What does English sound like to the Poles?

Sorry to say but most Polish/Slavic/Russian languages sounds "ugly".

Slurring and slushing their way through every "s" sound available. Never heard something so unglamorous in my life.
Reminds me of Orcish or Klingon :D

German sounds quite aggressive but listen-able.

French sounds nice, cultured and very easy on the ear.

Italian sounds nice and musical!

What does English sound like to the foreigners? :D

Despite you being very impolite with your bluntness and constant usage of vile laughing smiley at the end of your posts, I will take your post seriously this time and give you an honest answer.

Usually I like the British sounding of the English but only the accents which are not too posh nor too chavish. Some do sound really unglamorious (as you put it well), with an inclination to speaking fast and prolonging syllables at the end, blurring the words. English sounds well when someone speaks clearly with a proper intonation.

Since I know you are Welsh, I can tell you I like the way the actors such as Anthony Hopkins and Richard Burton speak/spoke, however I'm aware it's not a proper South Welsh accent in both cases.

Maybe you met some chav accented specimens -- speak with a Pole from a normal background and the accent sounds similar to Italian crossed with Dutch. And their non (meaning yeah) sounds French, in fact.

hardly
russian is a beautiful language
ukrainian too

then again
anything would be better than dole scum english

I really like the polish language and defiantly don't think it sounds "ugly", I love it when my partner speaks in his mother tongue and can't wait till my polish is much better, I do think it must be strange to hear English people speaking polish though

As if they had their mouth full of noodles all the time.

It would've been hard to say sz,cz,ś,ż and so on with your mouth full

No, I mean, it is how English native speaker, speaking his native language, sounds to Poles.

Yet another pointless and ill considered PF thread.

How mellifluous ANY language sounds depend COMPLETELY on the speaker.

Musical sounding Italian or French is just a cliché. I've heard plenty of rough sounding French speakers.

I'd wager the average Pole speaks a better version of their language than the average Brit does anyway.

Very whiny like a distressed animal.

Also, the British sound like they are eating something sour while trying to talk while Americans sound like they always have something stuffed up their noses.

That's just your opinion. Personally , I love the language and the accents.


+1
English chavs are so beneath anything I've ever met overseas it's not funny... F*ck you British chavs!

Are you talking about Southern Americans, New Yorkers, Bostonians, Midwesterners, the West coast Americans or black Americans. They all sound like a different language, something Poles don't understand.

did you mean Slovakian?

It doesn't matter. They may have regional accents but they still all sound very nasally when they talk.

Yes we do. And I prefer the Midwesterns (I currently live in the Midwest), and that's what I consider the "standard", accent-free American English.

Regarding the subject, English sounds to me like... English.
British accent always sounded funny to me, sort of stumpy I guess
German language sounds melodic
French language sounds like someone is puking and farting with their mouth

+10 but I would add a long list of languages that sound "beautiful" to me.

Beauty is in the eye, or ear, of the beholder, or listener. ;-)

You're joking!? surely, you mean the other way around!

oh me too
finnish is beautiful too
but we dont have all day ;)

I can't imagine how Poles would hear us, though folk from the Islamic countries can hear us Brits in a funny way....

There was a chap at work who - in an attempt to sound like the rest of us - would pronounce "Alright?!" like the quack of a duck! And I remember a a shop assistant - while handing me my change - pronouncing "Cheers mate!" in a similar fashion. Us Londoners must sound like ducks to them!

As for the perceived 'sound' of the Slavic languages, as a youngster, I always thought they sounded like speech being played backwards. This was long before I started to learn Polish, of course! :)

How are you 'aware' that it is not a 'proper' Welsh accent?

And what is a 'proper' Welsh accent as opposed to an 'improper' one?

Both at the same time? You should see a doc quick, dude. This is some serious illness ;)


Yes and no. Most languages have typical sounds and pronunciation, no matter the accent.
I bet most of you can't tell the difference between the French spoken in Paris in the one spoken in Marseille. I do. Or the ones spoken in Belgium, Switzerland, and Canada. For you it's just French ;)

I have written "south welsh accent". Both gentelmen comes from Port Talbot. What I mean is that they don't speak like people there were in their youth, anymore.


