# How do we Anglos sound when we speak your language? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 4, 2014, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-anglos-sound-when-we-speak-your-language/685332 "2014-04-04T12:15:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2014, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-anglos-sound-when-we-speak-your-language/685332/21 "2014-04-06T20:08:46Z")
> [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > My best friend is a big anime fan, and he told me once about watching an interview, in English, with a Japanese voice actress. Same thing - she had actually learned English from her French teacher, so here was this Japanese woman speaking English with a French accent. If you can tell me who it is or, better yet, post a clip, I’d be much obliged. An online friend of mine always talks about how French and Japanese accents sound the same to him, and we love to kid him about it. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2014, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-anglos-sound-when-we-speak-your-language/685332/22 "2014-04-06T20:17:34Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > If you can tell me who it is or, better yet, post a clip, I’d be much obliged. An online friend of mine always talks about how French and Japanese accents sound the same to him, and we love to kid him about it. No idea who it was - my friend told me about it several years ago. And I can’t ask him now because he had a stroke a couple years ago and still can’t speak ☹ ---
**Author:** ![chizzuk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e36b37/32.png) [@chizzuk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chizzuk)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2014, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-anglos-sound-when-we-speak-your-language/685332/23 "2014-04-06T20:37:23Z")
> [@DMark](#): > > When I first started to learn German, I thought the entire language was one single word that didn’t end. > > My pronunciation got very good and I would actually have arguments with Germans I would meet who didn’t believe I was an American. > > However, I would meet other Americans who had just horrible accents - I will never forget listening to a woman from Atlanta, Georgia speaking German with the thickest Southern Drawl you have ever heard - it was simply bizarre to listen to. > > My guess is some people might have a better talent (ear?) for the fine points of pronunciation. Another woman I knew had majored in German - she would never make a grammatical error, but she just couldn’t shake the American accent when she spoke. > > Part of this might be how you learned the language - from a native speaker or from learning it in the country is probably the best. > > One funny story - I was teaching English and a big German guy from a working class Berlin area started to speak, and he had a French accent when speaking English! I then asked where he learned English and he told me his girlfriend taught him - she was French. I’m taking a beginning-level German class right now and listening to some people read makes me want to put my fingers in my ears–I can’t imagine how our native German-speaking teacher must feel. I’ve been told from an early age that I have a good ear for pronunciation, but even setting that aside, there’s your garden variety mediocre American German and then there’s. . this. 2 months and still pronouncing _die_ as “dye,” _Flugzeug_= “flugg zoog” _aussteigen_ = “oss steegin,” and don’t get me started on _möchte_. German has big long huge words but the phonetics are very regular and as long as you know the rules and go syllable by syllable, it’s actually much easier to learn to read than English. It’s confounding to hear people having so much trouble with the same things over and over, month after month. ---
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2014, 7:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-anglos-sound-when-we-speak-your-language/685332/24 "2014-04-07T07:53:07Z")
> [@chizzuk](#): > > I’m taking a beginning-level German class right now and listening to some people read makes me want to put my fingers in my ears–I can’t imagine how our native German-speaking teacher must feel. I’ve been told from an early age that I have a good ear for pronunciation, but even setting that aside, there’s your garden variety mediocre American German and then there’s. . this. 2 months and still pronouncing _die_ as “dye,” _Flugzeug_= “flugg zoog” _aussteigen_ = “oss steegin,” and don’t get me started on _möchte_. > > German has big long huge words but the phonetics are very regular and as long as you know the rules and go syllable by syllable, it’s actually much easier to learn to read than English. It’s confounding to hear people having so much trouble with the same things over and over, month after month. I remember reading once that the key (or, anyways, _a_ key) to sounding good in a foreign language is just to mimic the accent - which for some reason many people are embarrassed to do. Meaning that if you got a beer or two into these classmates and told them to do a Col. Klink impersonation, most could do a halfway decent job at a German accent. But the moment they’re back in the classroom and actually speaking in German, any attempt at a German accent goes out the window. Also, I will half-defend the speaking-loudly-and-slowly-in-English-to-be-understood thing. Obviously it does no good if the person you’re speaking to speaks NO English, but if they have _some_ ability in the language it can be very helpful. I speak intermediate German, and god knows I sometimes wish people would speak loudly and slowly auf deutsch to me. Instead it seems like it’s all or nothing: either they’ll hear my accent and immediately want to switch to English, or if they can tell that my German is not that bad (or they don’t speak English) they’ll just ramble on with no concession at all to my skill level. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2014, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-anglos-sound-when-we-speak-your-language/685332/25 "2014-04-07T11:38:24Z")
In Japan, it seemed to me that Japanese people imitating an Anglo accent would turn all their vowels into R’s. So instead of “Konichwa, watashi no namae wa John desu,”\* you’d get “Krnrchrwr, wrtrshr nr nrmr wr Jrn drs.” \*A sentence that, to my understanding, no native would almost ever utter though it’s grammatically correct, kind of like “schoolbook Japanese,” hence it’s a sentence they’d use to make fun of the accent. ---
**Author:** ![DChord568](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@DChord568](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DChord568)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2014, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-anglos-sound-when-we-speak-your-language/685332/26 "2014-04-07T15:25:45Z")
Over 40 years ago, I had an experience that was sort of the reverse of the old _Saturday Night Live_ bit with Garrett Morris lampooning Latin American baseball players (“Basebol been bery bery good to me”). I happened to tune in a distant French-Canadian AM radio station that was broadcasting a hockey game. At the end of the game, an interview was conducted with an American player, who made the same attempt to answer questions from the French-Canadian broadcaster in a language that was not his own. I had taken four years in French in high school and done very well in it, doing my best within my limits to cultivate a marginally convincing accent. So it was hilarious to me to hear this guy stumble through the interview sounding like Moose from the _Archie_ comics… “Uh, oui…uh, il y a beaucoup de fautes…” ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2014, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-anglos-sound-when-we-speak-your-language/685332/27 "2014-04-07T15:37:10Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > In Japan, it seemed to me that Japanese people imitating an Anglo accent would turn all their vowels into R’s… One thing I’ve heard is that many Anglos who speak Japanese, especially younger ones, learned a lot of it from watching anime without fully comprehending the significant differences in register that relate to social groups and relationships. They get to Japan and try to use the language, only to be told to stop trying to imitate a 13 year old girl, it isn’t funny. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-we-anglos-sound-when-we-speak-your-language/685332.md?page=1)