you, good examples of sustained one-person stage presence I could study, and so on.

Subquestion: I don't *particularly* have a central thesis (unlike, say, this talk on corruption) but I could develop one. Do you think it's a must have in terms of bringing structure and momentum to it?

Advice on how to protest well

davidstandaford — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 23:02:49 -0800

Advice on protesting Alberto Gonzalez speaking at my campus. It looks like Alberto Gonzalez will be speaking at my college this semester. I've talked with some friends about doing a protest and was looking for some advice.

At the moment, we are considering getting some orange jump suits and reenacting some of the the torture techniques (waterboarding, stress positions, cold temperatures, etc.) approved by the administration and him. We would also have quarter sheet fliers explaining what we're doing, a little bit about why Gonzalez is so evil, and directing people to a website for more information.

Any ideas on how to do this well? Anything we might not realize that we should know? Advice from people with more experience doing these types of protests?

Any and all information is appreciated.

Speech infliction transposing s-words.

lundman — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 17:18:51 -0800

My kid is transposing "s" to the end of the word, line snow->nows. I am curious is this is a common thing, has a name, or just something they go through... He is already diagnosed slightly hyperlexic, and in a bi-lingual environment so there is some speech delay, but he is catching up nicely. But increasingly I have found it interesting that he pronounces s-words this way. If I slow him down and have him repeat it, he can do it just fine. I have included some special cases, and correct cases too.

Examples:

Means -> says
snow nows
small malls
sniff niff (no trailing s)
soon soon (well suun)
star tars
spill pills
slow lows
sleep sleep
spoon poons

That's all I can remember from the top of my head :) Not particularly concerned, but I find it interesting. Being the first born it is hard to know what is "normal", and no English speaker kids around to check with.

A good recording device?

mateuslee — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 06:13:37 -0800

Can anyone help me select a high-quality recording device for fieldwork and speech analysis, please? I am about to go to rural Peru to do some fieldwork in some pretty remote regions - the last thing left to buy is a suitable recording device. I sure could use some tips...

A colleague of mine had good experiences with an older Edirol model - I see that the R09 has been released - but I wonder if it is really the most ideal tool.

Anyone have any suggestions? The best solution would be a machine without moving parts, AA-battery powered, easily transfer to computer or external USB, have a great memory, and would not look too flashy.

I'd appreciate any ideas or reviews of Edirol R09...

Thanks a lot!

Presidential Speech Terms Cloud

meta.mark — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 21:26:02 -0800

Does anyone know the link to a website that displays a list of terms that are used by the president at speeches as a sort of cloud? For example: blah blah blah blah blah WAR blah blah TERROR blah blah TAX I've seen it before, I just can seem to find the link. The website also archives terms used in past speeches. Thanks! It's supposed to reflect the current state of the nation.
(It might be classified as a histogram)