Favorite languages

[Metacomet]

Anyone have any languages they particularly enjoy listening to? Or speaking for that matter? I only speak my native language (English) and have trouble picking up others, even though I've been at Spanish a lot.

However I do LOVE listening to some languages I'll probably never learn, namely

--Arabic, I think it sounds beautiful
--French, same as above
--Latin

Anyone else have any favorites?

[Deicide]

Anyone else have any favorites?

Yes.

Lithuanian, French, Russian, German, English and Latin.

Edit - I also like the Scandinavian languages a lot.

[Arlekino]

Sign language,Russian is my favourite

[Metacomet]

Yes.

Lithuanian, French, Russian, German, English and Latin.

Do you speak all of them? (I see your Lithuanian so I'm guessing you speak at least a few of those) :D

[Deicide]

Sign language,Russian is my favourite

Tu esi iš Lietuvos?

[Deicide]

Do you speak all of them? (I see your Lithuanian so I'm guessing you speak at least a few of those) :D

I can speak Russian, Lithuanian and English. I'd like to learn the rest, starting with German. Although I don't think it's a realistic goal.. unfortunately.

I am definitely going to attend German classes though!

[Ocean Seal]

I personally find that Russian is quite powerful, and I find Korean/Arabic to be beautifully flowing.

[Arlekino]

Tu esi iš Lietuvos?

Taip as Lietuve Labas Draugas.

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

I only speak fluent English and Spanish, but I am also very knowledgeable in French and Italian. I taking Latin classes at my local church now.

My favorite languages are (does not mean that I know all of them):

Russian-I like the rough way it is spoken and I also think Cyrillic is really cool.
Greek-Sounds a lot like the Romance languages.
French-It is just awesome (stop saying it is bourgeois).
Spanish-Duh, my first language
English-DUH

and Mongolian-It is just really cool how it sounds (so unique; not Asian or European) and the writing is also really cool, although I like the Cyrillic more than the traditional Mongolian script.

[Pretty Flaco]

i speak the language of love <3

[The Young Pioneer]

I'm not fluent in anything...

But I love Russian, BCS(M) [being very politically correct, there], Finnish, Chinese, and Hungarian.

Bulgarian and Welsh are cool too.

[Nox]

I LOVE Russian. I don't even know what it is that I like, it just sounds so amazing. I can speak a fair amount of Russian just by picking up words from songs etc

[Aurorus Ruber]

My favorites in terms of sound would have to be Italian, Japanese, and Finnish, since I find they sound smooth and vocalic. I also like Russian and the other Slavic languages, with their palatalized consonants.

[X5N]

I'm currently learning Icelandic. But in terms of how they sound and whatnot...I think I like Arabic or the Celtic languages.

[Prometeo liberado]

Latin. Don't ask why but it was my favorite class growing up.

[Landsharks eat metal]

Dutch, because the spelling looks really cool :lol: Makes it fun to speak and to try not to butcher the pronunciation.
French is also awesome, mostly because I happen to be good at it.

[Red Rabbit]

I like German, Japanese, Russian and every Scandinavian language.

[The Cheshire Cat]

Farsi and Russian are my favorite languages. At the moment I can speak fluently Dutch, a little bit English, German and French and I can read, write and understand Latin (I don't believe there are schools who teach you how to speak in Latin anymore). I am learning Latin, French and English at my school, and in my spare time I study Russian and a little bit of Spanish and Italian, and sometimes just a tiny bit Farsi. I also know a very little bit of Ancient Greek (I dropped it after 2 years at my school - now I'm sorry because of it:().

[NorwegianCommunist]

I can speak Norwegian and English very good. (Norwegian is mye mother tongue)
I can read and understand English almost like my mother tongue. My English writing is bad sometimes :p

I can manage to have a social conversation in Croatian and Russian.
Russian is something I study on my spare time. I read Russian books and try to teach how to understand cyrilic.

I have Spanish in my school. Understand some of it, but I don't like anything about the language (No offense to Spanish speaking people) but I generally don't like Spanish.

