My pronunciation and intonation: I'm trying to imitate reporter from BBC...

[Sunhoek]

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Hello Everyone I will record my voice by trying to imitate reporter from BBC.
The report that I am going to record is from http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/language/wordsinthenews/2009/11/091127_witn_dubai.shtml and I would like to know if my pronunciation of each word and intonation when reading the article is comprehensive enough for everybody. Thank you.

For years Dubai appeared to have turned itself into a successful model - super-modern, yet Arab, spurring many of its neighbours to imitate the flamboyant Western architecture and its approach to diversifying an oil-based economy. It had also become a magnet for other Arabs dreaming of the material comfort of a Western lifestyle.

But as the debt crisis began to bite the dream turned sour. Reports speak of many forced to literally dump their cars by the airport and flee the country for fear of the consequences of defaulting on their personal loans.

The question now is whether Dubai's much richer Arab neighbours will come to its rescue.

[Blue113]

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hi sun,

you can now officially collect your british passport from the embassy..lol

you have mis-pronounced a few words but on the whole it was a very good attempt. you can be clearly understood. From your accent, you sound like you are korean or japanese.

[JamesNL]

Hello Sunhoek,

I have listened a few times to your recording and I agree with Blue113 that it's very good. You would be understood without any trouble if you went to the UK.

The main word that you might want to think about is 'debt' ; the 'b' in this word is silent so it should be pronounced 'det' with a short 'e' as in 'get'.

I think you pronounced 'lifestyle' with 3 syllables but it has only 2 syllables.. it's just the words 'life' and 'style'' joined together.

Other than that, I think you put the stress on the wrong syllables in these three words .... successful, diversifying, material . ( I have put the stressed syllables in bold) .

Well done :-) HH

[Carolinevl]

Hello

I think you have some problems when the words contain the letter "r". In British English the letter "r" is not always pronounced, for example in final position " war" and after vowels " world".