How does english sound to foreigners

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More Stories. It also explains why many places outside the south of England still have rhotic pronunciation as part of their regional accents. Basically, if you speak English from London, you sound more posh. French has influenced English in more ways than English speakers would care to admit.

The first time was when William the Conqueror invaded Britain in the 11th Century more on the history of English here , bringing Norman French with him and making it the high language — used in schools, courts, universities, and the upper classes. The second time was during the s, when it became super trendy in the UK to use French-style words and spelling. This is why British English has more linguistic similarities to French than American English, and also explains our obsession with croissants.

Webster wanted American spelling to not only be more straightforward but different from UK spelling, as a way of America showing its independence from the former British rule. He dropped the letter u from words like colour and honour — which had developed from the French influence in England — to make them color and honor instead.

He did the same to words ending in -ise to make them -ize , because he thought American English spelling should reflect the way it was said. Sometimes there are differences in American English that make no sense to speakers of British English — like when Americans remove entire verbs from a sentence. For some reason this is very common with words for food: examples include coriander British, derived from French and cilantro American, derived from Spanish , and aubergine British, derived from Arabic and eggplant American, so called because it looks like a purple egg.

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