I understand English quite well, so I'm not the best person to answer your question, but.... To me, English is really funny because it has so many onomatopoeic words. It has a powerful way of communicate meaning using words that have many meaning themselves (in contrast with Italian in which you have many words that are very specific IMHO), but it doesn't have the same freedom in word order.
My native language is Estonian, I'm fluent in Finnish as well and can speak reasonably good French and Russian, plus bits and pieces of other languages on an elementary-ish level. And you know what, I'm really not sure what English sounds like, in fact strangely enough, it's sort of easier for me to recongnize that about my own language, it's very melodic because of the insane amount of vowels we use combined with very little s, sh and ch sounds.
@hollabooiers I honestly don't know what the hell that is about though, I mean what does that say about English then, that it's just so unbelievably generic it doesn't really sound like anything? Sure. Starting to question my own mental health here. :P
Also i studied chinese (mand) and a lot of the words are in da back of da tongue & are quick. it requires da tongue to move 4m da back to da front very fast. so in essence, english sound a lil harsh and monotone. the tone goes down and not up. its really hard for me to sometimes keep an "english" rhyth i guess we could say. cuz' with spanish, da sound of words go up and down, but with english i have to always have to make sure i dont do that and just keep a mono tone to sound right(partTwo)End.
my 1st language s spanish. I had a hard time learning english. English is a lil harsh, not referring to tone ppl have (british, southern etc..) Majority of the english words have a lot of focus on the tip of the tongue and the front part of the palate. in contrast spanish uses da tip as well, but not as much, a lot of da words require a loose tongue, the middle part of the tongue s used more....(partONe)
Well buddy; I found this video accidentally. I have to say that your concern is quite interesting to me. My native language is Spanish. It is still hard for me to say what english sounds like; however, I would suggest you to listen to Jamaican English, or Criole English. I know it is a way too different than the English you speak, but it might give you some clues so that you can compare and see your own language from a totally new perspective.
To me, English sounds quite robotic, since English grammar provides far less liberty when it comes to constructing sentences, especially if we're talking about order of words than, say Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian/Montenegrin. Sound wise, pronunciation of consonants in English is far softer than in Slavic languages, but at the same time not as melodic, or smooth.
It's a bit of a paradox, asking someone what english sounds like, getting a detailed answer requires a good grasp of english, which reduces the relevance of the answer.
But as someone bilingual, perhaps listen to OLD ENGLISH, see how THAT sounds like, then try and go from there.
English has 4 times more words than French, and is extremely diverse so maybe that's why there's no single way to perceive it.
I can't listen to English and only focus on the sound. I don't really have a first language so I can't answer your question. However, when I listen to people with a REALLY strong Scottish accent I can listen to the sounds because I can't understand what the hell they are saying until I traslate it into English-English. Or when I listen to Luxembourgish, it sounds SO odd!
BTW, your pronunciation does suck but my French pronunciation is far worse than yours. =(
Love your videos, which I discovered a couple of days ago. Very intelligent and amusing. English is my first language, but I also speak Russian and French with a good working knowledge of Italian. Guttural means of the throat, not from the gut, by the way. It refers to languages whose primary place of articulation is the back of the throat, i.e. not English (Arabic, Hebrew, & Scots are more guttural). English has a lot of impure vowel sounds, which sound ugly to many foreigners.
Ctd. Many foreigners find the Scottish accent easier to understand than the English one. When you know a language and can think and feel in it, it sounds different to you. Lots of English people think that Russian is harsh, but it is full of palatized consonants (roughly a consonant that is followed by a y sound, as in Nyet = no). On the other hand, words are longer on average and have only one stress (no secondary or tertiary stress as in English), so it can sound heavy.
I have two first languages, not one: Arabic and English. based on that, English sounds tome like. it's got the remains of a musical language, but it sounds flat (as in the a's) and sharp. guttural? a little bit-especially in Rhotic dialects.
Arabic, from the perspective of English, is VERY guttural, pretty musical, vulgar sounding (as in low key, not dirty), fast, and "emotional". it feels more comfortable than English.
with my dialect in both, it tends to sound nasal-especially in English.
I didn not learn other languages in detail,but learned tidbits of Thai,and More of grammatical Chinese,and spoken madarin.Children do not seem to ask questions of how to pronounce,,grammar,they"mimick"then perfect the original language,until it becomes perfected into the genuine cultural language?
Perhaps,try not to intellectualize languages,or how they are learned.Think and feel more of the artisticness of speaking the languages.In reverse,Iam American,couldn't read quickly for a long time,when I was a child,learned to read,write,& speak Japanese on my own(mostly,through music,cartoon books,et.cetera.) suddenly my own English began easier to read! So I think it was an 'artistic",more"fun"way of learning which makes learning foreign languages easier to learn
I'm bilingual (Swedish and English), but i have the same problem as you. I understand it and therefore i can't hear what i sound like. However you can try to find some "fake English" videos here on youtube.
Don't bother learning a constructed language. Learn something like Arabic which is far more grammatically eccentric than English. Or any Chinese language all of which barely have any grammar to speak of. Or an Inuit language which has a tenth the total vocabulary of English. Or Swahili so you can have special conjugations for trees. All I'm saying is don't go the easy route because Esperanto has no soul and the souless should be avoided.
I think a good way to approach a learning a language is to understand pronunciation as being about 10% of the total learning experience, grammar being 15%, vocaublary 25% and the remaining 50% being reading, writing, speaking, listening, going to cafes, telling jokes, watching TV, taking classes, etc. However inaccurate this perspective may be I would say the most fair estimation in it is that half of a language is actual usage and discourse. But this doesn't account for foreign writing systems.
One reason English probably sounds clunky as you put it could be because it's vocabulary is so fundamentally divided between language families. English's vocabulary is about 1/4 Germanic, 1/3 Latin and 1/3 French making it a very strange phonetic amalgamation. Maybe speakers of German or French or other Romance & Germanic languages can see artifacts of their native phonetics in English but their ears might be turned off by it's impurity.
@lordabomity The Scandanavian languages (although obviously Finnish is distinct) sound bouncy and springy. The vowels are really round and smooth and even the harshest consonants are crisp instead of heavy and gutteral. It sounds funny, but nice.
@LatumWay Hehe ok. Although, Finnish isn't a north-germanic language, it's not anything like ours. It's more of a baltic language. Finland isn't really a part of Scandinavia either =)
sounds like you are aspirating, or speaking through your nose. Esperanto, (Why not stick with German or French)?? English is not guttural, but it's concise. You can say things in short sentences. It sounds primaeval and onomatopoeic... look up "Dolch List", mnemonics\Paul Daniels for your language troubles.
Obviously if a person can speak a language it's hard to tell what it sounds like, to me English sounds like English, accents and dialects disregarded.
In some ways to me it's kinda soft and slurry because you don't pronounce your consonants with the same kind of pressure we Norwegians do, but Norwegian is kinda like German, share a lot of words, grammar can be kind of backwards between them though.
If you want to hear what (British) English sounds like from a German perspective, enter "loriot inhaltsangabe" into the YouTube search bar. It's a very famous skit especially about confusion with the "th".
BTW: I realized at YouTube (channels 'whataboutadam' and 'keithzworld') that the (northern) Irish accent partly follows pretty much the pronunciation rules of German. But it still sounds kind of irritating to hear English pronounced like German.
Honestly, I am a native English speaker (American, west coast), but I analyze language as an interest. I love linguistics, so I've learned how to dissect languages (specifically English and American Sign Language (my college major)). English is a fascinating language, especially with so many accents on it. West coast, we speak fast with little pronunciation (words slur together), whereas Southerners have a slow speech. It's fascinating. What does it sound like? Depends on which area you mean.
Look up "richivinsky" on YouTube and he has a really good fake English video, it's an american accent though so it might not be quite what you are looking for
Anyone watching / listening to your video cannot answer your question because they will have the same problem as you "they know what youre saying".
I am an Englishman living in Spain and am told that English is an horrid language, but I disagree. My Spanish girlfriend just told me that English sounds elegant and light!
My first language is Spanish and I prefer English. You can more accurately and specificley say what you want to say. On how English sounds, Spanish sounds like your singing almost, English sounds harder and more desicive.
The best way to learn a language is to learn from Michel Thomas. He used to train the spies in WWII. I promise you'll learn in no time at all without books - revising - pens or paper. Available in all good book stores.
think halfway between german and french. not as ugly as german, not as beautiful as french, with characteristics of both. personally i like the way english sounds.
After reversing a few clips of english speakers (You, Latum and Stephen fry) it sounds almost identical to german, which would make sense as it is a germanic language.
