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Most beautiful language

  Tags: Beauty | Multilingual | Accent
 Language Learning Forum : General discussion Post Reply
297 messages over 38 pages: 1 2 3 46 7 ... 5 ... 37 38 Next >>
dboy
Newbie
United States
Joined 6912 days ago

4 posts - 4 votes

 
 Message 33 of 297
25 May 2005 at 7:34pm | IP Logged 
I think German sounds beautiful. Especially in songs. When they use the infinitive verbs that end in -en, so they can say about anything, and make it rhyme.

Also the rolling r's, and the ach sounds. Listen to some of the band Rammstein's softer sounds, and you will understand what I mean.
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Roland
Diglot
Newbie
United States
Joined 6911 days ago

29 posts - 30 votes
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Spanish, German

 
 Message 34 of 297
25 May 2005 at 11:50pm | IP Logged 
I think French is the most beautiful sounding tongue.Much nicer than Italian even.Women especially sound so attractive and refined with this.Men also,like the intro to Amelie.The guy with his deep resonant voice sounds like someone on RFI.Just superb.
I like German also as it has a mysterius,"nefarious" sound to it.Complex.I think it has gotten a bad rap with Charles the fifth and Fredirick the Great's statements that they speak German only to their horse.
I think we here in the South(USA) speak the real language of Shakespeare.Shakespeare's English.People abroad I believe refer to the English language as the language of Shakespeare.Our ancestors got off the Mayflower in 1620,only 4 years after the death of the bard.The language they brought with them according to Renaissance scholars was the English dialect we speak.Hence I think the Elizabethan tongue,our tongue in a way,is superior to the Brits.
The reason I mention this is in response to JRedetzky's statement that the USA dialect sounds horrible.I respect that.Who am I to say another's experience or perception is wrong,however,perhaps why the British dialect sounds so good is that they are corrupting the language,dropping the initial H sounds,r's,t's(the Bea'les) and other consonants.This is why French sounds so nice: they have corrupted things down to vowels sounds and grunts.They've shed alot of consonants.
Also in regard to someone's statements that his German friends said that before they learned English the language sounded like rrr--rrr.I wonder what exactly that means? Perhaps it is the way we make the r sound,labially with our lips instead of lingually or uvularly.This is a different r sound than any of the other Eurpoean tongues correct?Any further thoughts on this?
I love this site.You guys are some serious language mavens.Wooooooord!Bun intended.Thanks Roland.
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jradetzky
Triglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
geocities.com/jradet
Joined 6995 days ago

521 posts - 485 votes 
1 sounds
Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, GermanB1

 
 Message 35 of 297
27 May 2005 at 10:48am | IP Logged 
Roland wrote:
I think we here in the South (USA) speak the real language of Shakespeare. Our ancestors got off the Mayflower in 1620, only 4 years after the death of the bard. The language they brought with them according to Renaissance scholars was the English dialect we speak. Hence I think the Elizabethan tongue, our tongue in a way, is superior to the Brits.


Quite an interesting position I had not thought of before. What you're suggesting is similar to the case of French in Québec, where the language has preserved ancient features. I think that could also apply to Latin American Spanish and Portuguese which sound so different from Iberian Spanish and Portuguese.

You might also be right about language corruption. For instance, in the case of Iberian Spanish, legend has it that there was a Spanish King who had speech problems and could not utter the "z" and "c" sounds properly, so he produced the "th" sound heard in the English word "think" instead, which became standard pronunciation for the letters "c" and "z" in Spain but not in any Latin American colonies.
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jradetzky
Triglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
geocities.com/jradet
Joined 6995 days ago

521 posts - 485 votes 
1 sounds
Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, GermanB1

 
 Message 36 of 297
27 May 2005 at 11:09am | IP Logged 
Roland wrote:
Also in regard to someone's statements that his German friends said that before they learned English the language sounded like rrr--rrr. I wonder what exactly that means? Perhaps it is the way we make the r sound,labially with our lips instead of lingually or uvularly.This is a different r sound than any of the other Eurpoean tongues correct? Any further thoughts on this?


To be honest, to me American English (AmE) also sounded like rrr-rrr-rrr before I learned it (and to a certain extent it still sounds like that to me, especially when not paying close attention to it). If I were asked to single out a sound in AmE it would certainly be the palatal R, as I don't know of any other language that has it (even the British R is not as "exaggerated" as the AmE one). I think most of the languages have the trilled R (Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Greek, Russian, Polish, Czech, and all the other Slavic ones, Arabic, Hebrew, Swahili, etc.) and a few others (German and French basically) the uvular R. And, yes, there is of course, the lovely Chinese R sound (similar to w + r).

Edited by jradetzky on 27 May 2005 at 11:24am

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Chung
Diglot
Senior Member
Joined 6944 days ago

4228 posts - 8259 votes 
20 sounds
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish

 
 Message 37 of 297
27 May 2005 at 11:16am | IP Logged 
The most beautiful for me:

Hungarian.

With all due respect to the Czech boosters, I love hearing Slovak. While I do agree with the comment on Czech girls as I had seen quite a few fine specimens in Olomouc, I'm partial to Hungarian ones. :-)




Edited by Chung on 27 May 2005 at 11:17am

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Viktoria
Newbie
United States
Joined 6920 days ago

13 posts - 13 votes

 
 Message 38 of 297
28 May 2005 at 1:40am | IP Logged 
I like to hear women speak French, men speak Dutch, children speak English with an Australian accent (it's so cute) and songs in Italian.

I wonder if foreigners can detect the American English differences here, i.e. midwestern vs. southern drawl vs. Boston vs. Minnesota vs. New York... ?

I've lived all over the states and still have to ask people from various regions to repeat themselves, at times.

I'm right smack in the middle -- Kansas.

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jradetzky
Triglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
geocities.com/jradet
Joined 6995 days ago

521 posts - 485 votes 
1 sounds
Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, GermanB1

 
 Message 39 of 297
28 May 2005 at 1:34pm | IP Logged 
Viktoria wrote:
I like to hear women speak French, men speak Dutch, children speak English with an Australian accent (it's so cute) and songs in Italian.

I wonder if foreigners can detect the American English differences here, i.e. midwestern vs. southern drawl vs. Boston vs. Minnesota vs. New York... ?


I agree that children speaking (British) English are so cute. They sound mischievous. I will post a recording of an English child talking about his school, it is so nice.

I cannot detect differences within AmE beyond the South/North division (e.g., Texas vs New England).

Edited by jradetzky on 28 May 2005 at 1:35pm

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Viktoria
Newbie
United States
Joined 6920 days ago

13 posts - 13 votes

 
 Message 40 of 297
28 May 2005 at 7:44pm | IP Logged 
So jradetzky, is one group easier for you to understand than the other? (north vs. south)? Speaking about beautiful languages, I do think a Texas drawl is quite nice as there is not the "twang" folks from the deep south have (Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi). In Boston they leave the R's out altogether so there is no worry about "rur-rur-rur" in that area (you don't "park the car", you "pahk the cah").

Being right in the middle I'm not sure how I sound to foreigners, but to people here in the U.S. I sound like the news reporters on television -- who sound the same all over the country, for the most part.

Would love to hear a recording of British kids.


Edited by Viktoria on 28 May 2005 at 7:46pm



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