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Ugliest language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| TheElvenLord Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6085 days ago 915 posts - 927 votes  1 sounds Speaks: Cornish, English* Studies: Spanish, French, German Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin | Message 9 of 80 16 May 2008 at 7:12am | IP Logged | ||
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I would hate for my language to be called the ugliest.
AS the above poster said, its insensitive. TEL 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7161 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 10 of 80 16 May 2008 at 7:27am | IP Logged | ||
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Nah, I think that most mature posters can handle this thread. If it degenerates into an all-out brawl, then I'm sure someone will lock it anyway. It seems to be a little biased or a way to skew a discussion when we only talk of what is most beautiful. That is just as subjective as determining what is ugliest.
As to ugliest for me, well it depends. I guess that the things that would seem ugly can be sound or appearance in print. A language's grammar can't be defined as ugly since it's intrinsic. I'm not a big fan of the sound of Dutch, Mandarin or Vietnamese but that wouldn't preclude me from learning any of them. For example, the attraction of Dutch is that it's a lot like English and German, and I would have a bit of an advantage in picking it up if I were to start learning it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ChristopherB Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 6321 days ago 851 posts - 1074 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, German, French | Message 11 of 80 16 May 2008 at 7:36am | IP Logged | ||
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I think it depends to a large extent on the person speaking it. I mean, Mandarin can sound really quite lovely, such as professional news broadcasters and audiobook narrators, but so many of the customers I serve at work, teenage girls, for example, come through speaking it in this raucous, hideous, nasal, someone-please-rip-my-face-off kind of voice that just doesn't appeal to me one bit. Awesome language, though. Edited by Fränzi on 16 May 2008 at 7:37am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Vlad Trilingual Super Polyglot Senior Member Czechoslovakia foreverastudent.com Joined 6589 days ago 443 posts - 576 votes 2 sounds Speaks: Czech*, Slovak*, Hungarian*, Mandarin, EnglishC2, GermanC2, ItalianC1, Spanish, Russian, Polish, Serbian, French Studies: Persian, Taiwanese, Romanian, Portuguese | Message 12 of 80 16 May 2008 at 7:43am | IP Logged | ||
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I agree,
I also think it is a little offensive. There are native speakers of many many languages on this forum and it is very probable, that you will offend a lot of people if you start naming the ugliest languages. I personaly only have languages that I have come to love (in one way or the other) and the rest, which I have not come to love yet :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| unzum Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom soyouwanttolearnalan Joined 6919 days ago 371 posts - 478 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Mandarin | Message 13 of 80 16 May 2008 at 7:47am | IP Logged | ||
Actually this is the biggest reason I'm drawn to German. I love the way it sounds. But as others have said this is pretty insensitive. Why don't we reserve opinion until we have studied a language? And even then I think it's better to think of aspects of a language as 'interesting', 'unusual', 'intriguing' etc instead of always going on about its bad points. Maybe that attitude will seem a bit naive to some posters but I think a person's attitude has a big effect on their language learning. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Deniz Bilingual Heptaglot Groupie Czech RepublicRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6824 days ago 94 posts - 97 votes Speaks: Czech*, Slovak*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, FrenchB2 Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Portuguese, Indonesian, Persian | Message 14 of 80 16 May 2008 at 7:48am | IP Logged | ||
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Beauty is in the ear of the beholder, as the saying almost goes. Of course it depends mainly on the experience one has had with people speaking a language. The other topic, which is kind of interesting to me, would be how the perception of beauty of a particular language changes with regard to how much of it one has learnt, as for me eg European Portuguese seemed rather awkward in the begenning and now it seems very beautiful and sophisticated.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| unzum Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom soyouwanttolearnalan Joined 6919 days ago 371 posts - 478 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Mandarin | Message 15 of 80 16 May 2008 at 8:14am | IP Logged | ||
I totally agree with that last statement. When you're starting off learning a language it can sound strange because you're not used to it at all. One you've studied it a bit your ear becomes like a native's and you can see the beautiful parts of it and understand how it seemed strange in the first place. I think after putting so much time & effort into learning a language you grow fond of it. It's a very nice feeling. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| LanguageGeek Triglot Senior Member GermanyRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6112 days ago 151 posts - 159 votes 4 sounds Speaks: German*, English, Hungarian Studies: French, Russian | Message 16 of 80 16 May 2008 at 8:34am | IP Logged | ||
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It is a peculiar characteristic of modern forum etiquette that we are not supposed to offend anyone. Relax. Liking or not liking the sound of a language is no value judgement at all. It is a subconscious thing all together. You cannot deliberately decide what you like or not.
I agree with the above statements. German is a harsh language, even as a native speaker I feel it at times. But then there is Dutch :) My top pics for ugly sounding languages ( to a German-tuned ear) Chinese amd all other tonal languages, be it sino-tibetan or not ( e.g Thai, Vietnamese) Russian Arabic Dutch Turkish Spanish in the order of decreasing ugliness... About Spanish I am actually so-so... It is just a little ugly Edited by LanguageGeek on 16 May 2008 at 8:52am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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