# 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:** 3
**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, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135/41 "2009-02-17T01:03:24Z")
> [@An\_Arky](#): > > 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. Thanks back, since I think some languages sound perpetually pissed off, Chinese being one. ---
**Author:** ![Raygun99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Raygun99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raygun99)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2009, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135/42 "2009-02-17T01:14:29Z")
Anecdotally, I was once walking in Montreal with a francophone coworker, when we were approached by someone who asked us for directions in an Australian accent. Out of curiousity, I asked my coworker if he’d noticed that the guy who asked us had an accent. He’d had no idea. ---
**Author:** ![Waffle\_Decider](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/77aa72/32.png) [@Waffle\_Decider](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waffle_Decider)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2009, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135/43 "2009-02-17T02:23:08Z")
> [@Hampshire](#): > > Thanks to people like [Mel Blanc](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_Blanc) > Do kids from other countries do this as well (speak their native tongue with mock foreign accents)? How do they sound? What does a Chinese teen speaking Chinese sound like trying to do it in a mock american accent? > > Hard to describe so I guess video/audio would be appreciated. > > (like **Frylock** describes) [Here’s one.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdLYg8SlbwY) A prank call with some Cantonese kids speaking in a mock foreign accent. This [classic advert](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHcMrVBNSDY) from the 70s pretty much sums up the stereotypical accent of Westerners speaking Cantonese. The most noticeable thing is that the tones are all messed up. The other thing is probably the excessive voicing of many consonants (voicing as in the words sue and zoo: the s is unvoiced, but the z is). Except for l/m/n/ng, Cantonese does not have any voiced consonants, but foreigners often mispronounce many other consonants as voiced. ---
**Author:** ![PeskiPiksi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e495f1/32.png) [@PeskiPiksi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PeskiPiksi)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2009, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135/44 "2009-02-17T02:38:50Z")
> [@](#): > > 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.) Interesting. A friend once told me that when she was on a trip to Latvia, she had asked some of her friends there what English sounded like to them. They all answered that English-speakers sounded like snakes, what with all the ess sounds. ---
**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 17, 2009, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135/45 "2009-02-17T03:26:06Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > I strongly doubt this. Do you have a reference to some research that backs up this claim? Other than my native tongue? And a masters degree in teaching English as a second language? I can dig up something, if you want. > [@magnusblitz](#): > > 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.? Exactly. Except “lazily” is not fair. It’s just how the language is spoken. Still, it seems like you at least know how to speak your own language. Just listen to how people talk. Not how someone _thinks_ they talk. N.B. My transcription was for American English, so the medial /t/ was a glottal stop. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2009, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135/46 "2009-02-17T03:42:23Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > Other than my native tongue? And a masters degree in teaching English as a second language? I can dig up something, if you want. I’d appreciate it. My own status as a native speaker of English, and my experience (not at the Masters level admittedly) in Linguistics and ESL, tend to lead me to a conclusion opposite yours. Intuitions clash! We need documentation. I’ve already pointed out documented claims in Wikipedia and at Language log that the phenomenon you’re describing doesn’t exist. Do you know anything about that research? -FrL- ---
**Author:** ![jovan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/0ea827/32.png) [@jovan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jovan)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2009, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135/47 "2009-02-17T05:21:41Z")
> [@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 🙂 . That’s a little hard to beat, but I have to link to the [Rahmens](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJc9JKYhta4), a Japanese comic duo. That skit is part of a series of Japanese language classes given in various countries. This is the American version. The script is made up of token English and Japanese words (mostly names of important historical figures) in nonsensical order. The delivery is meant to sound like American English. By comparison, here’s the [French version](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t02dOTIwvAM). ---
