How do you prefer english speakers pronounce your language?

[Saelune]

Sorry if the title is messy or confusing, did not know how to phrase it.

We're a pretty international community, people all over. I however am from the US, and I speak English. Not even from a particularly accented part of the US either. (I live in Long Island NY, and while Im told there is one, I think it is more by people who themselves have a more regional accent)

Anyways, I was reading about French Fries for...reasons related to Critical Miss, and it says in France they are called "pommes de terre frites", and so I said it out loud to myself, in a pseudo french accent, probably mispronouncing it too. Then I wondered, if I was in France ordering French Fries from a French guy, how would he prefer I say it? Attemtping the french accent? Or saying it as American as possible?

"Pohmeys day terry freetahs"?

And thus I made this topic.

So, in short, for those who do not speak English as your first language, if an English speaker tried talking to you in your native tongue, how would you prefer they try to speak?

Edit: Title

 

[Asita]

Let me put it this way: How do you say tomorrow in Spanish? "Ma-naa-naa" or "Mahn-yah-nah"? It's understandable when someone mispronounces a foreign word, but there's no excuse for them not to try to get it right even if they never succeed.

 

[Dornedas]

I, and I assume a large part of Germany would agree, would prefer if you talked to me in English.

If you talk with an American pronunciation there is a good chance that you won't be understood. Especially as soon as a th comes up.
Germans have zee same problem when it comes to English. Just ask any odd German how to say Monty Python.
I heard that you can make an Englishman cry by doing this.
Or with stuff like Berg I'm sure you would pronounce it the way you pronounce Spielberg. But that is simply wrong. And nobody will know what you are talking about.
Also fix the way you are pronouncing Spielberg and Zuckerberg. Those are German words and you are pronouncing them wrong.
Though I have to admit that I would be kind of interested how an American would pronounce something with an ? in it like Fu?ball.

And you Americans CAN'T make a German accent.
You already fail when it comes to saying Stein. Or anything else with st or sp.
I highly doubt that you would be able to "turn off" your American understanding of how to pronounce them.
And if you try to do it with a comedy German accent people will just think that you are preparing for a Nazi joke and think you are an asshole.

On second thought Stein could work. You had good teachers.

Spoiler

So to do everyone a favour: Stick with English. There's a good chance you will be understood.
Or use only sentences you learned from Rammstein. You could make new friends with this approach.

Edit: The Escapist won't let me write an Eszett so I guess that I will have to die dumb.

 

[lionsprey]

properly ofc. although if you say bork i will stab you no matter what accent you use.

 

[Saelune]

Let me put it this way: How do you say tomorrow in Spanish? "Ma-naa-naa" or "Mahn-yah-nah"? It's understandable when someone mispronounces a foreign word, but there's no excuse for them not to try to get it right even if they never succeed.

I took spanish for a bunch of years. No where near able to actually speak it, but I know more than nothing. (I can aleast tell spanish speakers I cant speak it )

I, and I assume a large part of Germany would agree, would prefer if you talked to me in English.

German seems to be a very throaty language, and I personally would have trouble speaking it even if I could I think (I have nose and throat problems s: ). I however, have had my curiosity poked further, so now you got me looking into German pronunciation and the language in general. Not to go up to a native German speaker and try to impress them or anything, I just am fascinated by language.

properly ofc. although if you say bork i will stab you no matter what accent you use.

Bork?

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

properly ofc. although if you say bork i will stab you no matter what accent you use.

Bork?

I think he's talking about the Swedish Chef from the Muppets. His segments usually start with him singing some semi-comprehensible gibberish that vaguely mimicks Swedish pronounciation, always ending it with "Bork, bork, bork"

 

[McElroy]

Yes. Learn Finnish. Please. The swearwords first. Then hello and thank you.

Not from Charlie's Angels, though. Even Sheldon did a better job than them (he only screwed up 'grapes').

 

[Dornedas]

I, and I assume a large part of Germany would agree, would prefer if you talked to me in English.

German seems to be a very throaty language, and I personally would have trouble speaking it even if I could I think (I have nose and throat problems s: ). I however, have had my curiosity poked further, so now you got me looking into German pronunciation and the language in general. Not to go up to a native German speaker and try to impress them or anything, I just am fascinated by language.

I can tell you right now that this whole "Everything sound brutal in German. Every word they say sound as if they want to kill you" meme is based solely on Hitler's speeches and not indicative of the German language. That was just Hitler's way of over the top speaking.

Beside from that, if you ask me, the best thing about the German language are our compounds.
Like the good old classic Rindfleischetikettierungsueberwachungsaufgabenuebertragungsgesetz. The Cattle Marking and Beef Labelling Supervision Duties Delegation Law.
Which has been repealed in 2013 but it is still a valid noun.

