mick33 Senior Member United States Joined 5923 days ago 1335 posts - 1632 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish
| Message 273 of 297 14 February 2012 at 12:14am | IP Logged |
mick33 wrote:
I disagree with some of the other posts; I like the sound of Dutch. I even like Hollandic Dutch, and to those who claim that Dutch hurts their ears, give the Brabantic or Flemish accents a chance.
German is frustrating for me I do like how it sounds but learning a little Dutch hasn't helped me understand spoken German yet.
French sounds elegant.
Finnish has a unique rhythm with the first syllable of every word emphasized, but the consonants are soft and the vowels often doubled.
Hungarian sounds good to me also, it's like Finnish with more consonants.
Russian sounds mysterious, like a cross between Parisian French and Hollandic Dutch but with some different words.
Spanish and Portuguese can sound like dialects of the same language; I like them both sometimes very macho and other times very gentle.
Swedish with it's rounded vowels and accentuated syllables sounds joyful; if only I could pronounce it better.
Afrikaans sounds like Flemish accented Dutch, French, and a few Nguni languages. I especially like the Cape Town accent.
I'm also surprised that there was no mention of Jamaican English, with it's mix of Caribbean, African, and Spanish pronunciation it's perfect for singing. |
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I'm glad this thread was revived and I want to add a few things to my original post.
I still like the sounds of the languages I wrote about, now I also like:
Italian and some other regional languages and/or dialects of Italy such as, for example Sicilian and Friulian. All these languages make me think of fabulous food and beautiful music.
Spoken Thai can sound like it is being sung or chanted as it is even more tonal than Swedish or Norwegian.
I like the of sound Danish the diphthongs and soft consonants can sound really nice.
Faroese sounds magical and I would learn it if I could do so without having to travel to the Faroe Islands (it's a very expensive flight for me).
Edited by mick33 on 14 February 2012 at 8:12am
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eggcluck Senior Member China Joined 4700 days ago 168 posts - 278 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Japanese
| Message 274 of 297 14 February 2012 at 7:35am | IP Logged |
I very much like the sound of the now dead pure English languages, of course the videos I have seen are only a pronunciation estimate. Yet when I hear those that are not yet dead such as Cornish and Gaelic I can not help but wonder what might have been if England was not a popular target for invasion and its language was left to change independantly from things such as Latin, Greek, and French influence.
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Everything Diglot Groupie France Joined 4700 days ago 87 posts - 167 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: Spanish
| Message 275 of 297 14 February 2012 at 6:53pm | IP Logged |
WHAT about Mongolian language ? It sounds like a mix between Arabic and Russian to me ^^
And the Mongolian script looks awesome ! Damn cyrillic script, I hate you !
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geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4687 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian
| Message 276 of 297 14 February 2012 at 9:55pm | IP Logged |
I recently developed a theory as to why so many people find German so unpleasant to the ear. I tend to think that spoken German sounds somewhat neutral (big surprise, coming from a long-time speaker), and often strikes me as pleasant-sounding.
But then I watched Downfall. Everyone in the movie was angry, desperate, screaming at one another, and the German was just PAINFUL to listen to, not to mention that the subject matter was terribly disturbing.
Nearly every German-language movie on Netflix appears to be a WWII movie. If most people experience German through movies such as these, that might explain a lot.
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Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4667 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali
| Message 277 of 297 15 February 2012 at 12:28am | IP Logged |
The most beautiful;
1. Argentine Spanish
2. Brazilian Portuguese
3. Italian
Most beautiful Germanic: Norwegian, Belgian Dutch
Most beautiful Slavic: Macedonian, Slovak, Russian
Most beautiful Asian: Sri Lankan Tamil
Edited by Medulin on 15 February 2012 at 12:32am
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Rykketid Diglot Groupie Italy Joined 4832 days ago 88 posts - 146 votes Speaks: Italian*, English Studies: French
| Message 278 of 297 16 February 2012 at 10:28am | IP Logged |
I really like how Arabic, Hebrew and Welsh sound.
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viedums Hexaglot Senior Member Thailand Joined 4665 days ago 327 posts - 528 votes Speaks: Latvian, English*, German, Mandarin, Thai, French Studies: Vietnamese
| Message 279 of 297 17 February 2012 at 5:16pm | IP Logged |
Off the top of my head, I would say Russian and Khmer.
Interesting that someone would choose Sri Lankan Tamil. I was looking for Tamil on Youtube and found some songs that were (as far as I could tell from the video) propaganda for the Tamil Tigers. The sound of the words was just hypnotizing, though, and really enjoyable. Is the sound of SR Tamil so different from Indian Tamil, I wonder?
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Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4667 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali
| Message 280 of 297 20 February 2012 at 3:33am | IP Logged |
viedums wrote:
Off the top of my head, I would say Russian and Khmer.
Interesting that someone would choose Sri Lankan Tamil. I was looking for Tamil on Youtube and found some songs that were (as far as I could tell from the video) propaganda for the Tamil Tigers. The sound of the words was just hypnotizing, though, and really enjoyable. Is the sound of SR Tamil so different from Indian Tamil, I wonder? |
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Sri Lanka Tamil sounds like Ancient Tamil or Malayalam, it does not have nasal vowels present in spoken Tamil Nadu Tamil, nor it adds [j] before initial vowels (yethu instead of ethu, yerumbu instead of erumbu...) When Sri Lankan Tamils go to Tamil Nadu, Indian Tamilians think they're Malayalis from Kerala ;)
Spoken Sri Lanka Tamil is close to Formal written Tamil.
in India, spoken and written Tamil are in a diglossic situation, they're almost two different languages (like in the case of Arabic).
copy and paste:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RILh0gSnvPA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKrqNc3VLYg
Edited by Medulin on 20 February 2012 at 3:42am
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