Your vowel space

Blue: where each of your vowel sets sits, and how much it varies. Grey: where the native reference pool puts the same sets. Left is front, right is back, top is high.

Where your vowels land

• FLEECE (see) — right where most speakers put it
• KIT (sit) — right where most speakers put it
• DRESS (bed) — right where most speakers put it
• TRAP (cat) — right where most speakers put it
• STRUT (cup) — right where most speakers put it
• LOT (odd) — right where most speakers put it
• THOUGHT (dawn) — sits closer to LOT (odd) than usual — about 116% of the way there
• FOOT (good) — sits closer to GOOSE (food) than usual — about 68% of the way there
• GOOSE (food) — right where most speakers put it

What we noticed

• Whether you keep cot and caught apart we cannot tell yet: the passage gave too few clean examples. A short word list would settle it.
• Put and putt are clearly different vowels for you.
• Your cat vowel stays put before n and m — no American-style raising.
• Your food vowel is fronted — typical of younger Americans and Southern England.
• Your day vowel barely glides — as in Northern England, Scotland, much of Ireland and the Upper Midwest.
• Your go vowel barely glides — as in Northern England, Scotland and much of Ireland.
• Your aunt rhymes with ant.
• When talking freely, your vowels move toward the centre and contrasts shrink — this happens to everyone.
• Your FOOT–GOOSE vowels sit in almost the same place but differ clearly in length — a distinction carried by duration rather than by position, which the chart cannot show.

Word list

Short words read as a list, five or so of each kind. These pin down the pairs the story could not. Verdicts here come from a label-shuffle test on the word list alone.

• cot / caught: one vowel (separation 0.39, p 0.819, 6 + 5 words)
• put / putt: two different vowels (separation 1.14, p 0.007, 3 + 5 words)
• pin / pen: two different vowels (separation 9.62, p 0.01, 4 + 4 words)
• soot / suit: too few clear tokens (3 + 0 words)
• beer / bear: too few clear tokens (0 + 3 words)
• fur / fair: two different vowels (separation 1.61, p 0.026, 4 + 3 words)
• Mary / marry: too few clear tokens (1 + 1 words)
• Mary / merry: too few clear tokens (1 + 1 words)
• marry / merry: too few clear tokens (1 + 1 words)
• poor / pour: too few clear tokens (2 + 1 words)
• horse / hoarse: too few clear tokens (0 + 1 words)
• bath / trap: close — not clearly apart (separation 1.4, p 0.277, 4 + 4 words)
• ban / bat: too few clear tokens (0 + 4 words)
• ride / write: too few clear tokens (0 + 0 words)
• loud / lout: too few clear tokens (0 + 0 words)

Reference groups

No other speakers from your background yet — your chart is compared with all native speakers. Distance from your vowel system to each group's, in the same normalised units as the chart; smaller is closer. Groups with fewer than three speakers are one or two individuals, not an accent — read those rows as hints.

1. General American (8 speakers) — 0.23
2. Irish English (Limerick) (1 speakers — provisional) — 0.38
3. Other native English (British, Australian…) (3 speakers) — 0.67
4. Spanish L1 learners (2 speakers — provisional) — 0.69
5. Irish English (Dublin) (1 speakers — provisional) — 0.7
6. Other-L1 learners (1 speakers — provisional) — 0.76

Tu espacio vocálico

Azul: dónde se sitúa cada uno de tus grupos de vocales y cuánto varía. Gris: dónde los sitúa el grupo de referencia nativo. Izquierda es anterior, derecha posterior, arriba cerrada.

Dónde caen tus vocales

• FLEECE (see) — justo donde la pone la mayoría de los hablantes
• KIT (sit) — justo donde la pone la mayoría de los hablantes
• DRESS (bed) — justo donde la pone la mayoría de los hablantes
• TRAP (cat) — justo donde la pone la mayoría de los hablantes
• STRUT (cup) — justo donde la pone la mayoría de los hablantes
• LOT (odd) — justo donde la pone la mayoría de los hablantes
• THOUGHT (dawn) — está más cerca de LOT (odd) de lo habitual — a un 116% del camino
• FOOT (good) — está más cerca de GOOSE (food) de lo habitual — a un 68% del camino
• GOOSE (food) — justo donde la pone la mayoría de los hablantes

Lo que hemos notado

• Todavía no podemos decir si distingues cot y caught: el texto dio pocos ejemplos limpios. Una lista corta de palabras lo resolvería.
• Put y putt son vocales claramente distintas para ti.
• Tu vocal de cat no cambia ante n y m.
• Tu vocal de food es anterior — típico de los americanos jóvenes y del sur de Inglaterra.
• Tu vocal de day apenas se desliza — como en el norte de Inglaterra, Escocia, gran parte de Irlanda y el Medio Oeste alto de EE. UU.
• Tu vocal de go apenas se desliza — como en el norte de Inglaterra, Escocia y gran parte de Irlanda.
• Tu aunt rima con ant.
• Al hablar libremente, tus vocales se acercan al centro y los contrastes se reducen — le pasa a todo el mundo.
• Tus vocales de FOOT–GOOSE caen casi en el mismo sitio pero se distinguen claramente por duración — una distinción que lleva la longitud y no la posición, y que el gráfico no puede mostrar.

Lista de palabras

Palabras cortas leídas como lista, unas cinco de cada tipo. Fijan los pares que el cuento no podía. Los veredictos salen de una prueba de barajado de etiquetas sobre la lista sola.