Oh and a little tip if you should decide to look deeper into the German language. Like WAY too deep.
Don't try to understand how we use pronouns. Seriously don't try. Nobody I know knows the rules that determine whether a word is masculine, feminine or neuter.
We just KNOW that Birne (pear) is female, Apfel (apple) is male and Gras (you have 3 guesses) is neuter.
It's only not clear when talking about Nutella. And people can get into heated debates about the grammatical gender of Nutella.

 

[happyninja42]

Well my mother has spent the last decade or so traveling around, and she's relatively fluent in French. Her usual rule, was if she didn't know how to speak the language properly, is to just simply ask if they speak English, and then go from there.

In her experience, and from others I've heard from, most people don't mind if you can't speak their language as a tourist, and as long as you don't just assume they speak English, it's usually not considered rude.

If you can however speak the language well enough to carry on a conversation, they would likely prefer that, at least according to her reactions when she would carry on in French, while visiting Paris. She didn't always get it right, but she said most people were very polite when correcting her.

My own personal experience, is more close to home. I used to work in a production plant, that hired a LOT of temporary employees, and most of them didn't speak english, they were spanish speaking employees. And by most, I mean probably 85% of the workforce became like this. And while even then, when I was pretty good about speaking spanish, I would never EVER say I was fluent, but I could muddle through. I had no choice, as only like 5 of them on my shift could translate, and they weren't near where I worked. So we had to make due with what we could. And while my sentence structure was english in nature, my vocabulary was (according to them) pretty good for a white guy. I always imagined I sounded like a spanish speaking Yoda to them, "talk backwards my words would be" based on structure, but they would eventually rearrange what I was saying and figure it out, though it was funny watching their faces as they tried to make sense of what I said. Nobody ever gave me shit for trying to speak spanish to them, in fact, most of them were quite pleased that I was at least trying, despite my obvious lack of fluency. They all started trying to improve my skills by correcting my word usage, structure, etc. And overall it went just fine.

So I think it mostly depends on the person really. But I think the general rule of "Ask politely if they speak english if you can't carry on a conversation in their language" is a good one to live by wherever you go.

I mean, I've never given anyone shit for trying to speak english to me, when it's clearly a second language for them. Granted, I wouldn't understand their native tongue, but the premise still fits. Languages are hard for some people to learn, giving them shit for at least trying seems rude and stupid in my book.

 

[balladbird]

I, and I assume a large part of Germany would agree, would prefer if you talked to me in English.

If you talk with an American pronunciation there is a good chance that you won't be understood. Especially as soon as a th comes up.
Germans have zee same problem when it comes to English. Just ask any odd German how to say Monty Python.
I heard that you can make an Englishman cry by doing this.
Or with stuff like Berg I'm sure you would pronounce it the way you pronounce Spielberg. But that is simply wrong. And nobody will know what you are talking about.
Also fix the way you are pronouncing Spielberg and Zuckerberg. Those are German words and you are pronouncing them wrong.
Though I have to admit that I would be kind of interested how an American would pronounce something with an ? in it like Fu?ball.

And you Americans CAN'T make a German accent.
You already fail when it comes to saying Stein. Or anything else with st or sp.
I highly doubt that you would be able to "turn off" your American understanding of how to pronounce them.
And if you try to do it with a comedy German accent people will just think that you are preparing for a Nazi joke and think you are an asshole.

On second thought Stein could work. You had good teachers.

Spoiler

So to do everyone a favour: Stick with English. There's a good chance you will be understood.
Or use only sentences you learned from Rammstein. You could make new friends with this approach.

Edit: The Escapist won't let me write an Eszett so I guess that I will have to die dumb.

Oh my goodness, being a native English speaker trying to pronounce German. DX I thought learning Chinese consonant pronunciation was difficult, but then I met German. My girlfriend is a native of Germany, and once, out of the kindness of her heart, spent about an hour trying to help me correctly pronounce "Goethe"... needless to say, a few dozen more are probably needed... and that's just one word!

 

[Queen Michael]

...for those who do not speak English as your first language, if an English speaker tried talking to you in your native tongue, how would you prefer they try to speak?

With perfect grammar and pronunciation, of course. Or as close to perfect as they are able. Why would I want them to mispronounce my dear old Swedish?

But if we're only talking about one Swedish phrase in an otherwise anglophone sentence, I'd prefer a proper pronunciation with a bit of an accent so it won't sound too out of place. Like, keep the rolling r's.

 

[Porygon-2000]

As an Australian learning German in my spare time, I would probably make a native speaker cry.

