Cuba 5

Listen to Cuba 5, a 40-year-old woman from Colón, Cuba. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 40

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 06/05/1975

PLACE OF BIRTH: Colón, Cuba

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Caucasian/Cuban

OCCUPATION: translator

EDUCATION: associate’s degree

AREAS OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS:

The subject lived in Portugal for 14 years before moving to the United States, where she lived for four years prior to this recording.

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The speaker attended a boarding school at a music conservatory for eight years. She said the accent used by the teachers and students at the conservatory was more formal than the one used by her family and friends back home. She said her friends at home described her new accent as “stuck up.”

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

RECORDED BY: Lynnae Lehfeldt

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 19/07/2015

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

Ah, I was born in Cuba and lived there until my 22 years old. Ah, then I moved to Portugal. Uhm, had there my family. So, I have two daughters. They are teenagers. One of them is almost 16, and the other one is 17. They go to Okemos High School. [Subject speaks Spanish.]

TRANSCRIBED BY: Lynnae Lehfeldt

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 24/07/2015

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY:

Subject commented that during her time in Portugal she learned to pronounce “s” and “r.” In her Cuban dialect, she had tended to not fully pronounce those sounds. She believed learning these additional sounds helped her acquire the English language more quickly.

COMMENTARY BY: Lynnae Lehfeldt

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 24/07/2015

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.