The Sounds of English

While I have moved slightly past the "Ching Chang Chong" stage of listening to Chinese and can on occasion pick out a word or two, it is still mostly a bunch of sounds with no meaning to me. It doesn't help being in the south since outside of school or government work, most people speak in Cantonese. Sometimes, I find it very interesting that the steady stream of noise I hear has meaning to the people around me.

This raised a very interesting question the other day, something I have never previously thought about. What does English sound like? When I am talking to Janet during the day, the language sounds a certain way to me, I understand her clearly and can quickly and easily reply. To those who surround us and don't speak English, what sounds do they hear? What does our babel sound like in their ears?

When I hear Spanish, Italian or French, I may not understand the words, but the languages have a distinct sound to me. Even here in China, Mandarin and Cantonese have two different sounds and can (generally) be distinguished between.

It all brings me back to the question, what does our language sound like to those who don't understand?

I guess I will never really know since whenever I hear someone speaking English, the words have meaning to me. It is something interesting to consider.