[NorwegianCommunist]

My goals for my future is to speak and read Russian and Croatian.
And by understanding theese languages I would like to teach how to speak Serbian, Ukrainian and thoose other languages that are very much alike =)

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

Why do Europeans seem to know so many more languages than Americans? We were taught in school that we are the most diverse nation in the world.

[manic expression]

@Comrade Commistar, Well, the US is pretty diverse, but diversity doesn't always translate to polyglottery. IMO non-English-speakers in the US have strong communities but they're usually isolated, so unless you have a reason to go to a certain area (and outside of family, restaurant-seeking and random curiosity, you probably won't), you won't have to deal with anything but English. In Europe, as soon as you cross a border your own language won't always be much of a help...so for instance German isn't very widely spoken in Italy and Italian isn't widely spoken in Germany.

Plus, English being something of the lingua franca right now means native English-speakers are naturally less inclined to learn another language. Brits and Australians, for example, are about as uninterested in language-learning as Americans are.

Oh, and the American education system is the laughing stock of the developed world. That doesn't help our linguistic situation very much.

[Leonid Brozhnev]

I know a bit of French, and a little Bulgarian. I tried to learn Scottish Gaelic a few years ago but I've forgotten pretty much all of it. I do like the Bulgarian language, and cyrillic in general... visiting Bulgaria was a good mental workout.

[ed miliband]

lithuanian seems pretty cool, if only because my lithuanian friends always have amazing surnames.

umm, yiddish, german, irish gaelic, idk what elese.

[Bostana]

I heard that Mandarin is the most popular language in the world

[Rooster]

I can speak a bunch of languages to varying degrees. The one I'm most fluent in, besides English, is Gaelic.

As an aside, I read this anecdote in a book once. It's about the German language:

A journalist was wanting to do a piece on Bismark. So he got there and arranged to have a translator to meet him there because he could not speak the language. He turns arrives in Berlin just in time to catch a speech that Bismark is giving and as he steps on stage and start talking, the journalist sits and waits for the translator to reveal what he is saying. Bismark waffles on but the translator is remaining silent. The journalist gets more nervous and thinks the translator is no good. He eventually gets panicky and then grabs at the translator and says "well?! what is he saying?" and the translator shushes him and with a stern look says "quiet! I'm waiting for the verb!"

There was another one along the lines of "it's hard to interrupt a German in a debate because the verb is at the end" or something.

[The Young Pioneer]

Why do Europeans seem to know so many more languages than Americans? We were taught in school that we are the most diverse nation in the world.

'Cause they begin to learn foreign languages at age 7-9 while Americans just take two/three years when they reach high school. Americans who want to learn foreign languages have to go out of their way to do so with any kind of proficiency, unfortunately.

That said, there are some obscure, university-level ways of intensive training for languages in the US. They're infamous for turning out nearly-fluent speakers in very short times. For instance I'll be doing BCS[M] here over the summer:

http://www.indiana.edu/~swseel/index.shtml

(This one even has Dari, Tatar, Uyghur and some other less popular things, plus about 10 levels of Russian.)

:wub:

[NorwegianCommunist]

I don't know why Europeans can speak more languages than people from the USA.
But we learn a language from 1st-7th grade, You can learn another from 8th-10th grade.
And you can learn another through high school =)

Also learning in your free time is really good =)

[A Revolutionary Tool]

Spanish, French, and Italian.

[Quail]

I'm only fluent in English, but I speak French fairly well and I like the way that sounds. It seems to flow much more nicely than English. I've just started trying to learn some Spanish too.

[bricolage]

Why do Europeans seem to know so many more languages than Americans? We were taught in school that we are the most diverse nation in the world.
Not always.
Europe isn't just one place (which is why I'm always a little confused with things phrased as America vs Europe). In my experience those from Scandivanian countries always seem to speak impeccable English as well as the Dutch as well. In Eastern Europe there are lot of bilingual people who speak Russian as well as their first language, obviously a hangup from the Soviet Union. The British are notoriously bad at learning other languages, when I was at at school you had to study a modern foreign language from year seven (age 11) to GCSE (age 16) but it wasn't taught very well, after then it was your choice and most people didn't take it for A levels. We could study French or German but I think a lot of places offer Spanish as well. Most Western Europeans seem to have better language skills than the British.

