Comments on: Talking speeds

By: Anna

Anna — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 23:43:24 +0000

that’s like 500 WPM at least, cuz they dont want you to know that everything they just coherently told you is a lie

By: Dragyrn1456

Dragyrn1456 — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 00:57:36 +0000

American speaking fluent Spanish to another American who understands Spanish: perfect
Native Spanish speaker to American who understands Spanish: bla bla bla [two paragraphs finished]

By: Dragyrn1456

Dragyrn1456 — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 00:54:28 +0000

so should you.

By: YA RLY!

YA RLY! — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 15:49:37 +0000

you should be with a capital letter…

By: Kachito

Kachito — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 06:45:56 +0000

Come on, we don’t talk that fast (Yeah, right)

I’m probably from the spanish-speaking country where people talk worst, weirder and faster than any other (Chile) … not that I feel proud of the way we speak

By: Lex

Lex — Mon, 10 May 2010 18:21:44 +0000

Only south of the Mason-Dixon line.

By: Laura

Laura — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 16:04:40 +0000

not really, I see Americans talking faster than me all the time! Some of the Cubans or Puerto Ricans I know do talk really fast though!

By: Omar

Omar — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 00:16:33 +0000

I guess 400 wpm is for average speed speaking spanish people? I know some spanish and i didnt understand a word when I was in Spain last month!

By: Obama Lover

Obama Lover — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 22:08:29 +0000

I didnt kno that

By: billy mays

billy mays — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 20:01:05 +0000

you forgot to add gillmore girls with 2448 wpm

By: kittmaner

kittmaner — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 23:25:27 +0000

You americans are just jealous of our superior talking speed.
“Llama me’ a 1-800-000-0000 pada ayuda en tu problemas legal”

By: Phoebe

Phoebe — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 07:20:08 +0000

Hehe, was looking for this comment

By: Finton

Finton — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 15:43:58 +0000

There should be a seperate column marked “Gilmore Girls”.

By: Mamimi

Mamimi — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 18:38:48 +0000

Absolutely this is the case. Bilingual Spanish-English speakers joke about it all the time. One phrase in English that has maybe five or six syllables takes twelve and a half minutes to say in Spanish. So, put all those words into a thirty-second spot and you really do have to kind of rush through it. Especially when a commercial or a show is dubbed from English to Spanish. It’s a hassle more than anything else.

But we do talk really freaking fast.

By: balzac

balzac — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 05:13:35 +0000

Win.

By: Shino

Shino — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:08:21 +0000

Don’t for get about those new jerseyians…800 wpm

By: egam12

egam12 — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 23:54:32 +0000

lolz, so true, I can’t even say gibberish as fast as them

By: Wyn

Wyn — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 07:02:50 +0000

When I went to Spain, I understood most of what was said to/around me, but it did seem quick. Interestingly, I noticed that the group I was with started speaking very quickly in English after a day or so, like the speed caught on

By: Goodfellow

Goodfellow — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 21:16:48 +0000

I think the Children’s TV should be a little higher… I remember the old micro machines commercials…

By: G. James

G. James — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 16:27:40 +0000

Are you telling me that I talk in qwerty?

By: Archival

Archival — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 08:40:12 +0000

And i thoguth that rapcore, like Zebrahead, was fast…

But… I speak my native language even faster than they sing =P

By: ethana2

ethana2 — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 05:18:23 +0000

Syllables per minute
Phonemes per minute
Words per minute

not the same thing. Spanish is definitely faster in syllables per minute, it’s the nature of the language. Phonemes and words per minute, not sure.

By: slupine@animail.net

slupine@animail.net — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 01:02:46 +0000

I thinl actually part of it has to do with the fact that in English and German, a lot of the sounds seem slurred when spoken too fast, whereas languages like Italian and Spanish (and Japanese for that matter) seem to flow together a bit better, they don’t have some of the consonant combinations that slow us down.

By: slupine@animail.net

slupine@animail.net — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 01:00:42 +0000

Least I’m not the only one who thought that when I got to “adult TV” lol

By: slupine@animail.net

slupine@animail.net — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 00:57:42 +0000

I was gonna say, anything that isn’t your native language sounds super-fast when you hear it spoken by a native speaker who isn’t slowing down for you. LOL

Though oddly I did find when I was learning Chinese, that Chinese TV was not *too* hard to understand. The fact that it’s a tonal language makes the individual words way easier to hear once you’ve got that part down.

