Last week I came across a useful-looking new site called RhinoSpike, where you can request recordings in a wide variety of languages and make them in your native language.
The way it works is that you submit text in the language you want to be recorded by a native speaker. It goes into a queue for that language. Native speakers see your request, make the recording and upload the audio file, which you can then download.
You can also record texts in your native language for other people, and doing so bumps your own requests forward in the queue, so native speakers will see them faster.
It’s free and the recordings are accessible by anybody.
This is a great idea and I plan make regular use of the site.
Great idea indeed. I must dust off my microphone and start making a few recordings.
Where do I sign up??? They have to make it more obvious, 🙂
Looks like a great idea. At this moment there is a limit on languages available, though, and I also wish it was possible to comment on the recordings and also indicate the recorder’s accent/region, like in Forvo, but what I like about RhinoSpike is that you can look at and listen to longer phrases and passages, so it’s filling a gap in the market for sure.
>> you can look at and listen to longer phrases and passages, so it’s filling a gap in the market for sure.
This is similar to My Language Notebook (http://www.mylanguagenotebook.com/).
It’s a nice idea though and I like the way they reward regular contributors by bumping their own requests up the queue.
Seems like a great idea. Unlike Forvo, however, there’s no inbuilt recorder. And I’m just too techno-dumb to be able to get my head round the likes of RhinoSpike, which they advise you to download (too many bells and whistles: it’s like the flight deck of Concorde, as they used to say), and my recordings never work properly 🙁
“… RhinoSpike, which they advise you to download”.
Sorry, I meant to write “Audacity”, not “RhinoSpike”.