I’ll never forget one of my coworkers asking me what my first language was because, “I speak English as a second language I know what it sounds like, so what’s your first language?”
My first language is English, I just speak it really poorly
Could also be that they mistook your regional accent for the accent one has when learning it as a secondary language.
Does that really make it better?
Well, you did forget the period on your sentence… But, I won’t tell the teacher!
My wife and I were stationed in Germany for a couple years with the US military. Her only experience with a foreign language was some classes in French in high school, which came in useful since we were stationed near the French border. But while we were living in Germany, we decided to learn some German so we could get around easier.
We took a trip up to Berlin one week and my wife was trying her best to speak to a vendor in German, but she was really struggling. The vendor decided to switch to French instead. Apparently, her German had a heavy French accent, since that was the only other foreign language she had practiced. She was able to finish the conversation in French.
While backpacking in Europe I spent a week in France. I got in the habit of starting conversations with “parlez-vous anglais?”
Next stop was Germany. After getting off an early train and trying to book the next leg, I asked the ticket attendant, “sprechen sie anglais?” She stared at me for a moment and responded in crystal clear English, “You mean, do I speak English?”
That’s the type of thing that no one but me would remember, but it would keep me up at night for yeeeeeears.
You know those things people tell you “no one remembers that but you, so just relax”?
Well, I had a worst case experience where I was speaking to an acquaintance who said “haha remember when you [insert soul crushing embarrassing thing I did 6 years ago that only I am supposed to remember] ?”
That did, in fact, not help against my anxiety whatsoever.
That’s serious nightmare fuel. I’m so sorry. RIP your sanity. 🙏
Oh god, and Germans mostly won’t even pretend they don’t think you’re dumb. Americans would be like, “oh, no I totally get it (insert story about a time they did something similar), you’re fine!” Germans will say, “yes, I speak English” and stare at you while waiting for you to get to the point as you wish you could become one with the pavement.
We Americans love our anecdotes
We just like talking about ourselves
Por que no los dos? 🤷
I work in an office that takes passport applications, so I see people from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds, and I can tell you we’re definitely not the only ones. Lots of people love an opportunity to tell you a story if you give them an opening. Honestly, I love it. I don’t do that job anymore, but that was my favorite part of it. It’s such a nice way to form a shared connection, even if it’s only for a few minutes.
For anyone like me who doesn’t speak German, and thus were unable to follow the implied humiliation: the German word for English is “Englisch” not “Anglais”
I always wonder what mixes of languages other than american english sound like. Like, i know what a french guy speaking english sounds like, and I know what a german guy sounds like speaking english sounds like… but I wonder what a german guy speaking french sounds like? Or spanish, or chinese?
Spanish is my second language, and while I know I speak with an accent (try my best to sound andaluz, but there’s no hiding the kiwi sometimes), I can recognise some accents - Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Sevilla, Granada, Madrid are some distinct ones I’m familiar with, hearing non-natives speak fluently with a slight foreign accent, or hearing someone you know as an English speaker break out excellent Spanish is wild. I worked with a Lithuanian woman once who spoke fluent Spanish but kept her Lithuanian accent, even down to the way she would punctuate her sentences, she was terrifying in 3 (or more) languages.
I’m trying to learn Spanish, I understood almost everything Gwyneth said, and almost nothing the interviewer said. Not sure if it’s word selection, but non natives always deliberately fully pronounce each word which makes it so much easier to hear.
Yeah Gwyneth does speak very clearly and slower than a native in this interview, although fluently and with a Madrid/Toledo accent. You’ll get there with the interviewer and natural native speakers in general, it’s just about regular exposure to the speed and omissions.
The main features of the accents are very similar, I believe. I’m Brazilian, and one of my friends has been living in Belgium for a couple of years now. She’s starting to speak Portuguese with a French accent now, it’s very funny. Last time she was here, some street vendor even mentioned that she speaks very good Portuguese for a foreigner.
