What does English sound like to you?

[Aírmanareiks Þiudareiks]

Originally Posted by mondine

Okay, I'm English speaking, so I can't answer your first question. It sounds like the personality of whomever I hear speaking it; or like any language, just discordant if I hear it used very badly.

French has always seemed a passionate language. In the sense of broadly-gestured coffee shop politics, as well as some alluring Quebecois women with whom I was acquainted in my younger days. But then again, a really attractive person could be a mime, and it wouldn't much matter.

Spoken Dutch has always sounded Germanic to me. What little I've heard. I've known quite a few people from Holland, and I've usually just heard them speak near-flawless English. Usually a good deal better that many born in North America.

Hmmm, Dutch seems to have its own distinct accent, but it also differs from region to region. I know people who speak Dutch with an accent similar to English, but Dutch people generally find it difficult to understand such kind of vernacular varieties. I can't understand a word they say either. A good example is the Dutch spoken by the vocalists of the popular Dutch song 'Watskeburt'.
French always frustrated me because it was written one way and pronounced another. I can barely understand spoken French either.
German is easy though...

[Gooooogler]

English sounds like 'ENGLISH' to me.. Hmmm may be because i know only 3 languages

[guessme]

I dont hate it but i think its not a perfect language...... as words are not pronounced according to rules etc for eg. to is said as too but go is not said as goo etc etc.... there are lot of such problems in it.

[Aírmanareiks Þiudareiks]

Yeah, and 'Celtic' is pronounced 'Keltic' instead of 'Seltic'! Grrr, yeah, things like these frustrate me.

[mondine]

There was a hole through the rough bough.

I'd hate to have to learn this language, now.

[Tuuli]

There was a hole through the rough bough.

And then there was this poem. It does make me stumble... ^^;


I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble, but not you,
On hiccough, thorough, lough and through.
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps.

Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird
And dead: it's said like bed, not bead
For goodness sake, don't call it deed!
Watch out for meat and great and threat.
They rhyme with suite and straight and debt.

A moth is not a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, broth in brother,
And here is not a match for there,
Nor dear and fear for pear and bear.
And then there's dose and rose and lose
Just look them up--and goose and choose.
And cork and work and card and ward.
And font and front and word and sword.
And do and go, then thwart and cart.
Come, come I've hardly made a start.

A dreadful language? Man alive,
I'd mastered it when I was five!


(As for the original question, I'm not completely sure what English sounds like to me... have to think about that.)

[Aírmanareiks Þiudareiks]

I love that poem. Seriously.

[IamTheKing9]

Amazing poem (for me). It's probably due to the fact that I'm very good at English, even though I am an Indian. Where did you get this poem, Tuuli?

[mondine]

Originally Posted by IamTheKing9

Amazing poem (for me). It's probably due to the fact that I'm very good at English, even though I am an Indian. Where did you get this poem, Tuuli?

That's the problem; too good. If you have a few hours to spare, you could try Googling for the source. But it's one of those pieces that have been quoted so many hundreds of times on the Internet, it may take some detective work. Put a line or two in quotation marks, and enter it, yourself.

It always makes me wonder how people can have so much respect for an author's work, and so little respect for the author. That's why I'm happy to see that the admins here at GC are (usually) so adamant about attributing quotations. It's the right way to do it.

[IamTheKing9]

Well, you see, I've never heard of this poem before. And, as you indirectly pointed out, Tuuli hasn't written it as a quote. For these reasons I was not able to identify the author. But I searched it on the Net, and when I clicked on a link, it looked like as if the page would load tomorrow, so I abandoned the search for the author.

So, please, please, please could you tell me the name of the author of the poem, mondine?