On another thread there has been a discussion about whether or not authors who speak English as a second language should record audiofics. Understandably there are worries about accents and pronunciations. It occured to me that some native-English speakers might have the same kind of worries. (I mispronounced the word coiffure in a speech once, having only seen it in print before.)

So I started to wonder if there might not be a need for beta listeners for audio fics, a person willing to listen for pronunciation issues and timing in the same way BRs listen for grammar and style issues. What do you think?

Elisabeth

Heh. I'd listen. But I don't know that I'd really be of much help, being the type to mispronounce words -- mind you, when others do, I can spot them. Just not when I do it, myself.

There's no reason why someone making an audiofic can't ask someone to listen to it before they submit it to the Archive.

AFAIK, Paul would play over any submissions anyway before he passed them along for uploading and work out any glitches with whoever had made the audiofic.

LabRat

I'm glad to know that Paul is doing that. As I said earlier, it just sounded like some talented people might not read because they were afraid of making blatant mistakes.

Personally, I think the audiofics are a very worthwhile endeavor. When James lost his vision for a short time in 2000 we looked at doing something similar on our website, but the software was vastly different back in those days and it just wasn't feasible.

Thanks again to all who make it possible.


Elisabeth

Yes, exactly.

I'm happy to listen, point out potential problems and errors, help teach people how to edit their own work, and even do a reasonable amount of editing myself.

If anyone wanted to beta listen first, I'd be more than happy to have the help. Especially if it would mean actually getting some new submissions (which we haven't had in months).

As for accents, we decided at the beginning that they simply reflect the diversity of the fandom. Besides, there is a wide variety of accents just among native English speakers. As long as your pronunciation can be understood, we'll take it! And if you find yourself having difficulty with certain words, there are resources available to help out.

Remember, too, that the Archive has a section for stories in other languages. It might be a little trickier on my end, since I'm not really qualified to BL/GE in other languages, but I'm sure we could work something out.

We did start out initially with a system of GEs in place for SIOL stories, but it proved unworkable. They come in so few and far between that by the time we had a story that needed looking over the GE fluent in that particular language would be long gone and no longer available.

So now we have to rely on an honour system and take it on trust that those stories are within the correct rating and error free.

Any GEing would be a blessing, though.

LabRat