Maybe you could try listening to them backwards. Find some passages in other languages, play them backwards, see if they sounds as blocky, powerful, bubbly, whatever. If they still do then you can listen to English backwards, and you won't have the meanings that the words impart getting in the way just the language itself.
The problem with English is that it is such a medley of other languages. We have numerous words for the same thing, which other languages rarely have. For instance, the words "eat" and "big", which are short and harsh, are Saxon words. But when the French invaded in 1066, they brought loads of words with them that share the semantics, like "consume" and "large", which are more romantic and flowing.
@AJWSimmonds Because England (particularly London) was the cultural centre of Europe in the late 15th century and the early 16th century, we had many different languages thrown into it, as that was the time English was being standardised. I, for one, like the idea that English is a diverse and flexible language, as it allows us to be a lot more creative. But I'm English too, so after all this... I can't answer your question. : / Sorry.
english sounds pretty fluent to me. A sentence has a beginning then it flows then it ends, where in dutch (my 1st language) it sounds like a sentence ends after every word (the pronounciation is pretty harsh).
And the queens english sounds like speaking to little kids, the intonation is enormous.
The thing about english is (especially american english) that since it's borrowed from many languages different people have different opinions, and different words and phrases sound more or less 'flowy', 'gutteral', or anything really as compared to other languages.
If you need help separating the sounds from the meaning you can try separating the syllables and just recombining them into non-words. For example:
Average British English is in my Scandinavian ears sounding quite distinct, fluent and not particular goofy (some of the british dialects can be quite goofy though, as well as overly posh english). American English is much more washed out and sloppy in my opinon. I guess Scandinavian languages are perceived much more goofy (ref the Muppets Swedish chef).
The short answer would be it depends on the accent.
More extensively, I personally think English sounds...mixed. It's borrowed so much from various languages over the years that it's a bit of a linguistic melting pot, and different accents tend to highlight different parts of its heritage. Then again, given how linguistics is part of my major, I tend not to class languages that way in the first place.
@InanityIncarnate I guess English sounds indistinct primarily because it doesn't have a set rhythm or stress pattern throughout. Ultimately, it's all relative since your perception of other languages is based on how they compare to your mother tongue. That's also why it's hard to discern the features of your own language; it IS your measuring stick (your norm, as it were) so it just sounds normal to you, whereas other languages sound more or less strange depending on how similar they are to it.
even for some people who dont have english as mother tongue it is quite difficult to say how it sounds like. it depends a lot on how well you speak it already. i talk a lot of english now, but i remember it did sound special to me when i couldnt speak it yet. i am german and i am currently living in finland and i slowly get the same problem with finnish. the more you understand it, the more of the special feeling you get when you hear a new language gets lost, since you slowly understand it.
First thing you'll have to forget you're not a language person in order to become one. The same thing was said about me and now I speak/understand several languages.
It can be easyer to have a conversation in a foreign language with a non-native speaker. Despite the accent they speak slower and simpler.
Take grammar easy while speaking. The most imporatnt thing is the other side to understand you. Besides grammatical forms are often not that clearly pronounced by native speakers anyway.
I'm bi-lingual born here in California, and speak both english and spanish. Spanish was my first language and in kindergarten I had to rely on my best friend to translate for me. And I would remember hearing the teacher always sounding, I dunno, it sounded kinda funny to me like the words were just being said but had no real meaning, like gibberish. Haha. It didn't appeal to me as german does. German sounds powerful and passionate. UK English is beautiful though. :D
I myself am Italian who speaks English quite well (though here in Italy it's really difficult to practice, since apparently practically no one can speak nor understand it, therefore I have to rely mostly on the internet), and I personally think English sounds great. I wouldn't know how to describe it, it sounds really fluid and poetic to me, but somehow strong at the same time. Probably it's because of the many influences from different languages. Also, UK English is WAY better than others.
I'm Icelandic, speak fluid English, and fluid Swedish.
To me, English sounds soft, putty-ish, and very "front of the mouth", where as Icelandic has hard corners, sharp angles, and utilizes the whole "edge and roof of the mouth", and Swedish sounds hushed, bouncy and is very tongue heavy.
There are so many accents in english it's hard to say, but I think one thing that puts most of them together is that english sounds really down-to-earth, "obvious" (as in clear, easy). It isn't snobby or posh. As for powerful? Depends on who speaks it more than the language itself imo. Coming from someone who speaks six languages (not all fluently) though, italian is my favourite language. It's so dynamic, and can go from careful romance to powerful shouting naturally.
I speak English, French, German and am studying Japanese.
I have to say that I much prefer English from England. When I was in the UK I loved hearing everyone's accent. I am from Canada.. I find our accent to be nothing special.
To be honest with you, I think the best way to learn a language is immersion. Feel free to send me a message if you'd like to practice some French or German or just have a friendly chat with a Canadian girl via skype. :) Take care!
English are so many things. Do you speak Scouser, Cockney, Yorkshire dialect or the Queen's English? Aussie, American (LA, New York, Southern or other accent), Australian accents or South-African? A person who do not understand English would say it were different languages.
This is fucking hilarious because me and my father had a conversation about this very subject not long ago. Have you ever heard someone who does not speak English imitate the English language? That's what we need to hear. We need to hear non-English people mocking English.
I grew up on multiple languages. What people, especially those who who speak either Asian or Arabic have said to me is that English sounds like "singing". I've heard that so many times from different people. I am pretty sure the reasons for that is because of how much inflection english speakers use. English speakers can completely change the meaning of the sentence just by changing which word the vocally emphasize.
English language is beautiful, and one of the best...I am studying from my 4th year, and now I am 16. Many people say that I speak like a true brit, becuase I learned many things about your language. I am glad, that I could learn, it is easy to learn, it has ab eaitful melody, its just......awesome.....if you want a proof that I tell the truth )lol, sounds prophetic, eh?), go ahead andask for my skype. If you wish, of course.
@LatumWay british english rocks- if you really want to know answer your own question by listening to the music of the chosen language - thats the easiest way I imagine you would achieve your goal in this case - or listen to english speaking as though you are listening to music
My first language is English, but half the time I feel, in a strange way, that it's not my first language. I also speak Spanish, and I'm learning Hebrew and Chinese. I would say that English is sort of like foot-steps. It sort of plods along, it can be both rolling and segmented. The general 'sound' of it, even for me, is kind of a muddy sound. I'm fluent in Spanish which sounds entirely different than English. And Hebrew is much rougher than English, while Chinese is more nuanced than English.
Your English sounds like the language is drowning a bit. Lol, sorry for that. There's lots of spit, lots of round sounds like "w" and "o" and "r" and "l" and "sh" which make its sentences seem swimming rather than, well, firmly marching like Russian. I notice it makes my mouth feel much wetter than usual when speaking English instead of German.
@comartinb English sounds like a rather broken language especially since most of its vocabulary has been adopted from other language. English also has the biggest vocabulary and the majority of English speakers only know a fraction of the WHOLE english vocabulary.
@supersmash43 Loanwords are always adapted to the English pronunciation though. We're not talking about the vocabulary, but about the general flow of the voice.
What English sounds like depends really on the accent. I know you don't like to think of your accent like this, but I find your accent quite posh and intellectual. It's like if you took the to-the-point aspects of German and merge it with the snobbery of French. But, when that is said, I have been speaking English for so long that I probably have the same problem as you. My first language is Norwegian, btw.
I've always asked myself the same question about my mother tongue, which is German...
Since English doesn't have a standard dialect, it's very hard to give a direct answer; generally speaking, I love British English, it sounds rather nonchalant to me, whereas I perceive broad American English as kind of froggy. Pronounciationwise, English ranks somewhere in the middle between rough (e.g. German) and soft (e.g. Russian) languages, with the notable exception of Scottish, Scouse et. al., (cont'd)
which tend to be more on the rough side, but lack the guttural, cave dweller-like clumsiness of, say, Bavarian.
To my ears, English vowels seem to be less varied, but more nuanced than German ones (e.g. "bad" - "bed"), which sounds laid-back-ish and subtle...
Considering the strange fact that English expletives seem to primarily revolve around "fucking", whereas German ones are all about "shit", I'd say English sounds fucking awesome and German sounds pretty shitty...
I'm from Finland and our whole country is bi-lingual we have to learn swedish beside finnish which is complete bullshit because NO ONE NEEDS FUCKING SWEDISH IN FINLAND! We are all also taught english and that's honestly the only language you would need here. Everyone speaks it, I use it when talking to swedish people lol.
