This is What English Sounds like to Non-English Speaking People......

I have been lucky enough to travel to many countries over the years and I love to hear people speaking in their native tongue, but I have always wondered what my native language of English sounds like to non-English speaking people…

There was a thread here on ATS a few months ago about what English sounds like to people who don’t speak English. That particular thread didn’t include this video which I think is a great representation of what English really does sound like to non-speaking people….

When you hear a foreign language such as Italian, French, Dutch, German, Spanish and Portuguese, etc, you can more or less figure out what language is being spoken even though you cannot fully understand it…

The video I have included with this thread sounds like English, but even though I know that I cannot fully understand it, I know that the language spoken is English. You are able to pick up and understand certain words, but you cannot fully understand what they are saying, in very much a similar way to what a non-English speaking person would hear…

When an English speaking person hears a foreign language they are able to pick up and understand the odd word here and there, but the majority of what is being said is not decipherable, which is very similar to how the English language is represented in this video…

If you are an English speaking person, then please don’t write and tell me that you cannot understand the English in the video, that is the whole point of it. You can understand certain words which you know are English, but please look at it from a non-English speaking person’s perspective, they know certain words, but the rest of it just sounds like gobbledygook….

So let me know what you think, please write in English…..

Everyone sing along...



Its a song written by an Italian guy to use sounds like English to Italians.

reply to post by davethebear


@ 2.50 - 3.00 "you ef'n arsehole... shut-up"

Ha, love it - a universal language at its finest.

The vid's a great dramatization of what non English speakers may experience.

"ef'n arsehole", lol.

Perhaps
reply to post by davethebear

 

@ 2.50 - 3.00 "you ef'n arsehole... shut-up"

Ha, love it - a universal language at its finest.

The vid's a great dramatization of what non English speakers may experience.

"ef'n arsehole", lol.

Mmmm, I wonder what language uses the most amount of profanities and bad language? I presume that it is English, but you never know...

Most Non- English speaking people that I have met over the years have a great knowledge of bad language, if nothing else, but I suppose a majority of that comes from watching to many movies in the English language...

reply to post by davethebear


My native language is portuguese and I can recall back from when I was learning english and this video depicts exactly how it sounds like for us. Actually, it was really fun and I loled many times! Now I wonder what portuguese would sound like for those who are still learning it or don't know anything at all. I guess it would sound pretty much like german or russian sounds to me, eh?

davethebear

Perhaps
reply to post by davethebear

 

@ 2.50 - 3.00 "you ef'n arsehole... shut-up"

Ha, love it - a universal language at its finest.

The vid's a great dramatization of what non English speakers may experience.

"ef'n arsehole", lol.

Mmmm, I wonder what language uses the most amount of profanities and bad language? I presume that it is English, but you never know...

Most Non- English speaking people that I have met over the years have a great knowledge of bad language, if nothing else, but I suppose a majority of that comes from watching to many movies in the English language...

I believe english and french are the kings of profanities lol.

I'm hard of hearing...this how English ( my native tongue ) sounds to me half the time. Yet I could pick out the expletive. If that's what that was.

I dated a nice Korean gal for 3 yrs. Her grandmother told me, we Americans sound " loud and fast". Or "Slow and cotton in our mouths".

That was a good video.

P.S. I curse the one who put "S" I lisp......ha ha funny funny....

kromaion
reply to post by davethebear

 

My native language is portuguese and I can recall back from when I was learning english and this video depicts exactly how it sounds like for us. Actually, it was really fun and I loled many times! Now I wonder what portuguese would sound like for those who are still learning it or don't know anything at all. I guess it would sound pretty much like german or russian sounds to me, eh?

Hi kromaion, Well I am glad that it made perfect sense to someone who's first language was/is not English. Now that you are able to speak English, obviously better now than when you started, you can fully understand how English sounds to a non-English speaking person, and you even laughed as well, which brings to light the time before you were more fluent in English....

Cheers for your feedback......

Bigburgh

I'm hard of hearing...this how English ( my native tongue ) sounds to me half the time. Yet I could pick out the expletive. If that's what that was.

