What English Sounds like to People in other Countries
AMOG Home / Offbeat
- PierogyJim
- Monday, February 1, 2010
As a neat little exercise, I have compiled a list of videos to show what English sounds like to people around the world. As English speakers, we have a lot of fun imitating what certain languages sound like to us, such as French, Italian, and Chinese.
One Great example from Family guy.
Let’s turn the tables and see what other people think we sound like.
1. The best of the best: Adriano Celentano- Prisencolinensinainciusol
Italian singer, songwriter, comedian, actor, and tv host Adriano Celentano wrote this amazing in 1972. The video itself is pure eye candy, and the words are what English sounds like to a non-native speaker, and they’re pure gibberish. Celentano has stated that the song is about incommunicability in the modern age, and prisencolinensinainciusol is supposed to stand for “universal love.” Amazing.
2. English as interpreted by a 9-year old Japanese boy.
This is what English sounds like to a little Japanese boy. It sounds like a lot of barking, with “rock and roll” and “English” thrown in there for good measure.
3. English according to a peculiar French dude.
This strange French fellow does a surprisingly good imitation of English, along with a few other languages. Kind of interesting.
4. Bulgarian woman attempts Mariah Carey on “Music Idol.”
Valentina Hasan attempting Mariah Carey’s “Without You” on the Bulgarian version of American Idol. Ridiculous.
5. Argentine band attempts English.
An Argentine band, Masticar, wrote this song in the mid-90s to show how they felt English sounds.
6. A German Quicky.
Here is a short clip of a German guy talking in fake English.
7. Russian attempting a Texas Accent.
He also tries to do other languages as well, amusing.
8. Another French person attempting English.
This girl sounds like she’s speaking Chinese or something.
9. Large Peruvian sings fake English song.
This is very, very strange…
10. Argentine girl does a great fake English impression.
You have to go to Youtube to watch this one because embedding was disabled, but it’s well worth the click. One of the better English impressions on Youtube.
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35 Responses to “What English Sounds like to People in other Countries”
Posted by: SherwinRocks - February 1st, 2010 at 8:55 pm
Apparently, all speakers of of English are from Southern USA and shout?!
Posted by: Ungod - February 2nd, 2010 at 6:35 pm
Amazingly interesting THANK YOU for putting this together! I found the song from Adriano C. so many different flavors of awesome sauce I am trying to find more songs that he has done. That way one of those rare "ahead of the times" moments. Brilliant thank you!
Posted by: jjtinko - February 9th, 2010 at 4:13 pm
ROTFL, dude thats just too funny!
Jess
http://www.private-surfing.be.tc
Posted by: Leonardo - February 9th, 2010 at 4:35 pm
Check this latin Britney, from the colombian version of X-factor. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsZiZVGBjw0#t=43s
Really funny.
Posted by: Pierre - February 9th, 2010 at 4:46 pm
Nice content, you might also want to add the singaporean way of speaking english, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48dBnQDxPUw
Posted by: Nick - February 9th, 2010 at 4:56 pm
Adriano Celentano video ftw. -Native Texan
Posted by: anon - February 9th, 2010 at 7:05 pm
It's just like when we Americans pretend to talk Chinese, i just face palm when people imitate other languages when its to make fun of them resulting in they themselves looking stupid.
Posted by: Katie - February 9th, 2010 at 7:14 pm
I loved the Italian song imitating English because I kept hearing "peas and corn", "peas and corn". The thought of a rock song devoted to vegetables is pretty great.
I think English does sound quite weird, even as a native speaker, because it contains so many words borrowed from other languages, making it sound kind of random and disjunctive. Of all other languages, I believe Dutch sounds most similar to English…and it sounds pretty weird to a non-Dutch speaker.
Posted by: michalp77 - February 10th, 2010 at 7:58 pm
here in poland, there are no problems with speaking english
Posted by: The-Flea - February 10th, 2010 at 8:31 pm
Here is the official video of the argentinean band, love that song, LOL!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdAB83JjzB8
Posted by: Jecker - February 11th, 2010 at 12:08 am
Fake English is totally Simlish! Glad someone else thought the same.
Posted by: Lelek - February 11th, 2010 at 11:52 am
How english sounds for Poles (after 0:25):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_4blWBV7ao
Posted by: LadyVader - February 11th, 2010 at 6:25 pm
This was really cool! I'm probably just a huge nerd, but these videos reminded me of the "Simlish" that characters speak in the Sims games. It's got the English vowel sounds and all, but it's just gibberish.
I loved the Argentine band, lol.
