Strengths and Weaknesses
Full Text:
Your Strength as a Rationalist
Universal Fire
Fake Explanations
Tsuyoku Naritai! (I Want To Become Stronger)
Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
Subscribe: RSS
Essays 4
Bookmark the permalink.
RSS – All Posts
iTunes
Stitcher Smart Radio
Google Play
Email – Episodes only
[The quality of this podcast is such that I feel bad mentioning it when relatively minor things happen to mar my experience. (“You get it for free,” I tell myself, “and usually it’s excellent! There’s no need to bother anyone just because it could have been better.”) However, as “Tsuyoku Naritai!” was one of the topics of this batch of essays, I feel emboldened to tell the world of my insignificant annoyance.]
Your pronunciation of languages other than English is pretty terrible. So much so that I initially had trouble understanding who you were talking about in the “Universal Fire” essay. I had to find Eliezer’s original text to confirm that, yes, it was indeed “Lavoisier” that you were attempting to say.
Things got no better when the phrase “Tsuyoku Naritai” was introduced. It does not require an otaku to notice that Japanese does not sound like that.
I understand that pronouncing languages that are not your own is difficult and that it is sometimes hard to notice the differences between the sounds you are making and those you are attempting to make (or if you do notice, do anything about it). Nevertheless, I believe that you can do better.
Alrighty, updated the podcast with a slightly-less-wrong pronunciation of Lavoisier.
Just found this searching for how to pronounce tsuyoku naritai.
Sorry for replying to a year old comment, but just wanted to say that this pronounciation of ‘Lavoisier’ is good. The only issue is how the ‘n’ is stressed in the first syllable of ‘Antoine’. It should sound closer to ‘uh’ than to ‘uhnnnn’.
This is pretty much perfect (although very France-centric accent): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_zlI5U4RcI
Thanks! :) I went back and updated the episode with a less-wrong pronunciation when my original folly was pointed out to me, so what you’re hearing is a corrected version.
Ack, I am sorry! :( Names are especially hard, I try to look them up beforehand. I used http://www.pronouncenames.com/pronounce/lavoisier for my Lavoisier pronounciation, but doing some additional googling right now, it looks like that was not the best source. /sigh I’ll try to fix this soon.
I got quick pronunciation advice on “Tsuyoku Naritai” from a native Japanese speaker, so I think it’s phonetically right. Saying it naturally, and forcing myself not to stress any individual syllable, is extremely difficult. If Japanese comes up again I will make sure to get him in the room, record it, and practice harder. :)
Pingback: 87 – Degrees of Freedom | The Bayesian Conspiracy