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Old 12-20-2013, 10:03 PM
 
284 posts, read 638,608 times
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just curious

as a native english speaker, the spanish language sounds like a big run on never ending sentence, very rapid, it seems like you have to use a lot of words to get your point across.

the portuguese language sounds like they use a lot of sh- words, very weird.

the mandarin language doesnt even sound like they use actual words to communicate just a bunch of sounds.

so my question is what does the english language sound like to anyone who learned it as a second language or foreigners?

please keep in mind im not talking about ACCENTS just the language itself.
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Old 12-20-2013, 11:35 PM
 
Location: 53179
14,416 posts, read 22,397,972 times
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English is different to me than other languages. When I was a little girl and before I learned English I still had listen to English speaking movies and it sounded like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLDxj_BB7Lk
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Old 12-22-2013, 07:44 PM
 
25,024 posts, read 27,834,806 times
Reputation: 11790
Quote:
Originally Posted by glass_of_merlot View Post
English is different to me than other languages. When I was a little girl and before I learned English I still had listen to English speaking movies and it sounded like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLDxj_BB7Lk

How English sounds to non-English speakers - YouTube

This is the real video (by the authors) and in high quality

This is how English sounded to me as well. Just a bunch of consonants jumbled together that make no sense
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Old 12-22-2013, 08:50 PM
 
Location: Seoul
11,556 posts, read 9,280,412 times
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Back when I was learning English I thought that it sounded kind of stern and harsh because words are so short compared to my first language. I mean come on, "fox"? That's barely one syllable. And what's up with the word "hi"? Are you greeting someone or practicing taek won do?
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Old 12-22-2013, 08:51 PM
 
Location: southern california
61,289 posts, read 87,169,949 times
Reputation: 55550
american english? loud ducks or geese coming down the street.
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Old 12-22-2013, 09:08 PM
 
Location: San Diego, California Republic
16,573 posts, read 27,287,031 times
Reputation: 9007
Quote:
Originally Posted by Warszawa View Post
Back when I was learning English I thought that it sounded kind of stern and harsh because words are so short compared to my first language. I mean come on, "fox"? That's barely one syllable. And what's up with the word "hi"? Are you greeting someone or practicing taek won do?
Cantonese would drive you crazy LOL
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Old 12-22-2013, 09:23 PM
 
9,240 posts, read 9,701,291 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gentoo View Post
Cantonese would drive you crazy LOL
To convey the same information, Chinese probably uses the least number of syllables, on average.
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Old 12-22-2013, 10:35 PM
 
Location: Seoul
11,556 posts, read 9,280,412 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gentoo View Post
Cantonese would drive you crazy LOL
It already does I have many Cantonese friends and when they speak it, Cantonese sounds so rough and uninviting. It sounds like they're always cursing at each other

Mandarin sounds better except the "szh" and the "dszsch" sounds drive me crazy.

I think Thai sounds the prettiest out of East Asian languages
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Old 12-23-2013, 03:38 AM
 
Location: Melbourne, Australia
9,572 posts, read 20,701,718 times
Reputation: 2833
I'm curious, to non-English speakers from Europe who are familiar with European languages, does the British accent - particularly northern English and Scottish accent - sound more Germanic/Scandinavian than the American accent? I think the American accent sounds more distinctly 'English' in the sense it's not like Swedish, Dutch, Norwegian or German as much.
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Old 12-23-2013, 03:42 AM
 
230 posts, read 365,917 times
Reputation: 157
It sounds like Swedish
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