| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | How English sounds to Non-English speakers Thread poster: Ty Kendall
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| Spike Milligan | May 11, 2013 |
Speak Strine - Love it
| | | | | | 564354352 (X) 
Denmark
Local time: 16:11
Danish to English
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| From a Danish perspective | May 13, 2013 |
In Denmark, I think there is a general feeling that British English sounds snobbish and American English is cowboy talk, 'I'm larger than life' kinda stuff. That's pretty crudely put, and of course, language experts will have a much more varied view of this.
Christine's experience with those kids in the '80s is interesting. I think things have changed over the years, as we are inundated with American television series, and American accents are becoming more familiar. By contrast, ma... See more In Denmark, I think there is a general feeling that British English sounds snobbish and American English is cowboy talk, 'I'm larger than life' kinda stuff. That's pretty crudely put, and of course, language experts will have a much more varied view of this.
Christine's experience with those kids in the '80s is interesting. I think things have changed over the years, as we are inundated with American television series, and American accents are becoming more familiar. By contrast, many Danes would find the way British politicians speak highly amusing and overstrung, along the lines of Sybil in Fawlty Towers saying 'I knoooooow' when speaking on the phone to her friends. Many Danes would also find British English 'the toffee nose style' hard to understand.
Then there are all 'the other' British accents, of which the northern English ones are particularly difficult to catch, while Scottish seems easier on the ear and maybe somewhat slower, in fact, maybe due to the screening of Monarch of the Glen lately, quite a romantic voice. Irish English is lovely and 'round' in pronunciation, but to a Dane it sounds a bit like somebody trying to swallow their tongue while speaking.
Another interesting variation is South African English, which in my ears always sounds like a first language spoken with a foreign accent (a Dutch accent, maybe?).
Australian English sounds very laid back and has a humorous edge to it to a Danish ear. I can't help thinking of Crocodile Dundee, prawns on the barbie, Sheilas and fair dinkum, even if I hear an Australian speaking of something serious.
Sorry about the stereotyping above, absolutely no offence intended.  ▲ Collapse
| | | | KKastenhuber
Austria
Local time: 16:11
Russian to German
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| the hilarity of German accents | May 13, 2013 |
Ahhh, stuff like that makes my ears bleed. Every time I hear German friends of mine butchering their foreign languages like that - unintentionally! -, I just hope I don't sound the same.
Whenever I ask people what German sounds like to them, I usually get the Hitler and/or throat illness stereotype. On one occasion, I've had my Austrian dialect confused with French, which I thought was interesting. Maybe it's because of the nasals?
As for frequency, Russian has huge frequency leaps in questions (up to a tonic fifth or even more, according to some sources). I don't know if that's relevant for how other languages are perceived by them, but I can imagine it's true that Russian is somewhere high up there in the frequency range list.
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