Tag Archives: English

Lessons Learned: American’s Sound Like Nasal Machinery

American’s love to make fun of German accents. Sure, it’s a harsh language, but it is also a very elegant and expressive language. However, multiple encounters have taught me that the American accent is hilarious to Germans as well. And with typical German directness they will tell you so.

Random German: You are American?
Me: Yes, what gave me away?
Random German: makes a nasally grinding “myah myah myah” sound while making a puppet mouth with their hand to indicate my accent
Me: I see….

In other words, I sound like this:

Personal Journal: Denglish

I have been trying very hard to work on my German before my trip. The unfortunate side effect of this is that my German isn’t getting any better, but my English is getting so much weirder. Twice today I literally used German syntax in English (“I want that shirt to buy”. Seriously. I actually said that) and just now I Germanized my verb and said “broughten” instead of “brought”. Now I sound stupid in TWO languages.