# 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:** 7\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2009, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135/101 "2009-02-18T01:02:56Z")
> [@scifisam2009](#): > > The first vowel in photograph is definitely a dipthong in British English (əʊ), but it’s a different dipthong in American English - oʊ - which doesn’t stand out as much. (That’s for the kind of American English you hear most of the time on TV, at least). The American sound is traditionally represented as /oʊ/, but that’s really a shorthand. I don’t think that very many Americans actually put any kind of a clear /o/ in there. As I said before, a substantial range of accents makes it a triphthong in which /o/ is not present. In some of the Upper Midwest accents, it appears as a non-dipthong, but it’s raised; it’s not the cardinal vowel /o/. The only accents I can think of that seem to have anything close to a cardinal /o/ are some of the stronger New England accents. ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2009, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135/102 "2009-02-18T01:22:42Z")
If you got a bunch of audio tapes of people speaking different languages, and tried listening to each one forward and backward, and the forward and backward versions sound pretty similar, then that would mean you could find out what your own language sounds like by listening to a backward recording of it. I haven’t tried this - for one thing, I don’t have a recorder that could do that. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2009, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135/103 "2009-02-18T01:56:27Z")
> [@Typo\_Knig](#): > > 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). I remember **Nava** , a Spanish native, said on one of these earlier occasions that she found it difficult if not impossible to dinstinguish English from Dutch (and mayby also German) before she knew any of those languages. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2009, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135/104 "2009-02-18T08:48:01Z")
Just over a second, but I’m told Southerners speak slower as a rule. Maybe the rule means that we hit our stresses at a slower pace. ---
**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 18, 2009, 8:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135/105 "2009-02-18T08:53:16Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > I remember **Nava** , a Spanish native, said on one of these earlier occasions that she found it difficult if not impossible to dinstinguish English from Dutch (and mayby also German) before she knew any of those languages. I can see that. I’m a native English speaker and Dutch is the one language that, if I hear it in the background, I’ll mistake for English chatter, albeit slightly more guttural. (Perhaps I’d have the same reaction to Frisian, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard Frisian before.) I don’t get the same reaction from German, though. That doesn’t seem to have quite the same cadence and rhythm. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2009, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135/106 "2009-02-18T12:25:48Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > Would you mind saying generally where you’re from? My results are much more in line with the theory. I also wonder whether it has anything to do with how musical a person is, so if you would divulge your level of knowledge of music theory (or practical experience) it would be helpful. I kind of look at the whole sentence as a measure, and the three main words are quarter notes in 3/4 time. When extra words are added, they must be done basically as grace notes while quickening the quarter notes as little as possible. I get results similar to those of the person you’re responding to. I’m from the DFW area. I know plenty about music theory, having taken two years of music theory in High School, and having started out as a music major in college. -FrL- ---
**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 18, 2009, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135/107 "2009-02-18T16:06:56Z")
> [@scifisam2009](#): > > If you were using glide as a synonym for dipthong, then you wouldn’t have said that. Correct. I was using the wrong terms. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-does-english-sound-like-to-people-who-dont-speak-it/486135.md?page=5)