[Nox]

Why do Europeans seem to know so many more languages than Americans? We were taught in school that we are the most diverse nation in the world.

Because there's less of a need to learn other languages, seeing as you're an English-speaking country. It's the same with Britain, I can vouch for the post below

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Not always.
Europe isn't just one place (which is why I'm always a little confused with things phrased as America vs Europe). In my experience those from Scandivanian countries always seem to speak impeccable English as well as the Dutch as well. In Eastern Europe there are lot of bilingual people who speak Russian as well as their first language, obviously a hangup from the Soviet Union. The British are notoriously bad at learning other languages, when I was at at school you had to study a modern foreign language from year seven (age 11) to GCSE (age 16) but it wasn't taught very well, after then it was your choice and most people didn't take it for A levels. We could study French or German but I think a lot of places offer Spanish as well. Most Western Europeans seem to have better language skills than the British.

I had at least 4 hours of French a week for 5 years in high school, and I still can hardly speak any French at all. I would much rather have learned a useful language like Mandarin or even Russian.

[manic expression]

I had at least 4 hours of French a week for 5 years in high school, and I still can hardly speak any French at all. I would much rather have learned a useful language like Mandarin or even Russian.
Francais n'est pas utile (http://www.lsrhs.net/departments/language/french/francomap.png)?

[bricolage]

I had at least 4 hours of French a week for 5 years in high school, and I still can hardly speak any French at all. I would much rather have learned a useful language like Mandarin or even Russian.
Mandarin and Russian would have been harder to learn so why do you think you'd speak them any better than you now do French? The problem isn't the languages taught but the way it is done.

[bricolage]

Francais n'est pas utile (http://www.lsrhs.net/departments/language/french/francomap.png)?
I depends what you want to know it for. Part of the reason people are so on learning Mandarin, Russian, Arabic, Portugese (for Brazil) now is to do with rising business opportunities. So if you want a career in the civil service or high end business they are very useful. Other than that it depends or countries you are planning on visiting, diaspora communities that exist where you live and so forth.

[hatzel]

I like French. I like Hebrew. I like English when I speak it but nobody else can cut it like I can, trussssst.

[manic expression]

True, bricolage, it does depend on what you're looking for. Still, it's good to remember that French is far and away the most useful language in Africa, not to mention France itself (the world's 5th largest economy) and Quebec. If someone's not into French then that's cool, I hope they find something they're passionate about...I just disagree with the idea of a language being useless, especially such an important one.

[PC LOAD LETTER]

Farsi and Russian are my favorite languages. At the moment I can speak fluently Dutch, a little bit English, German and French and I can read, write and understand Latin (I don't believe there are schools who teach you how to speak in Latin anymore). I am learning Latin, French and English at my school, and in my spare time I study Russian and a little bit of Spanish and Italian, and sometimes just a tiny bit Farsi. I also know a very little bit of Ancient Greek (I dropped it after 2 years at my school - now I'm sorry because of it:().
Emphasis mine; here in the US it's not uncommon to see Latin being taught in high schools. It varies by district, though. My high school also had Mandarin available if you wanted to learn it, but canceled the program after my first year. I didn't take it, but a couple of my friends did.

As far as 'favorite' languages? Well, I need to learn Spanish for multiple reasons. There's a huge, and still growing, Hispanic population where I live and I hate language barriers. Also, I want to go backpack through Mexico within the next few years. So it would be kinda helpful if I spoke the local language. Plus I think Spanish sounds kinda nifty.

I studied French for about 7 years in middle school through high school, but I haven't used it at all in 5 years and can no longer even hold a conversation. (Not to mention the 7 years of french wasn't what most people will think, it kind of tapered off in difficulty after the third-ish year and then just became a review of the same shit over and over again after that. The US education system sucks.) I think it sounds pretty. If only Louisiana hadn't been so prejudiced against the primarily poor Cajun population before the 40s-50s to the point where the Cajuns would refuse to teach their children French so they wouldn't be seen as "trash", then I would probably have learned French from birth alongside English.

[The Young Pioneer]

Mandarin and Russian would have been harder to learn so why do you think you'd speak them any better than you now do French? The problem isn't the languages taught but the way it is done.

