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What does English sound like? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| John Smith Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Australia Joined 6042 days ago 396 posts - 542 votes  Speaks: English*, Czech*, Spanish Studies: German | Message 33 of 39 02 April 2010 at 5:02pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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My relatives who do not speak English think English sounds really beautiful.
They aren't the only ones. List of Eurovision song contest winners by language 2000 English 2001 English 2002 English 2003 English 2004 English 2005 English 2006 English 2007 Serbian 2008 English 2009 English source wikipedia 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5838 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 34 of 39 02 April 2010 at 9:25pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Even worse than I thought!!! Probably a sign of things to come! Respect to the Serbs for singing in their own language and winning to boot! I wonder if it was a chance that it was precisely them. Btw; what does English sound like? Well you get used to it and stop thinking about it, but the sounds that stand out are the "ye" "ya" sounds, the characteristic (weird) pronounciation of the letter "R". Lastly the "th" sound. Somebody who did not know the language would not necessarily realise that British and American English are the same language; there are a lot of differences in what it sounds like, even if the words are the same. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| robsolete Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5385 days ago 191 posts - 428 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Arabic (Written), Mandarin | Message 35 of 39 02 April 2010 at 10:23pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
When I was teaching English in Bangalore I was hanging out with an Indian friend who could speak pretty good English, and we bumped into a few Australian tourists in a restaurant. My friend seemed a little shy, but I figured he was just feeling awkward, so I more or less carried the conversation. Five minutes later the Aussies left and I asked him if he was feeling okay, and he said "I didn't know you could understand another language! Which one was that?" Edited by robsolete on 02 April 2010 at 10:24pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| WingSuet Triglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 5351 days ago 169 posts - 211 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, German Studies: Cantonese | Message 36 of 39 02 April 2010 at 11:01pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I think he meant that Dutch and French are the two languages (in his opinion) that sound the closest to English, not to each other. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5838 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 37 of 39 03 April 2010 at 12:52am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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English is quite unique actually; Think about it - no other European (mainland) language has "th", pronounces R the same way (Dutch sometimes, I think)
or has that strange "double" pronounciation of O that sounds like "oa". I have never thought that English sounds very nice; not like French, Italian, Russian which to me are beautiful. The closest to beauty I have found in the English language is the text of the King James bible as it is read in church. That sounds nice, poetic and quite forceful. If not for England's imperialism in the 18th century etc.. it would be nothing but a strange language on a rainy island in the outskirts of Europe. But as it happened it got spread throughout the empire upon which the sun never set --- and later through the global economy that the US promoted; the newempire when Britain's influence declined. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Johntm Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5422 days ago 616 posts - 725 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 38 of 39 03 April 2010 at 5:32am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| apatch3 Diglot Groupie United Kingdom Joined 6185 days ago 80 posts - 99 votes Speaks: Pashto, English* Studies: Japanese, FrenchA2 | Message 39 of 39 12 April 2010 at 3:32pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Just to respond to the previous posts about differentiating between languages spoken in
the far east, as a student of Japanese I have never had any trouble telling Japanese Korean, Mandarin, and Cantonese apart they all sound distinctly different. Especially when you compare Japanese to anything spoken on the mainland their differences are beyond comparison. I remember watching a korean drama a long time ago out of curiosity and I only ever managed to pick out one word that came from japanese (yakusoku = promise) everything else sounded noticeably alien. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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