We are taught english english and how to separate it from american english starting from 3:rd grade and I think english sounds sophisticated but american english sounds stupid
I'm French-Canadian living in a minority situation (living in Ottawa, Canada). I don't think I can tell you what English "sounds like" since I learned it at age 5.
One thing that I was taught seems to colour my impression of English. I was taught to keep written English sentences short. In French, there's a tendency to write long meandering complex sentences while making sure you use "le mot juste". In English, the same sentence structure could be considered a "run-on" sentence.
Hi Jacob! I was raised, till 18, speaking Polish, only. Now I'm 42. Since 18, I've been living in the US, and a few years in NZ. I think that English is a cool language. I think that none Americanized English has, really, an interesting and fun character. It's excellent for expressing one's sense of humor, telling jokes, being sarcastic and such things. Actually, I love UK, NZ, and AU "Englishes". They even manage to increase a woman's sex appeal, to me; seriously I find it really sexy, too! : )
Well my first language is Estonian. I'm almost but not quite as good in English as I am in Estonian.
Once our distant relatives came to visit us from Canada. They were also Estonians but were more comfortable talking in English. But.. whenever they spoke English the intonation contrasts were much stronger. It was as if they had become less rational more emotional people when switching the language. Estonian sounds a lot more reserved to me.
I'm a Dutch speaking Belgian (no kidding) and to me English sounds very flexible. It can be poetic, to the point, elaborate, ditinguished and vulgar at the same time, agitating, or funny... the way you sound ;-)
I'm a native French speaker (from Québec, Canada) and to me English sounds very spontaneous, expressive. I feel English songs and dialog sound very natural compared to French.
Now I don't need to "think in French and translate" anymore in order to speak English. I think - and dream - in both languages, which is very interesting. Also I mostly learned English trough TV and cinema, so I (believe I) have a mixture of American and English accents, but not Canadian, oddly enough.
Since arriving i've been informed multiple times that Australians don't actually speak english, but instead communicate by murdering the language by degrees :P
Always been curious about this as well, the responses should be interesting. Thanks for the vid.
My boyfriend is Swedish and says English varies all the time. It doesn't have one continuous sound maybe like Spanish or Russian does... basically I think he means it's clunky lol. I never really realised how difficult our language was until he pointed out words like "uncomfortable" which has like twice as many letters than are necessary. So that's us... clunky :D
This is the best thing you can learn in Russian. You lean this you'll be ok. Пожалуйста поговорите в английском я не знайте русского. Basically saying please speak in English I don't know Russian. ;)
Well, the British English accent (or rather those that I've heard) in German sounds... odd, but really just at worst a little goofy. The American English accent in German sounds horribly grating and typically similar I would say to what the murder of a language must sound like.
After coming back from studying German in Germany, I wrote a small description of what English sounds like: "merkwürdig".
You have more of an idea than you realised. You can listen to different English accents and they have a certain sound. Geordie sounds different to Scouse, for example. I'm sure there are English accents that you like, and some you don't. A French person once said to me that English sounds like lots of "S" sounds. Try listening to yourself and listen to all the "S".
@lolingattheism People who don't speak English wouldn't understand the question, would they? That's why he asked for bilingual people for whom English is second language.
@dominickearney I thought that would be obvious. But to level the playing field, you do not really speak those languages you describe. BTW, I find your english quite annoying, sorry ;)
This isn't going to help you at all but I like accents more than I do languages. I would love to learn other languages but haven't had the motivation to do so. I got my blood drawn today by a woman who was from East Africa originally and she's lived in the U.S. for five years now. I'm also really obsessed with the British accent. I like the varieties of British accents there are depending on what part of England your from. I wish I could talk like that...lol
Something that might help, is if you could get someone who does not understand English to imitate the language for you. The same way an English speaker would imitate a language like Mandarin Chinese. "Cheng chow shwee shong loa". It means nothing, but it sounds Chinese! People do it all the time. That way, the words have no meaning to you, but you can still get an idea of what your language sounds like to a non-native speaker. Don't worry. You are not the only person to have wondered this.
@Bandaids4ever That is a really weird idea, but sounds like it might work. Unfortunately, I am in Latum's boat in that I can't identify the "sound" of English, but I do speak other languages.
@Snackar I'm in his boat as well. I'm not bilingual, but I have wondered this for so many years. I've even tried myself to "imitate" the sound of English without actually speaking English words, but I simply can not do it. It must be done by someone unfamiliar with the language. Or at least someone who has spoken another language first.
tough question man. i could've helped you maybe 20 years ago, but english has become my 1st language, even if it wasn't when i was growing up. but from what i can remember here are a few thoughts of what i thought of the english language when i was younger. .
1. it sounds sophisticated. can't explain it but it sounds like a professional language. 2. it's backwards. lol. the vast majority of other languages would say 'House Big' instead of 'Big House'... that was weird. Good luck!
America doesn't speak English, America speaks American. The difference between languages is subtle, but it's there. It's kind of like Portuguese and Spanish; they're almost the same language, but not quite.
@MSK120 The difference between 'american' and english is mostly accent as in how to say things. spanish and portuguese while close, are different languages that share a common ancestry
@MSK120 There's no such language as American. American is a dialect of English (and there are difference dialects within American English). Spanish and Portugese are much more different to one another than British and American English are to one another. Written Portugese is closer to Italian. Spoken Portugese is complete different.
english was a strangely abrupt language in learning. i'm used to words being very long/sentences being long-winded in basque, and english words/phrases are usually so short.
depending on the speaker, english can be really soft and flowing, or really guttural and annunciated. just like any language really :P
Spanish is my first language, although I learned English very young. I appreciate other accents of English though. Like the British sounds pretty/elegant and the Scottish/Irish have very fun/joyful type of accents, and I find Australians to talk somewhere in between the two. Although, I feel like I can't really judge American English though, feels kind of impossible. o_o'
To me, as an Spanish speaker, English sounds... a little bit too soft, but I don't find it clumsy, or poetic or anything special. English is not an ugly language, it is over simplified, but the sound is pleasant, it isn't monotonous, and it is quite easy to learn.
As a polish guy I think I could fit into your target group of people :p
For me english sounds very "flowing", "ballanced" and it's also very soft to and easy to speak even for a eastern-europe guy like me... It's the perfect language to write songs in and it allways seems to sound nice (even if the lyrics are harder to understand in some songs)...
That's just MY opinion and I would never put it as an opinion of my entire country!
I learnt English and Gujarati at the same time growing up, but I speak English more. When I listen to Gujarati I hear what is said in English, if that makes any sense?
Well, in the east Asian counterpart to "ching-chong ding-dong" is "quack, bwaack", that kind of thing. I would imagine, though, that it would be the most romantic of the germanic languages. G-, uh-, and b- sounds are all fairly powerful and somewhat unpleasant , whereas f-, l-, and w- sounds are more romantic. The word "flowing" which you used to describe romantic languages, is itself fairly romantic, as "guttural" is quite guttural.
Czechs say that English sounds like bad singing. Not horrible, out of tune singing, but Karoake singing that would make you say' "Uh, it's alright I suppose." If you want to learn a language, as an ESL teacher, I can definately say that immersion- where the class is taught wholly in the language you're learning from day one is much more successful than other methods. If you want to read about linguistics I recommend Stephen Pinker. Accessable and funny.
I'm American, and my first language is English, but I have a French Friend who I bother with questions like this all the time. She never tells me, but last summer she had a friend visit who was interested in America, so I was finally able to get some questions answered. She says that English from an American sounds pretty good, and is the way that most of the people she knew tried to speak it like americans. In fact, the one whos my friend has a lot of trouble understanding U.K accents.
As a native English speaker (california) who speaks german as a second language, I'd say especially that differences in dialect and pronunciation can very heavily change how one perceives the language. Southern german dialects are hardly intelligible with those in the north, for instance, and it's difficult for me sometimes to understand a scotsman or someone w/ a singapore accent. There are just too many variables, unless you're referring only to a "standard" english. Whatever that is.
I was raised speaking Yoruba (spoken in Nigeria) and of course, English. If I were to evaluate English, I would say it feels chunky and has very little flow, if that makes sense.
The accent English is spoken in makes a difference too. When English folks speak it, it seems stronger and more defined than and American speaking it. My father and all of his siblings speak with some sort of English accent when speaking English, and mine is a mix between that an American, so I sound pretty odd.
I'm a native speaker, and I barely understand German (I'm only slightly better than you, though you probably have a better pronunciation since I can't hear well), and I still have always said that English is an ugly language. Then again, I think German is a beautiful language, so I'm probably just not right in the head...
