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Most Beautiful Romance Language | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| Louis Triglot Groupie Italy Joined 5735 days ago 92 posts - 110 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish | Message 81 of 95 20 June 2010 at 10:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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I feel so rebellious for choosing Romanian! Really? The lowest number of votes of all the languages!? The Slavic influence and relative isolation from other Romance languages make it quite different! Romanian truly is l'enfant terrible of the Romance family. I just wish I had the time to study it more in-depth.
Also, for some Romanian music: be sure to check out Negură Bunget! It's quite heavy, but it features some authentic Romanian folk music. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| SPQR Etruria Diglot Newbie Italy Joined 5312 days ago 14 posts - 18 votes Speaks: Italian*, English | Message 82 of 95 01 September 2010 at 10:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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For me it's really a hard battle between French and Spanish; the others i usually don't like the sound of (Portuguese, seems to me a degenerated ibero-romance language; and Romanian is too distant sounding and lexically distant; especially the shhhh sounds get on my nerves, in that regard i prefer Brazilian Portuguese, for its importance in some dances)
Spanish has fierce and marthial rithm in itself, i like the harsh js sound too. French is very tender, i like sounds such as js, and bears some resemblance to north Italian dialects. I like songs when sung in Spanish, because of its rithm and fierce; while I don't like songs in French, they tend to be too mellifous. Speaking of Italian dialects i love Neapolitan (and those from Campania), Apulian, Venetian, and generally those from northern italy (such as Romagnolo) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| vikramkr Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6074 days ago 248 posts - 326 votes Speaks: English*, Portuguese | Message 83 of 95 01 September 2010 at 11:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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Frankly, I think this poll has a lot to do with what most people are exposed to on a daily basis. The vast majority of us have been exposed to Spanish and French several times in our lives. And we've basically been told from birth that French and Italian are the most beautiful languages, for whatever reason.
And I don't know why people are so befuddled about Portuguese; it developed independently from Spanish in Galicia and Portugal; it's not some weird-sounding stepchild of Spanish. And because we know even less about Romanian as a community, it's no surprise that that language has received the lowest number of votes. My personal opinion? French and Portuguese. I don't think I even need to explain why I think French is beautiful. But Portuguese (Brazilian): so many lovely different sounds that make Spanish (and Italian to a lesser extent) sound just plain boring at the end of the day. Go listen to some samba and bossa nova before disagreeing with me. ;) Edited by vikramkr on 01 September 2010 at 11:19pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| JW Hexaglot Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/egw Joined 6127 days ago 1802 posts - 2011 votes 22 sounds Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Ancient Greek, French, Biblical Hebrew Studies: Luxembourgish, Dutch, Greek, Italian | Message 84 of 95 02 September 2010 at 2:26am | IP Logged | ||
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Italian and Spanish are equally beautiful to me (although I voted for Italian in the poll). I absolutely love when Andrea Bocelli alternates between the two languages in several of his songs. That to me is the apotheosis of mellifluous euphony.
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| Raчraч Ŋuɲa Triglot Senior Member New Zealand Joined 5823 days ago 154 posts - 233 votes Speaks: Bikol languages*, Tagalog, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, Russian, Japanese | Message 85 of 95 02 September 2010 at 11:11am | IP Logged | ||
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I think the major influence in my judgement is whether a Romance language is stress
timed or syllable timed. French, Spanish, Italian are syllable timed, European Portuguese is stress timed, and Catalan is alternating between the two and Brazilian Portuguese is becoming like Catalan. Stress timed languages have lots of consonant clusters, sibilants, and clipped vowels so don't sound very musical and sonorous. I hear in European Portuguese a lot of "sh" sound and compressed unstressed syllable sounds. Catalan words don't end in vowels, sounds similar to European Portuguese with reduced vowels and a lot of "s". Russian is also stressed timed with lots of sibilants, so the similarity with it is quite valid. Romanian sounds like any common syllable timed language that is not a Romance language. French is beautiful but has Germanic sounding vowels, thus not really prototypical Latin-descended language. I love the "z/ce/ci" and "j/ge/gi" of Castilian Spanish but don't like the very prominent "s" and "ch". Italian is either musical or gets sing- songy depending on my mood. So, I'll settle for Rioplatense Spanish as it has the Italian musicality to it without the "s" of Castilian Spanish, plus it has a breathy, airy quality due to the aspiration of 's' before consonants. Now, if only I can add back the "z/ce/ci", "j/ge/gi" and "ll". I didn't vote, as my choice is not there really. Here's a sample: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDNuS_Ri9TQ&feature=related Edited by Raчraч Ŋuɲa on 02 September 2010 at 1:24pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| feanarosurion Senior Member Canada Joined 5286 days ago 217 posts - 316 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Finnish, Norwegian | Message 86 of 95 04 September 2010 at 7:06am | IP Logged | ||
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Romanian has my vote personally because I really don't like the sound of any of the western romance languages. I don't know exactly why this is, but I find them to be extremely "passionate" for lack of a better word, and I find them much to elegant for my tastes. I can only really attribute my preference to taste. There's no real logical reason for it I guess. But either way, I prefer the slightly more Slavic sounding Romanian to any of the western languages.
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| Legend Newbie Australia Joined 5534 days ago 38 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian | Message 87 of 95 07 September 2010 at 12:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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For me, I have no current desire to learn any other language outside of the Romance group. They are all lovely. I am a little biased, but Italian for me is the nicest.
It is interesting the preconception of Romanian. I too once expected a sharp, Russian-like Slavic language with an unattractive rhythm. Very wrong. It's sort of like a less aloof French with traces of Croatian. Very lovely. If I were to list them in order with the way I think now I don't think I could do it effectively. I do know that my fifth favourite would probably be Portuguese and sixth would be Catalan, I don't like it all that much - sounds Germanic. I can't really separate Spanish, French and Romanian in an order. Plus, my opinion will probably change a week from now. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| wolf727 Newbie Italy Joined 5192 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes Studies: French | Message 88 of 95 13 September 2010 at 1:49am | IP Logged | ||
I do agree with you! When I was young I used to like the sound of the French language but now I don't. Definitely French sounds better when the women speak it, but sorry, to my ears the men sound too effeminate with the language and doing all that unnecessary pouting with their mouths... Again when I was younger I did not like the German language but now I do like the sound of it and you described it so well. German sounds masculine and direct - opposite to French - and therefore better when the men speak it. But for some women it does sound too harsh. Italian language...hmmm...not so sure. I do agree that Italian women and men both are usually attractive and stylish in Europe. Myself personally I would rather learn German. I do like also the sound of the Ukrainian language. In general, I tend to like northern sounding languages, even Swedish. It depends I suppose on one's background. My mother is Italian, father English and my grandfather Argentinian. I was born in Canada but I have lived also in England and Italy. Now I shall be returning to the UK. My English is spoken with a slightly subdued Canadian accent. Edited by wolf727 on 13 September 2010 at 2:00am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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