Disclaimer : This is not a thread to attack a particular group of people, or country, or 'race'.

Just like many/most users here, English is a 2nd, 3rd, or even our 4th spoken language. And, of course, in most cases, it is far from perfect.

I just came across an udemy presentation video, for a Cubase course, and shit, what an accent.
While watching the video, that English accent gave me some mixed feelings : I didn't know if I should laugh, cry, stop watching, or even pull my hair.

Of course, there are millions of accents, but there are a few that are particularly annoying, funny, complicated, complex, hard or impossible to understand, etc etc. Sure, we don't even imagine the efforts made, for some people to talk a different language. With that said, there are a few ones that you will never forget.

Do you know any other English accents, where you think 'dear God, please HELP' ?
Would be funny to hear them. OK, English is the most spoken, on Internet, commercial, etc. But if you know a Chinese who tries to speak polish, etc etc, if it's 'funny', it's funny.

Here is what I just found. Tell me what you think ;)

https://www.udemy.com/psychedelic-music-production-workshop-with-cubase/

 

Thats definetely a french woman trying to speak english. No doubts!

https://www.udemy.com/user/twistedkala/

BTW nothing against french people...but sometimes I think that its really hard especially if you are a native french to speak any other language without an accent. I dont know why, but for example my sister in law is also french. But she now lives in germany for about 15 years and all her friends are german and also my brother (so nearly all her communication is in german) but when you listen to her you would think she started speaking german 1 maybe 2 years ago...and there's definetely no progress hearable. She is stucking to her actual state of pronunciation since 10 years.

 

Last edited: Jun 22, 2016

About her question, at the end ' ahhrr you rrrhadee to starrrrt ? ',
sorry, miss, but I think my brain is not prepared, yet.

 

Yeah, there definitely are some countries /languages, where it is really difficult to speak other languages.
Just take Phil Collins, he has been living in Switzerland for many years, and he can't even say 'bonjour' without an accent. OK, you will tell me, why would he need to speak French. His 'Bondjiourrr' will do just fine. .

And that's the 'problem ', I think, with people from north America : English is their language, and everybody in the world should master it. If an American guy goes to France, and lives there for 25 years, it's not up to him, to learn french. No, it's up to the French to 'adapt', and make the effort of trying to communicate with him, in English. It's not him who must learn how to say carrots or beans, in french, when he goes to the local market, but rather it is the French who must know those English words.
In another words, most people from the north America will never feel the 'need' of learning a foreign language, even out of curiosity, or hobby, etc, because, no matter who they talk to, outside the US, it is those foreign guys WHO must do the effort of learning and speaking his native language.

Some will say that , for most people, once they pass the US borders, everything else is the 3rd world. So Why should they learn a language from a 3rd world country... makes no sense.

About that girl from the video, even if she spends 10 hours a day with english /american people, in 20 years, you can be sure she will have EXACTLY the same accent as today.

Regarding your sister's german, German is a really complex language, spoken, written, grammar, everything, it's ultra complex, for a latin-based person.i think if I had to learn and speak German, I'd already be happy if I could say a few complete sentences..and because it is so difficult, even after many many years, my accent would always be really bad, so I guess I wouldn't make any huge efforts to sound like a native German guy... kind of a lost cause..

 

But there seem to be people who learn german easier than french people. For example I know a lot of russians who live in germany for only a few years (5-10) and some of them speak perfect german. Even for me as a born german its hard to hear any kind of accent at some of them. Sometimes I simpy think that french people just dont want to learn a foreign language. When you visit france even in big cities like Paris or Marsaille you will earn angry looks if you speak english to them!

 

After living in Switzerland for almost 13 years my German really sucks. Every time that I am out and about, so many many times, the person that I am speaking to, may it be a farmer selling vegetables, the clerk at the music store, whomever, just switches the conversation into English, LOL. I guess that they feel sorry for me.

And yes it is true, coming from the USA (I can bash, one nigga to the next) I can safely vouch that, excluding Mexico and maybe Canada, the world outside of the territorial border almost doesn't exist except in some odd, fantasial idea. Mostly the Spanish language is taught in the schools that actually teach a foreign language, but this is based out of nessessity because about half of the population is of Hispanic origin so that language is important for the other half of the population to understand. The news, if at all, just glosses over foreign affairs, of course unless it is about some incursion the government is fomenting somewhere. Really, eight out of ten times when speaking of where I live to someone that I meet from there, yes, eight out of ten times, ask me what it is like to live in Sweeden. SWEEDEN! (No offense Baxter, a lovely place with lovely people, wonderful skiing and meatballs and just the best detective novels).They don't know where Switzerland is, the languages spoken and can not even come close to placing the country is on a map. Most folks do not ever travel outside the country, and any ideas of what other people or countries are like based on reality or life experience(whatever the fuck that is?) is minimal.