English is very soft and rubbery. A lot of round shapes and no sharp edges. The soft Rs and all the ng-sounds make it that way, at least to my ears. I don't think it's ugly, compare it to German for example that's a hideous language.
I grew up with english and german as my first languages. fromt that i find english to be have Unassuming almost modest yet quite chirpy as well . I find it to be quite odd ass well because of all the analogies we have.
My first language is Spanish, and learned English starting at age 13. To me, Spanish sounds common. American English always sounded melodious. UK English sounds choppy, though generally elegant. English overall is very efficient and I believe from a practical point of view, it conveys meaning very efficiently. But for romantic messages, Spanish is far more poetic, powerful and yet, subtle.
I'm a swede, but I learned English pretty early in life, so I have have the same problem you do for judging the "sound".
I'll say that I tend to see Swedish as more expressive, because rather than just stress syllables, you also vary volume to create rhythm, English, however, has more practicality to me.
I find myself using English expressions while speaking Swedish, because I can't find words that sound right in Swedish. That has a lot to do with the large amount of syllables in English
If you want to know what English sounds like to non speaker, listen to Sylvia Plath reading her own poem called Daddy here on youtube. That woman makes English sound alien to me.
English is my first language but my friends who i have asked the SAME EXACT question to said it sounds A LOT like german.
I think that it depends on the accent. Standard American i think is clunky, but i love the NY accents, i hate the Boston accent, i like the southern belle accent, not sure if it's b/c of the accent or i like how slow they talk (i'm a fast-talking New Yorker). I like only certain english accents, i can't tell you which ones though, i'm not good at distinguishing.
foreign music is awesome! neue deutsche härte ftw und ich lerne deutsch durch die musik but i guess i cannot answer your question but i disagree with you with how german is rough it can be very schön beautiful also
it is very romancical reminded me of french my first was hebrew which was a wierd kinda german kinda frenchish language english was more on the french side idk i like how it sounded when i learned it
LATUMWAY, checkout the user Laoshu505000 for help with language learning. He has great videos
geragna 2 weeks ago in playlist More videos from LatumWay
I understand English quite well, so I'm not the best person to answer your question, but.... To me, English is really funny because it has so many onomatopoeic words. It has a powerful way of communicate meaning using words that have many meaning themselves (in contrast with Italian in which you have many words that are very specific IMHO), but it doesn't have the same freedom in word order.
TechAndTea 1 month ago
My native language is Estonian, I'm fluent in Finnish as well and can speak reasonably good French and Russian, plus bits and pieces of other languages on an elementary-ish level. And you know what, I'm really not sure what English sounds like, in fact strangely enough, it's sort of easier for me to recongnize that about my own language, it's very melodic because of the insane amount of vowels we use combined with very little s, sh and ch sounds.
hollabooiers 1 month ago
@hollabooiers I honestly don't know what the hell that is about though, I mean what does that say about English then, that it's just so unbelievably generic it doesn't really sound like anything? Sure. Starting to question my own mental health here. :P
hollabooiers 1 month ago
@hollabooiers Also, recognize*. Stupid typos.
hollabooiers 1 month ago
Also i studied chinese (mand) and a lot of the words are in da back of da tongue & are quick. it requires da tongue to move 4m da back to da front very fast. so in essence, english sound a lil harsh and monotone. the tone goes down and not up. its really hard for me to sometimes keep an "english" rhyth i guess we could say. cuz' with spanish, da sound of words go up and down, but with english i have to always have to make sure i dont do that and just keep a mono tone to sound right(partTwo)End.
thelittlejennie 2 months ago
@thelittlejennie Hahaha well thanks for your honesty. 'English is horrible' - got it.
LatumWay 2 months ago
my 1st language s spanish. I had a hard time learning english. English is a lil harsh, not referring to tone ppl have (british, southern etc..) Majority of the english words have a lot of focus on the tip of the tongue and the front part of the palate. in contrast spanish uses da tip as well, but not as much, a lot of da words require a loose tongue, the middle part of the tongue s used more....(partONe)
thelittlejennie 2 months ago
Now I want to know how English sounds like as well:O And I take Mandarin as my second language.How does mandarin sound like to you?I'm curious:)
TheBananaCoin 2 months ago
Well buddy; I found this video accidentally. I have to say that your concern is quite interesting to me. My native language is Spanish. It is still hard for me to say what english sounds like; however, I would suggest you to listen to Jamaican English, or Criole English. I know it is a way too different than the English you speak, but it might give you some clues so that you can compare and see your own language from a totally new perspective.
emendezm924 2 months ago
To me, English sounds quite robotic, since English grammar provides far less liberty when it comes to constructing sentences, especially if we're talking about order of words than, say Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian/Montenegrin. Sound wise, pronunciation of consonants in English is far softer than in Slavic languages, but at the same time not as melodic, or smooth.
LannaDru 3 months ago
It depends which accent. I personally love the accent spoken in series like Inspector Morse. It sounds very intelligent.
FootSomeGuy 6 months ago in playlist multi stand
It's a bit of a paradox, asking someone what english sounds like, getting a detailed answer requires a good grasp of english, which reduces the relevance of the answer.
But as someone bilingual, perhaps listen to OLD ENGLISH, see how THAT sounds like, then try and go from there.
English has 4 times more words than French, and is extremely diverse so maybe that's why there's no single way to perceive it.
superhamzah85 6 months ago
I can't listen to English and only focus on the sound. I don't really have a first language so I can't answer your question. However, when I listen to people with a REALLY strong Scottish accent I can listen to the sounds because I can't understand what the hell they are saying until I traslate it into English-English. Or when I listen to Luxembourgish, it sounds SO odd!
BTW, your pronunciation does suck but my French pronunciation is far worse than yours. =(
GenevievesVindicated 1 year ago
Love your videos, which I discovered a couple of days ago. Very intelligent and amusing. English is my first language, but I also speak Russian and French with a good working knowledge of Italian. Guttural means of the throat, not from the gut, by the way. It refers to languages whose primary place of articulation is the back of the throat, i.e. not English (Arabic, Hebrew, & Scots are more guttural). English has a lot of impure vowel sounds, which sound ugly to many foreigners.
raggedclown 1 year ago
Ctd. Many foreigners find the Scottish accent easier to understand than the English one. When you know a language and can think and feel in it, it sounds different to you. Lots of English people think that Russian is harsh, but it is full of palatized consonants (roughly a consonant that is followed by a y sound, as in Nyet = no). On the other hand, words are longer on average and have only one stress (no secondary or tertiary stress as in English), so it can sound heavy.
raggedclown 1 year ago
I have two first languages, not one: Arabic and English. based on that, English sounds tome like. it's got the remains of a musical language, but it sounds flat (as in the a's) and sharp. guttural? a little bit-especially in Rhotic dialects.
Arabic, from the perspective of English, is VERY guttural, pretty musical, vulgar sounding (as in low key, not dirty), fast, and "emotional". it feels more comfortable than English.
with my dialect in both, it tends to sound nasal-especially in English.
Albukhshi 1 year ago
I didn not learn other languages in detail,but learned tidbits of Thai,and More of grammatical Chinese,and spoken madarin.Children do not seem to ask questions of how to pronounce,,grammar,they"mimick"then perfect the original language,until it becomes perfected into the genuine cultural language?
culturepeaceforever2 1 year ago
Perhaps,try not to intellectualize languages,or how they are learned.Think and feel more of the artisticness of speaking the languages.In reverse,Iam American,couldn't read quickly for a long time,when I was a child,learned to read,write,& speak Japanese on my own(mostly,through music,cartoon books,et.cetera.) suddenly my own English began easier to read! So I think it was an 'artistic",more"fun"way of learning which makes learning foreign languages easier to learn
culturepeaceforever2 1 year ago
british english sounds sophisticated and gentle and like if high class society only spoke it
american english sounds cool, fierce and like for only young people
thats the way i viewed before i learned it
my first language was spanish
amdfgm 1 year ago
If you are fresh at Danish come to me i will be glad to help!.
gugagagagreprpr 1 year ago
I'm bilingual (Swedish and English), but i have the same problem as you. I understand it and therefore i can't hear what i sound like. However you can try to find some "fake English" videos here on youtube.
Svartkorp 1 year ago
Don't bother learning a constructed language. Learn something like Arabic which is far more grammatically eccentric than English. Or any Chinese language all of which barely have any grammar to speak of. Or an Inuit language which has a tenth the total vocabulary of English. Or Swahili so you can have special conjugations for trees. All I'm saying is don't go the easy route because Esperanto has no soul and the souless should be avoided.
namenotnecessary 1 year ago
@namenotnecessary I like my robot language.