I agree but think it's a little of both. And difficulty depends on the person. I've taken Mandarin, Russian, and Spanish, and find Spanish the most difficult of the three in all honesty. Fuckin' romance languages, I suck at 'em.

[Olentzero]

I got a soft spot for Yiddish and Basque, myself, and I'm kinda interested in Hungarian. But I gotta go back and brush up on all the other ones I've played around with over the years...

Georgian's got a way cool alphabet, though.

[RedBaltico]

I have 2 native languages - Latvian and Russian, since I started to speak in both of them, and I am also fluent in English. And so my favorite languages are Swedish, German and Estonian. Right now I am learning Danish though. :)

If anyone needs some help with Latvian or Russian, can ask for help. :)

[Raúl Duke]

Italian, overall.

My favorite Asian one would be Japanese.

IDK, perhaps Russian or something of the sort.

Portuguese, Chinese, and some others are my least favorite.

[eyeheartlenin]

¡Me encanta el castellano! I love Spanish; I spend at least a couple of hours a week translating political articles from Spanish into English, for the webpage of a tendency, and my Spanish is slowly improving. The other day, at the gym, I was able to explain to a lady working out on a stationary bike, where she could designate the level (a number) for her exercise, in Spanish! It was a trip! Very gratifying! The neighborhood I live in is full of Hispanic people, and I hear Spanish spoken on the street all the time. The world economy has brought the Spanish language to our part of the Eastern Seaboard, and that's great! I'm awfully glad I took those two years of Spanish in high school; they have served me well!

[Sir Comradical]

Greek, Russian, Hindi-Urdu, and Persian.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Dutch. I think it sounds funny.

[Drowzy_Shooter]

To listen to?

Arabic, and well spoken spanish

[Prometeo liberado]

By the time Im 50 I will be fluent in Jive, gibberish and speaking it like it is. Maybe, if Im lucky I'll be able to speak in tongues as well.

[Luc]

Basically any Germanic and Slavic language :thumbup:

and Arabic

edit: except english, fuck english

[Ostrinski]

English

[arilando]

Most interesting grammar = Japanese

Sexist sounding = British english

Most cool sounding = Khoisan and some bantu languages

Most ugly sounding = Mandarin chinese

Just my subjective opinion.

[arilando]

'Cause they begin to learn foreign languages at age 7-9 while Americans just take two/three years when they reach high school. Americans who want to learn foreign languages have to go out of their way to do so with any kind of proficiency, unfortunately.

That said, there are some obscure, university-level ways of intensive training for languages in the US. They're infamous for turning out nearly-fluent speakers in very short times. For instance I'll be doing BCS[M] here over the summer:



(This one even has Dari, Tatar, Uyghur and some other less popular things, plus about 10 levels of Russian.)

:wub:
What is a very short time?

[Firebrand]

Favourite language to speak or write in English, the extent of the vocabulary makes it much easier to find the exact perfect word for what you are trying to say.

But my favourite language to hear, especially sung is spanish. All the reasons are here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_8NrLekD74&feature=related

[Nox]

Oh yeah I also LOVE Albanian, it sounds so interesting, like it's clearly a european language but it's like no other

[El Oso Rojo]

I speak some Spanish and some German.

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

Oh yeah I also LOVE Albanian, it sounds so interesting, like it's clearly a european language but it's like no other

Rroftë marksizëm-leninizmit! Rroftë Enver Hoxha!

Those are the only words I know and I think that Enver Hoxha is spelled in a different way in that type of sentence.

[BE_]

I like French, German, and Icelandic the best.

[Ned Kelly]

The two languages I speak. English and Irish

[Nox]

Rroftë marksizëm-leninizmit! Rroftë Enver Hoxha!

Those are the only words I know and I think that Enver Hoxha is spelled in a different way in that type of sentence.

Yeah. It's inconceivable. It sounds nothing like any Slavic, Hellenic, Celtic, Germanic or Latin language... You'd think it'd be similar to Turkish but there's hardly any Turkish influence.

[Yefim Zverev]

Iranic languages are excellent... Persian, Kurdish, Baluchi etc.

