# What does English sound like to people who don't speak it? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 16, 2009, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135 "2009-02-16T18:57:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2009, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135/21 "2009-02-16T20:39:03Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > English is a stress-timed language. Most European languages and many Asian languages are syllable-timed. Tonality doesn’t affect timing. I never said it affected timing. I said it affected the depth and height of the peaks and troughs - they corresponded to pitch. (I’m not sure how you thought I was talking about timing when I mentioned tonal languages and said that English sounds flat in comparison). I haven’t read much about stress-timing or anything like that, tbh, but it would be a bit crazy to claim that English has regular patterns of stress in its sentences. One of the main noticeable features of Englsh is that the stress patterns are not that regular. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2009, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135/22 "2009-02-16T20:42:01Z")
> [@troub](#): > > I just found this kid ( [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLZhclvLbfI&feature=related](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLZhclvLbfI&feature=related) ). Aside from being almost unbearably cute, he does seem to be doing something similar to what you describe? Seems like a lot of ‘r’ sounds. And loud 🙂 . Ayup, though his vowels don’t sound as exaggeratedly r-ish as what I remember hearing. But in that clip you can especially hear the effect I’m talking about right after he says “Rock and Roll.” He then says something that sounds like it’s supposed to be something like “Ken kan kon” or something, but it sounds like “kehrn karn korn” except with the r’s “mashed into” their preceding vowels. Hard to explain–but you can probably hear it on the clip. -FrL- ---
**Author:** ![Find\_Friends](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c37758/32.png) [@Find\_Friends](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Find_Friends)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2009, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135/23 "2009-02-16T20:43:06Z")
Well, [Fernando Lamas](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Lamas) gave his reaction on a late night talk show, probably Johnny Carson, many, many years back. First, he said that (English speaking) Americans seem to have particular reactions to how French, Spanish, etc., sound to them. For instance, he said something along the lines of French sounding very soft, flowing, flowery. I seem to recall that he gave impressions of each example along the way. Then he gave the punch line to his anecdote. _When I first came here, all of you sounded like_ _DOGS BARKING!_ He then proceeded to give an imitation of what his first impression was. 😛 - “Jack” ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2009, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135/24 "2009-02-16T20:43:54Z")
> [@troub](#): > > This video is kind of interesting ( [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRR\_gKFT6ds](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRR_gKFT6ds) ), because he makes up “words” in several languages. Not knowing Hebrew, or Cantonese, etc., I wouldn’t know. But they are just as much gibberish as his fake English at the beginning, which is very interesting to hear. EXCELLENT! And (of course!) there is a slew of stuff linking off that video that I’m about to go watch. I watched one from a German guy that was wonderful. And you tube never ceases to amaze me…of course someone had the same question I did, evidently, since a bunch of those vids are in response to some query for “fake English” - which makes me think of another thread…aha…(off to MPSIMS) ---
**Author:** ![kellner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c2a13f/32.png) [@kellner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kellner)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2009, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135/25 "2009-02-16T20:45:05Z")
> [@troub](#): > > This video is kind of interesting ( [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRR\_gKFT6ds](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRR_gKFT6ds) ), because he makes up “words” in several languages. Not knowing Hebrew, or Cantonese, etc., I wouldn’t know. But they are just as much gibberish as his fake English at the beginning, which is very interesting to hear. That’s pretty good. Of course I understand enough English to know that it was gibberish but there was no doubt whatsoever which language it was supposed to be. As far as American English is concerned I’ve heard that the average American sounds to us as a parody of a thick southern accent sounds to the rest of the US. For obvious reasons I can’t really tell how accurate that is. (On a possibly related note, I have been told that Foghorn Leghorn has a southern accent. He just sounds typically American to me.) ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2009, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135/26 "2009-02-16T21:06:16Z")
