People Shocked After Video Shows What Speaking English Sounds Like To Foreigners

A man has given an insight into how the English language sounds to non-English speakers.

TikTok user, the Language Simp - or @languagesimp - is a multi linguist and has used his expertise to put together an example of how us English speakers sound to non-English speakers. 

In a clip that has now been viewed over eight million times, he shares a short speech in a strange gibberish that sounds a lot like English but also nothing like English - apart from the odd word. 

The effect is pretty odd for those of us who do speak English, with one person commenting: “I felt like I should understand what he was saying.”

Another asked: “You are telling me people hear me talking like a Sim?” Someone else wrote: “I feel like I understand what he's saying, but I also don't,” while a fourth person said: “This sounds right… but it’s not… ”

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In terms of which languages sound most appealing to non-native speakers, English rarely comes near the top of the list with French, Spanish or Italian often coming out as the most ‘beautiful-sounding’ tongues to non speakers. 

But speaking to Metro, Rachel Xiao, a native Mandarin speaker who has studied English for three years at language school International House London, said: “I think British English is very beautiful. 

“It’s very flowy. When I hear native speakers, it’s like you’re singing a song because all the words seem connected together.”

And it seems that accent can also make a huge difference in the perception of English to non-native speakers.

“British and American English sound very different to me,” Rachel said. “American English sounds very casual and more practical, while British English sounds much more refined.”

Wayne Rimmer co-ordinator of the Pronunciation Special Interest Group at the International Association of Teachers as a Foreign Language says he believes people’s preferences often boils down to learned prejudice.

While received pronunciation - also known as Queen’s English - is only spoken by a tiny portion of the country it is still ‘perceived as a model of the language that people want to learn’ Wayne says. 

“If you come from a Germanic language, the differences won’t seem so extreme,” he added. “But coming from a very different language group like Thai, they will be a lot more striking.”

And Barry O’Leary, who has taught English as a foreign language for ten years, says his students in Spain have an interesting way to describe how English sounds to them.

“They say we speak like chickens,” he revealed. “We don’t open our mouths; it’s just a continuous stream of sounds they’ve never heard before.”