Does English make you choke? Or is it just me?

from JoeUser Forums
I just put my finger on something that's been bugging me for years: I always feel like I'm choking when I speak.

My son was watching Dora the Explorer (hang on with me here). Although I can't stand watching cartoons, sometimes I'm a trooper for my little boy and I'll occasionally chime in along with the show . Dora says "el tren." So I say "train", then, "el tren"...and I instantly noticed the choking feeling go away when I said it in Spanish.

And when we went to France I felt so free and instantly fluent; it felt so natural...I did not have that choking feeling.

Do I need speech therapy? Or is English a really chokey language? I'm entirely open to the idea that I may need speech therapy.
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6,081 views 11 replies
Reply #1 from JoeUser Forums Top
American accents tend to come from the back of the throat, which I guess could feel like gagging.

If you affect a British accent do you have the same problem?
Reply #2 from JoeUser Forums Top
English has never made me gag, but along those lines, you can't speak German with a dry throat; you can't speak French and sound humble; You can't speak Russian without sounding drunk; and I for one, can't hear someone speaking Swedish without laughing. ;~D
Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #3 from JoeUser Forums Top
Got to go with Ted here.  Except the Swedish part.  We use to use a piece of software that was made in Sweden.  I always loved calling the technical support.
Reply #4 from JoeUser Forums Top
I adore European languages. They're beautiful to listen to. ...except for German. French is gorgeous beyond description. I also love British accents. Next time I talk to a British person I'll try to catch on to it so that I may "affect" the accent and I'll see how it feels in my throat. I'm guessing that I will find it quite a relief to shed my American choke for something more sophisticated. (Thinks to self: Isn't there a British dude at the Vogelweh car sales? I'll talk to him.)
Reply #5 from JoeUser Forums Top
Thinks to self: Isn't there a British dude at the Vogelweh car sales?


You live near Vogelveh? That name has always made me laugh.. I mean who would name their city "Bird Pain"?

You don't live far from where I lived when I was in Germany. We lived in a small town called Merzalben, near Permassens. I was baptised in Kaiserslautern.
Reply #6 from JoeUser Forums Top

I mean who would name their city "Bird Pain"?

People who had one too many pigeons poop on their car!

Reply #7 from JoeUser Forums Top
Bird Pain


That's funny! I'll look into that. Maybe the base was built on a bird sanctuary, without moving the birds as they poured hot asphalt down for the roads. Yeah, that would result in some serious bird pain alright. But here I go imagining bizarre things again...

You don't live far from where I lived when I was in Germany. We lived in a small town called Merzalben, near Permassens. I was baptised in Kaiserslautern.


That's amazing. What a small world it is for military folks. Our ward meets at the Kaiserslautern chapel. So every week I see the font that you were baptized in, Para Ted2k. Maybe I teach Primary in the same classes where you spent your youth in Primary!
Reply #8 from JoeUser Forums Top
That's amazing. What a small world it is for military folks. Our ward meets at the Kaiserslautern chapel. So every week I see the font that you were baptized in, Para Ted2k. Maybe I teach Primary in the same classes where you spent your youth in Primary!


Well, we went to church on Permassens base, but since it was an on post chapel, there was no baptismal font. Me and a the other 8 year old Army and Tech Brats (along with our families, of course), had to go to the Stake Center for the baptism. If that is the same Stake Center they had in 1971, then yup, I've been in that font! ;~D There were a few who wanted to wait until they got back to the US. Some of the Senior Primary kids had them convinced they were going to be baptised in the Rhien River. ;~D

It is a small church! ;~D
Reply #9 from JoeUser Forums Top
"I'm from Holland! Ishn't daht VEERD?!"---Goldmember, Austin Powers' "Goldmember"
Reply #10 from JoeUser Forums Top
For me, being able to speak a vaariety of wuropean languages (German,French,Italian, Spanish, and Russian...) I always found French and Russian to be the hardest...it took me the longest to learn French...and the russian alphabet was a pain in my but, german and italian were by far the easier languages...
Reply #11 from JoeUser Forums Top
Many years ago, Bloom County cartoonist Berke Breathed made the observation in his strip that anything said in French automatically sounds romantic. He underscored the point by having a bum cause a woman to swoon with the line "Votre lober d'oreilles sont commes les tetes de poissons" (your earlobes resemble fishheads").

It was classic, I tells ya! I STILL use that line!