Is English My NATIVE Language?
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In this stream I will address all the speculation about my accent and whether or not I'm a native speaker of English! 🙂
00:00 Pre-stream
01:14 "PAUL IS GERMAN OR SOMETHING!"
04:45 Is English my native language?
9:36 Speaking clearly for the audience
13:47 Living in a foreign country
15:43 Teaching EFL
16:46 Interference from other languages?
19:40 Reciting a script on camera
20:46 Being an introvert
22:47 Insomnia
25:57 Neurodivergence?
33:33 Social confusion vs language learning
36:29 Summing up (the main point)
37:43 Hanging out with the chat
54:13 Language memes
1:00:27 Bye!
To me, (Californian) you sound North America. You just have an interesting way a speaking. You enunciate very clearly.
Exactly!! I guess some comments are from some sad trolls who are bored and don’t have anything else better to do
+1, never doubted that he was Canadian at all
Annunciate or enunciate ?
@@frosty_brandonSame. He sounds like most people you’ll run into on the streets of our cities and towns
He enunciates like a Japanese person I’d say. Wouldn’t surprise me if he was from Okinawa.
He’s clearly from middle earth
Paulbo baggins
@@forkes1886nice to see someone who speaks quenya!
He’s rocking that Gondor accent.
@@gabor6259 😂
Can some of you guys stop he’s literally telling the truth you’re just ruining it also he’s not from middle earth i’m going to poop my pants if you do that again
You’re killing it man, keep up the good work.
Thank you, Mick!
I always assumed you were a non-native English speaker, I just never cared enough to give it a second thought. Instead, as a long time viewer, I’ve always enjoyed and appreciated your content. In this era of YouTube Quitting, I really hope you don’t burn out but continue to create awesome videos. Long-belated THANKS
May I know why you assumed he’s non-native? There are 0 aspects to his way of speaking that make him stand out as someone whose native language isn’t English, as far as I’m concerned (he also looks like he’s fully English but honestly idk).
@@anonymousbloke1 to me personally what stands out the most is the intonation of certain words, such as the way he says “audience” at 9:38. We kind of goes up a little bit an extra time, I guess? I don’t know how to explain it properly haha but it kinda sounds like he’s stressing the first AND last syllables.
@@anonymousbloke1I think it’s his overly precise enunciation and pronunciation
@@anonymousbloke1 I work with a lot of Germans, Dutch and Scandinavians who speak English much better than the Americans, English and Irish on the team. Every aspect is superior: enunciation, conjugation and a lack of conversational “lazy speak” used in formal presentations. Oddly enough, the Canadians tend to fall in the middle, better than the other native-English speakers, but not as good as the Europeans. Also, there a few word pronunciations that tend to identify someone from Canada or Michigan UP that I haven’t heard, or maybe just missed.
@@aleewade4162 >much better
They make more of an effort, you mean. That doesn’t necessarily mean “better”, especially since they highly likely still have foreign accents when speaking English
If it makes you feel a bit better, seeing the notification for this livestream shocked me; I thought “wait, his first language isn’t English? You’ve gotta be joking!”. Didn’t realize these comments were so frequent on your videos. Always assumed you just were speaking clearly and at worst had an interesting local accent from Canada; as a Pennsylvanian you always sounded Canadian to me. Thanks for the interesting dive into how you speak, and for all the interesting videos over the years!
This! He always sounded anglo Canadian as all heck to me! From the US here as well, so maybe as his neighbors who speak a variety of North American English we hear perhaps more clearly the small differences but understand the similarities then too.
I’m not from the US nor a native English speaker, and when I first started watching this channel I had no idea where he was from or if he was a native speaker, but once I learned he’s from Canada, I just assumed he had a more particular, maybe rural, accent (most of the exposure to canadian culture I’ve experienced has been through Hollywood actors and stuff like that, so the canadian English I’ve heard is much more similar to what we hear in American media, I’ve not been as exposed to the variety of accents that there are there). But I never doubted that he was canadian.
