Recordings can be made very easily by calling our special Hindi Urdu Voicemail number:
(512) 537-1476
Listen to the brief instructions, and record your message just as you would in real life! If you prefer, or if you are not in the US, you can record your message on your computer, then mail us the sound file.
Note the following:
- As in reality, a message can be of any reasonable length, typically between 30 and 60 seconds.
- You can record as yourself, or as a fictitious persona, or anonymously.
- The level of language is not a matter of concern; recordings at a level of difficulty higher than the user’s can be useful for “catch the gist” exercises.
- Please speak as you would in a real-life voicemail: don’t slow down or adjust your language for learners.
- Some background noise is OK: learners need to get used to this! Studio quality is not expected or needed.
- Spontaneity is good — real voicemails are full of hesitations, pauses, re-phrasings, etc. Avoid preparing a script and reading it out for the recording.
- Please tell us if you prefer your name not to be shown in the listing of the voicemails.
Thank you from the HINDI URDU FLAGSHIP team!
Learners could be asked to do the following in class or as homework:
- Explain the gist of the message, in HU or English.
- Write, speak and/or record replies to the message in HU.
- Explain, in HU (or in English?), what is meant by “…….” [specify the targeted expression].
- Listen to two or three messages on similar themes, then make up a new Voicemail based on the expressions learnt.
- Identify and transcribe the HU expression or structure used to express a certain fact or idea or concept (e.g. “How did the speaker express the fact that she would be late home?”) and to make up further examples using similar structures.
- Note down the different ways the word or expression “…….” is used in specified voicemails.
- Identify vocabulary items, e.g. by asking “What word does the speaker use for the sense ‘expensive’ in the recording?”
- Reconstruct the original ‘prompt’ (e.g. an invitation) to which Voicemail number “…” is the reply.
- Discuss the message as a group in class: for example, what do class members understand the background context to be? How could one reply? What, if anything, can be inferred about the speaker? How does s/he sound — excited, pleased, anxious, angry, happy, sad, indifferent? What kinds of language and expressions were used in the message?
Hindi Urdu Voicemail is the brainchild of Rupert Snell, Director of the Hindi Urdu Flagship at The University of Texas at Austin. Many members of the Hindi-Urdu teaching community in Austin, the United States, and abroad have contributed recordings to the project. You can contribute too, just give us a call (512. 537.1476) and leave a message in Hindi or Urdu.
The voicemail website was built using Zurb’s Foundation framework, SASS, Compass, and WordPress. Audio playback uses Sound Manager 2 to ensure both HTML 5 and Flash compatibility. Feel free to contact voicemail@hindiurduflagship.org if you would like to know more about how we produced the project.