By: OhHai

OhHai — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:32:14 +0000

Wow, thanks for that brilliant bit of insight.

By: G. James

G. James — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 18:02:52 +0000

400 wpm until someone makes a GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!

By: Girlysprite

Girlysprite — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 07:28:40 +0000

Ironically, German tends to have longer sentences when translated and written out, but that doesn’t seem so fast.

Also, Italian seems to share this trait of ‘this is being fast’ with Spanish. But i think that is also due to Italian people as portrayed in Hollywood are often fast speakers, even when not speaking Italian.

By: Ben

Ben — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 02:26:32 +0000

Ignorance is bliss….. *Wonders…

By: OMGWTFBBQ LOL

OMGWTFBBQ LOL — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 23:55:18 +0000

french tv is even faster! childrens shows in french are impossible to listen to, and the words in french ads go by too fast to hear…

By: Steph

Steph — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 18:47:16 +0000

It had to do with the way sentences are constructed, the meter of speech and breath. While I sometimes get bad vibes from people who make too many racial jokes, this one is innocent enough and has some truth to it. The spanish language has longer sentences , that means you have more to say in one breath (the length of a sentence). The result is that Spanish speakers naturally speed up when speaking. It’s also effected by vowel sounds, although I have totally forgotten how. Compared to English, however, where sentences are short or broken up by a number of commas. Of course our language sounds slower.

Then, of course, the fact that you’re listening to a program where the language isn’t fully familiar is going to make the speakers sound as if they’re speaking rapidly anyway.

By: Goku

Goku — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 18:45:33 +0000

You should add “TV show Gilmore Girls” with 600 WPM

By: Antonio

Antonio — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 18:38:38 +0000

Yes we do!
Un saludito desde Madrid

By: Name (required)

Name (required) — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 15:15:08 +0000

Once again, Gilmore Girls has been neglected.

By: Corey Trevor

Corey Trevor — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 13:51:35 +0000

It only seems fast because native english speakers lack the phonemes used in spanish (and other languages) so we are unable to distinguish where one word end and another begins.

By: mabsba

mabsba — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 06:36:37 +0000

All the graph maker is saying is that Spanish speakers speak very rapidly, especially in Spanish TV programs. And, as someone whose second language is Spanish, that’s very, very true. Making a valid observation about another culture is NOT xenophobic; eg, saying that many Canadians speak French is not xenophobic.

By: mabsba

mabsba — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 06:32:04 +0000

lol. I’m sure that’s true. But if you’ve ever lived anywhere that has signs in both Spanish and English, you’ll notice that the Spanish signs are much longer than the English signs. So to transmit the same amount of info in the same time, you literally DO have to speak more rapidly.

That said, my most commonly used Spanish phrase is ‘please speak more slowly.’

By: MLD

MLD — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 04:43:08 +0000

Um, Six, from Blossom, anyone? She’s gotta be up there around the 400 wpm mark

By: MLD

MLD — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 04:42:24 +0000

I’m pretty sure the only implication here is that… oh, hey, THEY TALK REALLY FAST

By: AL

AL — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 02:29:50 +0000

Maybe if you use proper english people will listen.

By: hfhfgweierlu

hfhfgweierlu — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 01:43:35 +0000

Well Other languages yes, but English seems slow.

By: Mike918

Mike918 — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 22:37:46 +0000

Pshh not really…is just that our language is more complex

By: jp

jp — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 22:31:38 +0000

actually on you porn channel they just say “aaahh aahh” wich is close to child tv (teletubies) 1wpm and at the end they always ask for more, like teletubies

By: Gazutd

Gazutd — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 21:08:31 +0000

They talk at 100wpm on your porn channel?

By: Radar

Radar — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 20:45:39 +0000

He’s just saying he can’t follow
Which I agree with after seeing a mexican version of the Nanny or some such, yay subtitles

By: Lindsay

Lindsay — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 20:32:52 +0000

and then matt bellamy breaks the charts.

By: Jordan

Jordan — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 20:20:56 +0000

It’s missing Gilmore Girls at about 350 WPM.

By: smilinstan

smilinstan — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 20:19:47 +0000

I’ve seen this before. Repeat.

By: Kristen

Kristen — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 19:31:56 +0000

this seems really xenophobic to me… you can’t call Spanish speakers annoying or over-the-top or whatever this is implying, just because they’re not speaking English at the time.

By: CBB

CBB — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 19:29:25 +0000

Have you ever heard the fine print in Spanish radio ads? Makes my head hurt.