@@Alfonso162008 That’s super interesting. I remember staying at a B&B place in Kitchener, ON years back. We drove from Michigan across and we were on our way to Toronto to see a friend. Anywho, The host almost sounded Irish in a way but still very ‘North American’ too. She was apparently from the Kitchener area though. It seems like there are some rural or regional accents in Canada that can sound rather distinct, especially Newfies lol.
My first thought when I first heard you some years ago was, “Now there’s an experienced ESL/ EFL teacher.” Like you, I’ve lived in Asia for years and modify my (originally broad Australian) accent without even thinking when with non-Aussies. Most people’s first guesses for my nationality are southern English or German
I thought you were German in the English video, but you sound Canadian here. I just discovered your channel this evening.
Never was in any doubt that Paul is a native English-speaking Canadian. (This is coming from an Aussie who’s spent half his life in the US, so my ear is fairly well attuned to North American accents.)
I am from Chicago and I agree! Paul just sounds like an average west coast Canadian to me.
When people think of Canadian accents they might think of Ontario (Toronto) for example which might affect how some people view Canadian English, but there is more accents in Canada then just the ones in Ontario.
Same, not an Aussie but from the US and grew up all across it. Never once thought he sounded anything other than Canadian lol
When I first started watching your channel I thought you were from Minnesota or thereabouts. I wasn’t far off.
I’m with you. I spent 12 years working in countries where many of my colleagues didn’t speak English well. So I very quickly learned to throw away my broad Australian accent, which noone coukd made sense of, and started sounding like an English speaking moon man in an attempt to be clearer. It worked better than the broad Aussie.
I’m from the US south and heck, other Americans couldn’t understand me sometimes when I was a kid. I started working on some “pan American” speaking habit for people to understand me better. I still have an accent, but I speak with intention and thought.
My daughter learned English off of me this way and people think she’s British!
😊am Australian also, left at 26, returning 28 years later, happen to be in china right now however. Same deal. Began with a typical Aussie accent. I deliberately mellowed it out when vowels when living in nz. Now English Australians and nz’s are often unable to place me correctly. The vast majority of the world’s population that speaks English can however understand me, which was the point of my deliberate accent softening. Communication is being human and being human is communicating. Removing as many impediments to it as possible is a good thing in my book.
@@hair2050 oh i totally agree. it’s just something about the “Excuuuuuuse me?: i get every time i open my mouth here that brings out the brat in me lol
“Are you sure you’re canadian?” Is such a wild thing to say. Like yeah. If someone says theyre canadian. I think theyre sure
I can understand why this would boil his piss – it would boil mine. Not the “Where are you from?” question – the _Are you sure? / No you can’t be!_ reposts he then gets! The guy is a goldmine who is educating the rest of us and he should not have to put up with these sorts of reposts, should he?
“People keep asking me if I’m _sure_ I’m Canadian and I haven’t really had an answer. But now? YEAH, I’M THINKING I’M CANADIAN.”
Didn’t Dame Edna once ask k.d. lang the same question in a very ironic manner. “How did you know for sure that you were completely Canadian.” k.d. laughed out loud and played right along with her. I almost gather that people who don’t think Paul sounds Canadian perhaps haven’t been exposed to a lot of speakers from Western Canada. His accent sounds very distinctive to me. Maybe people aren’t accustomed to careful speakers anymore.
What if a Canadian identifies as an American?
@@SaturnineXTS You might expect a bit of hybridization, depending on the circumstances. Paul’s pronunciation reminds me a little of actress Beverly Owens’s. She was born in Golden, BC, which is actually not far from Calgary, AB.
I always thought you were a native English speaker who was simply speaking as clearly as possible so, great job! And thanks for sharing; I’m an introvert too and I totally get that part. People don’t think that I am but it’s simply because I’ve had years of experience talking with clients, colleagues and guests.
north Germany bordering with Denmark is right where the Angles and Saxons came from , spot on! 😀 jokes apart, as an Italian, not even an English native speaker, I am puzzled by all these questions. People who have never exited their own courtyard I presume.
I am American, and Paul just sounds like an average West Coast North American (USA/Canada).
