Surprisingly%20not%20stoned- I want to know this too. Also, some Italians and French speaking English are very hot. How do Americans sound in other languages?
- something whining and nasal, emphasizing the propensity of the language for indistinct vocal glides and diphthongs.
- I'm friends with a lot of Germans and as opposed to making noises, they just rattle off American slang when they're mocking English.
Examples:
"Cool, dude!"
"Hey, pardner [sic]...do I sound like I'm from Texas?"
- R2, where can I hear an example of this?
I had a Chinese friend that was learning English. She would say "What's up dogs?" and call guys "pinky dick" and anyone "motherfucker" all the time, which I think was her way of trying to sound more American.
- Didn't an Italian singer take this idea and make an intriguing video about 20 years ago?
- A guy from China during my graduate internship in London couldn't stop telling me how much he thought my American accent sounded like John Wayne.
- I'd still like to know how native English speakers sound in other languages.
- Yeah, any English word spoken with a Southern Drawl. What a disgusting post this is.
- [quote]For example: "ching-chong" for Chinese.
LOL! Hilarious every time!
Rosie%20O%27Donnell
- Here, I found it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DBZXcRqFmFa8
- Yes, R8. Your post was disgusting.
- I'm sure no one will have any idea what R8 is talking about.
- There's a song German children sing (or used to sing) called "In des waldes tiefsten Gründen" where they sing the whole song through, then they sing it again but add to each long word the kind of word ending they associate with different foreign languages. Their word ending for French, for example, is the very nasal rendition of "-ion," so that verse begins, "In des waldion tiefstion Gründion"; while the ending for Japanese they use is "-io" ("In des waldio tiefstio Gründio").
The word ending they use for American English is a very flat and harsh "-er": "In des waldER TiefstER GründER..."
- r10, those dancers are so sexy. And the central speaker may not be handsome, but he sure is packing in those tight pants!
- R8 sounds like a member of the Texas Rangers Border Patrol.
Fuck you, idiot.
http://tucsoncitizen.com/living-on-the-border/2011/06/10/raciest-texas-rangers-handle-things-different-they-shoot-back/
- R6, My Japanese college housemate said everyone back home LOVED John Wayne movies, and couldn't believe I'd never seen a cowboy flick or TV Show. She did the funniest imitation of his body language and famous expressions. I hated to ask what she thought of the Native Americans portrayal.
All Asians complain that Americans are very loud, even obnoxious, and I'm only talking about Vegas. They make fake yelling sounds as a joke too, and wave their arms around.
- American English sounds to the English like this...
http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3Dq-cAnFbEXY0%26feature%3Drelated
- Saying "like, whatever" in a rising inflection when you want to make fun of 20-something American women in flips flops with ankle tattoos and highway patrol shades.
Mme%20Wintour%20from%20the%20UK
- I believe the two languages that will survive will be English and Chinese. Most of India is already English speaking and English is most spoken first and second language in the world. I know it pisses all the pretend wannabe Americans, but that's the way it is.
- My Italian relatives imitate English by sounding nasally and ending each sentence like a question?
- I have been obsessed with that video at R10 for years. I love it when someone posts it again. I have no idea why, but I can watch it over and over again.
- from the Brit-com "Allo Allo"
http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DL1K8d9qXGnI
- Easy to imitate Americans: talk with a hot potato in your mouth.
- I just checked iTunes and you can actually buy the song linked by [R10]. Just look up Adriano Celentano.
I think I'll be listening to it all day.
- I hate the video at R17.
I've seen it before and apparently it just means that Americans have their music up too loud to be heard.
- Probably lots of "r" and "d" and "t" sounds.
- I saw a brief little video on PBS with 2 girls -- one from Tibet, one from China. They were speaking English --heavily accented, but fairly fluent --- and every other word was "like."
"You know, like, when I see like, other people from like, other countries here, I know like we all share the same experience of like, coming to a new city..."
If you want to sound American, just insert "like" into your sentences. Four or five times per sentence.
- Well, I'm an American eldergay. While I was in the workforce, I spent several years in Europe, mainly France and Germany, with a few months in Italy and the Soviet Union.
Occasionally there were stretches of weeks, even months, when I would not hear one word of English. No TV, no radio, nothing but the indigenous language. It wasn't a foreign language immersion program (I was there because I knew the languages already); it just worked out that way.
Then, I would suddenly overhear American tourists or catch an American movie with subtitles. And it struck me that we sound just like the French used to tell me: we sound just like ducks quacking.
- R10, that was HILARIOUS!
- The R10 video doesn't sound like American spoken English; it sounds like an American song.
