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Slavic languages’ sound | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| nox Diglot Groupie Croatia Joined 6862 days ago 62 posts - 62 votes  Speaks: Croatian*, English Studies: German | Message 1 of 38 08 August 2006 at 2:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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Few days ago I've heard some Czech people talking and realized i really didn't like the sound of Czech. Russian and Polish, however, sound much better to me. What are your opinions and impressions about this? I am primary interested about the way that Serbo-Croatian (call it however you want, I don't mind) sounds to you, and comparison to other Slavic languages.
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| Skandinav Hexaglot Senior Member Denmark Joined 6888 days ago 139 posts - 145 votes Speaks: Danish*, English, German, Russian, Swedish, Norwegian | Message 2 of 38 08 August 2006 at 4:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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Not to be antagonistic, but the sound of the Czech language is actually my favorite of all Slavic languages. It sounds so clear and articulate, IMO. Perhaps the reason is that I always picture things. For example, whenever I hear Czech I think of the impressive Czech contributors to European culture, and of the wonderful, picturesque country. I like all the other Slavic languages as well, nice sounds and words.
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| lady_skywalker Triglot Senior Member Netherlands aspiringpolyglotblog Joined 6891 days ago 909 posts - 942 votes Speaks: Spanish, English*, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, French, Dutch, Italian | Message 3 of 38 08 August 2006 at 8:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm not very familiar with all the Slavic languages but I really don't like the sound of Russian or Polish at all. They just sound too slurry and harsh to me. Croatian is possibly the one Slavic language that I like the sound of. It reminds me of Italian for some unknown reason (possibly due to the country's proximity to Italy). I suppose Serbian and Bosnian sound fairly similar but I haven't heard those very much...at least outside of a Eurovision Song Contest setting. :p
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| Darobat Diglot Senior Member Joined 7189 days ago 754 posts - 770 votes Speaks: English*, Russian Studies: Latin | Message 4 of 38 08 August 2006 at 8:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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http://mikesradioworld.com/
Check out radio broadcasts from the appropriate country if you're unsure how a language sounds. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7157 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 5 of 38 08 August 2006 at 10:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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I agree with nox. Czech (especially colloquial Czech) sounds a unpleasant to my ear. Hearing the strange pitch contours, narrowing of vowels (ceska prehlaska) and unintuitive grammatical endings is a bit rough on my ears.
On the other hand, Slovak is my favourite Slavonic language for listening. There's something about its rhythms, palatization and rather unremarkable intonation that is neat for me. This seems strange since Slovak is very close to Czech, but that's the way it goes. Polish is a close second for me. I think that Polish sounds almost 'cute'. All of those hushing sounds, I guess. Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian (BCS) would be in third place for me when it comes to my impression of their 'audio quality'. BCS remind me somewhat of a Polish/Slovak hybrid with the added twists of free stress and pitch accents. Perhaps this is what lady skywalker meant when she wrote that Croatian sounds a bit like Italian. The rising and falling tones that can be long or short lend an almost musical quality to BCS and sound interesting to me. I'm indifferent to the sound of the East Slavonic languages, but I find that Russian sounds the least attractive compared to Belorussian and Ukrainian. My ears get the impression that only the stressed vowels are pronounced clearly and strongly in Russian. My ears pick up the unstressed vowels in Russian as non-descript schwas. ewww. :-P 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| sapedro Triglot Senior Member Portugal descredito.blogspot. Joined 7119 days ago 216 posts - 219 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English, French Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Greek | Message 6 of 38 09 August 2006 at 4:11am | IP Logged | ||
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Well, Bosnian has a mountain accent...for a Croatian learner it's far more difficult to understand...
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| Arti Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 7013 days ago 130 posts - 165 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: French, Czech | Message 7 of 38 09 August 2006 at 12:55pm | IP Logged | ||
as native speaker I can confirm that you r right, Russian is full of schwas, it's difficult for us to pronouce unstressed vowels as they are... Personally me I like Czech with its soft z, dont like Polish and yes Serbo-croatian sounds like Italian :) Ukrainian is simply funny, but as far as I know native ukraine speakers dont like Russian as it sounds very harsh for them... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| winters Trilingual Heptaglot Senior Member Italy Joined 7045 days ago 199 posts - 218 votes Speaks: Croatian*, Serbian*, Russian*, English, Italian, Latin, Ancient Greek Studies: Greek, French, Hungarian | Message 8 of 38 09 August 2006 at 4:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well, I am probably biased since it is my native language, but for me Croatian has the best sound of all slavic languages. And here I cannot really speak in terms of "BCS", since Serbian, for instance, has quite a different sound than Croatian (Croatian is more 'palatalised', Serbian pronounces Č and Ć more 'properly' than Croatian, etc) and despite their huge similarities in grammar and lexic, the sound itself is far from being the same.
My next favourites are Russian and Ukrainian, though I generally like the sound of most Slavic languages. I suppose that I just got used to it, so I always get surprised when somebody claims Russian to be harsh (when I always tend to view it as a nice and incredibly SOFT language), but I am perfectly aware of the possibility that to somebody who cannot speak it, it does sound that way. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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