How To Tell What Country Someone Is From With A Single Word

Differences in regional pronunciation offer fascinating insights into the geographic and cultural origins of speakers, acting as an auditory map that can hint at where someone might be from.

Languages often have distinctive sounds or phonemes that are not shared universally. For example, the "th" sound in English is notably absent in many other languages, making it a common stumbling block for non-native speakers. Similarly, the rolling "r" in Spanish or the guttural sounds in Arabic can immediately suggest the speaker's linguistic background. Moreover, the way speakers from different regions pronounce English words, influenced by their native phonetic rules, can reveal their origins. A German speaker might add an aspirated "h" to "st" sounds, turning "street" into "shtreet," while a Spanish speaker might instinctively add an initial vowel sound to the same word, pronouncing it "estreet."

[_magnify]

The radio program at the end is called “Where Are You From” from linguist Dr. Henry Lee Smith. Also I want to clarify that none of these pronunciations are wrong, they are just regional preferences and habits that can give you information about what language system someone is accustomed to.

[bomblii]

you can also tell where someone is from by asking them "where are you from?"

[builtontherockhomestead]

I had a linguistics professor who figured out where my mom was born and grew up, by my speech. Considering I had speech therapy as a child and my grandmother had been born in a different state and moved before meeting my grandfather makes this accomplishment amazing. For those interested, grandma was born in Buffalo, NY. My mom was born and raised in Chicago. Grandpa was not in the picture. I was born and raised in Sacramento, CA.

[katecat]

In Italian, almost no one struggles with ending a word with a consonant, but some of us do struggle with not rolling the R. Also, even if not in the word "streets", a lot of us aren't able to pronounce the 'th' sound with the tounge between the teeth, so they just pronounce it as a normal 't' sound.

[adrivoid]

In my experience, it may not be that Italians who know English will do ‘streetsa’ but instead over emphasize the s at the end as they very carefully cut the word off. They will also roll the r a little

[mattj.]

“Oh! Are you from Greece?”

“No, I just have a lisp.”

[boostedrival]

I can usually tell where they’re from by asking where they’re from

[yikewes]

"oh yeah i know lots of languages"
"how do i say streets?"
"esshtrayeetssa"

[IlLupodelTubo]

As an Italian I've heard a lot of English words mispronounced but I've never heard someone pronounce streets "streetsa" in my entire life

[jeffreythelad]

Americans
“Say street”
“Street”
“Ah see. He’s a foreigner”

[greggerz]

I see the same videos of yours so much it snaps me back to reality and i cone off shorts so thankyou!

[dorrolorro]

Swede here. Most Swedes would try their darndest to pronounce it in as close to an English accent as possible. But what would give us away is possibly the R sound, it's not as flavourful as the Spaniard's but it is close. And the dead give-away is the melody. Swedish is a pitch-accent language, and no word is ever monotone.

[jonbour]

Italian here. From my experience only in American movies will you find someone who pronounces “streets” like that. It’s much more common that we pronounce it “streez”

[TheGMisterG]

Dutch tend to flatten their vowels, so when someone does that it is a giveaway

[melody._.]

As a Spanish guy, I can confirm everyone in my class starts every fricking word with an e

[Hugorius]

As a german, never in my entire life have I myself pronounced or heared another german pronounce "street" like "shtreet"

[ewerybody]

German here (🙈 pardon me)
I DOUBT that many germans will make a "shtreet" out of this. I'd say they might more likely say it like "stweets" because this whole W-R-V-situation is tricky for lots of german english-speakers.

[Many_Editz]

That radioshow could barely work anymore with how much people move around

[dapsilisvanitas]

"Where are you from?"
"I'm from the sstreetss."

[claudiopozo]

The marked area at the end is the province of Seville in Spain, where I am from. It appearing for no reason has given me also an unreasonable joy, for which I thank you!