I'm American and I don't know the words to "Beat It." I know, "it doesn't matter whose wrong or right, just beat it," and that's about it. The rest is gibberish to me. I understand Weird Al's version better. Creedence Clearwater Revival's songs are also difficult for me to understand. Even after I look up the lyrics, I can't make them out in most songs. I remember reading Green River lyrics : "Old Cody Jr took me over; said you're gonna find the world be smoulderin" and thinking "Really? That's what he said?"
I wonder what Janice Joplin's "weensheel wappers slappin' tahm ize holin' babby's haind een mahn" sounds like to a foreigner
- Americans talk like they're chewing a huge ball of chewing gum.
- The blond English kid who made that fookin' video in which he demonstrates 24 English accents has 1) cleared up his complexion and 2) posted a new vide0 with animation, dude.
http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DNtB1W8zkY5A
- R30, Janis had a SE TX accent and seemed to accentuate it while singing. So many country singers seem to do this too. "Mah baybay done layft may an' stowl mah peeck up truuuck", then you when you hear them speak their accent is not nearly that bad.
- French sounds nasally to me and like they are talking with a mouthful of mush. They make the oddest sounds. Germans and Japanese always sound highly angry and pissed off. East London, as spoken in the Eastenders, is just awful to my ears especially the women who sound like coarse fishwives especially if they are mad at someone.
- Yes [r5] it was brilliant ~ Adriano Celentano.
- I think we are talking about 2 different things.
American English and British English.
When imitating American English, people tend to play up the Ugly American stereo type: stupid, Republican, war mongering, extreme Christian, assuming the world revolves around the USA, unaware of anything happening outside the USA themselves and proud of it.
When imitating British English, they tend to vary between the anal personality and Queens English or rude speaking Chav English.
Americans wear their ignorance with pride, the British wear their ignorance with shame.
- When I was an exchange student to Belgium in the late 90s, they either used English words and phrases they had picked up like "My Englisheh eees sooo guht" in their own accent or they would speak French with an American accent, which was far funnier to me: "Pahr-lehz vooze Francis?"
- R36 watch some British reality tv. They love their ignorance too.
- To me, Vietnamese is the most cringe-producing language. When women speak it in a mall, it just sounds like nails on a chalk board. They speak very fast and sound like they are in pain. Lots of "ow"s
BTW, when I worked in MYC hospitals, I found that different regions have different ways of making the "pain sound." English speakers said, "Ow." Russians said, "Oy yoy yoy." Asians said a kind of "Aye" or "Hi" sound.
- Am I mingin'?
- My partners daughter takes mandarin Chinese classes, and I got into an argument with a Mexican coworker about it yesterday. She thinks that it is a waste of time because no one speaks Chinese. I told her it was the second most spoken language, and she said "that's because there are so many of them but Spanish can be used everyday". Fat ghetto bitch.
- As a kiddie in England we'd impersonate the Americans, if we're talking our version of 'Ching Chong' with endless hard RRRRRRRRRRRRs.
Also, the English are amused by the American desire to express their emotions all the time.
'How do you FEEEEEL to'rd Tony, right now?'
'I feel anger, I feel needy'.
'I love you for sharing those feelings with me. I guess you're in a raw place, right now. It's OK to feel anger. It's OK to feel needy, right now'.
'You're a dear friend'.
- American tourists: LOUD and FAT.
- R42 I don't know anyone like that except dumb college psych majors who are into over-analyzing everything. They usually get over it.
American
- My native-Polish ex said that when he first heard English it sounded like "Mushy mush mushyy mush mushuu"
- I grew up around Philiadelphia and worked at King of Prussia Mall and met several gorgeous Israeli girls that worked at the kiosk across from mine (you all know them.. the lotion girls that grab/harass you as you're walking by to seLL u $100 "dead sea" products that are made in China...). Anyway.. I was close with 1 girL in particular named Hadas. I shared with her my best typical, stereotyped hebrew-sounding dialogue (something along the lines of HALAL HALAL [HeaVy on the H: like ur haulking up phlemn]). I also acted out the crazed Israeli riot chant (ALALALALLALALA!). So I asked her this very same question. From her perspective, the way American English sounded was similiar to GULP GULP GULP. When she made the sound it was very throaty and gulpy like chugging water kinda gulps. Or better yet, it's that classic sort-of "lump in ur throat gulp". You hear it a lot on TV when someone is nervous or gets caught red-handed! So mostly the emphasis was on the GUL but she changed up the ending vowels... it's difficult to spell out but try sounding this out aloud (emphasis on the harsh gulpy G !)...
GHUL GHEe GHAa GHaw ...
If done correctly, it should sound clunky. To me she sounded similiar to a hilbilly :( which makes me sad because she was impersonating people from Pennsylvania. If that's what the yanks sound like, country folk must sound like loony toons.