[Ismail]

Yeah. It's inconceivable. It sounds nothing like any Slavic, Hellenic, Celtic, Germanic or Latin language... You'd think it'd be similar to Turkish but there's hardly any Turkish influence.Example sentence from an Albanian-language Hoxha work talking 'bout Trots and Anarchists in the 1939-1941 period leading up to founding the Communist Party of Albania:


Grupi Komunist i Korçës i pranoi e i bëri të tijat udhëzimet e, Kominternit. Ky grup arriti mjaft suksese në punën që bënte me punëtorë, me të rinj dhe me zanatçinj e tregtarë të vegjël. Megjithatë karakteristikë e shokëve, të Grupit të Korçës ishte sektarizmi, që shprehej në një punë të mbyllur brenda në qytetin e Korçës, kurse jashtë tij dhe në qytete të tjera grupi zhvillonte një punë shumë të zbehtë, për të mos thënë inekzistuese. Nga ky sektarizëm e dobësi të tjera, që pengonin zhvillimin dhe zgjerimin e lëvizjes komuniste, përfituan disa elementë antimarksistë të këtij grupi, të cilët shkëputën disa prej anëtarëve të grupit tonë në Tiranë. Një pjesë nga këta kishln formuar që më 1936 një grup trockist me Aristidh Qendron në krye, kurse të tjerë me Anastas Lulën e Sadik Premten po shfaqnin shenjat e një fraksioni të ri, që më vonë, pas pushtimit të vendit, dolën si grup më vete, i cili njihet me emrin Grupi i «Të Rinjve».

Më kujtohet që, pak kohë pas pushtimit të vendit, Grupi i Korçës dërgoi në Tiranë dy përfaqësues të vet, për të marrë kontakt me Anastas Lulën dhe me disa shokë të tij, që t'i orientonin këta për detyrat e reja të situatës së pushtimit e për t'i bindur që të ruanin lidhjet me grupin. Mirëpo të dërguarit e Grupit të Korçës jo vetëm nuk i bindën dot Anastas Lulën me shokë, por vunë re në idetë dhe në jetën e tyre akte të poshtra, trockiste, antikomuniste, amorale në kulm. Ata u ndanë nga grupi i Anastasit të tmerruar dhe, kur na raportuan, me të drejtë Grupi i Korçës vendosi e filloi luftën ideologjike kundër këtyre trockistëve.

Ky grup kishte përqafuar të gjitha teoritë dhe praktikat e gangsterëve trockistë e anarkistë: vjedhjen, gënjeshtrat, korrupsionin e komunitetin mbi gratë. Ata nxorën «teori» të reja, të cilat po i sillnin një dëm të madh luftës sonë. Sipas Anastas Lulës, Andrea Zisit e trockistëve të tjerë «pushtimi i vendit kishte anën e keqe, por edhe anën e mirë: ai ishte, i favorshëm se do të mëkëmbej borgjezia, do të ndërtohej industria, do të krijohej klasa punëtore dhe, atëherë mund të flitej për krijimin e një partie komuniste të vërtetë, atëherë mund të flitej për luftë kundër okupatorëve». «Duhet të presim krijimin e proletariatit», «puna me fshatarësinë nuk ka rezultat» propagandonin ata. Natyrisht, «teoritë» e këtyre krerëve ishin jo vetëm antikomuniste, por i shërbenin pushtuesit dhe sabotonin organizimin e rezistencës e të luftës popullore kundër tij. Grupi i Korçës i luftoi pa mëshirë këta tradhtarë dhe këto «teori» e veprime që ishin jo vetëm trockiste, por që puqeshin me ato të Partisë Fashiste Shqiptare, krijesë e pushtuesit.It's actually somewhat based on Latin, e.g. the word popullore (people.)

[Misanthrope]

English is a god-tier language. I'm taking spanish classes and really love the language as well though.

[Nox]

It's actually somewhat based on Latin, e.g. the word popullore (people.)

Yeah it has influences from Latin, that's a given considering the history of the region, same as why it has influence from Slavic, Turkish, Greek etc but ironically sounds nothing like any of those.

