I thought I might share a small phonetic game/challenge with you. All 3 individuals in the attached clips were born and raised in the same country and speak the same native language. Can you tell, based on the peculiarities of their English pronunciation, what language it is?
Absolute wild guess that it’s Wales. Mostly based on how there is an expectation it’s not well known as a country and vibes on physical appearance.
My favorite whelsh pronunciation:
That’s an interesting and unexpected guess. It would seem to me that no. 3 in particular doesn’t sound even remotely Welsh, but perhaps absolutely wild guesses (to use your phrase) dispense with such stereotypical assumptions🙂
It’s not initially obvious but there are hints. Especially with the last and first one (2nd is teaching English peculiarities in slang so is an overly forced accent), but they all appear Slavic-ish too. 20 years ago… immigration from only one country into England comes to mind and that’s Poland so their first language is Polish.
Note that it wasn’t the accent that made me choose there. It was to say they weren’t native English speakers
spoiler
Your deduction is correct. They are Polish.
Listening to 1 and 2 I was wondering whether there was some clever twist I wasn’t seeing because they both seemed fairly easy to identify. Then 3 hit me with surprise rhoticity and now I’m confused.
„Then 3 hit me with surprise rhoticity and now I’m confused.” Hopefully at that point the challenge became entertaining 🙂
I’d pick Czech overall, for no real reason - they just remind me a bit of one Czech person i know who has spent a long time here. Not strong evidence.
Otherwise I might have gone for Poland or Baltics somewhere, Swedish/Finnish/Estonian did cross my mind as possible.
I just don’t know enough people from enough countries - especially smaller ones to have confidence. I think you’d have to be quite familiar with the native language to really be sure.
spoiler
One of your picks is correct
🙂
Swedish?
spoiler
No🙂
Halfway between posh English and Irish…
I’m guessing Manx.
spoiler
A fair guess, but no :)
The correct answer is:
spoiler
Polish. Thanks for your guesses and congratulations to all those who were close or even hit the nail on the head, even if somewhat hesitantingly.
what language it is?
I didn’t catch this before I posted my answer. Are you telling me that English is not their native language?
Now I’m surprised and curious.
That’s right, none of them is a native speaker of English - their English is learned via the standard combination of school, extracurricular courses, media exposure, and other typical means available in largely monolingual countries, and subsequently polished up abroad (at least two of them moved to Anglophone countries for university). Thus, I figured that the undercurrent of their native pronunciation should be sufficiently conspicuous to allow for making some educated guesses about their origin 🙂
The answer to your question is no, I cannot.
The accent I hear appears to be based on where they learned English instead of where they are from.
I suppose that’s a pretty solid indication that they learned it well 🙂
The first speaker had a couple of vowels that gave away he isn’t a native speaker, but he’s walking the line between uncanny and mastery, so it was hard to pick out enough to guess what his native language might be.
The second I’m not allowed to watch without a Vimeo account, probably because I’m in Britain. I won’t be setting one up today.
For the third there was a lot more unusual vowel articulation, especially ‘a’, that made me think Slavic, but I couldn’t be any more specific than that.
spoiler
Slavic is a good guess
🙂
Either Estonian or Finnish, would be my guess, based on the soft, shortened ‘s’ and the distinctive short o (‘so’). It doesn’t show the melodic signs of Germanic Scandinavian languages nor the v/w or v/f fusion I’d expect in Latvian etc.
spoiler
An interesting and well-argued guess, but I’m afraid it’s nonetheless somewhat off the mark.
The first two are British. I know regional dialects vary, but I can’t identify one from the other.
The third one sounds like an American, but has a very “professional” dialect. Some people will talk like this for recordings, but since you said she’s from the same country as the other ones, I’m guessing she learned her American accent from media, and not from regular conversations.
No way are they English.
The first two may have spent several years in south east England or spent a long time there - but they’re not native speakers. I wonder at what age they stopped being “raised” though as I’d think at least a few formative years spent there to pick up that much of an accent.
They both initially moved to England for university - him at 19 and her at 21.
Wow, seems faster than I’d have though to pick up that much of an accent. Then again if they were students they’d traditionally be expected to watch a lot of ‘Eastenders’.
1 sounds slightly NZ to me
2 sounds like non-english, trying to come off as English
3 sounds slightly ScottishSo my answer is one of these:
- South Africa, because the saffers I’ve met spoke wildly different dialects
- UK, because I don’t know all of the UK dialects, and person 1 and 2 can just be from an area I’m not familiar with
Just for the record, English is not my native language.
spoiler
It’s neither South Africa nor the UK, though I’m surprised how often the native speakers of this particular language are mistaken for South Africans, given that I can think of hardly any salient connections between the two🙂
1 and 2 sound very British but something sounds a bit off. Number 3 has a stronger accent, but it’s still hard to identify, maybe Latvian