I dated a nice Korean gal for 3 yrs. Her grandmother told me, we Americans sound " loud and fast". Or "Slow and cotton in our mouths".

That was a good video.

Yeah, I must agree there Bigburgh, I also have problems sometimes trying to understand others who are also speaking English. I think that this comes from being here in the UK though where there are so many different accents and dialects across the country...

I only have to travel 15 miles up the road to a different area and I have to try and tune in to what is being spoken around me. I went to live in Australia for 4 years and when I returned to Old Blighty I could hardly understand a word anybody was saying because I had been away for so long. Although when I returned from Australia, most people couldn't understand me either because I returned with an aussie accent...

Sometimes it would be great to be able to stick a Babel Fish in my ear and understand all languages...

reply to post by davethebear


Heck, I can't even comprehend what some people are talking about when they speak english. What they are saying doesn't really make sense half the time. It is not correctly applied to the subject half the time

Listen to someone talking about football. What they are talking about means nothing in reality, they boast about players that do not even realize that they personally exist. Fans often argue about things that do not matter. The fan often feels that they are personally involved in the sport yet they most often have never really even played.

And that is only one example.

Weirdly, I'm American (NE/Midwest accent) and that's how strong Brit accents sound to me at times. I don't usually bother with BBC sitcoms because I have no idea what they're saying. Too fast and muddled.

It's an odd fact that the languages you speak enable you to think differently. In other words, you can 'think' differently and with different nuances in French than you can in English (which is supposed to be the most scientific of languages) than you can in Chinese, etc.

On the other hand, just think how much farther along civilization as a whole would be, and how fewer wars we probably would have had, if we had all spoken the same language from the git-go.

It's been surmised that a planet with one language and no wars would develop technology far faster than we have.

signalfire
Weirdly, I'm American (NE/Midwest accent) and that's how strong Brit accents sound to me at times. I don't usually bother with BBC sitcoms because I have no idea what they're saying. Too fast and muddled.

It's an odd fact that the languages you speak enable you to think differently. In other words, you can 'think' differently and with different nuances in French than you can in English (which is supposed to be the most scientific of languages) than you can in Chinese, etc.

On the other hand, just think how much farther along civilization as a whole would be, and how fewer wars we probably would have had, if we had all spoken the same language from the git-go.

It's been surmised that a planet with one language and no wars would develop technology far faster than we have.

Hi signalfire, I fully understand what you mean. I have met many Americans on my travels and many of them say that they love the British accent, but many of them cannot fully understand what is being said...

I am also aware that some British movies/TV programmes have English subtitles, even though the language is in English. Especially when it comes to such movies as Lock, Stock and Two Smoking barrels, which is mostly in a cockney, London accent, and then you have the movie, Snatch, starring Brad Pit with an Irish accent...

I have been in places though where I have met Americans and they just ask me to keep talking, please say this, please say that, it really cracks me up, but a good laugh most of the time....

Excellent post and video. Very interesting. I've always wondered what we sound like to non-English speaking people.Sounds more American than English though.

I'm trying to Imagine a more locally accented version. That would be weird. But then again, I can't tell what half of the people in my town are saying anyway so It's not too hard to imagine.

reply to post by davethebear


I have an American friend who can perfectly copy an Irish accent in a deep bass voice. He's very successful with the women at taverns Probably one of the sexiest accents on Earth.

Scott, on the other hand, is incomprehensible... although lovely and slightly hilarious.

Damn, I'm from England and I can't even understand some English people, particularly those from the North East.

Whenever I am on the phone getting tech support from the guys in India, I always have to spell things out phonetically to them and they spell things back to me the same way. ( Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, etc.) I simply cannot understand what they are saying through the heavy accents. Even the smallest of tech support problems turns into an all day phone session. Morse code would be easier.

I can go to towns in South East US and cannot understand what the heck the people are saying sometimes. Some people just do not know how to enunciate, and that can go with any language.

reply to post by davethebear


This may be how English sounds to a non English ear in the US/Canada.

It certainly doesn't sound like that in England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, South Africa, Australia/NZ, Singapore, Jamaica, Guyana...