I did some digging:
German accent in French (has German mixed in at times, sorry): https://youtu.be/j8mwxLoBWhE
For completeness: a French accent in German: https://youtu.be/HrkXPr1DiRw
A German speaking Spanish (I assume with an accent) (the female voice) https://youtu.be/yIoXoEeg6AM?t=359
I’m having trouble finding a video of a German speaking Chinese with an accent. I found this, but i don’t get the feeling that his accent is too strong: https://youtu.be/OlAsL3Cd-yc
Thank you for all of this! The first one (german accent speaking french) sounds exactly like i’d expect actually. However the opposite is harder for me to tell what language he’s even speaking at times (he seems to go back and forth? I heard a “tres bien” in there).
The woman speaking Spanish just kind of sounded like an american lady speaking spanish to me 🤷♂️ she could just be better at suppressing her native accent though.
That’s one advantage of being German. You do just hear it when a German speaks English.
A few weeks ago, we had a meeting at work and it was like 20 Germans, but one guy greeted in English, so I guess, this meeting is gonna be in English then. And like, us Germans were all doing extremely fine, but it was still just absolutely fucking comical when the native English speaker responded. In comparison, we all just sounded like shitty robots.
German natives speaking English usually makes for one of my favourite accents, it’s very pleasant.
I love Germans for a million reasons. there’s nothing I don’t like about them. Particularly impressive that most of them speak five languages fluently.
That’s not Germans, that’s Luxemburgers. Many Germans speak English, some will speak the neighbouring country’s language close to the border, but not 5 languages.
Going to a McDonald’s in Luxembourg it was quite amusing to see one person take on 4 orders in 4 different languages back to back. (English, Dutch, German and French)
On another note while most Luxemburgers will speak 4 or more languages, most people I spoke to wouldn’t respond if you didn’t speak the language they find “native” to their area. Until you then start speaking another one of the languages and they understand you’re just a tourist trying to speak one of their languages.
Well I am German living in Germany and I can assure you that is not really the case for 95% of Germans
Yeah, I think you are confusing the German with the Dutch. (Which happens a lot…)
Dutch generally speak several languages. Germans in general speak only German and rudimentary English (if you’re lucky).
(A common Dutch gripe with visiting German tourists is that Germans just assume the Dutch speak German (which they mostly do, so okay, they’ve got a point, but still) and just start speaking German without asking first)
It goes both ways - when I speak German I have an obvious English-speaker accent and many Germans will just answer me in English 😄
The past few years I’ve desperately tried to not sound as German. Now I have a weird Britishish accent and I’m kind of sad I don’t sound German anymore. But then again I work with Luxemburgish people (and other internationals so we often speak english) sound more German than Germans and it can be hard to keep a straight face at times.
Sometimes I can’t think of a word, so I give a terrible definition of the word I am looking for and my saddest face in the hopes that the person I’m talking to will take pity on my feeble mind.
Sometimes that can work though! I was in France once and had to try to talk about toes for some reason, I could only say “what do you call like, fingers but on your feet?” and they were like “…yes that’s right” (doigts de pied) while giving me a look like “duh, what kind of stupid language doesn’t call them foot-fingers.”
To be fair most of my interactions in English also fit in the ‘take pity on my feeble mind’ category, but I think either you learn something, or worst case scenario you give someone their own version of the ‘cobra chicken’ story to tell people, so you might as well go for it.
In German gloves are hand shoes (Handschuhe). I just though you should know.
Cobra chicken?
I’ve said exactly the same thing. My mind just went automatically and said “foot-fingers” and it was the friend I was talking with that interrupts me saying “you mean toes!?” and couldn’t stop laughing
Just to add that ‘doigts de pied’ is ok, but there is a specific word in French too (‘orteils’)
The word you’re looking for is Schadenfreude
I only speak English. I have this issue all the time.
Oh my god, thank you for this laugh.
Went to a pub in Iceland. English brother-in-law had been living there a while, trying to learn some basic Icelandic.
He orders the drinks, slowly, trying to remember the words as he goes. Finishes the order. Looks at the barman.
“Sorry mate, I dunno what you’re saying”, he replies in an Australian accent.
Buying beer from a man in Iceland
He was six-foot-four and full of muscle
I said, “Do you speak-a my language?”
