Dutch is so beautiful! (Specific Languages) Language Learning Forum

Dutch is so beautiful!
Tags: Beauty \| Dutch
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Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages

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mick33
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5922 days ago
1335 posts - 1632 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Finnish
Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish

Message 25 of 34

07 July 2010 at 9:10am | IP Logged

tracker465 wrote:

I remember one of my German professors always made fun of Dutch and didn't like it, due to the constant use of diminutives. She said Dutch just sounded silly to her because of this.

That's really interesting, I actually like the diminutives in Dutch and Afrikaans because it seems natural for me to use them when speaking or writing. My only complaint, when I learned a little Dutch, was that I couldn't always find the diminutive forms in bilingual dictionaries, but after a while I became very good at recognizing the diminutive suffixes.

I like the sound of Dutch; the pronunciation is neither German nor English but has elements of both languages.

Edited by mick33 on 08 July 2010 at 9:43am
1 person has voted this message useful

Vos
Diglot
Senior Member
Australia
Joined 5564 days ago
766 posts - 1020 votes

Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Dutch, Polish

Message 26 of 34

08 July 2010 at 8:44am | IP Logged

Oz_Andy wrote:

Hmm I think we should be careful here, as this is a slippery slope...I mean, if we all of a
sudden label Dutch a beautiful language, what next? Do the tones of Mandarin go from being comical to being
musical? Might we even go so far as to consider the guttural sounds of Arabic a pleasing attribute, rather
than simply passing the language off as harsh and angry, and then getting on with our day? Just how many
uninformed generalisations must we part with before you're satisfied? Well?!

Playing with fire...

Haha trying to stir the crowd are we?..

Although, as with culture and it's progression and transformation through the years, the idea of beauty and what
is considered to be beautiful, is an always changing and growing thing. A part of an ever evolving landscape. So
who knows? Perhaps the languages that you stated which the majority of people may consider to be unpleasant
now, will at some stage come to be seen more consistently and growingly as beautiful languages. There are
many characteristics which may give something a sense of beauty, the exoticness or unknown quality of it, the
people who speak it, the history where it comes from, and so on. And despite the fact that I doubt that French,
Italian and Spanish will ever be considered by the majority of people as ugly, they might just lose their shine and
glimmer due to them no longer being as foreign, or as exotic, or as something else anymore, due to the over use
and familiarity of it on a world scale. Which may then pave the way for say Slavic languages to have their time as
'the beautiful languages of the world'.

Who knows! Things are forever changing, and thankfully so.
2 persons have voted this message useful

Ichirin
Triglot
Newbie
Netherlands
Joined 5253 days ago
21 posts - 24 votes
Speaks: Dutch, Persian*, English
Studies: Swedish, Japanese, Korean

Message 27 of 34

13 July 2010 at 8:30pm | IP Logged

Wow, never thought there would be people who find Dutch to be beautiful.
Personally, I hate it. The way I see it, if English was like a periodic wave, Dutch would
be like broken glass (don't know if this makes sense to anyone else).
3 persons have voted this message useful

Lindsay19
Diglot
Senior Member
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5819 days ago
183 posts - 214 votes

Speaks: English*, German^C1
Studies: Swedish, Faroese, Icelandic

Message 28 of 34

14 July 2010 at 10:14am | IP Logged

There was a point when I started learning Dutch, but I lost interest after about a month.
I personally don't find the language particularly beautiful; it doesn't sound ugly
either, it's just that every time I hear it spoken, I laugh. It sounds funny to me
actually :-D But I really want to like the language, so I would be motivated to learn it,
because I really love the Netherlands and the people that live there.
2 persons have voted this message useful

Lindsay19
Diglot
Senior Member
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5819 days ago
183 posts - 214 votes

Speaks: English*, German^C1
Studies: Swedish, Faroese, Icelandic

Message 29 of 34

14 July 2010 at 10:17am | IP Logged

egill wrote:

Dutch sounds awesome. Maybe it's just the contrarian in me, but every
time I hear someone
say it sounds ugly or ridiculous, I think it just subconsciously makes me want to like
it
even more. That's probably why I like Danish too, but I digress.

