Man shares how different languages sound to foreigners and the internet is losing it

When visiting a different country, one of the first things that jumps out from the list is the language they speak. Unfamiliar languages can sound like very fast gibberish or secret code, depending on the person who listens. For example, a person who has learned a little bit of a new language will look out for certain keywords when people talk to be able to piece it together to make a coherent sentence. But, for a person who is completely unfamiliar with it, they can get quite lost. Rene Barcena—who goes by @rene.barcena on TikTok—calls himself a "language nerd" who usually posts a lot of videos where he manages to tastefully capture how people perceive language they do not know.

He has made a playlist on TikTok, which has 7 videos so far, all of which have become popular, with the last 3 videos having gained millions of views. The first video, which has 4.8 million views, is captioned, "What languages sound like to foreigners. Don't take it seriously. It's just for fun, nonsense, hogwash, gibberish." Barcena starts with Korean while lying down on a bed. He seems to be lamenting about some issues on his face in a very expressive manner.

The words seem to be quite drawn out and indiscernible to the listener. He then moves on to American English, where he emphasizes how they talked with a lot of slurred sounds. Spanish is more energetic, with people being able to understand the words being spoken. He covers Italian next, which, as you may have guessed, involves many hand gestures and sounds similar to Spanish, but it is much slower.

Barcena finally covers Russian, where the "Z" sounds stand out the most. Similar to American English, it is spoken quite fast and it isn't easy to distinguish the individual words spoken by the person. People found his video impressive and shared their thoughts in the comment section. @jakobfoxxyy said, "English sounds like a bunch of spices and prescription drugs." @himawa.ly expressed, "The Spanish sounds like what I heard during the Spanish listening exam."

In the second video, he covers more obscure languages that many people might have never heard of. The first language is Tagalog, which is predominantly spoken in the Philippines. He puts his hand next to his mouth while smiling and saying something that sounds like a secret. The language sounds like a series of clicks. Barcena's next language is Quebecois, which is the French that is spoken in Canada. It is similar to what one might hear in France but is more slow.

He ends with Greek and Portuguese, both of which are languages that seem to make no sense. People shared their thoughts about the languages in the comments section. @fauevahnya said, "I'm sorry, but Tagalog DOES sound like that to people who don't speak it." @ak83810 commented, "Guys, he IS saying gibberish but in those languages, just to show how they sound."

You can follow Rene Barcena (@rene.barcena) on TikTok for more language-related content.