Hong Kong 2

Listen to Hong Kong 2, a 16-year-old girl from Hong Kong. Click or tap the triangle-shaped play button to hear the subject.

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

AGE: 16

DATE OF BIRTH (DD/MM/YYYY): 07/02/2005

PLACE OF BIRTH: Hong Kong

GENDER: female

ETHNICITY: Chinese

OCCUPATION: student

EDUCATION: upper secondary

AREAS OF RESIDENCE OUTSIDE REPRESENTATIVE REGION FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS: none

OTHER INFLUENCES ON SPEECH:

The speaker studies in a school with English as the main teaching language. The speaker learned English primarily through YouTube videos and English songs.

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

RECORDED BY: subject

DATE OF RECORDING (DD/MM/YYYY): 27/06/2021

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF SCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

ORTHOGRAPHIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH:

So I was born and raised in Hong Kong, like my parents, so I’ve been living in Hong Kong for my whole life, and I moved around the city for a bit, but I haven’t really lived outside of Hong Kong, even though I do travel a lot. And, um, I quite like eating a lot of local food: egg tarts, for example; that’s a classic that I don’t really eat nowadays because they’re very sweet and I don’t want to get diabetes. Um, apart from that, I really like eating dim sum, and that’s a pretty big part of our culture in Hong Kong actually. That’s eating dim sum and yumcha, which is essentially gathering in a teahouse and having dim sum, drinking tea together. It [yumcha] translates literally into “drinking tea,” so, yeah, um, I really like to do these things. Uh, for, really, during Sundays actually. And I like to read in my free time. I also like to write fiction. And, yes. I guess, uh, that’s it?

[The subject speaks Chinese]: 我係香港人 我屋企養貓 我最鐘意嘅顏色係黑色同黃色

[Romanized transcription: Ngóh haih hēung góng yàhn. Ngó hūk kéi yéuhng māau. Ngóh jeui jūng yi ge ngàahn sīk haih hāk sīk tùhng wòhng sīk.

English translation: I am from Hong Kong. I have a cat at home. My favorite colors are black and yellow.]

TRANSCRIBED BY: subject

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION (DD/MM/YYYY): 27/06/2021

PHONETIC TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH: N/A

TRANSCRIBED BY: N/A

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

SCHOLARLY COMMENTARY: 

The subject has a very mild accent and has clearly worked to perfect her General American sound. Indeed, except for her over-emphasis of the “T” consonant and her mispronunciation of “lunatic,” it would be difficult for someone to guess, at least from her reading of Comma Gets a Cure, that she was born and raised in Hong Kong. She also exhibits an extremely mild accent in her unscripted speech, though a more staccato rhythm, typical of Chinese speech, is noticeable.

COMMENTARY BY: Cameron Meier

DATE OF COMMENTARY (DD/MM/YYYY): 28/06/2021

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.