But, at the same time, I would like to at try speaking German, if only at first. I realise that the other person most likely speaks English wonderfully, but it still makes me feel a bit shitty that they have to use it to effectively communicate. I'm not going to get better at speaking German by not speaking it, if you see what I mean

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Oh and a little tip if you should decide to look deeper into the German language. Like WAY too deep.
Don't try to understand how we use pronouns. Seriously don't try. Nobody I know knows the rules that determine whether a word is masculine, feminine or neuter.
We just KNOW that Birne (pear) is female, Apfel (apple) is male and Gras (you have 3 guesses) is neuter.
It's only not clear when talking about Nutella. And people can get into heated debates about the grammatical gender of Nutella.

as someone who took 4 years of german in high school, this drove me absolutely nuts, I could read most of your language just fine (your st and sp and vowel pronunciations didn't bother me at all, they sound quite nice as they roll off the tongue in my opinion) but when it came to the finer details of grammar and writing my own sentences, I failed miserably trying to find any patterns to it.

OT: I speak the most boring and plain English possible, there is a reason why we have 8 billion call centers in my area and why tons of foreigners try to immigrate to our area when trying to learn English. I have absolutely nothing to add to the thread, apologies.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I appreciate the effort when an English speaker tries communicating in Spanish. I don't think you're going to offend anyone doing that in Argentina. Just try to achieve some fluency, don't ask a question if you're going to blank out after the answer. That's silly.

Also: you're totally mixing up the masculine/female pronouns of words, we just don't bother correcting you.

 

[JohnnyDelRay]

I'm a native English speaker living in Indonesia, and from my experience, they love it when you make the effort to learn the local tongue, no matter how badly you butcher pronunciation. Until it becomes incomprehensible. Sadly, it's not quite the same reverse though, they get made fun of a lot when trying to learn English which isn't fair at all, the accent isn't THAT funny guys c'mon.

There was a really funny time a friend of my brothers came and tried to get a taxi from the airport to an area called Cipete (pronounced chee-peh-teh). He's English, and proceeded to pronounce it (sai-peet), needless to say, they didn't get very far until he wrote it down, and they had a good laugh afterwards.

From my experience, French people prefer you to use English rather than butchering their language, but they recognize effort where it's due. A far cry from a decade ago, when a friend of mine, who frequented the same bakery every day on his travels for over a week suddenly snapped when the guy continuously refused to understand his attempt to order a baguette, even though he'd done the same thing as politely as possible for 6 days in a row.

 

[ryan_cs]

I'm a native English speaker living in Indonesia, and from my experience, they love it when you make the effort to learn the local tongue, no matter how badly you butcher pronunciation. Until it becomes incomprehensible.

This is 100% true.

Sadly, it's not quite the same reverse though, they get made fun of a lot when trying to learn English which isn't fair at all, the accent isn't THAT funny guys c'mon.

Never had this problem, then again everyone around me was learning English.

 

[Sonmi]

Don't bother trying, people butchering French irritate me to the highest degree. It's fine in social circumstances, effort is appreciated, but trying it at retail or at the restaurant to appear more authentic or proper will most likely aggravate the staff more than anything.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

Well, considering finnish is already one of the most difficult languages in the world and how rarely you hear any English speaker try to speak it, I'd just stick to communicating in English. Most people here speak it at least passably. There is one thing though: the American 'r' sounds absolutely wussy when you pronounce german or finnish words with it. For example, saying "perkele" (a very polite way of saying "hello"), has absolutely no oomph if you use the American 'r'. But 'murica has a fairly good reference for what 'r' is supposed to sound like here, due to their decades of Russian gangster villains in action movies.

Though I would enjoy an English speaker try to say our ludicrous words out loud. See, in finnish you can basically create insanely long words by just sticking them together. For example, "syntym?p?iv?lahjatoivevaihtoehtolista" means "list of alternatives for my birthday gift wish", and "Lentokonesuihkuturbiinimoottoriapumekaanikkoaliupseerioppilas" means "airplane turbine motor helper mechanic subordinate officer student" If that string of words makes any sense.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Good luck is what I say. I barely speak my native language and I sound horrible, but when an foreigner does it, he always kinda sounds stupid. Our language has a shit ton of vowels and I'm guessing its hard for foreigners to pronounce them the way we do. My parents, who are either bilingual or trilingual, as well as my aunts and uncles who moved abroad have this uncanny ability to switch accents and pronunciations so easily. They speak English in a different way to countrymen than, say, to an American.

If you ever do find yourself in the Philippines, just speak English. It is an official language of our country, and if by some miracle whoever you are talking to doesn't know English, they will call someone who does. If you don't know English, then... I dunno, have Google Translate ready.

 

[Catnip1024]

snip

I don't know about Americans, but I managed to get by making myself understood in Germany after a couple of years of lessons at school. It's not that unfathomable, beyond the genders. (Austria was more interesting, but that was me struggling to understand them). I suppose there might be more of an issue recruiting native German speakers to help teach in the US, though.

Edit: The Escapist won't let me write an Eszett so I guess that I will have to die dumb.

On the other hand, thank you so much for telling me what that thing is called. I have been wondering about that for years (I genuinely thought of it as a Schoss).