And he just smiled and gave me a Vegemite sandwich
Wish I could speak another language besides high school Spanish
Gods, high school spanish is so fucking useless in the real world.
I took four years of that shit, and couldn’t carry on a conversation. I learned more from my Mexican girlfriend in six months (and still suck at Spanish, unless I’m cursing, but still).
If you’re teaching a bunch of gringos Spanish, conjugating verbs instead of building vocabulary and actually speaking with the language is what matters. Do I give a fuck if some Guatemalan asks me where the bus stop is by saying “where bus to be”? No, because I can fucking parse that by virtue of being fluent in English.
But not even knowing how to say what the fuck it is you need to find after 4 years of the classes? Jfc.
Ugh. Just fuck high school language classes.
I like to imagine that’s your only language. Not even a first language, only high school spanish
“I can’t do shit but I can always find a bathroom or library”
This happens to me pretty frequently.
I think is alright, language is a bridge and sometimes we feel more comfortable speaking our native language than others. But I don’t really mind speaking in English or Spanish with people I meet in Brazil. But the moment of realization that you are talking with another native speaker is always full of joy.
#feels-nice to speak with other bilingual or polyglots :)
It’s hard for Brazilians to speak Spanish? Whenever I heard someone speak Brazilianese I feel like I’m having a stroke because like 25% of it is just spanish, but the rest is like French Spanish.
Lol @ Brazilianese. Language is Portuguese. Or sometimes Brazilian Portuguese. It always sounds Russian meets Spanish to me.
I like saying Brazilianese cuz it makes everyone angry
I can see why people think European Portuguese sounds Russian but this is the first time I’ve seen anyone say the same about Brazilian Portuguese.
I don’t think that these people heard much Russian, there’s literally nothing similar. You could say it’s sounds like Spanish, maybe Dutch or Greek even but Russian?
I’m from eastern Europe. Portuguese definitely has a slavic sound to it.
Brazilian portuguese has all the phonems spanish has, but not the other way around. half of the words have same root so brazilians understand spanish for the most part and can infer meaning.
the other way around is tougher, because what might be a “hard t” becomes a “soft t” in portuguese, a “e” sound like “i” on certain words, etc. So spanish speakers get really confused.
Just being aware of these differences can remove those “blockers” and make spanish speakers understand brazilian portuguese much more easily (since, as said before, the root of many words is the same).
As a Spanish speaker I find it much easier to understand spoken Italian than spoken Portuguese. However it’s much easier to read Portuguese than Italian.
I’m so confused. But thank you and I love you for helping try and understand.
Yes, it’s hard. Most people have an easier time with English.
It’s possible to babble some meaning across the languages without training, but actually speaking is hard.
Makes sense. I can’t understand a fucking word scots say
Lol this is hilarious. Me mata de la risa
Your command of the english language is good, but you’re speaking it weird. Over there your family and their dogs. Oh wait! Your dogs! They’re getting into the garbage can over there!
::blink:: just, a, what country do you think this is? ::blink blink::
Fun fact Greek and Spanish sound extremely similar. They have nearly identical sounds. They’re not all that closely related though.
Maybe this only works if you don’t speak either cause I speak Spanish and Greek… Well it’s Greek to me.
Pretty much, if you’re actively listening. Check this video out. https://youtu.be/LPMqoHPJzac?feature=shared
I’m sorry but I have absolute certainty the second story is fake. There’s is no way, absolutely none, that two Brazilians speaking English couldn’t identify each others accents within seconds of the conversation. Maybe if they were living in the US or UK for 10 years, but this happened in Argentina. 100% fake story.
hey I got a story like that. I was in japan. my japanese was alright, I had attended two intensive courses before that, so I got around. But obviously i’m not japanese and everyone heard and saw that. I sat in a small eatery and ordered some Gyoza. This guy in a business suit next to me was all excited in japanese “oh you like Gyoza! how do you know about it?” and we started talking a bit, where he asked where I was from. I said that I’m from germany, where he immediately switched and we talked in German… weird experience.
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