> [@scifisam2009](#): > > I never said it affected timing. I said it affected the depth and height of the peaks and troughs - they corresponded to pitch. (I’m not sure how you thought I was talking about timing when I mentioned tonal languages and said that English sounds flat in comparison). > > I haven’t read much about stress-timing or anything like that, tbh, but it would be a bit crazy to claim that English has regular patterns of stress in its sentences. One of the main noticeable features of Englsh is that the stress patterns are not that regular. Right. I just meant to say that tone and volume are not the same. English syllables have more volume and length when they are part of content words (as opposed to grammatical words). In this regard, English is far from “flat.” For example, the famous utterance: (A) Cats eat mice. (three syllables) [kaets iɂ mais] Takes the same amount of time to speak as: (B) The cats will have been eating the mice. (nine syllables) [ðə kaets Il ǝv bǝn iɂn ðə mais] Both (A) and (B) have only three stressed syllables. As a result, English sounds more “ragged” to speakers of many other languages, because English speakers use blending, deletion, elision and reduction in volume in order to “rush” through the grammar syllables. To them, it sounds like the English speaker is “swallowing” the unstressed syllables. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2009, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135/27 "2009-02-16T21:23:01Z")
> [@](#): > > …and Asian languages, (which I think probably blend together for most English speakers. Although I pride myself on the fact that I can identify Tagalog, Vietnamese, Chinese and Japanese. I can also differentiate those accents when the person is speaking English, especially Vietnamese.) Japanese, at least, is easy to distinguish, because of the characteristic alternation of vowel and consonant sounds. You never get two consonant sounds in a row in Japanese, nor a word ending in a consonant sound. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2009, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135/28 "2009-02-16T21:36:05Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > Right. I just meant to say that tone and volume are not the same. English syllables have more volume and length when they are part of content words (as opposed to grammatical words). In this regard, English is far from “flat.” > > For example, the famous utterance: > > (A) Cats eat mice. (three syllables) > [kaets iɂ mais] > > Takes the same amount of time to speak as: > > (B) The cats will have been eating the mice. (nine syllables) > [ðə kaets Il ǝv bǝn iɂn ðə mais] > > Both (A) and (B) have only three stressed syllables. As a result, English sounds more “ragged” to speakers of many other languages, because English speakers use blending, deletion, elision and reduction in volume in order to “rush” through the grammar syllables. To them, it sounds like the English speaker is “swallowing” the unstressed syllables. I don’t think we’re actually disagreeing here. English doesn’t sound flat - I never said that. It does sound _relatively flat_. (To be precise, it’s pitch I’m talking about, though volume often changes when pitch does too, of course). Yup, that raggedness is what the students were indicating when they drew English going all over the place in rhythm and doubling back on itself. Persuading ESL students to ‘swallow’ the unstressed syllables is quite difficult. ‘But there’s a vowel there! And two consonants, look! I must say them!’ 😃 ---
**Author:** ![puppygod](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@puppygod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puppygod)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2009, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135/29 "2009-02-16T21:36:41Z")
[QUOTE=Spoke-] In this 1844 text, English is referred to as “a hissing language” owing to the abundance of “s” and “sh” sounds. (The author takes exception.) [/QUOTE] > [@Hampshire](#): > > That’s what Cantonese sounds like to me. Watching Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon with subtitles sounds like “she shaw shwin shesh shre shoe”. Apparently you haven’t heard Polish then. Like in [this video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJ5GeVqFXCM&feature=related) at 3:30 mark, for example. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2009, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135/30 "2009-02-16T21:47:55Z")
> [@](#): > > Well, Fernando Lamas gave his reaction on a late night talk show, probably Johnny Carson, many, many years back. > > First, he said that (English speaking) Americans seem to have particular reactions to how French, Spanish, etc., sound to them. For instance, he said something along the lines of French sounding very soft, flowing, flowery. I seem to recall that he gave impressions of each example along the way. > > Then he gave the punch line to his anecdote. > > When I first came here, all of you sounded like > > DOGS BARKING! > > He then proceeded to give an imitation of what his first impression was. > > - “Jack” I came in to mention precisely this – only my recollectrion is that it was **Ricardo Montalban**. His rendering of “English” as “dogs barking” was pretty good – it really did resemble both English and barking dogs. ---
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2009, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135/31 "2009-02-16T22:10:13Z")
[Someone else wants to know.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvcuGbIZoKs&feature=related) ( And now, so do I!) ---
