Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 6035 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds
| Message 9 of 60 20 January 2011 at 1:28pm | IP Logged |
Tropi wrote:
I enjoy speaking my native German. I like the way it sounds, although it's often considered as harsh. For me it sounds clearer than English which is somehow squishy. Just compare "with" and German "mit". "mit" sounds much harder. My favor for "hard" sounds is also the reason why I like Slavic languages more than Romance languages. Especially French does sound squishy to me as well. |
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Live in Manchester for a year and then talk about squishy accents ^_^.
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Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6583 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German
| Message 10 of 60 20 January 2011 at 1:29pm | IP Logged |
Speaking Swedish is like drinking water. It's nice and quenches my thirst, but it doesn't have that much of a taste. But a really good glass of water is sometimes the most wonderful thing in the world. I couldn't live without it.
Speaking English is like drinking tea. It's a subtle mix of flavors and the taste varies with origin, type, temperature, brewing time and whether or not you add milk and/or sugar. If you do it right, it has an enormous breadth of flavors. There's also a big load of culture behind it and knowing that gives you a lot more enjoyment out of that little cup.
Speaking French is like drinking coffee. It's powerful and even bitter at times, but it keeps you awake and alert. The taste stays in your mouth for an hour afterwards unless you rinse it out with something else.
Speaking Mandarin is like drinking white wine. It's nice and not too overpowering, but there's a lot of flavors if you really look for them. You can drink it slowly and enjoy it, but mostly you just buy a cheap bottle to get the job done.
Speaking Cantonese is like eating a freshly baked pizza with extra everything. And having sex at the same time.
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Journeyer Triglot Senior Member United States tristan85.blogspot.c Joined 6869 days ago 946 posts - 1110 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German Studies: Sign Language
| Message 11 of 60 20 January 2011 at 6:26pm | IP Logged |
Wonderful, Ari! Sounds like you might have synesthesia. There are some threads about it here, too, somewhere.
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ReneeMona Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5336 days ago 864 posts - 1274 votes Speaks: Dutch*, EnglishC2 Studies: French
| Message 12 of 60 20 January 2011 at 7:29pm | IP Logged |
Speaking of synaesthesia, I sometimes wonder if I would enjoy languages half as much if I weren’t a synaesthete. For instance, I enjoy French because it feels like deep red velvet, streets covered in freshly fallen autumn leaves and burned sugar. I enjoy Italian because it sounds like a box of rainbow crayons and looks like a cacophony of pastels and watercolours. And I enjoy listening to Greek because it feels like aquamarine creams, perfectly white pebbles and sinking my teeth into a piece of light muskmelon.
If I didn’t have these kind of associations, I wonder where that would leave my love for languages.
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Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6583 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German
| Message 13 of 60 21 January 2011 at 1:02am | IP Logged |
Journeyer wrote:
Wonderful, Ari! Sounds like you might have synesthesia. |
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Sadly, no. Just a poetic streak.
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Li Fei Pro Member United States Joined 5124 days ago 147 posts - 182 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map
| Message 14 of 60 21 January 2011 at 1:21am | IP Logged |
Gosh, Ari, you make me want to switch to Cantonese!
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WingSuet Triglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 5352 days ago 169 posts - 211 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, German Studies: Cantonese
| Message 15 of 60 21 January 2011 at 4:52pm | IP Logged |
To me, Cantonese is the most enjoyable language to speak and listen to. Today I had a conversation in Cantonese for the first time and in some way it felt so pleasant in my mouth to pronounce the words, unlike when I speak a lot of English, then I only feel numb in my mouth :P Lately I've discovered though that Turkish is a very enjoyable language as well :) And I like the sound of Thai, but for some reason not as much speaking it.
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JW Hexaglot Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/egw Joined 6123 days ago 1802 posts - 2011 votes 22 sounds Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Ancient Greek, French, Biblical Hebrew Studies: Luxembourgish, Dutch, Greek, Italian
| Message 16 of 60 21 January 2011 at 6:00pm | IP Logged |
Koine Greek, as it is the greatest language of them all. The language of the New Testament, the Apostle Paul, Alexander the Great, and the lingua franca of SPQR.
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