What does English sound like?

I myself would say that, all things considered, Standard German definitely sounds closer to English than, say, Romance languages (in general) do, due to having a similar stress pattern, aspiration of prevocalic fortis stops, a similar set of vowels (aside from its rounded front vowels), similar syllable structure, and other features such as syllabicization of /@n/ and /@l/. This is especially true in the case of Received Pronunciation due to its non-rhoticness, vowel phoneme inventory (combined with preservation of historical vowel length), and lack of features like lateral vocalization or /t/ flapping or glottal-stopping. On the other hand, some other English dialect groups, such as North American English, generally sound less like Standard German due to things such as vowel mergers, changes in the nature of vowel tenseness and length (such as the replacement of phonemic vowel length with vowel length allophony in North American English).

Dutch IMHO sounds less like English due to its lack of aspiration, its less English-like diphthongs, and the presence of [G] in it (which to me at least stands out more than [C] and [x] in Standard German). Similarly, the North Germanic languages are less English-like sound-wise due to tone stress in Norwegian and Swedish dialects (besides Finnish Swedish), the stød in Danish is not particularly English-like in itself (but does have superficial similiarity to postvocalic fortis plosive glottalization in English dialects) and the significant lenition of historically lenis stops to approximants is unlike English besides the lenition of /t/ and /d/ to [4] after a sonorant and before a vowel in NAE, and as for Icelandic and Faroese, well, I doubt I need to say more.

english sounds pretty cool to me and I love how it makes me feel alive and energetic. I am a huge fun of internet TV and radio stations. I often watch programs while improving my listening skills. In fact, I created a website which serves as a channel list for internet TV and radio. The site is at http://www.geocities.com/freechris3 Please tell me what you think of it, ok? And if you have any comments and suggestions please do drop me a line. Thank you very much and have a good day!

Wish you all the best!

Some of the TV channels on my website: ESPN, Channel 125, CNN International, American Music Channel, Mania TV, C-Span. C-SPAN 2, C-SPAN 3, Live Video, OCTT TV-16, Research Channel, Washington 13, Shepherds Chapel, CN8.

The whistling of English is boring... So English is a language which isn't melodious, it's rectilinear, and monotonous.
It's hard to pronounce and unintelligible.

>>russian sounds musculine but i love the way it sounds

sorry for off topic, but being native Russian, I was always thinking that it's a "feminin" language due to large ammount of "soft" consonants....hmm Intresting! :)

>>The whistling of English is boring... So English is a language which isn't melodious, it's rectilinear, and monotonous.
It's hard to pronounce and unintelligible<<
Please explain what you mean by "whistling".
Even though I`m a native English-speaker, I`d agree that English IS rather monotonous, and isn`t melodic either. It sounds very "flat", and also seems to be lacking in vowel sounds; kinda like all of the consonants are bumping into one another. Contrast this with Spanish or Italian, where all I hear are vowels. Btw, I like the sound of Standard German (if you throw out the "ch" sound).

P.S.-This is a cool thread ;)

<< Please explain what you mean by "whistling". >>

the θ (as thick), ð (this), S (as sand), z (dessert), ʒ (as pleasure) make cacophonous (a hissing, a buzz, a wheezing or whistling), also the excess diphtongs make a "mismatch" and dissonances. (Of course it's my opinion on the english's negative aspects)

>> it's my opinion on the english's negative aspects <<
That`s no problem, I`m looking for honest opinions, be they negative or positive. Thank you for your explanation of "whistling", and I`m sure the two "th" sounds are strange to a non-native speaker.

@ Travis- Thanks for your post, but most of the "hard-core" linguistic terms you used are over my head. Still quite interesting, though. :)

Yes Travis. I reckon what you just said would have been quite interesting, but I could not understand most of it, and I am a native English speaker. What is a prevocalic fortis stop when its at home?

"Even though I`m a native English-speaker, I`d agree that English IS rather monotonous, and isn`t melodic either. It sounds very "flat", and also seems to be lacking in vowel sounds"

How can it be lacking in vowels sounds? There are plenty of them.

">> So, in the 1600s - in the days of Samuel Pepys and Oliver Cromwell - "Westminster" was actually pronounced as "Vestmynster". <<

No they didn't.
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Yes, they did.

"Yeah, back in those days they spoke American English. "

We've never spoken American English. We've always spoken British English.

I's just that Americans speak an antiquated, Olde Worlde English spoken by the British 350 years ago.

>> "Westminster" was actually pronounced as "Vestmynster". <<

No they didn't.
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Yes, they did. <<

It was *spelt* that way. But the "y" was interchangeable with the "i" in those days, and in this instance the "V" would have been pronounced as a "w".

>> We've never spoken American English. We've always spoken British English.

I's just that Americans speak an antiquated, Olde Worlde English spoken by the British 350 years ago. <<

true, true. If you didn't have us, who'd be around to preserve the Olde Worlde English, feet, inches, Fahrenheit, miles per hour, and month-day-year? All we ask in return for functioning as your living museum, is to change a few spellings of words.

If you want to know how England was like a couple hundred years ago, all you have to do is go a couple time zones across the Atlantic.

>>If you want to know how England was like a couple hundred years ago, all you have to do is go a couple time zones across the Atlantic.<<

Not really, as while North American English has largely preserved rhoticness, it has definitely been innovative when it comes to vowels, due to mergers of vowels that were historically distinct being common in North America as well as the loss of historical English vowel length (which is still largely preserved in English English today). Also, there have been a number of large-scale vowel shifts in NAE dialects today, which one would have to make sure to rule out here as well. Also, there are some other notable differences, such as the merger of /w/ and /W/ and the flapping of intervocalic /t/ and /d/, which separate most current NAE dialects from pre-settlement English as well.

>> How can it be lacking in vowels sounds? There are plenty of them. <<
I guess what I was doing (subconsciously, probably) was comparing English to Spanish. A good number of Spanish words end in vowels, and generally have more syllables than English. To me, this gives a certain "flow" to the rhythm of Spanish, and I hear vowels. As far as I can tell, English doesn`t have this type of rhythm, `cause I hear consonants butting up against one another..."clashing", if you will.
Therefore, that`s why I said what I did, and it`s just my opinion, nothing scientific. Mmmkay?