**Author:** ![Pyper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Pyper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pyper)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2009, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135/48 "2009-02-17T05:45:47Z")
> [@Waffle\_Decider](#): > > This [classic advert](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHcMrVBNSDY) from the 70s pretty much sums up the stereotypical accent of Westerners speaking Cantonese. That ad is funny. “This foreigner likes our alchohol, so it must be awesome!” I spent a year in Spain living with Spaniards, and during that time my ear became unaccustomed to hearing American speech, although I am American. When I returned to the States, TV announcers especially sounded ridiculous to me. “Why are they all talking like exaggerated cowboys?” I thought. To me, the American accent seemed extremely loud and slow. In Spain, when comedy shows parodied British speakers, they always replaced the Spanish rolled “r” with the English hard “r.” There was also a puppet comedy show where the voice actor did a dead-on impersonation of George W. Bush, but in Spanish. In Spanish, the vowels are much more clipped. The Dubya puppet spoke with hard “r’s” and elongated vowels. I still laugh when I remember him saying the word “treinte y tres.” (Thirty three.) “Traynta trays!” ---
**Author:** ![BellRungBookShut-CandleSnuffed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bcef8e/32.png) [@BellRungBookShut-CandleSnuffed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BellRungBookShut-CandleSnuffed)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2009, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135/49 "2009-02-17T06:20:15Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > You never get two consonant sounds in a row in Japanese, nor a word ending in a consonant sound. Well, except for the “n” (sometimes m) sound. The word for newspaper is shimbun. Chanto means properly. Kantan means easy. They also “double” consonants, like with chotto. It’s really more of a clipping of the “o” than anything else, kind of somewhere between cho-to and chot-to. On top of that, they drop the vowel “i” a lot when it’s in the syllable shi. Shippai, meaning failure or mistake, is pronounced shp-pai. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2009, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135/50 "2009-02-17T09:25:34Z")
I asked a man from Denmark how English sounded to Danes. He said that it sounded snobbish. > [@](#): > > **aesop** : …but probably tend more toward unaccented “generic” American. Everyone speaks English in a dialect. There is no such thing as “generic” American. A melodious Montgomery, Alabama “drawl” is as authentic as Brian Williams reading the news. John Kennedy’s pronunciation of “Cuba” as _Koob r_ (as close as I can come) was certainly a correct pronunciation. Good thread, **stoid**! ---
**Author:** ![VanillaGorilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f9ae1b/32.png) [@VanillaGorilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VanillaGorilla)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2009, 9:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135/51 "2009-02-17T09:59:20Z")
I remember pretending to speak english as a kid, and I’m sure my fake english had a lot of Rs and Ws in it. So that must have been how it sounded to me, probably because we don’t have that R sound in swedish, and we pronounce W exactly the same as V. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2009, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135/52 "2009-02-17T10:39:28Z")
> [@An\_Arky](#): > > 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. I ( somewhat vaguely ) recall reading some years ago that English takes fewer syllables or words to say things than most languages, which means non-English speakers often speak more quickly to say the same thing. Also, as I understand it, other languages tend to sound like a nearly unbroken string of babble because they ARE - as is English. When you understand a language, your mind automatically inserts perceived gaps between words that aren’t actually there. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2009, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135/53 "2009-02-17T11:20:05Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > Just listen to how people talk. Not how someone _thinks_ they talk. I think the theory you mentioned is very interesting, and it does seem to ring true. I think people like Poe understood its principle. > [@](#): > > Good thread, **stoid**! It is a good thread, but we’ve done it a couple times before and I hate that I can’t search for the older ones (database error). There were some great metaphors. Someone said English sounds like water running over pebbles, for example. I remember mentioning in that thread talking to a Colombian guy who said that to him, English sounded “mellow”. He used the word “camera” as an example. In his language, it’s all wide open mouth: CAM-EH-RRAH. In English, it’s more gentle: CAM-RUH. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Knig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@Typo\_Knig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Knig)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2009, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135/54 "2009-02-17T12:53:43Z")
Other interesting threads on this topic: [thread=388989]What are the distinguishing characteristics of english?[/thread] (from 2006, It “Sounds like horses talking” or “It sounds like the wind”), which referenced [thread=119772]What does English sound like to a foreigner?[/thread] (from 2002). ---
