I listened and it sounded English to me, though more like something barely heard on a shopping mall stereo or something. If I’d heard it without knowing it was gibberish at all, I would’ve thought it was in English and that I just couldn’t pick up the exact lyrics. He did a pretty good job of nailing English vowel sounds.
There’s a guy who asked about this on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C5EZmyJ9ik
There are some examples in the related videos.
A related thread from a while back: How do non-English-speaking jerks make fun of how Americans talk?
And here’s the converse situation. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JhuOicPFZY
I’ve been obsessed with this for weeks. My avatar on another board is a screen capture from this video - right about 0:11, when he gives the “A-OK” sign with his thumb and forefinger. OLL RIIIGHT!!!
Wow, that sounds remarkably like my grandparents arguing. Complete with the handwaving. They couldn’t decide on dinner without trying to signal planes in from JFK.
“The kids won’t be able to tell we’re fighting if we do it in Italian!”
Just to underscore how obsessed I am with this song, I just did this. Now we can all sing along. You’re welcome.
It sounds remarkably like English, but I guess I was expecting more of a foreign language paradigm. It sounds totally normal to me. It’d be cool if someone could somehow make it sound like English, but also weird and foreign, the way a non-English speaker might perceive it. That’s probably impossible, but it’d be cool.
Which, ultimately, is what gives the singer away as not being American. When he does the okay sign, he can’t hold his hand still. He waves it around way too much.
I think Frank Zappa would have loved this, and possibly forced his band to cover it.
LMFAO. Sounds like Elvis singing lyrics written by a stenographer transcribing Bill Cosby. “Presen’ Colin n Sinain Cusol. Oll Righh.”
Lordy, but that rhythm does wear thin after a while, though. Whew.
Also, at the end, he reminds me of Tom Waits. Not the voice (
). The general demeanor.
I don’t have any examples of this to link to, but when I lived in Japan I’d sometimes hear pop songs that were in English…kind of. There would be actual English words mixed in with the Japanese lyrics, but they didn’t really make sense and the Japanese accent and inflection would be so strong that it was almost completely unrecognizable as English. Actually, there were times I only knew the song contained English because I could see the lyrics – on Japanese television songs are often subtitled (in case you want to sing along at home?).
Actually, looking on YouTube just now I did find a song that was a hit in Japan when I lived there, the EXILE cover of “Choo Choo Train”. I’d say the English in this one is better than average, but you get the idea.
I’ve been told that some Japanese bands don’t even bother with bad English, they just make up English-sounding gibberish, but I’m not sure if this is true or not.
I was out with a Japanese friend once and we encountered a little boy, I guess about four years old, who started chatting away at us. My friend was translating (“He says he knows how to swim”, etc.), then the little boy jumped up and said something that sounded like “Ping pong pasha!” My friend laughed and said “Oh, he’s ‘speaking English’ to you!” So I guess that’s what English sounds like to the Japanese, or at least one little Japanese boy.
What, like this?
Very amusing, and pretty realistic sounding.
Although I wonder if I’m the only one who thinks the girl at 1:50 sounds German.
Reminds me of Murray Head (“One Night in Bangkok”). And yes, the blonde sounded like Nico.
I think the blonde dancing with him is Rafaella Carrà, who was a famous Italian singer in her own right, and one who recorded in English at times, so she had some familiarity with the language.
You mean you guys are now saying you’ve never heard this song?
Aserejé ja de je
de jebe tu de jebere
seibiunouva majavi
an de bugui an de güididípi
is what the opening lyrics of Rapper’s Delight sound like to a Spaniard who don’t speakee no English:
I said a hip hop the hippie the hippie
to the hip hip hop, a you dont stop
the rock it to the bang bang boogie say up jumped the boogie
to the rhythm of the boogie, the beat
Oh, and I think Celentano speaks English.
Am I the only one to think that the ‘teacher’ in this looks like Sasha Baran Cohen?
awsome!