My daughter is learning French and English in school here in Basel. They are being taught the British variety, so my girl feels it important to speak with a British accent. It is hilarious because her accent is pretty much mine, but how she affects certain words such as "cah" for car I find absolutely amusing, that is, how she stresses just certain words to imitate. She is great and I get a few good giggles every day.

 

Russians and overal most other slavs nations(apart from other germanic nations of course, like Denmark, Dutch, Sweden and so on) have easiest job to learn and understand german. As they have similar accentuation and pronunciation. We can say, that german language is closest to slavs language, as they both have something in common. Even some words or part of it are identical.

 

I'm sorry Wouala, but i'll have to disagree on this.

I'm a native French Canadian and I live in Lima, Peru.
My spanish level is bit higher then the one of a new coming american but its not that good neither.....because i put no time or effort to try to learn the culture and language.

When i speak English, its not THAT bad.
I had people from the US thinking I was from Minesota until i told them I was Canadian...then they said Oh TORONTO !! and i said nop, I'm from Montreal.
At 15 y/o I spent time with english friends, learned the 'culture' ...the mentality behind words where it wouldnt make any sense in French grammar.

That women in this video is exactly like the American ( Theres more then one country in North America by the way...one is a Socialist country (The untied Nation refugee camp) Country, the other is the Empire leader under wich you live in.
She's not even trying.....she sound exactly like an american not even trying to speak correct french or spanish.

By the way, German and English come from the same roots ...they are Germanic Languages......its a complete other mentality, in and out the language.
French, spanish ,italian and portuguese have latin roots....

Like I said, I'm a native French speaker and my spanish level is just above the dogs .....because i put no effort.
Ask me to make the sound of a ''R'' in spanish and look at a native spanish speaker laugh at me.

When I'm listening to her saying ''the'' like ''Zeeee''.....mate, it's insulting !!!
It sound just like a Texan landed in Bogota and ask ''where are the burritos FUCK'' !

 

I kindly disagree, German + Dutch + Flemish (Vlaams) and English has a really strong resemblance

English is just a universal language, and french is not. it is just making it hard on themself not to accept it,
I've been to France, but I kindly go to next shop to spend my money if we can't communicate

 

A dreadful accent no doubt but as a not english native i speak and write english almost fluent. But sometimes there are turorials (mostly GFX ) when an eastern europe guy does the tut i hardly can understand him. It s sucks if you pay for a tutorial and you can`t understand most of it because of a dreadful accent.

 

French was far more popular in the beginning of the last century than English...
It's easy to see that in the "near" future Spanish may dethrone English as most popular language in the Western Culture.
Btw, even Indians speak more intelligible than the people with Cockney accent.

 

French used to be the language of diplomats, the common language used in international treaties, it was, comment dit-on "de rigueur", and if you were "educated", part of the curriculum of the finest schools. After WWII when the USA gained monopoly over manufacturing, intellectual property and still had the infrastructure to dominate a severely weakened economic Europe with virtually no competition from anyone in regard to anything and before the rise from the east, language as well as culture suplimented and then overcame any and all rivals. Education and especially science were the real treasure snatched by eager hands in the new world order by a hungry for power and virtually unscathed USA business minded political elect. The war was great for business and the country flourished. France went by the wayside as America rose steadily until near the end of the 20st century. It is now the time to teach your children Chinese. 我想吃你的狗，多少也想为它

 

There's more people in the world that speak spanish then english.

As for the second line..........Hummm......
I'm not quite sure howto explain this one......LIKE DUDE...YOURE IN FRANCE !!!!
Ah no, Fuck it
YOu know what ?!
Lets build a BIG FUCKIN WALL !!!
4 BIG FUCKIN WALL.....So you stay inside and you win so much you get borred of winning !!
Of course you can bring your daughters ....Trump can bring his daughter too !
We wont look at what youre doin inside i promise, but we already know what youre doing.

 

Actually it would need to be six walls in all. You forgot that Alaska and Hawaii are not part of the contiguous United States and need their own and separate constructions.

 

Hey, Martel. I live in Lima. An Audiosexual from around the corner, how cool is that?

