How english sounds to foreigners

Merlin5

Merlin5

Merlin5

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I've always wondered how the way we speak would sound to non English speakers, or even to myself if I didn't speak English. We know how other languages sound to us, it's just a series of phonetics strung together and we perceive the phonetics of each of those languages with a certain recognisable style. It might be guttural as in german, or might have the distinctive sound of French or Japanese by the way the mouth is shaped to produce the words.

Do you think any of these videos accurately convey how English actually sounds as a foreign language if we didn't understand the words and sentences? The only problem with these videos is that they're all with American accents. Would be interesting to know how a super posh English accent like the queen or Hugh Grant would sound to a non English speaking person. We're not guttural I don't think, but I also doubt we would be perceived as having a 'beautiful' sound like the French.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yU2wkD-gbzI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2znPkseUKUE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt4Dfa4fOEY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eovvp_QQXok
 
"Prisencolinensinainciusol" [prizeŋkolinensinainˈtʃuːzol] (referred to on the single cover as "Prisencólinensináinciúsol") is a song composed by Adriano Celentano, and performed by Celentano and his wife, singer/actress-turned-record producer Claudia Mori.

...The song is meant to sound to its intended Italian audience like English spoken with an American accent, but the lyrics are actually pure gibberish, with the exception of the words "all right".
Click to expand...

(Source).

 
Merlin5 said:
I've always wondered how the way we speak would sound to non English speakers, or even to myself if I didn't speak English. We know how other languages sound to us, it's just a series of phonetics strung together and we perceive the phonetics of each of those languages with a certain recognisable style. It might be guttural as in german, or might have the distinctive sound of French or Japanese by the way the mouth is shaped to produce the words.

Do you think any of these videos accurately convey how English actually sounds as a foreign language if we didn't understand the words and sentences? The only problem with these videos is that they're all with American accents. Would be interesting to know how a super posh English accent like the queen or Hugh Grant would sound to a non English speaking person. We're not guttural I don't think, but I also doubt we would be perceived as having a 'beautiful' sound like the French.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yU2wkD-gbzI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2znPkseUKUE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt4Dfa4fOEY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eovvp_QQXok
Click to expand...

What the hell! I can't even begin to comprehend what's going on here. In the first instance, how do we native English speakers know that this is what foreigners hear? I couldn't understand what they were saying all.

Evangelion said:
(Source).

Click to expand...

That's so weird.
 
Well yes British cadence may sound a bit like that, some kind of fake cockney ranging to Margret Thatcher interpretation to most people in the world that have seen or heard British Media.
American English tends to be more rhythmic and more annoying " like" pauses, as a general stereotypical view. Those videos cover that.
My Swedish teacher told me if i ever want to be really fluent i need to "sing" Swedish, akin to the hurdy gurdy hurdy gurdy hurdy gurdy hurdy gurdy and an down rythem inflecting hard on the high and low points.

But yeah... everyone knows a bit of English. I met a Syrian guy who spoke fluent Russian and a handful of English and his accent was hilarious, proper upper-class "the rain in Spain is mostly on the plane"
 
My Spanish colleague tells me it sounds like the sort of background mumbling/murmuring you get in movies when there's a large dinner party or meeting, you know the sort of thing.
 
Merlin5 said:
=We're not guttural I don't think, but I also doubt we would be perceived as having a 'beautiful' sound like the French.
Click to expand...

Personally I wouldn't consider the French language to be beautiful. It's a horrible language to learn too. I work with a lot of French, Spanish and Italians. I much prefer listening to the Italian and Spanish almost musical way of speaking than the chrggh-luuh-cghrhgc-ing of the French.
 
Bit weird. I think you subconsciously make up your own dialogue. You can take a lot from the accent, body language and facial expressions and words/sentences here and there.

What are the words they are speaking anyway?
 
AndyT said:
Personally I wouldn't consider the French language to be beautiful. It's a horrible language to learn too. I work with a lot of French, Spanish and Italians. I much prefer listening to the Italian and Spanish almost musical way of speaking than the chrggh-luuh-cghrhgc-ing of the French.
Click to expand...
Canadian French sounds disgusting, best sounding language is south american spanish IMO
 
I've always thought about this but will ultimately never know. I just like to think of the police officer Crabtree on Allo Allo! He's supposed to satirise how we English sound to the French. Obviously with a few jokes thrown in there!
 
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