**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 17, 2009, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135/55 "2009-02-17T14:53:26Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > I remember mentioning in that thread talking to a Colombian guy who said that to him, English sounded “mellow”. He used the word “camera” as an example. In his language, it’s all wide open mouth: CAM-EH-RRAH. In English, it’s more gentle: CAM-RUH. I think what he was describing are the lax vowels, particularly /ə/ and /I/, the most frequent vowels, because of reduction, which are often elided in words like “camera.” My girlfriend (who’s also Colombian), makes fun of my Spanish by mimicking these sounds. In Spanish, the vowels are all tense, and to produce them you need to open the mouth wide. ---
**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 17, 2009, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135/56 "2009-02-17T15:31:07Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > I’d appreciate it. My own status as a native speaker of English, and my experience (not at the Masters level admittedly) in Linguistics and ESL, tend to lead me to a conclusion opposite yours. Intuitions clash! We need documentation. You can start with this: Celce-Murcia, Marianne; Brinton, Donna; & Goodwin, Janet. _Teaching Pronunciation_. (1996). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 151-156, in the chapter titled “Stress, Rhythm, and Adjustments in Connected Speech.” They cite a whole slew of references in the bibliography. [QUOTE=Celce-Murcia et al] Even though these sentences differ in the number of actual syllables, they are equivalent in their number of stressed elements; therefore the time needed to say each sentence is roughly equivalent. An obvious consequence of this is that syllable length varies. In the first sentence, which has the fewer syllables, each syllable is longer. In the subsequent sentences, however, there are increasingly more unstressed syllables, which are much shorter than the stressed ones. In addition, the stressed syllables of these sentences are also slightly shorter than the stressed syllables of the first sentence in order to accommodate the extra unstressed syllables. [/QUOTE] They are describing a series of sentences: CATS CHASE MICE The CATS have CHASED MICE The CATS will CHASE the MICE The CATS have been CHASing the MICE The CATS could have been CHASing the MICE (The capitalized letters show syllable stress.) If you say these sentences to yourself, say them as you would in a natural conversation–not in a pedantic way, as though talking to someone who doesn’t speak English as a first language. You’ll hardly be able to find more pre-eminent scholars in the field of ESL pedagogy (and good friends of mine). ---
**Author:** ![MichaelQReilly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@MichaelQReilly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelQReilly)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2009, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135/57 "2009-02-17T15:34:29Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > When I was teaching kids in Japan, the way they made fun of an English accent (btw I think their model for English is mostly American English, but I’m not sure, so I didn’t just call it an “American” accent) was to add an “r”-ish component to all the vowels. So konnichiwa would be pronounced in this faux accent as “krnrchrwrrrr”. (Always with the last syllable elongated like that…) > > “Konnichiwa, boku wa Kurisu desu”\* became: > > “Krnrchrwrrrrrrr… brkr wrrrrr Krisrr drsh.” > > When I myself–an American–imitated an American accent in this way, they thought this was _hilarious_. Though I can’t be sure they were laughing _with_ me to any degree… 🙂 > > -FrL- Its pretty standard, even for non-American English speakers, to imitate an American accent by dragging out every R (think John Wayne). ---
**Author:** ![chromaticity](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/cc9497/32.png) [@chromaticity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chromaticity)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2009, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135/58 "2009-02-17T15:39:16Z")
That guy who imitated the languages was awesome! I speak Japanese with an American accent sometimes, which is a great hit at parties (Probably because everyone is drunk). I use hard th sounds, roll my rs and put tiny gaps between the syllables. ---
**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 17, 2009, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135/59 "2009-02-17T15:51:00Z")
> [@MichaelQReilly](#): > > Its pretty standard, even for non-American English speakers, to imitate an American accent by dragging out every R (think John Wayne). This phenomenon, called “/r/-coloring,” has such a strong effect on (North-American) English pronunciation that the retroflex quality of /r/ at the end of a syllable constitutes a separate vowel sound. For example, the vowel in “doe” is not the same vowel in “door.” (There are some regional dialects that drop /r/-coloring, such as the stereotypical Boston accent.) ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2009, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135/60 "2009-02-17T16:05:34Z")
You mean like the way Mike Barnicle pronounces Barack Obamer? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135.md?page=4)