Review of PRONUNCIATOR.com
Web, MP3, App, Pronunciation scored, Expensive, ★★★★★
Pronunciator has words spoken by native speakers in 47 languages. Beginners in each language can choose easy subjects (like numbers or animals), and the site slowly speaks numbers 1-30 or names the animals, and pauses for you to repeat, while showing pictures so you know what each foreign word means. Explanations to learn any of the languages are available in the other 46 languages. Pronunciator is $50 per month for US customers, other prices in other countries. Some libraries subscribe, so ask your library.
The site can listen and score your pronunciation. Your rising scores encourage you to continue. It also shows graphs of sounds from the native speaker and you. Height shows volume. Pitch is shown by distance between vertical lines, but all pitches except very low ones run together. A spectrogram (used by birdwatchers) would show pitch more clearly to see how you differ from standard pronunciation: tone, consonants, vowels, etc. Byki has a variety of graphs on these issues.
Pronunciator is a good site for beginners and intermediate learners, because of the pronunciation feedback. Beginners do best to start with topics where pictures clearly show the meaning, and spellings can be hidden: numbers, animals, colors, eating utensils, furniture, home appliances, bathroom, kitchen, insects, light sources, musical instruments, nationalities, shapes, tools, vehicles. Spelling normally distracts you from good pronunciation, since your mind tries to pronounce letters as they would be pronounced in your language. However the spelling is available to clarify whether the speaker is saying b, p, v, etc. Even for Chinese there is a Pinyin option, giving Roman letters which help with consonants, and accents which show tones (explained in free FSI and BBC courses and graphed in Byki and Tellmemore courses).
The main competitor which has good pronunciation scoring is Byki ($25 for unlimited time in 76 languages). Byki costs less, has more detailed feedback on pronunciation, and grammatical explanations of each word, but it starts with complicated artificial conversations. Pronunciator lets you start with very simple words like numbers, which are easier for learning good pronunciation. Try either or both. After you learn good pronunciation with Byki or Pronunciator, there are other free or inexpensive programs with 4 or 5 stars to expand your vocabulary and grammar.
Pronunciator conjugates 100 verbs, with 8 forms (I, you, he, she, it, we, you-plural, they) in present, past and future tenses (Byki does not conjugate). They have many brief conversations, which are for intermediate learners, since they go fast.
Students can choose any topic, depending on interests and need.
While subscribing you can download an hour per month of MP3 files to listen on the go, which you then own even if you drop the subscription. These MP3 files have a large amount of English explanation, since the lessons are not designed with sound effects to show what the words mean. Thus the MP3 files make your brain switch constantly between English and the target language, which unfortunately makes it harder to learn and develop a good accent.
The site was founded by Robert Savage, a former employee of McKinsey, who hired translators and native speakers to provide the range of languages.The site lists 50 languages, including 2 forms of Serbo-Croatian and 3 of Chinese, for a net of 47 languages.
Web, MP3, App, Pronunciation scored, Expensive, ★★★★★
Pronunciator has words spoken by native speakers in 47 languages. Beginners in each language can choose easy subjects (like numbers or animals), and the site slowly speaks numbers 1-30 or names the animals, and pauses for you to repeat, while showing pictures so you know what each foreign word means. Explanations to learn any of the languages are available in the other 46 languages. Pronunciator is $50 per month for US customers, other prices in other countries. Some libraries subscribe, so ask your library.
The site can listen and score your pronunciation. Your rising scores encourage you to continue. It also shows graphs of sounds from the native speaker and you. Height shows volume. Pitch is shown by distance between vertical lines, but all pitches except very low ones run together. A spectrogram (used by birdwatchers) would show pitch more clearly to see how you differ from standard pronunciation: tone, consonants, vowels, etc. Byki has a variety of graphs on these issues.
Pronunciator is a good site for beginners and intermediate learners, because of the pronunciation feedback. Beginners do best to start with topics where pictures clearly show the meaning, and spellings can be hidden: numbers, animals, colors, eating utensils, furniture, home appliances, bathroom, kitchen, insects, light sources, musical instruments, nationalities, shapes, tools, vehicles. Spelling normally distracts you from good pronunciation, since your mind tries to pronounce letters as they would be pronounced in your language. However the spelling is available to clarify whether the speaker is saying b, p, v, etc. Even for Chinese there is a Pinyin option, giving Roman letters which help with consonants, and accents which show tones (explained in free FSI and BBC courses and graphed in Byki and Tellmemore courses).
The main competitor which has good pronunciation scoring is Byki ($25 for unlimited time in 76 languages). Byki costs less, has more detailed feedback on pronunciation, and grammatical explanations of each word, but it starts with complicated artificial conversations. Pronunciator lets you start with very simple words like numbers, which are easier for learning good pronunciation. Try either or both. After you learn good pronunciation with Byki or Pronunciator, there are other free or inexpensive programs with 4 or 5 stars to expand your vocabulary and grammar.
Pronunciator conjugates 100 verbs, with 8 forms (I, you, he, she, it, we, you-plural, they) in present, past and future tenses (Byki does not conjugate). They have many brief conversations, which are for intermediate learners, since they go fast.
Students can choose any topic, depending on interests and need.
While subscribing you can download an hour per month of MP3 files to listen on the go, which you then own even if you drop the subscription. These MP3 files have a large amount of English explanation, since the lessons are not designed with sound effects to show what the words mean. Thus the MP3 files make your brain switch constantly between English and the target language, which unfortunately makes it harder to learn and develop a good accent.
The site was founded by Robert Savage, a former employee of McKinsey, who hired translators and native speakers to provide the range of languages.The site lists 50 languages, including 2 forms of Serbo-Croatian and 3 of Chinese, for a net of 47 languages.
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