Does Japanese Sound Faster than English?
Hi there,
It's kunoichi.
I just wanted to share this interesting article about "why do Japanese people talk so fast？" Have any of you ever had similar thoughts?
Actually, the article points out Japanese is the SLOWEST language in eight languages in including English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin, Spanish, and Vietnamese.
"They took a look at translations of the same text in all of the languages and compared their syllabic rate (number of syllables per second), their information density (how much information is packed into said syllables), and then the rate at which information is communicated."
Japanese vs English (and the other languages)
Information Density:
English's information density is nearly TWICE that of Japanese!
Syllabic Rate:
Japanese is higher than anyone else. (A lot of consonants, because we speak fast to make up for low information density?)
Information Rate (combines Information Density and Syllabic Rate):
(No.) Japanese actually communicates information more slowly than everyone else.
To sum up, the Japanese language is fast. However in terms of information conveyed, it is slow.
For those who got confused now, don't worry.
Here is an example.
"Let it go" / Frozen
English: "Let it go~" "Let it go~"
Japanese: "Arino~" "mamano~"
Japanese lyrics in English: "leeeeeeeeet" "it gooooooo"
The findings also made me understand why I always find English easier to express feelings or describe something although it is not my first language.
However, for me, the English language sounds faster than the Japanese because it has more information in the same amount of time.
Next ep, I will talk about differences on "rhythm" between Japanese and English.
Have a great weekend, everyone!
Kunoichi
7/5/2021