**Author:** ![aesop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f8ce5/32.png) [@aesop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aesop)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2009, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135/32 "2009-02-16T22:42:20Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > Can a person who doesn’t speak English hear the difference between an American and a Brit? My anecdotal evidence is no, not reliably. I am an American in Budapest. I have, perhaps, a very slight Southern accent, but probably tend more toward unaccented “generic” American. I sound nothing like an Englishman. Yet Hungarians with little or no knowledge of English guess that I am British as often as they guess that I am American. In my office where the locals all speak good-to-excellent English, they can readily distinguish among American English, British English, Scottish English, etc. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2009, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135/33 "2009-02-16T22:56:42Z")
> [@puppygod](#): > > Apparently you haven’t heard Polish then. Like in [this video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJ5GeVqFXCM&feature=related) at 3:30 mark, for example. That was hilarious! I need to see the rest of this movie. Awesome. But, yeah, Polish (and pretty much all the Slavic languages) make extensive use of sibilants. Hungarian also has its fair share of these, too. I’ve never thought of “s,” “sh,”“z,” and “zh” as being particularly English sounds, but that may just be a result of the foreign languages I’m familiar with. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2009, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135/34 "2009-02-16T23:00:06Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > For example, the famous utterance: > > (A) Cats eat mice. (three syllables) > [kaets iɂ mais] > > Takes the same amount of time to speak as: > > (B) The cats will have been eating the mice. (nine syllables) > [ðə kaets Il ǝv bǝn iɂn ðə mais] I strongly doubt this. Do you have a reference to some research that backs up this claim? ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2009, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135/35 "2009-02-16T23:14:43Z")
> [@kellner](#): > > On a possibly related note, I have been told that Foghorn Leghorn has a southern accent. He just sounds typically American to me. Me too. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![magnusblitz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@magnusblitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magnusblitz)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2009, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135/36 "2009-02-16T23:33:54Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > For example, the famous utterance: > > (A) Cats eat mice. (three syllables) > [kaets iɂ mais] > > Takes the same amount of time to speak as: > > (B) The cats will have been eating the mice. (nine syllables) > [ðə kaets Il ǝv bǝn iɂn ðə mais] Interesting. Just trying to say the two phrases out loud, sounded kinda like this: (A) CATS-EAT-MICE. (B) the CATS willaben EATing-the MICE. Is that what you’re referring to? How “will have been” gets all rushed together and lazily/economically pronounced since there’s no stress in there, etc.? ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2009, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135/37 "2009-02-16T23:47:01Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > I strongly doubt this. Do you have a reference to some research that backs up this claim? Perhaps it depends on your accent. Saying those sentences aloud, I’d say there’s only a slight difference between how long it takes to say those sentences, unless you’re stressing it unusually. His point is that English elides syllables more than other languages tend to. Latinate languages, for example, don’t elide vowels as much as we do, and Germanic and Slavic languages have a tiny ‘skip’ in between each word, which doesn’t happen in English. (I don’t know any other languages well enough to comment). ---
**Author:** ![Tenebras](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@Tenebras](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tenebras)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2009, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135/38 "2009-02-17T00:04:38Z")
**puppygod** , what movie is that? (I didn’t watch the whole clip, but it looks good.) As for how Bulgarians hear English, I present you with… [Ken Li](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LTLEVC-sfQ&feature=related). ---
**Author:** ![An\_Arky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/87869e/32.png) [@An\_Arky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Arky)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2009, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135/39 "2009-02-17T00:43:54Z")
I’ve always wondered about this, too…thanks, OP! I also wonder why many languages (other than English) sound like they’re talking really fast and staccato and sound angry or unpleasant with each other. ---
**Author:** ![Stoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stoid/32/272_2.png) [@Stoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoid)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2009, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135/40 "2009-02-17T01:02:07Z")
> [@spoke-](#): > > Me too. 😃 :mad: I say I say I say hold on there… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135.md?page=3)