What English Sounds like to Foreigners

[ugly_boy]

I've been made aware that this was posted a few days ago.

Comments

[vurumai]

Has been posted before.

http://community.livejournal.com/linguaphiles/4871974.html

[the_cowch]

It was on your friends page because linguaphiles is on your friends page.

[ugly_boy]

linguaphiles isn't in any of the friends filters that I look at. Do you honestly think I would have posted this if I had already seen it?

[the_cowch]

Some people don't pay much attention to where something comes from. If I had a nickel for every time somebody told me something that they only knew because I'd told them about it... I'd have at least a couple of bucks.

[ugly_boy]

Fair enough. I've certainly been on both sides of that equation before.

[un_sedentary]

I was going to refer to the Ketchup Song even before I got to the bottom of your post! I love that song, it's adorable. :)

[ugly_boy]

Me too! I heard it all the time when I was in Mexico and had to buy the CD. I actually did not realize that it was just a Spaniard's phonetic take on Rapper's Delight at first.

[dcseain]

Prisencolinensinainciusol i find catchy and English-sounding.

Aserejé i find boring in that pop-kind-of-way (which is more about my taste in music than quality of song), and not at all English-like. Even in the English version, i hear the chorus as Spanish-sounding nonsense with clubby bits of English in it.

[ugly_boy]

Prisencolinensinainciusol definitely sounds like English. If I heard this on the radio with no prior knowledge, I'm not sure I would be able to tell that it's nonsense.

[tragic_elegance]

Actually, a thanks to re-posting because I missed it the first time around. Crazy!

[keeni84]

Okay, I swear to God, I have seen this at least 4 separate times all within a week of each other, on LJ (2 diff comms) , facebook, and people linking me in email. And now another time in Ling.

So crazy! Did this suddenly become popular on a website somewhere?

[hkitsune]

So crazy! Did this suddenly become popular on a website somewhere?

This is how the internet and memes generally work, yes.

[keeni84]

Do you know from where?

[cognosco]

it was on boingboing.