I'll fill in this thingy that someone else filled in :D

Most interesting grammar = Russian

Sexist sounding = Albanian

Most cool sounding = Mandarin Chinese

Most ugly sounding = Bantu languages

[Lanky Wanker]

Any Scandinavian language is sexy, I can speak a little bit of Swedish. Greek sounds fancy and it'd help me when I'm around my dad's family (which isn't often anymore due to arguments and whatnot, plus they just don't care I think). Turkish is kc00l and I can speak some of that as well so yeah.

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

americans dont worry youre not the only ones sucking at foreign languages. brazilians try so hard to learn english bless our hearts but very few actually succeed. and not much else apart from english. i know but a handful of people with a working knowledge of french and maybe a few more who can actually speak spanish. i should note that all brazilians think they speak spanish but few actually do.

[OHumanista]

Dunno, I have yet to listen to many languages so I can comment better.
But some whose sound I do like are: Portuguese (brazilian branches and european branches), French, Russian, Arabic, Japanese...
I only speak Portuguese and English fluently though, and I have a kinda decent but rusty spanish.

[OnlyCommunistYouKnow]

I can't speak it, but I always wanted to. Russian. I always enjoyed pronunciating Russian words and generally failing. Lol

[Nox]

Listen to this and then tell me that Albanian isn't the most beautiful language you've ever heard

2Wk0OOG9yP4

[Manulearning]

Russian - bangs in your head like Mayakovsky!
My native Punjabi
And most "refined-mannered" Urdu.
German - same as Russian, French - very soothing :)

[Manulearning]

Many South-Asians are trilingual ;)

[Comrade Nasser]

Anyone have any languages they particularly enjoy listening to? Or speaking for that matter? I only speak my native language (English) and have trouble picking up others, even though I've been at Spanish a lot.

However I do LOVE listening to some languages I'll probably never learn, namely

--Arabic, I think it sounds beautiful
--French, same as above
--Latin

Anyone else have any favorites?

I like Arabic the best (I speak it fluently and very often so yeah) I've actually heard people say it sounds like "ducks screwing" or "derka derka language" or "blow-up language" or my favorite "Allah babble"

Enough of that, but besides that I think Tagalog sounds cool and Japanese when spoken quickly is like music to my ears.

[Orange Juche]

French, because it's like music as a language.

[Yugo45]

Beside my native language (Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian/Motenegrin, or whatever you want to call it), I enjoy the sound of Russian, Hungarian, Frisian, Gaelic languages, Scandinavian languages, Kurdish, Farsi.. Probably a few more..

How about languages that sound terrible (to you)? I really hate the sound of Dutch, Portugese and French a little bit. They are terrible to my ears, I don't know why.

[Il Medico]

I'm assuming that the thread probably means languages other than your native tongue. Though either way my overall favorite is French, closely followed by Italian. They're just such beautiful languages to hear spoken. I also really like the way Russian, Japanese, and Arabic sound.

[Pleb]

I like farsi, tried learning it a few years back but my Iranian friend moved away so it became even more difficult to learn without someone to converse with. Anyone on here speak it?

[l'Enfermé]

Has anyone mentioned Klingon yet?

[LOLseph Stalin]

German(I'm a huge Germanophile and and am possibly part German too)
Russian(I'm biased on this one, being half-Russian)
Arabic(I have a fascination with middle eastern culture. I also love Arabic calligraphy)

[Lobotomy]

I speak a little but of Russian so of course I enjoy that language. Serbo-Croatian is much prettier though. I also enjoy the way German sounds.

[Zostrianos]

I love ancient languages, especially Afro-Asiatic ones. Classical Hebrew (which I've studied on my own for years, and am pretty decent at), ancient Egyptian, etc. I'm also fascinated by isolates, like Sumerian and Elamite.

[Zealot]

Russian, German, Vietnamese, Arabic, Turkish, and Mandarin.

And sorry to the millions of french lovers on this thread but I don't find it that great. It reminds me of toilets. In fact, if diarrhea had a language I would expect it to sound something like french.

[LOLseph Stalin]

I like Arabic the best (I speak it fluently and very often so yeah) I've actually heard people say it sounds like "ducks screwing" or "derka derka language" or "blow-up language" or my favorite "Allah babble"

Enough of that, but besides that I think Tagalog sounds cool and Japanese when spoken quickly is like music to my ears.

