I have an assignment to carry out some linguistic research that you guys can have the privilege of helping me with! If anybody can help, I'd be really grateful.

I'm looking for you if you're:

• Originally from or currently resident in Canada or the U.S. (excluding Hawaii and Puerto Rico)
• Willing and able to make a recording of your voice and e-mail it to me

Sound like you? Great - you can help.

What I need for you to do is to record yourself saying this:

Please call Stella. Ask her to bring these things with her from the store: Six spoons of fresh snow peas, five thick slabs of blue cheese, and maybe a snack for her brother Bob. We also need a small plastic snake and a big toy frog for the kids. She can scoop these things into three red bags, and we will go meet her Wednesday at the train station.

I also need you to fill out this questionnaire:

1) Name: (For my own reference only; this will be completely anonymous)
2) Age:
3) Sex:
4) Ethnicity:
5) City/town of residence:
6) State of residence:
7) Are you a native English speaker?
8) If not, what is your native language?*
9) When did you start learning English?*
10) How did you learn English?*
11) Have you always lived where you currently live?
12) If not, for how long have you lived there?**
13) Where were you born, and how long did you live there?**
14) If you have lived in more than two different places, please provide a brief outlining of where you have lived and for how long:**

* These questions only need to be answered if you answered 7) in the negative. If you did not, ignore them.

** These questions only need to be answered if you answered 11) in the negative. If you did not, ignore them.

If you decide to help me, in which case you're awesome and great and wonderful, please e-mail me at sean (at) urban-freakshow.com with the questionnaire filled out, the sound file attached (preferably in .mp3 form, but I'm not too fussed) and the subject header "Research Response". [We get email reaper programs scanning this site so I've altered your email address to say (at) instead of @ so you don't get bombarded with junk - Mata]

If you can't do this, check back here - there may be other stuff I need you for that doesn't involve recording your voice.

Thanks very much to anyone who took their time to read this far

Edit: Whoops, forgot an important question!

I'll be glad to do it. Do you know of a program that'll transfer .wav files to .mp3? Or maybe a recording program that records in .mp3?

I think this program can do the conversion job - if anyone knows of another, do tell me.

I can't help you with the voice recording, as I don't have a microphone, but if you need anything else from a resident of Canada, I will be glad to help you out.

This sounds like fun, but I have to see if my mic works first. (I have never used it, it's one of those cheapie kinds, and it's lying on the floor broken in half and collecting dust...umm....) I'll give it a try tonight or tomorrow and hopefully get something sent to you. Yay.

I recorded one and sent it, although I don't know how good it sounded because I don't have speakers hooked up to hear it.

I have the same situation as Aria. Sorry.
A friend who did telemarketing once remarked that there was at least three different southern twangs. As well a haligonian is going to sound different from someone in lotus land. East vs West coast.
Good luck in your research.

That's why I'm using North America - there's such a great variation in regional accents, it's a goldmine.

Thanks a bunch, Lo!

Done and sent. There, now you've got your redneck and G. Bush soundalike covered.

Thanks, Vic! I'm getting a wide variety already...

How is the research going?

i would send you my happy sothern drawl mix with chicago accent thing... but like others i have no mic... im happy to help elswhere tho!

The research, sadly, was cancelled due to technical difficulties Thanks, everybody who helped, shame I couldn't do it.