Do other languages speak faster than English?

There unfortunately have not been any wide-ranging studies on language speed. 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).

What is the slowest spoken language in the world?

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

Why is Spanish spoken faster than English?

Every language has an specific information density. Spanish is less “dense” than English, meaning that they need to speak more words to transmit the same amount of information for a given phrase, that’s why they speak faster than English speakers.

Why do English speakers speak 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 do English speakers talk so slow?

The single-syllable word to is less information-dense. 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 .

Why does Japanese sound so fast?

Japanese sounds fast to most non-native speakers because it has a low information density, but a high syllabic rate, which is the number of syllables someone speaks per second. In other words, you basically have to ”say” more things in Japanese to convey the same message in English.

Why are some languages faster than others?

Some languages being faster than others seems like it could slide into linguistic relativism, in which the language you speak affects the way you interact with the world (generally not true). But as it turns out, “language speed” is not as simple as syllables per second.

Why do some languages have higher rate of syllables per second?

Languages with a low rate of syllables per second make up for it with a high rate of information per second, and vice versa. All in all, while some have a higher speed, they are not better or more efficient. There is yet to be research on why exactly this is the case, but it could be that the brain has some optimal amount of information intake.

Why do language teachers slow down versions of foreign languages?

Language teachers the world over start students off with slowed down versions of foreign languages because it doesn’t take a study to show that that’s easier for listeners to comprehend. Trying to compare a native speaker with the actors who recorded “How To Introduce Yourself In Spanish” is going to create a mental mismatch.

Why do people read at the same time in different languages?

And yet those reading it aloud, in either language or in its original English, would finish at roughly the same time. This peculiar phenomenon is the subject of new research which finds that languages face a trade-off between complexity and speed. Those packed with information are spoken slower, while simpler ones are spoken faster.