Plus I like how, in some of the dialects I've heard at least, Dutch is one of the few
languages that uses the alveolar approximant or "English R". That and the fairly unique
h and g sounds set Dutch apart phonetically—and she is more beautiful for
it.

Faroese is also a language who's "R" sounds a whole lot the English one ;-)
1 person has voted this message useful

Tyr
Senior Member
Sweden
Joined 5780 days ago
316 posts - 384 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: Swedish

Message 30 of 34

14 July 2010 at 1:20pm | IP Logged

How odd. I think Dutch sounds very cool certainly but beautiful is the last thing I'd class it as.
I remember walking down the street in Amsterdam one time and saw this absolutely drop dead gorgeous girls walking towards me. Wow, they were damn hot...Then though they got close enough for me to hear their mighty eruption of flem. Ouch.
Though a friend of mine in Holland says he finds this hot, he likes a woman with a good G.

Italian is it for me on hotness.
In French you love the women but want to punch the men.
In German you think the men are the coolest ever but the women are scary.
Italian though...men and women alike sound great.

Quote:

Plus I like how, in some of the dialects I've heard at least, Dutch is one of the few
languages that uses the alveolar approximant or "English R". That and the fairly unique
h and g sounds set Dutch apart phonetically—and she is more beautiful for
it.

Are you sure?
When I was learning Dutch I was told my pronounciation was generally pretty good all except for the R. They use that European R where you do some sort of odd impossible for me to perform tongue magic.

Edited by Tyr on 14 July 2010 at 1:22pm
1 person has voted this message useful

Jazzzed
Newbie
Netherlands
dutchidioms.nl
Joined 5245 days ago
2 posts - 3 votes
Speaks: Dutch*

Message 31 of 34

14 July 2010 at 1:35pm | IP Logged

Hi everyone :)

For people who'd like to learn Dutch: Here's a forum where you can do so, completely
for free.
You can have texts corrected by native speakers, learn a lot about Dutch idioms and
expressions with beautiful fotomaterial, bits of film, puzzles and much more to learn
in a fun way.

Feel free to have a look around. :-)

http://www.dutchidioms.nl

Edited by newyorkeric on 14 July 2010 at 2:19pm
1 person has voted this message useful

Jazzzed
Newbie
Netherlands
dutchidioms.nl
Joined 5245 days ago
2 posts - 3 votes
Speaks: Dutch*

Message 32 of 34

15 July 2010 at 2:49am | IP Logged

tommus wrote:

I think Dutch sounds great. One of the real strengths of the Dutch-
speaking peoples of the world is that they are so practical. They do things efficiently
and effectively, and without a great deal of 'theatre'. I have always found that
speaking French and Spanish requires a certain degree of performance and flourish that
I think a lot of anglophones find somewhat uncomfortable. Dutch (and German) are much
more straight forward, without the requirement to add a degree of acting and artistic
expression.

Perhaps for related reasons, it is difficult for native Dutch-speakers to understand
why so many people want to learn their language. I find it a wonderful language, with a
huge amount of very interesting material in science, history, literature, and all other
aspects of its rich culture.. And it sounds great.

Hi, :-)
It's an interesting point you're making here and valid to some degree, yet as a native
speaker I look on this somewhat differently. :)
Although I think it's true that the Dutch are generally considered 'down to earth' and
pragmatic moreover, I think that once you start learning the language beyond getting by
in daily life or simple conversations, you'll find it's a bit more complicated than
that. :) i.e. that there are a lot of rather colourful and interesting expressions used
, and that there is a hidden flair for drama in many of them. :)

I didn't realize this myself so much until I started helping people who are learning
the language, and trying to find synonyms and similar expressions in other languages -
also because I'm learning Spanish which is a wonderful language in terms of drama but
oddly also similar to Dutch in the kind of 'visual' expressions it uses. Some can be
translated literally between Dutch and Spanish though their French and English
counterparts are quite different.

Earlier on I was surprised to learn that quite a few people liked my native language -
Nowadays in fact I have come to a newfound appreciation of it.It's a lot more
'colourful' than it may seem at first glance and I think it's worth learning. :)

Edited by Jazzzed on 15 July 2010 at 3:03am

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