Also,
I'd like to add this is my first post and i LOVE this site so far. I also love people including: middle easterns, asians, yankees, country peeps, black peeps and marshmellow peeps. If I ever appear offensive or bigatory it is completely unintentional and although I do stereotype and make mild racist remarks occasionally, it's all in jest and I in no way have ever blanketed an ENTIRE group or race of people nor have I EVER discriminated against anyone. Except jews...
:D
-L'Chaim !
- I found a book in my bookcase by the late noted linguist Mario Pei, who taught at Columbia University in the 1950s, called "Language for Everybody". On page 115 he gives examples of what he calls "polyglot double talk" which is how a language sounds to those who don't speak it. For English he gives the following: "Foring mests larry no graning sunners in the rones". This is what English "sounds" like supposedly. Those of you energetic and interested enough might check it out if your local library has it. I have been told by Mexicans I used to work with that before they actually learned to speak any
English, nouns ending in -ation stand out alot such as nation, station, carnation, etc., etc. It should also be noted, also quoting Mario Pei that the -sts ending in many English words, often plurals or present tense verbs, is peculiar to English, for example, exists, forests (for all those who don't know the proper use of apostrophes adding an apostrophe between the t and s at the end of the word indicates POSSESSIVE NOT PLURAL, that is why PPSM rightly corrects those who think plurals must contain an apostrophe). One could go on and on with the blatant butchery of the English language, usually by Americans but for now that sort of leads off topic. Good luck with apostrophes, girls...........
anon
- American living in france and I can't stand listening to myself speak french or anyone else with a heavy midwest American accent..but here they think it's cute.
They say all the time that english sounds like.WHAA WHAA WHAA kind of like the sounds the adults made in the Charlie Brown cartoons.
- Is there a "posh" accent in other languages, say French, German, and Russian?
Japanese?
- [quote] I in no way have ever blanketed an ENTIRE group or race of people nor have I EVER discriminated against anyone. Except jews...
You should feel right at home here.
- I have a TX twang and would never attempt French for fear I'd REALLY embarrass myself. I'll stick with Spanish as spoken by the lawn guys.
- Depends on the accent. The non-English speaking world's mock British English is similar to the non-British English speaking world's mock British English. "ffff...ffffe...fffee.." or similar tight jawed clap.
Australian: "A dengo eit mubabi"
American regional accents: the same way we do in the states.
"Standard" American English: pretending one has marbles in one's mouth.
- I am told that English sounds like dogs barking to non English speakers.
- R47 is a good poster
- There was a posh accent in Russian before the revolution and it's what was taught in the exile community in the West. Russians find it beautiful to listen to. It is nice.
- Interesting that when the Japanese Emperor made his famous capitulation radio broadcast to his nation, the very first time the Japanese had heard their emperor's voice, very few Japanese understood his Japanese court accent.
%22we%20must%20endure%20the%20unendurable%22
- Interesting reading about various accents within countries.
Apparently the Marseilles accent is sniggered at by a lot of the French.
- [quote]All Asians complain that Americans are very loud, even obnoxious
All Asians? The Chinese immigrants in my old Chicago neighborhood were the loudest people I've ever encountered in my life.
- No shit R58. Immigrants are some of the loudest people I hear in public. Here it's Arab men on cellphones jabbering away at the top of their lungs.
- [quote] Here it's Arab men on cellphones jabbering away at the top of their lungs.
Same here in London. They like to sit outside cafes all day long shouting into their phones and I like to sit outside so I don't have to listen to the shit music every cafe in London insists on playing.
- I like this interpretation
http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3D9EsTeKt134o
- It's only the Chinese who were like that, R59. Vietnamese, Thai, Mexican, Polish, Africans, none were nearly as loud. Not even the Russians who could be gruff.
- Nice to know Houston and London have something in common R60.
What kind of shit music do they play?
- Full version of the Adriano Celentano video here without the silly school skit. Starts at 1:23. Such a great video, with maybe 20 dancers made to look like many more by the clever use of mirrors. Made in the early 70's before there was such a thing as rap.
The blonde on the left at the beginning is the main dancer in the video - Raffaela something. Known for her passionate and uninhibited dancing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DE77HpMMbDYc%26feature%3Drelated
All%20right%21
- Another old Celentano clip from an Italian movie - might want to ff to 1:30 for the best shots.
http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DHMyr1pGTHqM%26feature%3Drelated
Celentano%20fan%20
- My Irish grandparents were soooo loud it used to upset me when I was a kid. Three of their sons (my American uncles) were also painfully loud.
My American grandmother was born and raised on Long Island but had a sort of New England accent. Nobody from eastern Long Island ever went to NYC; they went to Connecticut when they traveled. My grandmother never said "yes" in her life. She said something like "uh-yuh." I can't reproduce it in print. Her accent was kind of twangy. Nothing at all like today's Long Island accent.