This one resonated with me. I wonder exactly which sounds it is that triggers this DK/DE border association, because I have it too.
It’s the clear, complete enunciation, AND your volume and stress levels do not vary nearly as much as most people’s. I think it is the volume and enunciation together to give you the clipped “robotic” tone. The extreme accuracy gives you the foreign vibe because good students do that too.
To some extent that might be the audio compression and hard limiter I use while recording, to make sure my voice doesn’t get too quiet or too loud. But I’m also making an effort to speak up, so my voice doesn’t fizzle out and get too soft (even if the audio compression keeps it from sounding too quiet). I don’t know if my volume is normally that consistent.
@@Langfocus Just for fun you should do a few sentences the way you would talk to family or your friends.
My wife and I are both software engineers. One of our adult children has an ASD diagnosis, and we strongly suspect that both of us are also neurodivergent in some way. For all the years that I’ve been a big fan of your channel, my assumption has been that you have ASD. To me, it is as obvious as the day is long because the similarity with my child is too great. So, while your reveal doesn’t surprise me even slightly, I do welcome it. Thanks.
If there’s one thing I’m sure I’ve learned from having a rock-solid ASD diagnosis at age 4, it’s that those that aren’t too handicapped by the condition rather easily know their peers.
Sometimes it sadly is through rejection or bullying by “neuro-normative” children/adolescents, but there’s just this unspeakable vibe for me. If he’s not part of the spectrum then I’m questioning reality itself.
all the best people are always revealed to be autistic in the end, lol
I am an autist and love linguistics, it is one of my special interests
That comment about the awkwardness of social interaction falling away when you’re speaking another language really resonates with me. I’m glad you said it, because I’d noticed it with myself but not been able to explain it up till now
I like the way you speak. I hear your speech as elegant and slightly formal, like many academics, which I find aesthetically pleasing. The most important thing is that you are never boring. I actually watch your videos from beginning to end without losing interest, which is partly because of the subject matter but also has to do with the way you sound. For the record it has never occurred to me that you were anything other than Canadian and a native speaker!
Thanks, I’m glad you like my videos, and I’m glad it’s partly because of the way I speak. 🙂
Your part about neurodivergence kind of freaked me out because it sounded like you were talking about me! Great video.
A lot of people hear about it and think it sounds like them. With closer reflection on your life, you can consider whether it’s really a possibility (if you feel like it’s important to do that).
Just an add on to what Paul has said here, and hopefully not unsolicited discussion it is simply that I this is all very familiar for me as well (including the people asking about my speaking patterns) so I am somewhat personally invested in the discussion, it doesn’t really matter. The label of disability has always annoyed me as I think it leaves out the nuance of the spectrum. If you care about the way you sound, I have found researching pronunciation in the context of acting/accent lessons to be quite useful in adapting your speaking patterns to be ‘more normal’. Interestingly though, I find speaking in a different language to be quite similar to when I speak English (my native language). I currently live in France and speak French daily but when I first moved here and began to speak, it was more difficult because I had my normal social anxieties in addition to the anxiety that my French was being spoken poorly and I would be misunderstood. This has dissipated some as I grew more confident with my language ability but it is simply moving to the same place as English.
Also, a side note that I am curious about, is whether others have a fixation on being understood accurately. I think this is always a concern of mine and I feel like I choose my words carefully because I am afraid that if I don’t then I may be misunderstood.
@@neomeo1045 I also try to choose my words carefully so that I am not misunderstood
As a long term subscriber, it was nice getting to know you more Paul😊 I think we all have traits that make us unique, no reason to label oneself which could turn negative. As long as we’re contributing we’re doing our life’s calling.
Years ago, I briefly wondered where you’re from, because of your careful articulation. Then you said “about”. 😀
Paul I appreciate your taking the time to connect personally with this community, YOUR community. It has been enjoyable getting to know you better through this chat, and the added insight into your personality makes all your videos even nicer to watch. I did not realize the amount of effort you put into your words, and the discussion around neurodivergence was eye-opening and relatable. Thank you and I wish you much continued success.