LatumWay 1 year ago 2
I think a good way to approach a learning a language is to understand pronunciation as being about 10% of the total learning experience, grammar being 15%, vocaublary 25% and the remaining 50% being reading, writing, speaking, listening, going to cafes, telling jokes, watching TV, taking classes, etc. However inaccurate this perspective may be I would say the most fair estimation in it is that half of a language is actual usage and discourse. But this doesn't account for foreign writing systems.
namenotnecessary 1 year ago
One reason English probably sounds clunky as you put it could be because it's vocabulary is so fundamentally divided between language families. English's vocabulary is about 1/4 Germanic, 1/3 Latin and 1/3 French making it a very strange phonetic amalgamation. Maybe speakers of German or French or other Romance & Germanic languages can see artifacts of their native phonetics in English but their ears might be turned off by it's impurity.
namenotnecessary 1 year ago
Sorry. I meant sami language. =P
lordabomity 1 year ago
Btw, I like the english language. Mostly british and australian.
lordabomity 1 year ago
How do you think Swedish/Norwegian sounds like?
A strange thing is that for me its easier to her how my own language (Swedish) sounds than English . lol
lordabomity 1 year ago
@lordabomity The Scandanavian languages (although obviously Finnish is distinct) sound bouncy and springy. The vowels are really round and smooth and even the harshest consonants are crisp instead of heavy and gutteral. It sounds funny, but nice.
LatumWay 1 year ago
@LatumWay Hehe ok. Although, Finnish isn't a north-germanic language, it's not anything like ours. It's more of a baltic language. Finland isn't really a part of Scandinavia either =)
lordabomity 1 year ago
@lordabomity I know that Finnish isn't a germanic language. Its a Uralic language, not Baltic.
LatumWay 1 year ago
sounds like you are aspirating, or speaking through your nose. Esperanto, (Why not stick with German or French)?? English is not guttural, but it's concise. You can say things in short sentences. It sounds primaeval and onomatopoeic... look up "Dolch List", mnemonics\Paul Daniels for your language troubles.
schlimazzel 1 year ago
Obviously if a person can speak a language it's hard to tell what it sounds like, to me English sounds like English, accents and dialects disregarded.
In some ways to me it's kinda soft and slurry because you don't pronounce your consonants with the same kind of pressure we Norwegians do, but Norwegian is kinda like German, share a lot of words, grammar can be kind of backwards between them though.
Yeah, something like that.
Dunedaincolty 1 year ago
If you want to hear what (British) English sounds like from a German perspective, enter "loriot inhaltsangabe" into the YouTube search bar. It's a very famous skit especially about confusion with the "th".
BTW: I realized at YouTube (channels 'whataboutadam' and 'keithzworld') that the (northern) Irish accent partly follows pretty much the pronunciation rules of German. But it still sounds kind of irritating to hear English pronounced like German.
ab0kanal 1 year ago
Honestly, I am a native English speaker (American, west coast), but I analyze language as an interest. I love linguistics, so I've learned how to dissect languages (specifically English and American Sign Language (my college major)). English is a fascinating language, especially with so many accents on it. West coast, we speak fast with little pronunciation (words slur together), whereas Southerners have a slow speech. It's fascinating. What does it sound like? Depends on which area you mean.
BKLabbit 1 year ago
Look up "richivinsky" on YouTube and he has a really good fake English video, it's an american accent though so it might not be quite what you are looking for
harleyquinn000 1 year ago
Anyone watching / listening to your video cannot answer your question because they will have the same problem as you "they know what youre saying".
I am an Englishman living in Spain and am told that English is an horrid language, but I disagree. My Spanish girlfriend just told me that English sounds elegant and light!
LosPigg 1 year ago
My first language is Spanish and I prefer English. You can more accurately and specificley say what you want to say. On how English sounds, Spanish sounds like your singing almost, English sounds harder and more desicive.
Teresa64squared 1 year ago
The best way to learn a language is to learn from Michel Thomas. He used to train the spies in WWII. I promise you'll learn in no time at all without books - revising - pens or paper. Available in all good book stores.
keithwhittygmail 1 year ago
English's a really 'short' language, meaning that compared to French, the sentences are really short in comparison, so I'd say it's kind of lazy.
But at the same time, it's brilliant because you can shorten sentences by great lenghts and it'll still sound as smart as its 'long' counterpart.
pzerozero0 1 year ago
think halfway between german and french. not as ugly as german, not as beautiful as french, with characteristics of both. personally i like the way english sounds.
fromdabosch 1 year ago
Look for the song 'Prisencolinensinainciusol' by Adriano Celentano
The lyrics are pure gibberish, often described as sounding like American English as heard by a non–English-speaker ...
MrJekyllDrHyde1 1 year ago 7
I think I'll just write my impressions of brittish, because it can sound so different...
In general, it sounds alot more poetic than other english accents.
Exaggerated brittish: Sounds very arrogant.
Brittish with slang: Sounds very naggy*. It's difficult to take seriously.
Oxford accent: Very polite sounding. Sounds very intelligent sometimes.
Girls/young women speaking brittish: Happy sounding, and very cute :D
*Naggy is the adjective form of "nagging", right? D:
AtheisticSpoon 1 year ago
After reversing a few clips of english speakers (You, Latum and Stephen fry) it sounds almost identical to german, which would make sense as it is a germanic language.
BarnyOC 1 year ago
Maybe you could try listening to them backwards. Find some passages in other languages, play them backwards, see if they sounds as blocky, powerful, bubbly, whatever. If they still do then you can listen to English backwards, and you won't have the meanings that the words impart getting in the way just the language itself.
You ever listen to yourself backwards?
You ever listen to yourself backwards... on weed?
ImHibby 1 year ago
The problem with English is that it is such a medley of other languages. We have numerous words for the same thing, which other languages rarely have. For instance, the words "eat" and "big", which are short and harsh, are Saxon words. But when the French invaded in 1066, they brought loads of words with them that share the semantics, like "consume" and "large", which are more romantic and flowing.
AJWSimmonds 1 year ago
@AJWSimmonds Because England (particularly London) was the cultural centre of Europe in the late 15th century and the early 16th century, we had many different languages thrown into it, as that was the time English was being standardised. I, for one, like the idea that English is a diverse and flexible language, as it allows us to be a lot more creative. But I'm English too, so after all this... I can't answer your question. : / Sorry.
Lulz!!!
AJWSimmonds 1 year ago
english sounds pretty fluent to me. A sentence has a beginning then it flows then it ends, where in dutch (my 1st language) it sounds like a sentence ends after every word (the pronounciation is pretty harsh).
And the queens english sounds like speaking to little kids, the intonation is enormous.
boertush 1 year ago
The thing about english is (especially american english) that since it's borrowed from many languages different people have different opinions, and different words and phrases sound more or less 'flowy', 'gutteral', or anything really as compared to other languages.
If you need help separating the sounds from the meaning you can try separating the syllables and just recombining them into non-words. For example:
itzen udon itza nooday
TheOJDrinker 1 year ago
Average British English is in my Scandinavian ears sounding quite distinct, fluent and not particular goofy (some of the british dialects can be quite goofy though, as well as overly posh english). American English is much more washed out and sloppy in my opinon. I guess Scandinavian languages are perceived much more goofy (ref the Muppets Swedish chef).
bandoli66 1 year ago
The short answer would be it depends on the accent.
More extensively, I personally think English sounds...mixed. It's borrowed so much from various languages over the years that it's a bit of a linguistic melting pot, and different accents tend to highlight different parts of its heritage. Then again, given how linguistics is part of my major, I tend not to class languages that way in the first place.
InanityIncarnate 1 year ago
@InanityIncarnate I guess English sounds indistinct primarily because it doesn't have a set rhythm or stress pattern throughout. Ultimately, it's all relative since your perception of other languages is based on how they compare to your mother tongue. That's also why it's hard to discern the features of your own language; it IS your measuring stick (your norm, as it were) so it just sounds normal to you, whereas other languages sound more or less strange depending on how similar they are to it.
InanityIncarnate 1 year ago
even for some people who dont have english as mother tongue it is quite difficult to say how it sounds like. it depends a lot on how well you speak it already. i talk a lot of english now, but i remember it did sound special to me when i couldnt speak it yet. i am german and i am currently living in finland and i slowly get the same problem with finnish. the more you understand it, the more of the special feeling you get when you hear a new language gets lost, since you slowly understand it.
robyn1197 1 year ago
« Je parle espagnol à Dieu, italien aux femmes, français aux hommes et allemand à mon cheval »
I speak spanish to god, italian to women, french to men et german to my horse.
