Blog 5:

Upon searching through youtube, I found this strange little video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt4Dfa4fOEY . It is titled How English sounds to non-English speakers. The title got my interest. I watched the video, and I was slightly confused by it. I knew what the concept of the video was, but my mind was trying to process something that cant be processed. Some of what was said was English, but the words were not coherently used. Some parts were just jibberish, having no meaning at all. Overall, the video was unintelligible. But I do see how someone could mistake it for English, if they don't know the language.


The video does make me think about how some people "make fun" of other languages by making sounds that sound similar to something in that language. Maybe this is how someone would do that for English. The people in the video do seem to be speaking slightly fast too. That could be because of the same reason other languages we don't know often sound fast. When speaking, we don't generally put breaks between words. In languages we know, our mind knows the breaks, so it isn't hard for us to understand. However, in languages we don't know, we are unsure of where one word starts and another ends. Often, it will seem to be spoken really fast. That would be why someone learning English may ask you to slow down when talking. Its not because you are talking fast, its because they aren't able to separate the words very well yet.