• cot / caught: una sola vocal (separation 0.39, p 0.819, 6 + 5 words)
• put / putt: dos vocales distintas (separation 1.14, p 0.007, 3 + 5 words)
• pin / pen: dos vocales distintas (separation 9.62, p 0.01, 4 + 4 words)
• soot / suit: pocos tokens claros (3 + 0 words)
• beer / bear: pocos tokens claros (0 + 3 words)
• fur / fair: dos vocales distintas (separation 1.61, p 0.026, 4 + 3 words)
• Mary / marry: pocos tokens claros (1 + 1 words)
• Mary / merry: pocos tokens claros (1 + 1 words)
• marry / merry: pocos tokens claros (1 + 1 words)
• poor / pour: pocos tokens claros (2 + 1 words)
• horse / hoarse: pocos tokens claros (0 + 1 words)
• bath / trap: cercanas — no claramente separadas (separation 1.4, p 0.277, 4 + 4 words)
• ban / bat: pocos tokens claros (0 + 4 words)
• ride / write: pocos tokens claros (0 + 0 words)
• loud / lout: pocos tokens claros (0 + 0 words)

Grupos de referencia

Todavía no hay otros hablantes de tu origen — tu gráfico se compara con todos los hablantes nativos. Distancia entre tu sistema vocálico y el de cada grupo, en las mismas unidades normalizadas que el gráfico; menor es más cercano. Los grupos con menos de tres hablantes son una o dos personas, no un acento: lee esas filas como indicios.

1. General American (8 hablantes) — 0.23
2. Irish English (Limerick) (1 hablantes — provisional) — 0.38
3. Other native English (British, Australian…) (3 hablantes) — 0.67
4. Spanish L1 learners (2 hablantes — provisional) — 0.69
5. Irish English (Dublin) (1 hablantes — provisional) — 0.7
6. Other-L1 learners (1 hablantes — provisional) — 0.76

Your vowel space

Blue: the centre and spread of each of your vowel sets, in your own normalised space. Grey: where the native reference pool puts the same sets. Left is front, right is back, top is high. Show individual tokens

Each dot is one measured vowel token, coloured by set; hover for the word, its number (order of appearance in the passage), the part it came from and the raw formants. Hollow dots were excluded from the centroid as outliers. Token numbers match the per-set token list below.

What stands out

• FLEECE (the vowel of see) sits where native speakers put it.
• KIT (the vowel of sit) sits where native speakers put it.
• DRESS (the vowel of bed) sits where native speakers put it.
• TRAP (the vowel of cat) sits where native speakers put it.
• STRUT (the vowel of cup) sits where native speakers put it.
• LOT (the vowel of odd) sits where native speakers put it.
• THOUGHT (the vowel of dawn) is displaced 0.77 standard deviations from the native position, 116% of the way toward LOT (the vowel of odd). Confidence interval 0.25–1.19 on 7 tokens.
• FOOT (the vowel of good) is displaced 1.08 standard deviations from the native position, 68% of the way toward GOOSE (the vowel of food). Confidence interval 0.63–1.6 on 14 tokens.
• GOOSE (the vowel of food) sits where native speakers put it.
• The KIT–FLEECE contrast is in the native range (4.34; native median 2.59).
• The TRAP–STRUT contrast is larger than in 90% of native speakers (5.67 vs 2.66).
• FOOT–GOOSE separation 1.25 (no native reference yet for this pair; a native speaker in this set measured 2.0–3.3).
• The DRESS–TRAP contrast is larger than in 90% of native speakers (2.57 vs 1.1).
• cot and caught: only 5 / 7 clean tokens — separation 1.04 is not distinguishable from shuffled labels (p = 0.298, chance median 0.77); undetermined.
• put and putt: separation 2.82, p = 0.0 against shuffled labels — clearly distinct.
• The cat vowel before nasals (man, hand) is not raised — no pre-nasal tensing.
• pin and pen: distinct (F1 gap 80 Hz).
• GOOSE (food, two) F2 1385 Hz: fronted — the young-American / Southern-English pattern.
• FACE (day, name) moves 11 Hz in F2 from a fifth to four-fifths of the way through the vowel — little movement at the midpoints (how much glide counts as a diphthong is being calibrated against the reference pools).
• GOAT (go, boat) moves 58 Hz in F2 from a fifth to four-fifths of the way through the vowel — little movement at the midpoints (how much glide counts as a diphthong is being calibrated against the reference pools).
• aunt rhymes with ant.
• In free speech your contrasts KIT–FLEECE, TRAP–STRUT were smaller than when reading — normal: everyone's vowels move toward the centre in casual speech.

Each vowel set

Distance is in pooled within-set standard deviations; under 0.75 is "on target". "Shifted toward X 60%" means your centre has moved 60% of the way from the native position of this set to the native position of X.

Contrasts

Separation is the distance between two sets' clusters in your own space. Below the native 10th percentile means the pair overlaps more than 90% of native speakers' does.

Reading vs talking freely

Contrast separations while talking: KIT–FLEECE 1.59, FOOT–GOOSE 3.18, TRAP–STRUT 2.9, DRESS–TRAP 2.03, FOOT–STRUT 2.45, KIT–DRESS 1.94

The recording

Passage 37 s · 549 vowel tokens, 301 in content words, 248 used after quality control (15% dropped where the two aligners disagreed, 3% where the formant tracker was unsure). Reading check: mean coverage 0.982 — all parts read. Channel: Firefox, signal-to-noise 19.5 dB, usable bandwidth 11850 Hz — vowel-grade yes, fricative-grade yes.

Caveats

• This is exploratory research output, not an assessment. The measurements are automatic and some will be wrong.
• Vowel positions are medians over 5–25 tokens per set; sets with fewer than 8 tokens carry wide intervals and are marked.
• The native reference is a pool of American read speech (LibriSpeech). 'Native position' means the average of that pool; speakers of other accents legitimately differ from it — that is the point.
• Nothing here is a judgment about individual words. Tokens the two aligners disagreed on, or the formant tracker was unsure of, were dropped before any number was computed.