Why is English so slow?

There are a number of reasons why English is spoken relatively slowly. Firstly, English has 20 vowel sounds. This means that the mouth has to be in 20 different positions to make all those noises. That requires agility and takes time.

Why is English such a slow language?

For all of the other languages, the researchers discovered, the more data-dense the average syllable was, the fewer of those syllables had to be spoken per second — and thus the slower the speech. English, with a high information density of . 91, was spoken at an average rate of 6.19 syllables per second.

Is English the slowest speaking language?

“Speakers of some languages seem to rattle away at high speed like machine-guns, while other languages sound rather slow and plodding,” wrote linguist Peter Roach in 1998.

What is the slowest language to speak?

Mandarin. Mandarin is the slowest recorded language with a rate as low as 5.18 syllables per second.

Is English spoken slower?

English is actually one of the slowest spoken languages in the world, behind Mandarin Chinese. ... As it turns out, English and Mandarin syllables are among the most data-dense in the world, which is why they are spoken the slowest, at respective paces of 6.19 and 5.18 syllables per second.

Do I speak slowly? [How to understand native English speakers]

Is French faster than English?

One 2011 study from the Université de Lyon looked at 7 languages, which reported the order as Japanese (7.84 syllables per second), Spanish (7.82), French (7.18), Italian (6.99), English (6.19), German (5.97) and Mandarin (5.18).

Is English the youngest language?

Rich in idiom and emotion, Afrikaans was born 340 years ago in the homes of South Africa's white Dutch, German and French settlers. Not only is it the world's youngest national language, it is one of the smallest, with just 13 million speakers.

Is English hard to learn?

The Difficulty of Learning to Speak English

English is one of the most difficult languages to learn, especially compared to many of the Romance languages like Spanish and French.

Who speaks the fastest English?

Steven Woodmore (born 1959) is a retired British electronics salesman known for his rapid speech articulation, being able to articulate 637 words per minute (wpm), a speed four times faster than the average person.

Why is Japanese spoken so fast?

Because the consonants above are pronounced in the same place, this is what allows native Japanese speakers to speak so fast. The front part of the tongue barely has to move between these consonants compared to English words which have far more consonants and places of pronunciation (AKA places of articulation).

Is Japanese slower than English?

They had 60 native speakers of the languages each read the 20 texts in order to gather an accurate average speed for the language overall. Out of the seven languages, Spanish and Japanese turned out to be the fastest, Mandarin the slowest.

Is Spanish faster than English?

Per the results, Japanese is the fastest spoken language from the 17 languages that they studied. Spanish is in second place with around 8-9 syllables spoken per second, whereas, English is in eight place with around 6-7 syllables spoken per second.

Why Spanish is so fast?

A Spanish speaker would almost always link the vowel sounds and pronounce the whole thing as a single word: Todoestoestaquí (To-does-toes-ta-quí). This is another factor that makes Spanish seem faster than English. The sooner you embrace this reality, the better you'll get at teasing words apart.

What language is most efficient?

English came out on top, but not by much. Most of languages grouped pretty closely together, however, Japanese lagged behind the rest. Interestingly, the languages that conveyed the least amount of information per syllable, like Spanish, Japanese, and French, tended to be spoken at a faster rate.

Does English sound good to non English speakers?

'Americans speak slower,' the 21-year-old said. 'British English is a lot quicker and much more aggressive. ' However, both agree English does not sound similar to any other language – despite it belonging to the same family as German, Dutch and Afrikaans.

What is the densest language?

First, English is the most information dense language per sound at 1.08 followed by French at 0.99. This means we can convey more information in fewer spoken syllables.

Which languages will go extinct in the future?

Which is the most difficult English accent?

There are many, very distinct, British accents. It's true that Indian accent is the most difficult one in the world to understand.

What's the hardest language?

1. Mandarin. As mentioned before, Mandarin is unanimously considered the toughest language to master in the world! Spoken by over a billion people in the world, the language can be extremely difficult for people whose native languages use the Latin writing system.

What's the easiest language?

What's the hardest language to learn?

1. Mandarin Chinese. Interestingly, the hardest language to learn is also the most widely spoken native language in the world. Mandarin Chinese is challenging for a number of reasons.

What language has the prettiest writing?

What language is English closest to?

The closest language to English is one called Frisian, which is a Germanic language spoken by a small population of about 480,000 people. There are three separate dialects of the language, and it's only spoken at the southern fringes of the North Sea in the Netherlands and Germany.

Who invented English language?

English is a West Germanic language that originated from Anglo-Frisian languages brought to Britain in the mid 5th to 7th centuries AD by Anglo-Saxon migrants from what is now northwest Germany, southern Denmark and the Netherlands.