So I was listening to Riverside on the way home today from WORK - yes a job
And I thought about how these dudes are Polish, and they sing in English on the CD I have. I thought that was really ballsy - I guess that's not uncommon, but I'd be really apprehensive about singing in another language on a CD.


So that got me thinking - there are people on here are not native English speakers, or are at least living in places all over the world. The English spoken on here by people in other countries is flawless. It's amazing.

Non-native English speakers: I wonder when yalls learned English, how, was it hard? I've heard from foreigners that English sounds really stupid to the ear, is that true?

Not really sure what "sounding stupid to the ear" would mean, but would be awesome to listen to a Scandinavian language without knowing it just to hear what it sounds like. I guess I learned the majority of my English from reading every book, seeing every movie and listening to every song in that language. It's not really easy to avoid. Besides, my dad lived several years in Scotland and Dubai, the latter which I also lived thar for a year, and going to an American college. But yeah, most things on TV is on English yo. I suppose it's easier for people who live in countries where they don't dub movies in English, like they do in other countries. My English is better than my Norwegian! D:

^^ no way!!! About your English being better than Norwegian
Good points. Yeah I know it's hard to avoid - English is .. common to say the least.


I suppose what I mean is, I've heard from new English speakers that the language sounds odd. I've heard that English sounds really ugly Wasn't offensive - kind of interesting though.

It does sound ugly(English, that is), have you heard anyone speak good Italian or French?!

I broke the cover of Ass-Sordid demos, just got it a few days ago. :<

So just take the cover off a not-cracked CD that is < Ass-Sordid and stick it on there! I had to do that with Ziltoid a few weeks ago... Can't have the Dev collection lookin shabby.

[swervedriver]

English doesn't sound odd to me, but then again I've been learning English since I was 6. Starting with computer games, then some things in elementary, 6 years of high school and most books I had to use in university were in English too. Hell, with my graduation project I'm surrounded by people from Bulgaria, Slovakia, China, Sweden, Pakistan and Wales (OMG WALES) so everything is in English nowadays. I've also taken a sort of English course to boost my proficiency and there I learned a lot about subtleties in the English language. You can express yourself really precise, and there's a lot of things that would be normal/polite in Dutch that -when translated directly- would be pretty rude. As a result I'm usually quite careful with what I say because I may inadvertently be insulting people.

I also have a thing for accents; differences between what people speak in London, the Midlands or further to the north (Manchester area) are quite big and I really just enjoy hearing all the variations. Same with American or Australian accents, they amuse me. I'm pretty sure they'd all enjoy hearing me rape their native language too. The way people use the English language can be beautiful, but the language itself is not the nicest I know. I really like Belgian, it's like proper Dutch.

^^ no way!!! About your English being better than Norwegian
Good points. Yeah I know it's hard to avoid - English is .. common to say the least.


I suppose what I mean is, I've heard from new English speakers that the language sounds odd. I've heard that English sounds really ugly Wasn't offensive - kind of interesting though.

I blame my dialect and the fact that the English language is like 10 times bigger than Norwegian. We're talking vocabulary here, yo.

So I was listening to Riverside on the way home today from WORK - yes a job
And I thought about how these dudes are Polish, and they sing in English on the CD I have. I thought that was really ballsy - I guess that's not uncommon, but I'd be really apprehensive about singing in another language on a CD.

How does it sound for you? Basically every Polish artist singing in English sounds bit weird for me. Singing in Polish sounds even weirder - I don't think it's good language for singing - or maybe our lyrics are just typically shit .

Non-native English speakers: I wonder when yalls learned English, how, was it hard? I've heard from foreigners that English sounds really stupid to the ear, is that true?

I'm learning all the time (and still don't get lot of it).

As for "English sounding stupid", like Aby said. It's second most popular language in most places, it's easy to hear so much of it that it gets to sound pretty natural. In Poland there's an ancient tradition of leaving original sound in movies (on the TV, cinemas have subtitled versions - basically only cartoons are dubbed) and putting dude reading translated dialogues over it. Not sophisticated, but at least Polish youth learned early how proper "fuck" sounds like.

It does sound ugly(English, that is), have you heard anyone speak good Italian or French?!

Well of course, I've been outside this country quite a few times.

Swerve: Wow, that's intense. You're excellence in English makes me a little embarrassed that I'm pretty much monolingual - that goes for the rest of you: very impressive. Many Americans are monolingual, that's probably the norm In coastal states there's a shitload of immigrants and visitors who are from everywhere though. Spanish is becoming very prominent here in California and near by states.
Dutch seems like an intimidating language, it really does, I won't lie. It's not very phonetic is it?