Posted by: rosenbaum - February 11th, 2010 at 9:46 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_4blWBV7ao
This is the simplest way to get proper English pronunciation
.
The scene comes from Polish comedy called "Miś".
Posted by: @fabriziobianchi - February 12th, 2010 at 9:44 pm
Great post! But I am sorry to say that, although Prisencolinensinanciusol is a great one, you missed the best thing.
In Italy we all just love a '54 comedy movie, featuring the great actor Alberto Sordi, in which a guy, who has never been in the USA and can't speak a world of English, tries desperately to go to the USA, even during WWII, when the Americans were bombing Rome, where he lived.
All the movie is just a continous stream of funny impressions of English sounds and of American attitdes.
Enjoy the clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjLNGDx5wgQ
Posted by: Rob Nelson - February 13th, 2010 at 6:31 pm
Guillaume, I too objected to you being described as a "peculiar" French dudes. First of all, all French dudes are peculiar…
and second of all, does *not* winking at the camera make one weird? I did get quite a kick out of the impressions of Cantonese and Japanese. This convinces me that to native English and French speakers, these two Far Eastern languages sound pretty simliar. Not sure if that suprises me or not. Here in America, it's not too easy to see native speakers of other languages (besides Spanish) speak they're native language. Unless, that is, you take a cab ride in New York City! So for Americans, the exposure to languages such as Finnish, Romanian, and Malay is pretty much zero.
Posted by: burragubba - February 15th, 2010 at 2:36 am
reminds me of that japanese dude trying to count in english: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRLuayBSpiA
Posted by: seo news - February 16th, 2010 at 9:48 am
I enjoyed all video and all are really so funny as how people use english and creates fun. take a look at, my blog for more fun, http://retwurl.com/pB
Posted by: Izanagui - February 17th, 2010 at 9:21 pm
Hello… Here Britney Latina
So funny!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsZiZVGBjw0
Posted by: dsds - February 21st, 2010 at 1:06 am
Check out this one guys! (czech girl tries to sing a DIDO song)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBqR6LESIJs
Posted by: ing - February 22nd, 2010 at 2:28 am
we do! Dutch is the closest major language to English …
the first French fellow sounded like he was speaking Norwegian, imo.
Posted by: j_esau - February 22nd, 2010 at 4:47 am
People… if you like Ken Lee, you must watch the "colombian britney spears", and "the faina shanda" (guess what song is, you'll need the chorus) in YOUTUBE
Posted by: j_esau - February 22nd, 2010 at 4:48 am
She's colombian… so embarrasing, not all of us speak that way
Posted by: abbie - February 22nd, 2010 at 9:03 pm
Danny Kaye doing French, Italian and German: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhdWXLUsz9Y
Posted by: lobster - February 23rd, 2010 at 11:37 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZf7vddvbvM – the best english impersonation of a song
))
Posted by: Zerpa - February 24th, 2010 at 6:35 pm
Here's an Argentinian comedian who does something like that.
Roberto Quenedi "He sings like shit but he sings like you"
Posted by: zerpa - February 24th, 2010 at 6:39 pm
Roberto Quenedi "He sings like shit but he sings like you"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOPKMeCeO58
Posted by: Derek Mann - February 24th, 2010 at 8:22 pm
Actually the funniest thing is that you Americans always say you are talking English which is,of course, a gross error.
Posted by: Jess - February 25th, 2010 at 1:33 am
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9oNtDktQNg @ 20 seconds. lol his name is JoKwon
Posted by: @dorabo - February 25th, 2010 at 5:18 pm
You must watch a brazillian participant of Big Brother singing "We are the world". She made so much sucess that she had to sing it again on the most famous brazillian tv show after that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9SgWwwJlX0
Posted by: pierogyjim - March 1st, 2010 at 9:30 am
dont take it too seriously
Posted by: deemery - March 3rd, 2010 at 4:53 pm
And then there's the great scene in "A Fish Called Wanda" where John Cleese does an 'American Accent….[
Posted by: Chelmi - March 4th, 2010 at 12:12 am
Check "It's kiz my life" by Moroccan stand-up comedian Gad Elmaleh
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MU5tE46UPCs
Posted by: DeusExNoctis - March 7th, 2010 at 4:20 am
Surprised nobody has mentioned this one yet:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTlz1BqS8A0
(Just ignore the sub-titles, the song is pure gibberish. Even as a native English speaker, it took me years to realize that they weren't singing actual words!)
Posted by: person - March 10th, 2010 at 10:43 pm
thats so weird
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