Sir Nigel Senior Member United States Joined 7104 days ago 1126 posts - 1102 votes 2 sounds
| Message 105 of 297 06 November 2005 at 5:08pm | IP Logged |
Not exactly "beautiful" to everyone's ears, but I like the sound of Dutch, even a little more so than German.
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davidtalbot Pro Member United Kingdom lingoschmingo.com/Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6956 days ago 11 posts - 11 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish Personal Language Map
| Message 106 of 297 08 November 2005 at 2:56pm | IP Logged |
I'm a native English speaker and have visited Iceland three times: I have to say that I find Icelandic entrancing, almost like breathing. I'm not really a J. R. R. Tolkien fan but I heard say that he based the Elvish language on a mixture of Welsh and Icelandic. It really is the most soothing, soporiphic thing to listen to. A fascinating language too - a language council invents new words for concepts like "internet" or "computer". Would love to to be able just to utter a few useful phrases in this beautiful language ;o)
Edited by davidtalbot on 09 November 2005 at 12:27pm
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orion Senior Member United States Joined 7021 days ago 622 posts - 678 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian
| Message 107 of 297 08 November 2005 at 10:16pm | IP Logged |
Ferdi- I like Dutch AND Turkish. To be honest, the first time I heard Dutch, I thought it was bad German spoken by Americans. To me Turkish has an almost sing-song quality to it. I was surprised by this when I heard some Turkish international students. I had expected they would sound like Klingons or something, from what everyone always says about Turkish :)
Now I am intrigued by Icelandic after what davidtalbot said. Anyone know of a sound snippet of it anywhere? I had heard that Icelandic is the closest modern language to what the Vikings actually spoke nearly a thousand years ago.
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boaziano Triglot Newbie Italy Joined 6960 days ago 21 posts - 21 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Italian*, Sanskrit, English Studies: Hindi, Tibetan, Tamil
| Message 108 of 297 09 November 2005 at 4:22am | IP Logged |
I had heard that Icelandic is the closest modern language to what the Vikings actually spoke nearly a thousand years ago.[/QUOTE]
Becouse of the distance between Iceland and the other scandinavian folks, Icelandic has preserved a lot of Middle Age's archaisms: only the vowel system has changed considerably so an Icelandic speaker can read easily the Snorra Edda (XIII century, some kind of encyclopedia of norse mythology) even today...
Ciao!
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davidtalbot Pro Member United Kingdom lingoschmingo.com/Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6956 days ago 11 posts - 11 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish Personal Language Map
| Message 109 of 297 10 November 2005 at 8:53am | IP Logged |
orion - if you go to Mike's Radio World you can find a list of online Icelandic radio stations
Edited by davidtalbot on 10 November 2005 at 12:46pm
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Skandinav Hexaglot Senior Member Denmark Joined 6887 days ago 139 posts - 145 votes Speaks: Danish*, English, German, Russian, Swedish, Norwegian
| Message 110 of 297 17 January 2006 at 5:42am | IP Logged |
I'd say that all languages spoken in Europe have their won charm. But this is probably because I relate them to the wonderfull cultural diversity in Europe. Arabic, Persian, Caucasian languages as well as Turkish are all alright as well. I don't like the sound of Asian and African languages. Although I only speak it very poorly, I think that French is the most beautiful language; Russian is my no. 2.
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owshawng Senior Member United States Joined 6886 days ago 202 posts - 217 votes Speaks: English*
| Message 111 of 297 21 January 2006 at 7:41am | IP Logged |
My favorite language would have to be Japanese spoken by a woman. When you combine that sound with the movements and body language of Japanese women it seems so feminine. I also love mandarin (which I'm learning) but not the Beijing accent.
I like to listen and watch native Spanish and italian speakers. So passionate. I was watching Pavarotti sing an opera in Italian with English subtitles (I speak no Italian) and even something like "I want a loaf of bread" sounded so cool.
My favorite english accent is the very light southern drawl that you can hear in Virgina and North Carolina.
My least favorite english accents are heavy US southern like Mississippi, Lousiana, and Alabama, boston, working class british accent, and Singaporean.
Ironically, out of all the different mandarin movies I've watched, I like and can understand best the mandarin spoken in Singapore. Go figure.
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f3tt0 Newbie Sweden Joined 6878 days ago 2 posts - 2 votes
| Message 112 of 297 26 January 2006 at 7:17am | IP Logged |
I think brazilian portuguese is the coolest language. it seems to be highly underestimated on this site, being a much bigger language than both french and italian.
Many people seem to love italian but I find it rather corny and old-fashioned =) Spanish spoken in most parts of Latin America is also nice, but I´m not too fond of European Spanish and the lisping sounds they make. I also like japanese and french spoken by younger people =)
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