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Nicest sounding: Russian vs Arabic? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| paparaciii Diglot Senior Member Latvia Joined 6338 days ago 204 posts - 223 votes  Speaks: Latvian*, Russian Studies: English | Message 9 of 26 22 April 2009 at 4:20am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Estonian.
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| JS-1 Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 5985 days ago 144 posts - 166 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Arabic (Egyptian), German, Japanese, Ancient Egyptian, Arabic (Written) | Message 11 of 26 22 April 2009 at 2:41pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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This is a tough choice. I think Arabic sounds very exotic, and the way it works is
fascinating. Russian, on the other hand, is romantic and a little bit mysterious. I'm sure James Bond would be able to speak both... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Sennin Senior Member Bulgaria Joined 6036 days ago 1457 posts - 1759 votes 5 sounds | Message 12 of 26 22 April 2009 at 5:10pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Russian sounds much better but Arabic has a very intricate script.
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| Marc Frisch Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6667 days ago 1001 posts - 1169 votes Speaks: German*, French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Persian, Tamil | Message 13 of 26 22 April 2009 at 10:12pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I really like Arabic and I can't stand the palatalized consonants in Russian. Actually, Russian pronunciation is the main reason I've never seriously studied Russian, although I'm very fond of Russian culture.
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| Toufik18 Bilingual Tetraglot Senior Member Algeria Joined 5746 days ago 188 posts - 202 votes Speaks: Arabic (Written)*, Arabic (classical)*, French, English | Message 14 of 26 22 April 2009 at 11:49pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Definetly Arabic. It has one of the most (if not the most) beautiful sounds ever, but only if you hear it from a native, and nothing can hurt more that an Arabic spoken by non-arab.
Russian also has a very nice sound, but it feels a bit harsh ;) Thanx though 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Hashimi Senior Member Oman Joined 6261 days ago 362 posts - 529 votes Speaks: Arabic (Written)* Studies: English, Japanese | Message 15 of 26 23 April 2009 at 3:01am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Russian of course. Note that the thread is about sounds only not anything else!
Although I'm an Arabic native speaker, I totally disagree with you. First, what variety of Arabic are you talking about? Do you mean Fu97a (whether MSA or CA)? Nobody speaks them except in TV and Radio. Second, even when they speak in MSA, they speak it with the influence of their own dialect. There is a big difference between e.g. an Egyptian news reader or a Moroccan one. If someone who don't understand Arabic listen to news in an Egyptian or Moroccan TV channel (in MSA) then listen to an Arab channel from the Gulf countries, he will think that they speak in different languages, and that the distance between them is wider than the difference between e.g. Danish and Norwegian or even Persian and Hebrew! It's true that it's the same language, and that we, Arabs, understand MSA spoken by any Arab or even non-Arab (and that the majority of us understand other dialects), but the sounds of the language differs drastically from one region to another (even in the same country.) E.g. the sounds of Gulf Arabic or Iraqi Arabic (even when they speak in MSA) is harsher than the Egyptian Arabic or Moroccan one. Do you remember those Iraqi/Gulf educational programs for children in the 80's? (like ifta7 ya simsim, al-anisa qawa3id, qul wa la taqul, etc.) If you are talking about dialects, don't judge Arabic from an Algerian perspective alone. Arabic is very wide as you know. Your dialect is nice, but that doesn't apply to every dialect (also Algerians/Moroccans speaks very fast and don't distinguish between long and short vowels. They mix up with them!)
Have you ever listened to a Persian woman (or man!) who speaks Arabic with Persian accent? Yes, some foreign accents aren't so pleasant, but in general, foreigners sound nicer than some Arabs! [try to listen to Iraqi channels or to the Kuwaiti parliament sessions :)] 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| jbbar Senior Member Belgium Joined 5802 days ago 192 posts - 210 votes Speaks: English | Message 16 of 26 23 April 2009 at 3:12am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I agree with Hashimi. I prefer Russian to Arabic myself. It sounds mysterious, direct but also elegant. However, I do like Standard Arabic. It sounds quite poetic and lofty. On the other hand, I don't like the regional varities much. They sometimes come across as rather harsh or in some sense even aggressive to me. I think that's mostly because of the glottal stops in the language. On the other hand, I've come to like the sound of Arabic a lot more than that of Modern Hebrew because it sounds authentically Semitic, unlike Modern Hebrew which has lost a lot of the typically Semitic sounds. For instance, I really don't like how Modern Hebrew uses a French or German pronunciation for 'R' instead of a rolled one. I've read that some Yemeni Jewish people have a more authentically Semitic sounding pronunciation of Hebrew though. Unfortunately I've never heard it.
jbbar 1 person has voted this message useful |
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