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Language stereotypes | ||
Tags: Stereotypes | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages |  | |
| Tyr Senior Member Sweden Joined 5782 days ago 316 posts - 384 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Swedish | Message 73 of 118 12 February 2009 at 4:40am | IP Logged | ||
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Dutch: A German with a very sore throat
French: Sexy on women. Guys you want to punch. German: Cool on blokes. Women who scare you. Chinese: They're not really talking at all, just making funny sounds. Japanese: Its all so....I dunno. Can't think how to explain...coded? I can't help but think of samurai movie voice overs. Russian: Somewhat sad. Even when happy. Swedish: A happy, non-ill Dutchman Danish: A drunk Swede Finnish: A Swede who is utterly crazy and just speaking gibberish spliced with occasionaly real words Spanish: Fast. Italian: Dramatic. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Rameau Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6107 days ago 149 posts - 258 votes 4 sounds Speaks: English*, GermanC1, Danish Studies: Swedish, French, Icelandic | Message 74 of 118 13 February 2009 at 12:37am | IP Logged | ||
Certainly not. Dutch has a surplus of weird consonant clusters, but Danish has no consonants at all! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5766 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 75 of 118 21 February 2009 at 3:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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German POV
French: Depends on where in Germany you live. Here at the French border it's as normal to take French as the first mandatory second language in school as English is. The French might be seen as big flirts and arrogant. German: Asylbewerber (refugee) Russian: Most Russian speakers you meet are late repatriates who were raised bilingual in Russian and German. Sterotype that comes to mind is Russian mafia Italian: Romantic. Hectic. Girls learning it for a boyfriend? Spanish: Romantic. Fierce. Girls learning it for a boyfriend? Chinese: Business reasons Japanese: Why don't you study Chinese? (I have no idea how many times people asked me that.) Arabic: Weird, possibly dangerous. Turkish: Wants to marry a Turkish boyfriend or girlfriend. Possibly dangerous. Latin: High aspirations. (In Germany knowing Latin is still mandatory for linguistics majors and used to be for medicine and law majors a few years ago when I still went to school) Edited by Bao on 21 February 2009 at 3:24pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ANK47 Triglot Senior Member United States thearabicstudent.blo Joined 7097 days ago 188 posts - 259 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), Arabic (classical) | Message 76 of 118 23 February 2009 at 12:49am | IP Logged | ||
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Arabic: Either you're learning it because you want to work for the US Gov, or you're Muslim.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| jbbar Senior Member Belgium Joined 5800 days ago 192 posts - 210 votes Speaks: English | Message 77 of 118 23 February 2009 at 6:50am | IP Logged | ||
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Okay, here are some typical statements that I've been hearing about the following languages in my country and from others on the internet. Both 'positive' and 'negative' ones. Mostly dumb ones though. I provided some commentary here and there.
French: 1. is plain and dull (because it is part of the school curriculum) 2. boring because of a dislike of the French or French speakers in general 3. difficult to understand, study, master, write correctly, too many irregularities, etc. 4. sounds romantic or intelligent 5. sounds arrogant, snobbish German: 1. those bloody Nazis 2. very difficult language 3. sounds harsh or plain (also known as #1) 4. boring because Germany is not some exotic country with hot women, rainforests or fancy cocktails but only the largest European economy (and you probably don't own anything German, right?) - just how more boring can it get? Spanish: 1. beautiful, colorful, exotic, sexy, etc. 2. sounds like an AK-47 going off 3. extremely important because it's the third most spoken language in over 20 countries 4. the world's next lingua franca 5. so because of #3 and #4 all Americans must drop whatever they're doing and start learning this language right now! (it will get you rich and provide huge job opportunities because French, German and Mandarin are all useless anyway) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6703 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 78 of 118 23 February 2009 at 12:47pm | IP Logged | ||
Protest! Danish has got a lot of consonants, but you just can't hear them because we mumble Example: if I had written the line above on paper it would have been a "protestskrivelse" - 5 consonants in a row Edited by Iversen on 23 February 2009 at 12:53pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5766 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 79 of 118 23 February 2009 at 12:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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Oh, something else. A Swedish friend told me once that the first thing he associates with German accents are B-rated porn movies.
@Iversen That made me laugh out loud. The way you treat your consonants scares me a bit. Edited by Bao on 23 February 2009 at 12:50pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| portunhol Triglot Senior Member United States thelinguistblogger.w Joined 6252 days ago 198 posts - 299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: German, Arabic (classical) | Message 80 of 118 19 March 2009 at 6:11am | IP Logged | ||
Good for you! I agree. Here's my list: French: Sophisticated, charming but often snobby. Not sexy, sorry. German: Dangerously angry or gleefully happy (think of polka dancers and pretzels). Russian: Amazing literature but nastily complex grammar. Italian: The most beautiful sounding language is but about as practical to learn as Greek. Spanish: Flavor, expression and great parties. European “lisp” does not sound effete. Chinese: Ancient wisdom and modern Communism. Tones are hard but fussed about too much; it’s the characters that get you! Japanese: Courtesy and coldness with astounding efficiency. Arabic: One of the most exotic sounding languages there is. Good stories, prayers five times a day and humus. Cantonese: Informal, busy and complex. Should be considered its own language and not a mutually unintelligible version of Mandarin that needs to alter the written standard in order to make any sense. Hindi: Ancient, classical language with an amazing mythology and a huge number of native speakers that somehow only gets associated with Quickie Marts and rarely gets studied by foreigners. Czech: Calmer, less complex Russian. Korean: Monotone. Very polite. Lots of “g” sounds. Deceptively difficult. Portuguese: Soccer and samba dancers! The read-headed step child of the Latin languages. Not a dialect of Spanish any more than Dutch is a dialect of German. Amazing poetry that most of the world misses out on. Edited by portunhol on 30 March 2009 at 12:06am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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