Same with American or Australian accents, they amuse me.

^ that amused me.
Seems like a lot of people like Australian accents.

How does it sound for you? Basically every Polish artist singing in English sounds bit weird for me. Singing in Polish sounds even weirder - I don't think it's good language for singing - or maybe our lyrics are just typically shit .

I'm learning all the time (and still don't get lot of it).

As for "English sounding stupid", like Aby said. It's second most popular language in most places, it's easy to hear so much of it that it gets to sound pretty natural. In Poland there's an ancient tradition of leaving original sound in movies (on the TV, cinemas have subtitled versions - basically only cartoons are dubbed) and putting dude reading translated dialogues over it. Not sophisticated, but at least Polish youth learned early how proper "fuck" sounds like.

About Riverside - their English is perfect, there's only a hint of an accent. Sometimes it almost sounds like a UK accent- kind of how Akerfeldt sounds British, to me
I can honestly say that I didn't know it infiltrated as much as it has. Shoot, even I'm still learning stuff about English though - there are too many damn exceptions to rules, and random nonsensical rules to begin with *sigh* I have the hardest time spelling "exercise" everytime.


Haha everyone always wants to learn the swears first!

How do you pronounce Åkerfeldt?

How do you pronounce Åkerfeldt?

Let's see... It could be like the "aw" sound in awesome, but I don't think it's deep enough. Like the au sound in french. Au revoir. That's the one.

[swervedriver]

Swerve: Wow, that's intense. You're excellence in English makes me a little embarrassed that I'm pretty much monolingual - that goes for the rest of you: very impressive. Many Americans are monolingual, that's probably the norm In coastal states there's a shitload of immigrants and visitors who are from everywhere though. Spanish is becoming very prominent here in California and near by states.
Dutch seems like an intimidating language, it really does, I won't lie. It's not very phonetic is it?

Same with American or Australian accents, they amuse me.

^ that amused me.
Seems like a lot of people like Australian accents.

Well, not amuse me in the "haha you sound funny" sense, but more like how everything rolls of the tongue; how the same word can be pronounced in so many ways. Fascinating! [/Beast]

Dutch is sort of a cock-up of German (less grammar rules), or perhaps German is a more structured Dutch, I dunno. I'd say it's pretty phonetic, but there's a few sounds that foreign people can have difficulty with like the rolling r or the hard g (ch), although because of my dialect I don't use the hard g sound for anything. In any case I think Dutch is a lot more phonetic than Arabic (and its derivatives), to me that sounds like continuously clearing your throat (no offense to any native speakers of course).

Some of my English friends who have heard me speak Dutch often said it sounded as if I was speaking English backwards.

@ Abydost

ah right.

Yeah i just did some wikipedia-ing, on the IPA n stuff, you sound about right:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media:Sv-%C3%A5ka.ogg

Completely different to how i've been saying it. I've just been saying it like "Acre" (as in the word, not ah-kreh).

How do you wake up Lady Gaga? You poke her face.

Swerve: Wow, that's intense. You're excellence in English makes me a little embarrassed that I'm pretty much monolingual - that goes for the rest of you: very impressive. Many Americans are monolingual, that's probably the norm In coastal states there's a shitload of immigrants and visitors who are from everywhere though. Spanish is becoming very prominent here in California and near by states.
Dutch seems like an intimidating language, it really does, I won't lie. It's not very phonetic is it?

Same with American or Australian accents, they amuse me.

^ that amused me.
Seems like a lot of people like Australian accents.

Well, not amuse me in the "haha you sound funny" sense, but more like how everything rolls of the tongue; how the same word can be pronounced in so many ways. Fascinating! [/Beast]

Dutch is sort of a cock-up of German (less grammar rules), or perhaps German is a more structured Dutch, I dunno. I'd say it's pretty phonetic, but there's a few sounds that foreign people can have difficulty with like the rolling r or the hard g (ch), although because of my dialect I don't use the hard g sound for anything. In any case I think Dutch is a lot more phonetic than Arabic (and its derivatives), to me that sounds like continuously clearing your throat (no offense to any native speakers of course).

Some of my English friends who have heard me speak Dutch often said it sounded as if I was speaking English backwards.

I remember wearing a T-shirt I bought from Germany in front of a Dutch couple. It said 'Ich bin blonde, bitte sprechen sie langsamer'. They understood it. Repeat it slowly enough and I might too.