Ecuador 1

Listen to Ecuador 1, an 18-year-old man from Quito, Ecuador. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 18

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 14/06/1995

PLACE OF BIRTH: Quito, Ecuador

GENDER: male

ETHNICITY: Hispanic

OCCUPATION: student

EDUCATION: Subject was attending college at the time of this recording.

AREA(S) OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS:

The subject was living in Kansas, in the United States, when this recording was made.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH: N/A

The text used in our recordings of scripted speech can be found by clicking here.

RECORDED BY: Helen Gent (under supervision of Paul Meier)

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 07/11/2013

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

Uh, well, I’m from Ecuador. I was born and raised there. Like, basically back home I used to spend a lot of time with my friends. I used to go out a lot, even though I’m not the kind of person which likes to party. I’m more like the kind of nerd, you could say, or the kind of person who likes to study and keep, like, good grades every time. Um, I used also to swim a lot, ’cause I love swimming; I used to be part of the swimming club back home, and I hope to be part of the swimming club here as well, and just to keep practice and be, like, better every day, I think. That’s basically about me.

[Subject speaks the following in Spanish]:
Mi nombre es … y me da gusto ser parte de este proyecto.

[English translation provided by the subject: My name is … and I am glad to take part in this project.]

TRANSCRIBED BY: Helen Gent (under supervision of Paul Meier)

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION: 19/11/2013

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): N/A

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

This subject speaks excellent English, and his accent is fairly slight. Rather than rolling or tapping /r/’s that would normally be rhotic in the General American dialect, he appears to have overcompensated slightly, so that some of his /r/’s are more strongly rhotic than they would be for a GenAm speaker. There were very few shadow vowels after consonants, though a slight one can be heard between “was” and “strong” in “Comma Gets a Cure.”

Some highlights distinguishing his accent:

• NURSE words use [ɛ˞], as in “her.”
• Both GOOSE words and FOOT words employ the same, less rounded [u̜] vowel, sounding rather like a middle ground between the two vowels that are distinct in other dialects.
• CLOTH words use [oʊ], as in “cloth” and “Comma.”
• Initial /th/s become [d̪] for voiced /th/s and [t̪] for voiceless ones. Medial and final /th/s are unchanged from general American speech.
• KIT word use [i], as in “swim.”

COMMENTARY BY: Helen Gent (under supervision of Paul Meier)

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 20/11/2013

The archive provides:

• Recordings of accent/dialect speakers from the region you select.
• Text of the speakers’ biographical details.
• Scholarly commentary and analysis in some cases.
• In most cases, an orthographic transcription of the speakers’ unscripted speech.  In a small number of cases, you will also find a narrow phonetic transcription of the sample (see Phonetic Transcriptions for a complete list).  The recordings average four minutes in length and feature both the reading of one of two standard passages, and some unscripted speech. The two passages are Comma Gets a Cure (currently our standard passage) and The Rainbow Passage (used in our earliest recordings).

For instructional materials or coaching in the accents and dialects represented here, please go to Other Dialect Services.