Sounds of Languages?

Question

For people who learned English later in their life, what did it sound like before you learned it?

What do other languages sound like to you (supposing you do not already know them)?

For people who natively speak a language, how does an American attempting to speak that language sound? (What does the American accent sound like in foreign languages?)

Answer 1

well...
most languages I know use liaison, except for German. That makes it sound harsh, and stakkato, boosted by soldiers' voices in stupid anti german war movies.
American English can be imitated easily. It sounds like a lion's roaring, the more you go to the west. It sounds arrogant to me, and so fits with my opinion about most Americans. OK, they are just proud.
French can also be imitated easily with its nasal sounds and its special R.
Italian and Spanish can easily be imitated, Italian for its double consonants, and singing swinging intonation, (continental)Spanish for its hissing of the S and rolling of the initial and double R.
Arabic is easy to imitate for its guttural sounds, hh, ch.
Russians have that hard R sound, no matter what language they speak.
I like Asian tonal languages for its melody. Hard to imitate them.
I always wonder how they can have songs, as the melody of the song MUST interfere with the meaning-changing intonation of each word.

Answer 2

1. I started learning English 6 years ago and before that it just sounded kinda funny to my ears. As a kid I found other languages funny and of course, strange. But Chinese is the funniest to listen to.
2. German sounds harsh and a bit weird to me but now I'm studying it and gradually loving it. French is always best to my ears though. Everytime I listen to French it is always so peaceful and melodic. I would say it is a "noble language"
3. -My friends who are German usually say that my accent is like an american girl speaking german. Something to do with words that end with "-chen" in German, not that all english-speakers can make it sound 'deutlich'.
- American speaking my mother language? (which is vietnamese) I think they are pretty good at it. Except the whole tonal things, everything else is perfect, of course, it takes time!

Answer 3

1) I think it sounded kinda harsh, but I don't remember well, since I started learning when I was about 7.
2) -German sounds very rhythmic, kind of like a boat rocking on waves. Also, it sounds like it's always clearly pronounced, no slurring or mumbling (maybe that's just what I've seen...)
-French annoys me because of its lack of a normal r sound.
Italian is to sing-song in normal speech, but it's great for opera and music in general.
-Chinese sounds monotonous.
-Baltic languages sound like they'd be good for singing (lots and lots of vowels)
3) I'm sorry to say, but an American attempting to speak Russian at a beginner's level sounds horrendous. It's because of the differences in our languages, especially all the sounds that English doesn't have. Also, because English doesn't have genders or noun declension, it becomes really hard to understand a speaker that has only had a few months of Russian. However, over time Americans tend to get better and it's not so jarring to hear them speak.

Answer 4

I know when I went to Germany to study (as an American) people could tell that my first language was English, but apparently not what variety of English because they kept thinking I was from the UK instead of US. When people are speaking a second language, unless they speak it very well, they tend to still use their native stalls, like "um" and "uh" in English, "euhh" in French, etc.

Answer 5

I have been told that the English language sounds German, which makes sense, since much of the English language came from the German language.

Answer 6

I'm bilingual (english + german)
Native english speakers speaking german - they don't sound bad but....you can tell they aren't german.
I'm learning japanese and I know I have an awful accent, must be painful for native japanese speakers to have to listen to me butcher their language....
I think mandarin chinese is the most beautiful sounding language I've heard, hope that helps xx

Answer 7

I could ought to say Vietnamese,Cambodian,Korean,Chinese,Fren... and German.Also,hi there with folks hating on spanish,its an overly great language and satisfactory sounding as good.Screw that man or woman that mentioned spanish is homosexual.Also the one asian language thats tolerable and funky is Japanese

Answer 8

Sounds of languages that I didn't know but now I do know: like some really strange yet significant code being broken.

Sounds of languages that I didn't know and still don't know: Gibberish

Answer 9

yes english and german get along well. czech and french get along well also