Charles Quint (1500-1558)
Roi d'Espagne et empereur germanique
.
jeanclaudepoitras 1 year ago
Few tips
First thing you'll have to forget you're not a language person in order to become one. The same thing was said about me and now I speak/understand several languages.
It can be easyer to have a conversation in a foreign language with a non-native speaker. Despite the accent they speak slower and simpler.
Take grammar easy while speaking. The most imporatnt thing is the other side to understand you. Besides grammatical forms are often not that clearly pronounced by native speakers anyway.
miraenna 1 year ago
English isn't an ugly language, look at "thoroughly thought through" That just sounds amazing (I have Stephen Fry to thank for showing me that)
TheEvilFlyingPanda 1 year ago
I'm bi-lingual born here in California, and speak both english and spanish. Spanish was my first language and in kindergarten I had to rely on my best friend to translate for me. And I would remember hearing the teacher always sounding, I dunno, it sounded kinda funny to me like the words were just being said but had no real meaning, like gibberish. Haha. It didn't appeal to me as german does. German sounds powerful and passionate. UK English is beautiful though. :D
metaImaiden 1 year ago
I myself am Italian who speaks English quite well (though here in Italy it's really difficult to practice, since apparently practically no one can speak nor understand it, therefore I have to rely mostly on the internet), and I personally think English sounds great. I wouldn't know how to describe it, it sounds really fluid and poetic to me, but somehow strong at the same time. Probably it's because of the many influences from different languages. Also, UK English is WAY better than others.
BassiMDS 1 year ago
I'm Icelandic, speak fluid English, and fluid Swedish.
To me, English sounds soft, putty-ish, and very "front of the mouth", where as Icelandic has hard corners, sharp angles, and utilizes the whole "edge and roof of the mouth", and Swedish sounds hushed, bouncy and is very tongue heavy.
... does that make any sense?
MiniarHalfshasa 1 year ago
There are so many accents in english it's hard to say, but I think one thing that puts most of them together is that english sounds really down-to-earth, "obvious" (as in clear, easy). It isn't snobby or posh. As for powerful? Depends on who speaks it more than the language itself imo. Coming from someone who speaks six languages (not all fluently) though, italian is my favourite language. It's so dynamic, and can go from careful romance to powerful shouting naturally.
damillionmalania 1 year ago
same here i love listening to languages but i fail when it comes to learning them
Nibielari 1 year ago
I speak English, French, German and am studying Japanese.
I have to say that I much prefer English from England. When I was in the UK I loved hearing everyone's accent. I am from Canada.. I find our accent to be nothing special.
To be honest with you, I think the best way to learn a language is immersion. Feel free to send me a message if you'd like to practice some French or German or just have a friendly chat with a Canadian girl via skype. :) Take care!
ninj4sugarbyte 1 year ago
British English sounds refined.
namesnikola 1 year ago
Try listening to English backwards, you'll get all the sounds without the meanings.
Dissent1 1 year ago
English are so many things. Do you speak Scouser, Cockney, Yorkshire dialect or the Queen's English? Aussie, American (LA, New York, Southern or other accent), Australian accents or South-African? A person who do not understand English would say it were different languages.
skinnyjohnsen 1 year ago
This is fucking hilarious because me and my father had a conversation about this very subject not long ago. Have you ever heard someone who does not speak English imitate the English language? That's what we need to hear. We need to hear non-English people mocking English.
Find them.
baeritukaez 1 year ago
I grew up on multiple languages. What people, especially those who who speak either Asian or Arabic have said to me is that English sounds like "singing". I've heard that so many times from different people. I am pretty sure the reasons for that is because of how much inflection english speakers use. English speakers can completely change the meaning of the sentence just by changing which word the vocally emphasize.
rylraven13 1 year ago
@ColourMK7 oh yeah,we indorse bad language ;))))
I have fetish on foreign languages(i swear) and swearing in serbian ;)
lanananans 1 year ago
@lanananans It's "endorse" not "indorse", just a heads-up :P
FmMan33 1 year ago
@FmMan33 u picku materinu! :P
lanananans 1 year ago
@lanananans Wait... you've confused me so much. :(
FmMan33 1 year ago
From 10yers working in restaurants i have had to learn some Spanish/Mexican.knowing some is quite useful.
h8red42 1 year ago
English language is beautiful, and one of the best...I am studying from my 4th year, and now I am 16. Many people say that I speak like a true brit, becuase I learned many things about your language. I am glad, that I could learn, it is easy to learn, it has ab eaitful melody, its just......awesome.....if you want a proof that I tell the truth )lol, sounds prophetic, eh?), go ahead andask for my skype. If you wish, of course.
Hospitalier14 1 year ago
@Hospitalier14 lol, that was a little bit of a typing fail. I have typed this day a LOT, so sorry if I have there so many mistakes. :-)
Hospitalier14 1 year ago
i speak hebrew, english and arab
my native lang is Hebrew
adirm18 1 year ago
@adirm18 as for the sound
american English sounds real nice and fluid BUT
British English SUCKS!!!
there is just too much emphasis on the W's its sounds as if you are saying aow wouw wwaw etc...
adirm18 1 year ago
@adirm18 Strange. You are the first person I'm aware of who has prefered american english to british english.
LatumWay 1 year ago 20
@LatumWay when i m talking to Americans i understand them very fast and clear
but when ever i speak with English people i can hardly understand a word they say
even when i listen to your vids i often rewind the vid to listen again and try to understand what it is you were saying (a thing i can't do in person)
but it never happened to me with an american
adirm18 1 year ago
@LatumWay That is weird. I'm American and I prefer British English to American English.
SmileysRevenge100 1 year ago
@LatumWay british english rocks- if you really want to know answer your own question by listening to the music of the chosen language - thats the easiest way I imagine you would achieve your goal in this case - or listen to english speaking as though you are listening to music
awhell666 1 year ago
My first language is English, but half the time I feel, in a strange way, that it's not my first language. I also speak Spanish, and I'm learning Hebrew and Chinese. I would say that English is sort of like foot-steps. It sort of plods along, it can be both rolling and segmented. The general 'sound' of it, even for me, is kind of a muddy sound. I'm fluent in Spanish which sounds entirely different than English. And Hebrew is much rougher than English, while Chinese is more nuanced than English.
gustjorodedheo 1 year ago
Your English sounds like the language is drowning a bit. Lol, sorry for that. There's lots of spit, lots of round sounds like "w" and "o" and "r" and "l" and "sh" which make its sentences seem swimming rather than, well, firmly marching like Russian. I notice it makes my mouth feel much wetter than usual when speaking English instead of German.
comartinb 1 year ago
@comartinb English sounds like a rather broken language especially since most of its vocabulary has been adopted from other language. English also has the biggest vocabulary and the majority of English speakers only know a fraction of the WHOLE english vocabulary.
supersmash43 1 year ago
@supersmash43 Loanwords are always adapted to the English pronunciation though. We're not talking about the vocabulary, but about the general flow of the voice.
comartinb 1 year ago
@comartinb true enough. The general flow of English is kinda of choppy btw.
supersmash43 1 year ago
I would think English would seem very slow to a lot of people of other languages.
N0xN0ctis 1 year ago
If you speak Russian, People fear you.
cobolt13 1 year ago 2
What English sounds like depends really on the accent. I know you don't like to think of your accent like this, but I find your accent quite posh and intellectual. It's like if you took the to-the-point aspects of German and merge it with the snobbery of French. But, when that is said, I have been speaking English for so long that I probably have the same problem as you. My first language is Norwegian, btw.
Zoiros85 1 year ago
I've always asked myself the same question about my mother tongue, which is German...
Since English doesn't have a standard dialect, it's very hard to give a direct answer; generally speaking, I love British English, it sounds rather nonchalant to me, whereas I perceive broad American English as kind of froggy. Pronounciationwise, English ranks somewhere in the middle between rough (e.g. German) and soft (e.g. Russian) languages, with the notable exception of Scottish, Scouse et. al., (cont'd)
mbnp1701 1 year ago
@mbnp1701
which tend to be more on the rough side, but lack the guttural, cave dweller-like clumsiness of, say, Bavarian.
To my ears, English vowels seem to be less varied, but more nuanced than German ones (e.g. "bad" - "bed"), which sounds laid-back-ish and subtle...