Richard Burton was practising a lot to get rid of his Welsh accent however you can hear him speaking Welsh accent in the first movie he made "The last days of Dolwyn". Compare how he spoke in that movie, and how in others:

youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GqoBpr4c81I

youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=NjlYvI7Q-bA

Also comparing how his sibilings talk... it's worlds apart!

As for Anthony Hopkins there's something peculiar about the way he speaks. He also used to work on his accent in his conservatory years but obviously couldn't lose it completely. There's some give-away, but I like the way he speaks. It's not so snooty, posh but still intelligent, elaborated. Actually at fisrt I thought that's the proper Welsh accent and couldn't understand why British people supposedly don't like it. Then I check on the internet how other Welsh people speak and it's totaly differently.

Funny thing I've noticed about RB is that he obviously tried to sound posh when he was giving interviews to British audience, while when interviewed by Americans he sounded more natural. I liked more the natural version of RB.

I do........ I'll tell you a daming when I get back from ma daming with my mal reing:)


You are correct neither sound in any way Welsh, just like Wogan doesn't sound in any way Irish, I was surprised to discover that he was Irish.

Nothing beats a good rattle of Andalusian Spanish perhaps my fav European accent

Worse for me is English spoken with a southern drawl (think Texas or other similar states..). Awful.. I also dislike the Manchester/Liverpool accents..

Hasn't this subject come up before, only like two months ago or so?


That I find surprising. I would be last to claim the english sounds musical or romantic. I think of it as useful, and I do like when certain foreign accents are applied. But other than far north and twangy areas, I would not have thought to apply "nasal".


You are saying Polish sounds like Slovak sounds like Hungarian sounds like Ukranian sounds like Russian..all? 0_0

Jeez no wonder so many other countries think that all americans must all be doofuses when they meet a tourist.
I can tell the difference between regional flourishes even if I don't know what region it is from. Maybe I'm different because of multi lingual childhood.

Still, no way I would say that my friend speaking Slovak sounded JUST like my grandparents speaking old imported Czech which sounds like my Ex inlaws Russian which in turn sounds that sounds like my honey. Just my language buddy and Honey sound noticeably different as Polish nationals.

and not all are "slushy" even. and YAY Klingon! tlhIngan Hol Dajatlh'a'?

What dialect is that? ;P


Well, Hungarian is not a good example here ;)

Well he said "slavic" as in all in one bag everything of languages that sound ALL the same and slushy to boot.

I love Hungarian accented English and like hearing it spoken

I also would say that Polish has a whole bag of "shhh". But I like the softening sounds even though it makes it epicfail for me to learn to speak it. I also like languages that use lively intonation

My Polish fellow thinks I sound sexxy for the most part. But when I asked him, said if had to give it thought to describe, english generally sounds dull and dead to his ear.

I can imagine English sounding "flat" to non-native speakers.

Polish sentences have a funny "curve" to me though - very often sentences seem to slowly rise in tone, peak on the second last syllable and then fall abruptly back down to below the starting tone on the last syllable.

Funny that a pole above mentioned the whining aspect of English as the Polish version I describe sounds very like a whining child pleading with its mother!

: )

Hungarian is not Slavic though, not even Indo-European ;)


Oh yes, there's probably only Portuguese (from Lisbon maybe) to compete with Polish ;)

heh .you got me .. neither is Romanian and a few others in region. And OP didn't list what he considered 'slavic'.
Sometimes I forget to track into post communist era view. Instead of the old US one where all east of free germany is East Europe Commie Russia. xD


Heh, that may pinpoint my enjoyment of soft sounding languages. My family I grew up up with primarily spoke Brasilian Portuguese, pre-20s czech(Bohemian) and Texan English with select older members speaking German, Euskara, Tsalagi and some kind of gaelic

Though I was wording it silly as a meme reference:
youtube.com/watch?v=mlv7Bp-L2MM&list=PLQpICv aF5O7JHf7xHHLWQKoMZFvpX01eZ