What does the English look like to non-English-speakers?

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What I mean is, basically English is the only language I can speak, and when I look at, say, Polish words, Z's and W's seem common and it's all I can see when seeing Polish words, like "zciemy" or "szedwkow" (I just made those words up by the way). Or when I look at Chinese words (in Roman letters) I see a lot of Y's, like "Ye" and "Yong".

So it seems every language has a few common letters that stand out the most when you don't know the language. What are some of the most common letters in English words and what do you think reading English words feels like to a person who doesn't speak English? Are the letters "T" and "E" the ones that "stand out" the most to non-English-speakers? I suppose when English is your first language you don't take so much notice of how our words look to non-English-speakers.

It's just a random thought I had.

She's got Southern English in this mix. It's just gibberish so people can hear what their language sounds like to none native speakers

The only language I speak is American English (with a slight southern accent). I think it's impossible to imagine how your native language truly sounds to people who don't speak it. When you grow up around people who speak it then it sounds completely normal but when an outsider tries to imitate it then it sounds very fake to you because you know that's not how people in your country or region really sound. It almost comes across like they're mocking you.

good thought.

yeah, english is heavy on the "e", "t" and "l".

a non-english speaker would probably pick out common consonant clusters and affixes suck as "pre", "tion", "ish" and "rd" among many others.

I wish I were bilengual.

Dunno, for me English sounds like... English. I've spoken it so long that i cannot even remember how it sounded as a child. English is mandatory in Sweden btw. I use it online to talk to people as well at work sometimes to communicate with Us, English, Indian and other expats that live and work in Sweden.

I do speak a few words of this and that language, mostly German and Japanese and a few words of Spanish as well. I could get by rather well in Berlin, but people did notice that i wasn't from there and spoke English with me. For me German sounds rather structured and strict when it comes to how sentences are built up.

I *guess* English sounds a bit different depending on what type you learn. For me it was standard British English, American English sounds drawn out with some dialects as well as Australian English. But even ordinary British English can sound a bit unusual if we go full cockney or start H-dropping. And then there is Welsh and Scottish as well.

When it comes to language variants, your mileage may vary, this video by Hale and Pace shows northern Brittish dialect, imagine you're from the southern mainlands and suddenly you hear this:


Or this (Taysiders):

I always wondered this. Sometimes I’ve pretended I couldn’t read so I could see what the words looked like, but it’s impossible to do.

I saw this a few years ago:

Absolute gibberish, if my memory from before second grade serves me correctly.

Look?

Or sound?

My guess is that the biggest quirk of how English looks is all of those words that that silent "e" and the end. Us native speakers struggled with that in the first and second grade. And immigrants have to deal with it. A lady Serbian said she would write those words without that "e" and the end and folks would tell "no no, you have to write that silent E, cant omit it".

From a Tagalog speaker, in a country where English is the second language...
English, whether spoken with American from any region, Australian, or English(European) accent, its usually 'softer', more 'firm', and less 'crude' in general.
Of course there are differences in between. American is usually more firm, English(European) is softer and 'feathery', and Australian is more crude and faster from the other English accents except from certain American regional accents and dialects.


I'm not sure if it's just me;
'A' (as in 'ey' as opposed to 'ah') are funny if not a bit strange. Tagalog doesn't use 'A' (ey).
'-e'/'f'/'v' is more distinct and a bit 'curlier' than natives speaking English without matching accents... Mostly because Tagalog's F is basically P, and V is basically B, and -e's might as well be silent.
I'm sure there are more though...

English in general is 'curvier' or 'curlier'.
Saying 'You'. Tagalog speakers likely say 'Yu', English speaker sounds 'Y(eu)o'.
Saying 'I', we say 'Ay', English sounds 'Ahh(ai)'.
Saying 'We', we say 'Wi.', English sounds 'W(uh)e'.
And so on and so on... I'm not sure with the rest of Filipino languages and dialects.

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Like Ichinin, I've heard English for so long, that I have no idea what it sounded like to me before that. It's just... English....

A lot of words ending in -y, compared to a lot of other European languages. If it's dialogue spelled out, lots of apostrophes for contractions.

Looking at the language-personally-I think double letters stand out since not all languages have those.
Curvy letters like a, n, u, r, s, c, e, o, d, b, p, g, q, h, tend to blend together- especially when handwritten.
Straight letters like x, z, v, y, w, arent any better...
And neither are l, t, f, i, j, lol
Now uppercase- Q, O, U, C, S, Then- D, B, P, R, F, E, Also- A, V, W, X, Y, Z, K And still- T, I, L, J,
So Id say nothing really 'stands out'.
Vowels tend to blend together, i's l's and t's are lost in the crowd and g's j's q's and p's are tricky. Id say K tends to pop out more than others, so does a rare X and when words end in Y.
Honestly its not the individual letters that stand out- its the patterns.
Double ee and oo stick out-plus other doubles, so do sounds like "ing" and "n't" "ck" stuff like that that is typically together and pops up over and over so you can catch on easily.

English has so many rules and exceptions to rules thats its tricky to learn to write. If you learn based off sound first, then you'll never write correctly.
In terms of sound, well I cant tell ya Ive grown up listening to it. However, I do find it fascinating how many ways there are to pronounce a word based on where you grew up.