Considering the strange fact that English expletives seem to primarily revolve around "fucking", whereas German ones are all about "shit", I'd say English sounds fucking awesome and German sounds pretty shitty...
mbnp1701 1 year ago
there are a few accents in english speaking.
british - sound critique. vary from professor-ish to snoobish.
scottish - whiny. wah wah.
standard american - confidence. vary from assertive to almost bully.
overall - english speakers mostly sound overly excited while the language itself is pretty monotone.
pitigam 1 year ago
I'm from Finland and our whole country is bi-lingual we have to learn swedish beside finnish which is complete bullshit because NO ONE NEEDS FUCKING SWEDISH IN FINLAND! We are all also taught english and that's honestly the only language you would need here. Everyone speaks it, I use it when talking to swedish people lol.
We are taught english english and how to separate it from american english starting from 3:rd grade and I think english sounds sophisticated but american english sounds stupid
labrat882 1 year ago
@labrat882 "I use it when talking to swedish people lol." lmao
dredoc1 1 year ago
I'm French-Canadian living in a minority situation (living in Ottawa, Canada). I don't think I can tell you what English "sounds like" since I learned it at age 5.
One thing that I was taught seems to colour my impression of English. I was taught to keep written English sentences short. In French, there's a tendency to write long meandering complex sentences while making sure you use "le mot juste". In English, the same sentence structure could be considered a "run-on" sentence.
sdesros 1 year ago
Hi Jacob! I was raised, till 18, speaking Polish, only. Now I'm 42. Since 18, I've been living in the US, and a few years in NZ. I think that English is a cool language. I think that none Americanized English has, really, an interesting and fun character. It's excellent for expressing one's sense of humor, telling jokes, being sarcastic and such things. Actually, I love UK, NZ, and AU "Englishes". They even manage to increase a woman's sex appeal, to me; seriously I find it really sexy, too! : )
mindfuldroid 1 year ago
It's a nude eh?
noswonky 1 year ago
@noswonky HA!
LatumWay 1 year ago
Well my first language is Estonian. I'm almost but not quite as good in English as I am in Estonian.
Once our distant relatives came to visit us from Canada. They were also Estonians but were more comfortable talking in English. But.. whenever they spoke English the intonation contrasts were much stronger. It was as if they had become less rational more emotional people when switching the language. Estonian sounds a lot more reserved to me.
Hyardacil 1 year ago
I'm a Dutch speaking Belgian (no kidding) and to me English sounds very flexible. It can be poetic, to the point, elaborate, ditinguished and vulgar at the same time, agitating, or funny... the way you sound ;-)
Ulfbarnen 1 year ago
I'm a native French speaker (from Québec, Canada) and to me English sounds very spontaneous, expressive. I feel English songs and dialog sound very natural compared to French.
Now I don't need to "think in French and translate" anymore in order to speak English. I think - and dream - in both languages, which is very interesting. Also I mostly learned English trough TV and cinema, so I (believe I) have a mixture of American and English accents, but not Canadian, oddly enough.
Interesting topic!
thetrunkmoves 1 year ago
Since arriving i've been informed multiple times that Australians don't actually speak english, but instead communicate by murdering the language by degrees :P
Always been curious about this as well, the responses should be interesting. Thanks for the vid.
Samakain 1 year ago
My boyfriend is Swedish and says English varies all the time. It doesn't have one continuous sound maybe like Spanish or Russian does... basically I think he means it's clunky lol. I never really realised how difficult our language was until he pointed out words like "uncomfortable" which has like twice as many letters than are necessary. So that's us... clunky :D
SweetestSinner 1 year ago
Latum, je t'aime mon cherie, tu est ma merde! <3
jazANDbase 1 year ago
This is the best thing you can learn in Russian. You lean this you'll be ok. Пожалуйста поговорите в английском я не знайте русского. Basically saying please speak in English I don't know Russian. ;)
MistressArte 1 year ago
Well, the British English accent (or rather those that I've heard) in German sounds... odd, but really just at worst a little goofy. The American English accent in German sounds horribly grating and typically similar I would say to what the murder of a language must sound like.
After coming back from studying German in Germany, I wrote a small description of what English sounds like: "merkwürdig".
puellanivis 1 year ago
Learn Finnish. Easy as Pie.
Palikka92 1 year ago
@Palikka92 That's just cruel. Said the Dane.
Kasarii 1 year ago
I did compulsary German at scholl for 8 years, and I the only Greman sentance I can speak is "How old are you?" (Wie alt bist du?)
Klingschor 1 year ago
You have more of an idea than you realised. You can listen to different English accents and they have a certain sound. Geordie sounds different to Scouse, for example. I'm sure there are English accents that you like, and some you don't. A French person once said to me that English sounds like lots of "S" sounds. Try listening to yourself and listen to all the "S".
dominickearney 1 year ago
Your question is set wrongly. You should ask those who do NOT speak english. In that way you might get more pure emotional answer to you question.
lolingattheism 1 year ago
@lolingattheism People who don't speak English wouldn't understand the question, would they? That's why he asked for bilingual people for whom English is second language.
dominickearney 1 year ago
@dominickearney I thought that would be obvious. But to level the playing field, you do not really speak those languages you describe. BTW, I find your english quite annoying, sorry ;)
lolingattheism 1 year ago
@lolingattheism What do you know which languages I speak? I speak Italian fluently and my English is far better than yours.
dominickearney 1 year ago
Ok, there are 2 English language version: UK and USA. They "sound" different from me.
UK sounds "refined" and USA version "sounds" like Mexican Spanish...
hedleypanama 1 year ago
In a related note which may be of interest.
The word "Barbarian" comes from the Greek "Barbaros" meaning "Someone who is not Greek"
The word however stems from the language that these non-Greeks spoke as heard by the Greeks.
Bar-Bar-Bar-Bar.
:)
Take Care and RAmen!
Ven
Venator70 1 year ago
Smooth, poetic, old, sophisticated yet not complicated.
TovarisMarki 1 year ago
Elegant and stylish, refined and harmonious... Rich, intense and solid, yet gentle, charming and sexy...
That's what the music of the English language (as spoken in England) mainly conveys to me. :)
QueenOfMaybe1 1 year ago
This isn't going to help you at all but I like accents more than I do languages. I would love to learn other languages but haven't had the motivation to do so. I got my blood drawn today by a woman who was from East Africa originally and she's lived in the U.S. for five years now. I'm also really obsessed with the British accent. I like the varieties of British accents there are depending on what part of England your from. I wish I could talk like that...lol
exacerbatedtaboo 1 year ago
Something that might help, is if you could get someone who does not understand English to imitate the language for you. The same way an English speaker would imitate a language like Mandarin Chinese. "Cheng chow shwee shong loa". It means nothing, but it sounds Chinese! People do it all the time. That way, the words have no meaning to you, but you can still get an idea of what your language sounds like to a non-native speaker. Don't worry. You are not the only person to have wondered this.
Bandaids4ever 1 year ago
@Bandaids4ever That is a really weird idea, but sounds like it might work. Unfortunately, I am in Latum's boat in that I can't identify the "sound" of English, but I do speak other languages.
Snackar 1 year ago
@Snackar I'm in his boat as well. I'm not bilingual, but I have wondered this for so many years. I've even tried myself to "imitate" the sound of English without actually speaking English words, but I simply can not do it. It must be done by someone unfamiliar with the language. Or at least someone who has spoken another language first.
Bandaids4ever 1 year ago
tough question man. i could've helped you maybe 20 years ago, but english has become my 1st language, even if it wasn't when i was growing up. but from what i can remember here are a few thoughts of what i thought of the english language when i was younger. .
1. it sounds sophisticated. can't explain it but it sounds like a professional language. 2. it's backwards. lol. the vast majority of other languages would say 'House Big' instead of 'Big House'... that was weird. Good luck!
Darw1n1st 1 year ago
America doesn't speak English, America speaks American. The difference between languages is subtle, but it's there. It's kind of like Portuguese and Spanish; they're almost the same language, but not quite.
MSK120 1 year ago
@MSK120 The difference between 'american' and english is mostly accent as in how to say things. spanish and portuguese while close, are different languages that share a common ancestry
Darw1n1st 1 year ago
@MSK120 There's no such language as American. American is a dialect of English (and there are difference dialects within American English). Spanish and Portugese are much more different to one another than British and American English are to one another. Written Portugese is closer to Italian. Spoken Portugese is complete different.
dominickearney 1 year ago
I've wondered the exact same thing.
