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On_the_road Diglot Newbie Sweden Joined 4762 days ago 23 posts - 29 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish
| Message 17 of 25 19 November 2011 at 3:24pm | IP Logged |
Right now I would say that my favorite language is German because of the challenge of learning it (despite the many similarities to Swedish, which is my native language. I guess that is another reason why I like it - it´s really fun to discover all the things Swedish and German have in common.)
1 person has voted this message useful
| a3 Triglot Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 5262 days ago 273 posts - 370 votes Speaks: Bulgarian*, English, Russian Studies: Portuguese, German, Italian, Spanish, Norwegian, Finnish
| Message 18 of 25 19 November 2011 at 8:19pm | IP Logged |
Somehow I've always wanted to learn a language more complex than the typical western popular languages yet ordered and governed by strict rules.
A language which has completely regular spelling, which is easy to pronounce and yet which has a kind of different phonetic inventory than typical western languages.
A language which is not that popular to learn and yet which is not spoken by too little speakers.
And then by mere chance when browsing this forum I stumbled upon a discussion comparing grammar of different languages. In it I read about the agglutinative nature of Finnish language and found this extremely interesting.
I didn't start learning it immediately though, back then I still didnt know I'd like the language. Some months later, in another thread I read that a typical word in Finnish (namely kauppa = shop) has a few thousand conjugated forms. This sparked my interested even more. And after some more time I started learning it. I was not put back by all the statements how difficult the language was - instead they made me more keen on it.
Another thing I like about Finnish is that it has many amusing false friends with my native language e.g.
kotka in Finnish is eagle whereas in Bulgarian is cat
kaksi in Finnish means two and in Bulgarian - 'how are you doing?'
leikata in Finnish is to cut, while in Bulgarian is 'the watering-can'
there are also some more 'dirty' false friends ;)
1 person has voted this message useful
| Zorrillo Pentaglot Groupie United States Joined 6390 days ago 41 posts - 82 votes Speaks: English*, French, Sign Language, Spanish, Polish Studies: Greek, Georgian, Indonesian
| Message 19 of 25 19 November 2011 at 11:18pm | IP Logged |
It's pretty tough to pick one. Languages are kind of like relationships, so I'll put it in those terms:
Spanish was my first love
French is my long-term partner who I know better than anyone
Sign language is a dear platonic friend that connects me to a very special world
Polish is the exotic beauty that I am too intimidated to talk to and have resigned to appreciate from afar
Greek is my latest fling
German is the fiery lover who I have broken up with so many times I've lost count
Turkish is the attractive passerby who has only recently caught my eye
But to answer the question: Polish is my favorite.
4 persons have voted this message useful
| Matheus Senior Member Brazil Joined 5087 days ago 208 posts - 312 votes Speaks: Portuguese* Studies: English, French
| Message 20 of 25 28 November 2011 at 6:55pm | IP Logged |
My favorite language is English.
It has already given to me the opportunity to speak with people who speak languages so
hard that would cost me at least twice the time I spent on learning English to learn
them;
It has so many vocabulary in common with my native language. (in = em, common = comum,
vocabulary = vocabulário, native = nativa, language = língua/linguagem);
I grew up with English around me, so it has always been familiar to me - subbed movies
(my favorite ones), video games, English songs (my favorite ones), etc;
It has a huge vocabulary and it gets new words every day;
It's the most important foreign language for bussiness purposes;
To my ears, North American English (US/Canada) sounds neutral and British English
spoken by a woman sounds very sexy and smart.
Any other language makes me feel tired after an hour of listening.
2 persons have voted this message useful
| Magdalene Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5042 days ago 119 posts - 220 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Mandarin, German, Modern Hebrew, French
| Message 21 of 25 28 November 2011 at 8:01pm | IP Logged |
Thank you for your responses, everyone! I've had a great time reading them, though I'm no
closer to having a favorite language myself...
1 person has voted this message useful
| liddytime Pentaglot Senior Member United States mainlymagyar.wordpre Joined 6235 days ago 693 posts - 1328 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Galician Studies: Hungarian, Vietnamese, Modern Hebrew, Norwegian, Persian, Arabic (Written)
| Message 22 of 25 29 November 2011 at 2:06am | IP Logged |
I'm with ellasevia; every time I try to pick a "favorite", I can't decide between all the wonderful languages I have tried to study. So I tried to break it down the best that I could:
- Favorite Language to speak: Turkish! ( Honorable mention, Hungarian ) I just love getting my mouth around a solid helping of Turkish! There is something about the umlauted vowels and the vowel harmonies that makes Turkish a pure joy to speak!
- Favorite language to listen to, Brazilian Portuguese! ( Honorable mention, Finnish) Whether it is in music or spoken ( which is, in fact, quite musical) Portuguese is hands down the most gorgeous language to my ears. I could spend hours on end listening to Portuguese!
- Favorite language that is an endless source of fascination, Arabic! ( Honorable mention, Mandarin) Even though I have been studying Arabic off and on for years I have barely scratched the surface of this conquest. Despite its difficulties it ( for reasons I can't explain) continues to fascinate me. Maybe it is the challenge, perhaps it is the richness of it, but for me Arabic is unquestionably addictive!!!
Edited by liddytime on 29 November 2011 at 7:52pm
3 persons have voted this message useful
| tanya b Senior Member United States Joined 4784 days ago 159 posts - 518 votes Speaks: Russian
| Message 23 of 25 29 November 2011 at 8:41am | IP Logged |
The following are my favorite languages, by approximate number of speakers
1) Russian - dark and depressing, but also soft and sweet
2) Korean - world's most beautiful alphabet
3) Turkish - looks beautiful written
4) Hungarian - has any non-Hungarian ever mastered it?
5) Armenian - most "alien" sounding IE language
6) Finnish - world's most beautiful sounding
7) Slovak - I am in love with the country
8) Hebrew - pleasant sounding with interesting alphabet
9) Latvian - nice sing-songy sound
10) Erzya - world's most inaccessible language
11) Welsh - they call it the "language of heaven"
12) Icelandic - world's coolest country
13) Abkhaz - 83 consonants, 2 vowels, but very beautiful
14) Scots Gaelic - never actually heard it spoken
15) Hawaiian - gentle and beautiful
1 person has voted this message useful
| Carlucio Triglot Groupie BrazilRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4864 days ago 70 posts - 113 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishC1, Spanish Studies: Mandarin
| Message 24 of 25 29 November 2011 at 5:54pm | IP Logged |
I have not a favorite language, what i love is some caractheristics that are unique or very notable.
Spanish: Lots, lots of L, Spanish is the sound of a passionate kiss.
American English: Like brasilian portuguese, every american state has its own accent, i like trying to discover where the speaker comes from.
British English: God, that accent makes me remember of cute kittens, those that we want to hang and never let it go away.
Mandarin: The worst and the best thing in this language is the alphabet, its like falling in love for a alien girl, green, four eyes and quadruped. Mandarin makes me remember of the tale of the ugly little duck!
Greek: that is easy, greek is the most P language in the world, similar to L in Spanish, when i hear greek i remember of pop corn and bullets.
Japanese: Definitetly is how they speak like if they were shouting or very excited, German pass that impression sometimes.
German: Sore thoath, swiss German even more.
French: The very funny, unique and addictable interjections, no doubt.
1 person has voted this message useful
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