Let there be English speakingness

[flonnebonne]

Acapela Text to Speech Synthesis Demo
Type in some text, hit a button, and voila! the program will say whatever you wrote with almost natural (if emotionless) pronunciation and intonation. What's cool about this particular program is that it's got quite a few different language settings, so you can listen to German and Swedish and Arabic and so on! And while it doesn't have, say Australian English, it does have Canadian French for some reason! You can also find out what a keyboard mash sounds like! alifae;flijsefl;jaes;lfjsfe;!!!!!1
I probably wouldn't recommend this site to ESL students because it still has too many glitches, but you can see how cool this technology might be in a few years!

Howjsay.com
British English pronunciation dictionary. No definitions, just pronunciation. You can search for both words and sentences (it'll find the closest match).
Mwwaah, it used to be that you just had to hover your mouse over a word and a you'd hear a soundbyte, but now you have to click on a word and load up a new page. Puuuuuuh. But it's still a pretty cool site. For some reason "kamehameha" is an entry in there.

Comments

[flonnebonne]

By shinkansen it's about 6500 yen one way and takes two hours. If you take a normal train, it'll be 3.5 to 5.5 hours and 3500 yen. The local trains don't come very frequently, so you really have to plan your route to avoid long transfer times.
http://grace.hyperdia.com/cgi-english/hyperWeb.cgi#ROUTE2

(There are also buses, but you would have to go to Tokyo to catch them)


Hmmm....I was thinking, there's not actually that much to see in Fukushima aside from nature, and you're not too into that. The only thing I have that you don't have is that I teach at a junior high school I teach. Would you want to come to school with me for a few hours and watch a few classes on Monday? I'd have to ask my school for permission, but I think they'd probably say yes. Feel free to say no if it doesn't suit your fancy. :)

I'm free July 13 and 20th. I don't have a preference either way, but if you want to visit my school, then it would have to be the 13th (obviously).

[juin.livejournal.com]

Would I get off at Fukushima station? That's Fukushima City, right? Which I assume is not where you actually live.

That sounds interesting, going to school with you, I mean... but it turns out I have a farewell party on the 12th, and that might go til quite late. :/ So perhaps the 20th is best for me. I don't really expect to do much sightseeing or anything, I guess I just want to go so that I can say I've been?

[flonnebonne]

I live pretty far from Fukushima city, actually. My town is called Kagamiishi. The most direct route there is to take the shinkansen to Shinshirakawa station (south of Kagamiishi) and then take the local train from there. However, not all shinkansens stop at Shinshirakawa because it's a minor stop. It is often more convenient (but a bit more expensive) to get off the shink at Koriyama, which is to the north of Kagamiishi, and then take the local train from there.

Re: sightseeing, just so you know what's available around here, the main thing we have in Fukushima is Aizu, where the shinsengumi had a castle and like, did stuff. It's a bit far from where I live though...about an hour away by train. I wouldn't mind going there...I could meet up with my old homestay family for a bit, since I haven't seen them for a while.

If we don't go sightseeing, we can maybe go to Round 1. Have you been to one of those before? It's got all-you-can-play darts, pool, karaoke, tons of arcade machines, skating (I can't skate), tennis, batting, archery, mini-golf, roulette...the list goes on. I'm not really into sports but I find the place really fun.

Or we could just hang around my town or meet up with my boyfriend and friends. Your choice!

[juin.livejournal.com]

Hmm... according to Hyperdia, there are a few trains I could catch on the morning of the 20th that can take me to Shinshirakawa. Were you exaggerating before when you said that your local train comes only once an hour?

We could go to Aizu if we have time (and energy :/). Round 1 sounds cool. *__* Is that far from you? Would your boyfriend and friends be interested in doing that with us?

[flonnebonne]

Well, during peak times the trains might come within half an hour of each other, but generally it's every hour. This is the main train line in the prefecture, by the way.

Round 1 is about 10 minutes walk away from Koriyama station, which is 15 minutes away from my town by train. So it's not too far. If my boyfriend or friends decide to come along they can maybe pick us up from the station. They'll probably be interested in going to Round 1, but I know a lot of them will be really busy around that time (I'm not the only one leaving Japan in August).

Anyway, we can pretty much play it by ear from here. I'll get in touch with my homestay family in Aizu in July, and if they're free we'll meet up with them; if not, no biggy. :)

[juin.livejournal.com]

Sounds good. :D I'll let you know when I've got my ticket and everything's confirmed.

[flonnebonne]

You don't need to buy a ticket ahead of time. Just buy it on the day of. The shinkansens shouldn't be full, even on a long weekend. :)