Koda924 1 year ago
english was a strangely abrupt language in learning. i'm used to words being very long/sentences being long-winded in basque, and english words/phrases are usually so short.
depending on the speaker, english can be really soft and flowing, or really guttural and annunciated. just like any language really :P
MNSDaz 1 year ago
English sound quite... professional
Vallas92 1 year ago
English sounds lazy and flowing ,it has no ratchety click sounds lick french or native American languages basically its the language of buiseness.
To the point nothin fancy although it share 50% of it words with french all the french words have the edges shaved off.
FrankaDith 1 year ago
Spanish is my first language, although I learned English very young. I appreciate other accents of English though. Like the British sounds pretty/elegant and the Scottish/Irish have very fun/joyful type of accents, and I find Australians to talk somewhere in between the two. Although, I feel like I can't really judge American English though, feels kind of impossible. o_o'
darkeststorm 1 year ago
To me, as an Spanish speaker, English sounds... a little bit too soft, but I don't find it clumsy, or poetic or anything special. English is not an ugly language, it is over simplified, but the sound is pleasant, it isn't monotonous, and it is quite easy to learn.
marosario07 1 year ago
Mi hermano es aburrido.
aPretentiousFilmKid 1 year ago
Yo Yo :p
As a polish guy I think I could fit into your target group of people :p
For me english sounds very "flowing", "ballanced" and it's also very soft to and easy to speak even for a eastern-europe guy like me... It's the perfect language to write songs in and it allways seems to sound nice (even if the lyrics are harder to understand in some songs)...
That's just MY opinion and I would never put it as an opinion of my entire country!
P.S. Sorry 4 my bad english :p
Dryndal 1 year ago
I learnt English and Gujarati at the same time growing up, but I speak English more. When I listen to Gujarati I hear what is said in English, if that makes any sense?
TheZamario 1 year ago
Well, in the east Asian counterpart to "ching-chong ding-dong" is "quack, bwaack", that kind of thing. I would imagine, though, that it would be the most romantic of the germanic languages. G-, uh-, and b- sounds are all fairly powerful and somewhat unpleasant , whereas f-, l-, and w- sounds are more romantic. The word "flowing" which you used to describe romantic languages, is itself fairly romantic, as "guttural" is quite guttural.
WaddleDeeWaddleDoo 1 year ago
Czechs say that English sounds like bad singing. Not horrible, out of tune singing, but Karoake singing that would make you say' "Uh, it's alright I suppose." If you want to learn a language, as an ESL teacher, I can definately say that immersion- where the class is taught wholly in the language you're learning from day one is much more successful than other methods. If you want to read about linguistics I recommend Stephen Pinker. Accessable and funny.
arcanics1971 1 year ago
Woh, I've been really enjoying the responses you're getting. I originally caught wind of it through votger. Fuckin' great topic, man.
PrecambrianLullaby 1 year ago
I'm American, and my first language is English, but I have a French Friend who I bother with questions like this all the time. She never tells me, but last summer she had a friend visit who was interested in America, so I was finally able to get some questions answered. She says that English from an American sounds pretty good, and is the way that most of the people she knew tried to speak it like americans. In fact, the one whos my friend has a lot of trouble understanding U.K accents.
thefunkof30000years 1 year ago
The best way to learn a language is immersion.
1:15 Esperanto is only easy to learn if your native language is a Romance language xD
anthonzi 1 year ago
As a native English speaker (california) who speaks german as a second language, I'd say especially that differences in dialect and pronunciation can very heavily change how one perceives the language. Southern german dialects are hardly intelligible with those in the north, for instance, and it's difficult for me sometimes to understand a scotsman or someone w/ a singapore accent. There are just too many variables, unless you're referring only to a "standard" english. Whatever that is.
ErikWithBrain 1 year ago
I was raised speaking Yoruba (spoken in Nigeria) and of course, English. If I were to evaluate English, I would say it feels chunky and has very little flow, if that makes sense.
The accent English is spoken in makes a difference too. When English folks speak it, it seems stronger and more defined than and American speaking it. My father and all of his siblings speak with some sort of English accent when speaking English, and mine is a mix between that an American, so I sound pretty odd.
amidaryu009 1 year ago
I'm a native speaker, and I barely understand German (I'm only slightly better than you, though you probably have a better pronunciation since I can't hear well), and I still have always said that English is an ugly language. Then again, I think German is a beautiful language, so I'm probably just not right in the head...
Cyrathil 1 year ago 2
Je n'aime pas las biologie, c'est barbout.
fruitikay 1 year ago
This concept is pretty incredible. I've never really thought about it before. However, reading the comments has been quite enlightening.
thealexalberti 1 year ago
For me english uses waaaaay too long vowels, for me you sound like this: Heeeeelloooooooouuuu, my naaaaameeee iiiis....
etazra78 1 year ago
English is very soft and rubbery. A lot of round shapes and no sharp edges. The soft Rs and all the ng-sounds make it that way, at least to my ears. I don't think it's ugly, compare it to German for example that's a hideous language.
Bellybusterr 1 year ago
I grew up with english and german as my first languages. fromt that i find english to be have Unassuming almost modest yet quite chirpy as well . I find it to be quite odd ass well because of all the analogies we have.
tksje 1 year ago
My first language is Spanish, and learned English starting at age 13. To me, Spanish sounds common. American English always sounded melodious. UK English sounds choppy, though generally elegant. English overall is very efficient and I believe from a practical point of view, it conveys meaning very efficiently. But for romantic messages, Spanish is far more poetic, powerful and yet, subtle.
Pedroskini 1 year ago
well, english is a beautiful language, i would say; if compared to noises from the animal kingdom, i would say it´s a purr.
yeah, cats would speak english if they could talk ;)
(especially british english does have this speach melody)
aednil 1 year ago
I'm a swede, but I learned English pretty early in life, so I have have the same problem you do for judging the "sound".
I'll say that I tend to see Swedish as more expressive, because rather than just stress syllables, you also vary volume to create rhythm, English, however, has more practicality to me.
I find myself using English expressions while speaking Swedish, because I can't find words that sound right in Swedish. That has a lot to do with the large amount of syllables in English
WiwuX 1 year ago
My main language is french. I fluently speak and write in english, have some nice roots in spanish, and am trying to learn japanese
Xgya2000 1 year ago
only can comment on the german and u were actually were not bad
I speak english german and small amount of portugise
tksje 1 year ago
This video could've been 30 seconds long man.
GrammarKing 1 year ago 3
@GrammarKing Wheres the fun in that?
LatumWay 1 year ago
If you want to know what English sounds like to non speaker, listen to Sylvia Plath reading her own poem called Daddy here on youtube. That woman makes English sound alien to me.
wecaan 1 year ago
I like the UK english, the american english just sems a little common. I wish I could speak english with a UK accent instead.
Vogter2100 1 year ago
English to me sounds like a less violent/more smooth German. But it's really hard to judge it because I was exposed to it at an early age.
wecaan 1 year ago
You make perfect sense when you talk about how a language sounds like, but it only works for the languages you dont understand hehehe.. sorry.
Vogter2100 1 year ago
English is my first language but my friends who i have asked the SAME EXACT question to said it sounds A LOT like german.
I think that it depends on the accent. Standard American i think is clunky, but i love the NY accents, i hate the Boston accent, i like the southern belle accent, not sure if it's b/c of the accent or i like how slow they talk (i'm a fast-talking New Yorker). I like only certain english accents, i can't tell you which ones though, i'm not good at distinguishing.
LittleScheff 1 year ago
foreign music is awesome! neue deutsche härte ftw und ich lerne deutsch durch die musik but i guess i cannot answer your question but i disagree with you with how german is rough it can be very schön beautiful also
gottsein234 1 year ago
In a scale going from, say, italian to klingon, I'd arrange things like this:
italian -> french -> spanish (as spoken in latin america) -> russian -> english -> spanish (as spoken in spain) -> german -> klingon
Spanish is the one I have more experience with and in latin america the accent is "softer" or more "melodious" than in spain. This all IMO.
n3rdm4n 1 year ago
I'm told that this song is supposed to sound like english does to a non-english speaker.
Search YouTube for the song Prisencolinensinainciusol.
machleid 1 year ago
English is quite a strange language for me, most of the other languages I know are related, my first and second languages are Norwegian and Swedish.
I do, personally think it's somewhat ugly, though I have always disliked it since it's a bitch to learn.
I think it's got too many influences and loanwords to flow really well.
Though unrelated it needs to be said, English is without exception hilarious in a Yorkshire accent.
-Juuso
TheLifthrasir 1 year ago
it is very romancical reminded me of french my first was hebrew which was a wierd kinda german kinda frenchish language english was more on the french side idk i like how it sounded when i learned it
avi919191 1 year ago