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Best and worst languages for song?

 Language Learning Forum : Music, Movies, TV & Radio Post Reply
45 messages over 6 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6  Next >>
COF
Senior Member
United States
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 Message 1 of 45
04 April 2012 at 2:09pm | IP Logged 
Which languages would you say are the best for singing in terms of flow, rhyming ability and just generally sounding good in that form? And which language would you say is the worst for singing?

I would say:

Best: Italian

Worst: Spanish

Spanish may be an unusual choice, but I just don't like the sound of it when it is being sung. Particularly in rock music, it just doesn't work. It can work for some pop music, but Spanish rock music is a big no-no.

On the other hand, rock music in Italian sounds quite good, which is suprising considering both are Romance languages and have a similar sound system.

Edited by COF on 04 April 2012 at 2:10pm

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Марк
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Russian Federation
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 Message 2 of 45
04 April 2012 at 2:14pm | IP Logged 
tonal languages are the worst because they loose their tones. languages without stress,
phonemic length and tone are the best.
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Kyle Corrie
Senior Member
United States
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 Message 3 of 45
04 April 2012 at 2:30pm | IP Logged 
German is not a language that was meant to be sung.

The word order just ruins the flow.
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Serpent
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Russian Federation
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 Message 4 of 45
04 April 2012 at 2:48pm | IP Logged 
Kyle Corrie wrote:
The word order just ruins the flow.
You're totally biased :P

OP, that's so surprising for me! I love rock in Spanish. Heroes del silencio, Mago de Oz, Juanes (some songs are too pop though). On the other hand in Italian I only know Ligabue.

For me music is such a huge part of language learning (god bless lyricstraining.com) that if I like a language I also like music in it, and if there's no music I like, this doesn't let me truly love the language (aw with Esperanto). There's even one song in French that I like, despite not liking the language.

Edited by Serpent on 04 April 2012 at 2:48pm

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tarvos
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 Message 5 of 45
04 April 2012 at 2:49pm | IP Logged 
I don't know about rock sung in Italian, but Italian bands singing in English is usually a huge fail.

English and French are the best for my money.
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atama warui
Triglot
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Japan
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 Message 6 of 45
04 April 2012 at 4:03pm | IP Logged 
I like Japanese songs.
Too bad lyricstraining.com doesn't support that language.
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COF
Senior Member
United States
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262 posts - 354 votes 
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 Message 7 of 45
04 April 2012 at 4:13pm | IP Logged 
I would agree that the tones of Mandarin don't exactly make it an easy language to sing in, but I think a well-crafted Mandarin song actually sounds pretty good, it's a hard language to sing in compared to some other languages, but certainly not impossible.

Edited by COF on 04 April 2012 at 4:13pm

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Ari
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Norway
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 Message 8 of 45
04 April 2012 at 4:58pm | IP Logged 
Марк wrote:
tonal languages are the worst because they loose their tones.

Cantonese keeps its tonal distinctions when sung. Tonal languages != Mandarin.


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