Need some help (writing related)

[Vorago]

Hey all, I have to find an informant for an assignment for university. He or she has to be a speaker of a foreign language. I'm sending an email in English to a whole lot of people and I want this to be as well written as possible.

Here it is:

Dear (foreign) student, member of staff, professor,… ,

My name is xxxxx xxxxx and I study linguistics at the UA. One of my assignments for this semester is to compose a ‘sound inventory’ of a foreign language and write a paper about it.
The first step is gathering the data and for this I need your help.

I am looking for a native speaker of a (preferably) non-European language: African languages, languages from the Middle and Far East, Native American languages, a Caucasian language, etc. If you speak a dialect of a European language that you feel is rather different from the standard language of your country, you are most welcome to contact me as well.

To collect the data I will ask you to translate a list of 50 words. This will be basic vocabulary, in order to reduce the risk of contamination via loanwords from dominant languages like English, French and Spanish. I will record your translations on video, while making notes on your pronunciation and trying out some sounds myself.

How long will this take? It’s a bit hard to make an accurate estimate but I’d say that this will take two hours of your time at the most.
The main variable here is the sound inventory of your language. If yours is filled with tongue twisters and rare consonants it will probably take longer than if your language has a ‘basic’ range of sounds.

I have a fairly flexible agenda, so if you’re interested I’m sure we can work something out.

Thanks in advance,

xxxxx xxxxx

What do you think? Any mistakes? Things you'd formulate differently?

[tplyons]

The only thing that catches my eye at first glance is UA. Write it out, not everyone on earth knows what UA is.

[DudeistMonk]

Reads well, I don't see any mistakes, although I wasn't the best English student ever.

I would change "fairly flexible agenda," to "fairly flexible schedule," It has a better connotation IMO.

[MakiSupaStar]

Yeah the UA part needs to be written out.

[Vorago]

Ok, thanks for the replies so far.

[i_got_a_mohawk]

+1 on the UA bit, had to stop and think that it was university of antwerp.

I could answer your email tho, give you some phrases in broad dundonian

[Vorago]

I need video

[MakiSupaStar]

Will this really take two hours? That seems kind of long for a person to say 50 words.

[Vorago]

Well, it's hard to estimate.

If the person speaks a really simple language sound wise, it could be all over in 15 minutes, but if he or she speaks something with say clicks in it or weird throat sounds it could take a lot longer.

Plus, I have to try to imitate the sounds, because video only might not be enough to identify the really tricky sounds.

[Happynoj]

Email is good.

I could bust out a bit of Brummie for you if you want...

[L-A]

Here's a trick: don't ask a French Canadian. You'll fall in the bottomless pit of triphtongs.

[bongomania]

I agree about "schedule" having better connotations than "agenda"; agenda is sometimes used to mean hidden bad motives or dogmatic bias.

I think 'sound inventory' is a bit confusing because it's hard to tell if you mean 'an inventory of sounds' or some technical term in your field that an outsider might not be familiar with. I would say "compose an inventory of the various sounds of a foreign language". It's a lot more words, but it's more self-explanatory.

Otherwise it looks great to me!

[L-A]

Originally Posted by bongomania

I agree about "schedule" having better connotations than "agenda"; agenda is sometimes used to mean hidden bad motives or dogmatic bias.

As in "agenda-setting", eh?

Excellent point. Schedule is probably the way to go.

[Vorago]

Cheers for the replies, email has been sent.

Edit, I just realized that I sent this mail to something like 8000 to 10000 people, if 1 in 100 replies tomorrow I'm still ****ed