# Are certain languages more conducive to fast speaking? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 16, 2011, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-certain-languages-more-conducive-to-fast-speaking/596473 "2011-09-16T03:17:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Absolute](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b2d939/32.png) [@Absolute](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Absolute)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2011, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-certain-languages-more-conducive-to-fast-speaking/596473/21 "2011-09-17T16:11:42Z")
> [@Gymnopithys](#): > > French people (from France) speak faster than French speaking Swiss. It’s the exact same language. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone speaking Swiss. ---
**Author:** ![Jaledin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Jaledin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jaledin)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2011, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-certain-languages-more-conducive-to-fast-speaking/596473/22 "2011-09-17T16:36:55Z")
> [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](#): > > That’s not the explanation either, since the effect is visible in any text translated from French to English or vice versa, not only business correspondence. And in any case, I’m not convinced French business correspondence is more flowery than English. Both languages are becoming increasingly informal. OK, I buy that. I was really just poking a little fun at the ridiculous closing statements which in English would be “Yours truly,” or “Sincerely,” but is this whole set of formulae, which is why I can’t even write a letter properly without a dictionary/style guide. Maybe it is on the lee-side in French business correspondence, and I accept your correction. At least my point about stress-timed vs. syllable-timed languages is correct, though! From what I can recall, at any rate. ---
**Author:** ![Apollon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e47774/32.png) [@Apollon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apollon)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2011, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-certain-languages-more-conducive-to-fast-speaking/596473/23 "2011-09-17T19:54:21Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > No, phonemes are separate sounds rather than syllables. I’m too lazy to look up the equivalent IPA symbols representing the phonemes in these two words, but roughly, they are: > > In “chateaux”: consonant sound (that we Anglophones would write) “sh”, vowel sound “a”, consonant sound “t”, vowel sound “o”. Four of 'em. > > In “bacon”: consonant, vowel, consonant, vowel, consonant. That’s five. Why am I hearing 6, rather than 5? B, Ä, EE, C, O, N The “A” in “bacon” in my ears is clearly 2 disticnt phonemes (ä+i), as opposed to the “A” in “cat”. Did you discount them by accident, or is the letter A officially considered a single phoneme in English, even when it’s made up of two distinct sounds? ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2011, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-certain-languages-more-conducive-to-fast-speaking/596473/24 "2011-09-17T20:10:34Z")
> [@Apollon](#): > > Why am I hearing 6, rather than 5? > B, Ä, EE, C, O, N > The “A” in “bacon” in my ears is clearly 2 disticnt phonemes (ä+i), as opposed to the “A” in “cat”. Did you discount them by accident, or is the letter A officially considered a single phoneme in English, even when it’s made up of two distinct sounds? Some English phonemes are diphthongs, as in the example above. The vowel sound in “house” and the vowel sound in “high” are two more examples. In each case, it is a single phoneme realised as a “glide” from one pure vowel to another. The fact that it’s written as a single letter “a” is irrelevant, as you correctly suspected. The same phoneme can be written as “a\_e”, “eig”, “es\_e”, “ei”, “ai”, “ay”. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2011, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-certain-languages-more-conducive-to-fast-speaking/596473/25 "2011-09-17T20:10:58Z")
> [@Apollon](#): > > Why am I hearing 6, rather than 5? > B, Ä, EE, C, O, N > The “A” in “bacon” in my ears is clearly 2 disticnt phonemes (ä+i), as opposed to the “A” in “cat”. You’re hearing a diphthong. It’s a phoneme composed of two phones. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2011, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-certain-languages-more-conducive-to-fast-speaking/596473/26 "2011-09-17T22:30:40Z")
> [@Cryptic\_C62](#): > > The other possible explanation for the phenomenon you’ve described could be that there are (on average) more letters per syllable in the French language than in the English. Consider “chateaux” versus “bacon”. Anyone know of any such metric being reported on somewheres? Entirely possible. I don’t have any idea how to track that down. But contrast: North Atlantic Treaty Organization Organisation de la Traité de l’Atlantique du Nord The words are pretty much the same length (one is 2 letters longer); the difference is that English uses attributive nouns to great effect and French doesn’t. Also French insists on more articles than English. ---
**Author:** ![Asympotically\_fat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e47c2d/32.png) [@Asympotically\_fat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asympotically_fat)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2011, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-certain-languages-more-conducive-to-fast-speaking/596473/27 "2011-09-17T22:40:39Z")
Here’s a question: do some dialects of English tend to be spoken at signifcantly different speeds that others. Someone speaking with a full-on Geordie Accent will often find it quite difficult to make themselves understood outside the North Eats of England, however generally if they slow down their speech it makes it much easier to be understood by say someone form the South of England and also it doesn’t sound like they’re speaking delibrately slowly to Southerners. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2011, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-certain-languages-more-conducive-to-fast-speaking/596473/28 "2011-09-18T01:43:53Z")
People from NYC speak faster than people from the Midwest. ---
**Author:** ![Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hypnagogic_jerk/32/4252_2.png) [@Hypnagogic\_Jerk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypnagogic_Jerk)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2011, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-certain-languages-more-conducive-to-fast-speaking/596473/29 "2011-09-18T03:55:11Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > Entirely possible. I don’t have any idea how to track that down. But contrast: > North Atlantic Treaty Organization > Organisation de la Traité de l’Atlantique du Nord > The words are pretty much the same length (one is 2 letters longer); the difference is that English uses attributive nouns to great effect and French doesn’t. Also French insists on more articles than English. French does use more articles than English, but in your example, the French version of NATO is OTAN, Organisation du traité de l’Atlantique Nord. So there is one fewer article than you expected. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-certain-languages-more-conducive-to-fast-speaking/596473.md?page=1)