Originally published at: What English sounds like to people in Japan | Boing Boing
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It’s funny to think about how other languages sound to us, too. People who’ve never been there imitate Japanese as a kind of angular sounding language, but listening to that video, it’s really melodic, at least compared to American English!
Similar thing with German. I learned in Berlin and the melody of it is quite nice. Not what you’d expect if your only exposure was from mainstream US films and tv!
Gosh, is American English the least musical of all the spoken languages?
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It’s interesting to me that the imitations come with a lot of gesticulation, and are louder. I know about the “Americans speak loudly” part of it, but all the handwaving is interesting as well.
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Maybe yes, to those who dont speak it?
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Angular language? But aren’t you the Angular Saxons? 
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I don’t know…I speak it but, other than professionals like radio personalities or actors, most dialogue IRL is pretty much like the teacher in Charlie Brown, tonally.
In New England, anyway. Though the old timers lend a nice cadence and tone to their words…
But generally when I think of day to day stuff, if you walk into a shop in Japan you’re greeted by a sing song, in Berlin kind of, too. In most of the US a flat, “how can I help you.”
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Also, welcome to boing boing!
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I love the sheer delight, and how some REALLY lean into “deliberate and LOUD” (which feels about right). The vid immediately made me think of this dazzling display from a few years back.
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You can tell by our obtuse attitudes and acute swearing.
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But generally when I think of day to day stuff, if you walk into a shop in Japan you’re greeted by a sing song, in Berlin kind of, too. In most of the US a flat, “how can I help you.”
True! Of course, we’re talking some sort of “standard” Murican English.
If there is a flatness to standard/dominant Murican English, maybe that’s a result of the assimilation process. Being accepted as “American” may have included toning down one’s accent.
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I think the young woman in the white headband at 1:23 nails it pretty well.
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Welcome aboard. Great start!
YMMV. In my area of the country I usually hear a lively “How ya doin’ honey?”
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They’re really conveying the often unwarranted and insistent self-confidence underlying American speech. The more empty the verbiage, the emphatic the handwaving becomes.
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With each successive portrayal, I get the feeling some of these poor folks have been subjected to what we call “Karens”.
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Angry Saxons. Since the Normans came.
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Isosceles what you did there 
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Well this is a great opportunity to repost the king of “What other people think English sounds like.”
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I had a co-worker from the now-former Yugoslavia, who spoke Serbian, Croatian, Albanian, English, French, and a little Italian, German, and Greek. I asked her one day, “Did English sound exotic to you before you became so fluent, or did it always sound the way it does to me?” and I made kinda grumbling noises. She laughed and said it did indeed sound exotic. I told her that really surprised me, because English seems to be the least musical of the languages I’ve heard and studied. It sounds so flat and boring, esp when compared with Asian tongues.
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That’s interesting. I remember sharing a train compartment with a Romanian woman from Bucharest to Chisinau, who remarked that she loved to hear British people speaking (as compared to a USian) because to her it felt like the “clinking of Champagne glasses”.
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