I thought I might share a small phonetic game/challenge with you. All 3 individuals in the attached clips were born and raised in the same country and speak the same native language. Can you tell, based on the peculiarities of their English pronunciation, what language it is?
It’s not initially obvious but there are hints. Especially with the last and first one (2nd is teaching English peculiarities in slang so is an overly forced accent), but they all appear Slavic-ish too. 20 years ago… immigration from only one country into England comes to mind and that’s Poland so their first language is Polish.
Note that it wasn’t the accent that made me choose there. It was to say they weren’t native English speakers
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Your deduction is correct. They are Polish.
what language it is?
I didn’t catch this before I posted my answer. Are you telling me that English is not their native language?
Now I’m surprised and curious.
That’s right, none of them is a native speaker of English - their English is learned via the standard combination of school, extracurricular courses, media exposure, and other typical means available in largely monolingual countries, and subsequently polished up abroad (at least two of them moved to Anglophone countries for university). Thus, I figured that the undercurrent of their native pronunciation should be sufficiently conspicuous to allow for making some educated guesses about their origin 🙂
The answer to your question is no, I cannot.
The accent I hear appears to be based on where they learned English instead of where they are from.
I suppose that’s a pretty solid indication that they learned it well 🙂
The first two are British. I know regional dialects vary, but I can’t identify one from the other.
The third one sounds like an American, but has a very “professional” dialect. Some people will talk like this for recordings, but since you said she’s from the same country as the other ones, I’m guessing she learned her American accent from media, and not from regular conversations.
Halfway between posh English and Irish…
I’m guessing Manx.
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A fair guess, but no :)
The correct answer is:
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Polish. Thanks for your guesses and congratulations to all those who were close or even hit the nail on the head, even if somewhat hesitantingly.
1 and 2 sound very British but something sounds a bit off. Number 3 has a stronger accent, but it’s still hard to identify, maybe Latvian