Asserting that Americans treat the rest of the world like sub-par places is a stereotype, kind of Hollywood driven. In fact, the world is opening up in all places. I remember those days here in AS where people apologized for not writing proper English. At some point we naturally agreed that apologizing for it was out of place. What we say is what matters in the end. Fortunately or not, English is the lingua franca of international communication for a simple reason: It's easy to grasp, like picking up the bass. You're up and running in no time. Of course, mastery and real proficiency takes years, just like the bass. Neither Spanish nor Chinese can be picked up so easily. You actually have to devote to it to get to decent proficiency in the mid term. English is structurally practical and that's why I doubt Chinese or any other country with economical influence will take over and impose their language.

Language bias and accent dislike is more at the individual level, based on cultural bias. However, the use of the web for international communication is changing that. We may not like an accent or dialect of a given language, but we can accept that as long as communication is conveyed, we can grow tolerance and acceptance of our differences. At least, I choose to believe that.

 

That of any given "presenter" in a BBC TV show or BBC documentary.

 

no entiendo a donde quiere ir a parar este post. cuando no se habla en el idioma materno suena otra música evidentemente, y no es soportable ??
habeis tenido en cuenta que quizá esta chica de Udemy es uno de nosotros?
porqué un post para empezar a señalar a la gente desde la superioridad

 

Last edited: Jun 22, 2016

I have to agree with Wouala Woualauf and Superliquidsunshine. Some people just assume everyone has to adapt to them, and not the other way around.

But the same concept is not exclusive to US Americans, but also british people as well. They assume that since english is the "universal language", everybody must speak it and get angry when you don't understand them. In fact, I'm spanish, and there is a city in Spain called Benidorm which is known for its growing british population. It has come to a point in which people don't even care of learning the language anymore and expect that since they're so many british people in there, YOU have to adapt to them and learn their language. Which is obviously wrong.

Same thing happens with the muslim religion here. There are plenty of issues (some times even on TV) whereas the muslim community uprises when someone, somewhere is not allowed to wear the hibab/burqa/whatever. In Spain covering your face in public places is forbidden (unless it's some kind of festivity like Carnival or Halloween), but they don't seem to care. Their religion is ABOVE the laws of the country they're in (for them), because it's Alah's will or whatever. In fact, my mother in law was threatened recently at work by a muslim woman because she didn't want to accept the woman's credit card unless she showed up her face (you need to show your ID which has a photograph when you pay with credit card, so the seller knows it's you and the card is not stolen). "Don't worry, all of you will wear this pretty soon" she said.

Seriously, languages and cultures are a beautiful thing. I love learning them and I would learn more as a hobby if I had more time. But seriously, people should stop forcing their language and cultures to everyone else, SPECIALLY when they are the foreigners.

 

think that the Romans conquered England in 4 weeks (the English were farmers, no weapons, no resistance)
they built some town like Bath (very nice), the Adrian wall, then they thought it was too cold and rainy and abbandoned the island.
If England would be sunny... you'd all speak latin-italian now (with an english accent) ahahahahah

just a joke, but the first part is history

 

Last edited: Jun 22, 2016

Hey thats so awesome :D I'm in pueblo Libre ...right in front of the Hospital de Nino. I hope I can find a place in region soon tho', i had enough of this mess already ....3 years and I cant stand the trafic and polution anymore. If only they had decent speed internet in the country side !!

Well, given the current presidency popularity in the states, the comment of one of AZ member sayin he would go elsewhere if he was in france and couldnt be understood in english in a french country, the noisy bros in all mochileros lodge ive visited and oh so many time i heard americans saying how stupid other culture are to not understand the word they are saying in english in another culture country ( I've heard one of those saying that he screamed at a cashier in McDonald in Paris because he ordered a French Fries and she kept on saying Frite....he answered he didnt know who was fritz and hated all german , to just give him is fuckin french fries....) ONLY an american could do that sort of stuff.
I was so amazed by his stupidity that i started laughing .....he tought i was laughing with him.....

Who the fuck visit Paris and eat McDonalds ?

I'm sorry mate but thats not a stereotype at all, or your encounters with americans in other country were very limited.

I'm racist towards Americans, i admit it.
And i do feel genuinely insulted when someone think i'm an American......I feel exactly the same way as when someone say I'm an Idiot...... yep, my racism goes THAT far.
I hate them and my expectation towards them are always EXTREMELY LOW.

I'll even go further into my racism.....I know they are not all like that, I have at least 5 american friends that I can actualy have a discussion with and they have a minimum of culture and open mind.
You know that speach where someone says ''youre homophobic'' and the other one answer : '' I'm not Homophobic , i have a gay friend''....
Yeah, well thats me when someone says I'm racist towards Americans: '' I'm not racist, i know a decent American ,hes awesome ! ''

 

Last edited: Jun 22, 2016