FreeMediaKid!

Finnish audio clips

Hi. While I (and I reckon many others) appreciate adding the sound clips to Finnish entries, they do have a noticeable accent (at least to a native speaker like me). For instance, the initial t- in tukka and the t in lintu sound aspirated (/tʰ/) to me, while Finnish doesn't have aspirated sounds (with the possible exception of h itself). I can understand why, since aspiration is something that speakers don't usually notice and is really difficult to "unlearn".

Then again, I probably don't really have a mandate to judge on these recordings, since I don't really have a way (or any intention) to upload my own. — surjection ⟨?⟩ 20:07, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Hello, @Surjection. Sorry I did not see the message immediately. Anyway, when I thought about recording pronunciations for Finnish words, I realized that I needed to know the language's sounds and their subtleties, including the lack of aspirated consonants. I learned that the hard way years ago when I was studying German and later several other languages (Finnish is not one of them, though I do recognize the importance of its phonology), using resources such as Duolingo—the free or costless online version of Rosetta Stone. Foreign pronunciation really is easier said than done, and the only thing I was afraid of was pandering to the stereotypes of an anglophone trying to speak a foreign language.

In this case, my struggle seems to be how I perceive aspiration. I understand that it is the faint, breathy sound between a consonant and a vowel. It is not that I cannot produce unaspirated sounds as my attempted pronunciations may suggest; it is my thinking of whether my consonants sound too breathy or voiced. Intriguingly, it does not appear to be a problem when I am studying Mandarin Chinese. I am guessing that it is because Chinese lacks voiced consonants, instead using aspirated and unaspirated sounds. In my case of Finnish, I seem to think that my t's are too d-like (or voiced), and it is difficult for me to distinguish the sounds without the aspiration, other than my understanding that voiced consonants are like voiceless consonants except that they are produced while the vocal cords are vibrating. Oh well, if it pleases you, I could rerecord the pronunciations and carefully remove the aspiration. Otherwise, I may just undo the edits or allow someone else with a Finnish tongue to record their own pronunciations. Sorry for my mistakes. FreeMediaKid! 01:36, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure on what the approach on non-native speakers recording audio pronunciations is, but to my knowledge it isn't per se forbidden - even with the "accent", the words in the audio clips are still easily understandable, so I don't think it is that big of an issue, since it's at least better than having no audio clip whatsoever on the entry. I don't want to bother you by requesting you re-record the sound clips either for that reason - perhaps they could be improved, but there is relatively little to improve, compared to how one would pronounce the words if they didn't know much at all about Finnish. I should rather be thanking you for recording those clips in the first place, seeing as nobody else is really doing that right now for Finnish. — surjection ⟨?⟩ 10:35, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

I found especially the pronunciation of kuu quite funny. IMHO it's probably better to leave the recording of audio samples to native speakers. --Hekaheka (talk) 14:37, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

@Hekaheka It was a long time ago that I did that thing, and the moment I realized that I received a complaint for the pronunciation, I stopped, so why is this dead conversation being revived? Not that it even matters, as I could be doing much worse, let alone bad. Anyway, the least I could do is to rerecord the audio to make it more natural not just to them and you, but to me also. Having experience in multilingualism, without trying to boast, I know I am intelligent enough to understand that each language has its own sounds, suprasegments, and prosidy. Of course, the other option is removing the clip. I would be unenthusiastic about the latter option, as I consider it to be a lose–lose: a loss for me for failing to contribute something meaningful, and a loss for them for not having quality information, but I can still do that. FreeMediaKid! 01:58, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

"why is this dead conversation being revived" --because the recordings were still there. They were deleted by an anon and I became aware of them by browsing the "patrol anons" -page. Then I wanted to check how many there are and found out that you had made some. Then I found this conversation and added my comment. Let's try to make something positive out of this. I don't know how to make recordings that may be linked to Wiktionary. Could you tell me how? I spend a lot of time with the Finnish entries in the English Wiktionary and I might as well make Finnish recordings for any word that is requested. Win-win? --Hekaheka (talk) 07:32, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

@Hekaheka Fair enough. Before I tell you how, I must tell you that most of my editing takes place on my Samsung Galaxy, and only sometimes on a desktop (although I consistently use Desktop view for editing). If you are using a desktop, you need only a microphone to plug in and an audio editing and recording software. In my case, I use Audacity, a free software. Should you lack a microphone, assuming that you have a mobile telephone that can plug into your computer, I think there are ways to use the telephone as a microphone input directly for the PC. I do not feel like researching what they would be, but the Google link is there to stay for your own convenience. If you are editing using a phone instead, there are quite a few ways to use your phone's microphone. I do not know how to record files using my Android's phone directly, so I had to download a third-party application for that, which is annoying, but at least is better than nothing. Maybe you know how to without having to download such an application, regardless of your phone's operating system.
Whichever method you use, you should be able to record your voice, as well as trim unnecessary parts of your clips. Your audio software should also support a free file extension such as OGG (as required by Wikimedia Commons). At this point, you should sufficiently be able to upload those clips. If you happen to see audio clips on Wiktionary or Commons that you find to be mediocre (such as mine, I admit, to put it bluntly), simply overwrite or update the files and, if necessary, edit their descriptions to make them say that the clips were by a native speaker. I hope that answers. FreeMediaKid! 02:31, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Thanks! Hekaheka (talk) 05:10, 10 September 2020 (UTC)