I'm actually envious now. And LOL @ "Allah Babble", Hahahaha

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

There seem to be quite a few people interested in Serbo-Croatian. Quaint. As for me, my favourite languages would have to be English and Russian. French sounds nice, but I could never get a hang of the grammar; likewise with Italian and Spanish. Arabic, Chinese, Vietnamese, Khmer and Albanian also sound pretty.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

Turkish is the language of gods.

Too bad I can't speak it.

[Quail]

I'm always curious as to how English sounds to non-native speakers. I can't imagine it sounding that nice tbh. Probably like German, only less harsh.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I'm always curious as to how English sounds to non-native speakers. I can't imagine it sounding that nice tbh. Probably like German, only less harsh.

The Received Pronunciation, Estuary and Cockney dialects sound lovely to me, as do certain dialects of New England or the American South (the one used by Dax Riggs of Acid Bath, for example, which I'm not sure how to classify). Brummie, Liverpuldian and so on are also nice. I find Mid-Western American to be a bit grating, honestly.

[Luc]

I'm always curious as to how English sounds to non-native speakers. I can't imagine it sounding that nice tbh. Probably like German, only less harsh.

nah we love them :) there is only one british accent/dialect i dont like but not sure which it is. :unsure:

[Durruti's friend]

Dutch, all Romance languages and Russian. I consider English usual and I dislike German for some reason. I thought Dutch was disgusting before I heard a friend of mine talking on it (because it looks weird when written). Now it's one of my favorites.

I like some dialects of Serbo-Croatian. Kajkavian for instance, although many people think it's redneck (it is but I don't care :blushing:).

[Tenka]

Japanese, Swedish, Spanish, German. These are my favourite languages, never mind that I'm a pathetic anglophone without more than a nursery knowledge of two of them. :)

[Goblin]

Norwegian, Danish, German, Hindi, Punjab, Romani (as in roma people, not romanian), Spanish, Arabic, Tamil, Japanese and English (scottish).

[Zealot]

I'm always curious as to how English sounds to non-native speakers. I can't imagine it sounding that nice tbh. Probably like German, only less harsh.

I've always wondered this myself

[MarxSchmarx]

I'm always curious as to how English sounds to non-native speakers. I can't imagine it sounding that nice tbh. Probably like German, only less harsh.

Most people I've spoken to say that British English sounds a lot like French and has "a gentle fluidity" to it, at least when compared to American and, to a lesser extent, Australian English. I can kind of see this, the way British English de-emphasizes consonants (e.g., "r" at the end of a word) I think French does this to some extent as well (e.g., "s" at the end of a word and "r" is also more a marker of how to pronounce the consonants around it).

I personally find that Brazilian Portuguese and American English sound very similar. The similarities are particularly stark I think when one listens to Brazilian Portuguese and Spanish, and then American English and Spanish. I've always found that rather interesting, though it's likely coincidental at best.

If I didn't speak English or know its words, I think I would have a hard time recognizing that British, American and Jamaican English (much less Patois or Pidgin) are actually the same language. Aside from Mandarin and Cantonese (which I think quite reasonably are different languages that share a common written vocabulary), I frankly am not aware of another language with such phonetic diversity, except maybe Hatian creole and French. Of course there's quite a bit of overlap (especially regionally - Northeastern American English can sound more like British English and Brits I've met who have lived in America for some time I find adopt many American phonetic patterns).

[Sidagma]

Many South-Asians are trilingual ;)

Yo, this is like my favorite thing about south asia. I know this is partly coincidence, but a lot of the people I speak to from there speak a truly staggering number of languages.

Although I only speak English natively, I also speak Greek as an acquired second language that I've taught myself and I've always been fond of the sound of it. It's incredibly... syllabic, I guess, it actually sounded kind of like Japanese to me at first in terms of the fact that the syllables are well-defined and follow each other in rapid succession, but there are also truly beautiful consonant combinations, that are just uncommon enough to still be special and wonderful. I could write a dissertation on how much I love our word for autumn, φθινόπωρο (fthinoporo), or the letter ψ, which makes a "ps" sound like in the word "elepsis", and is so rare you could almost forget about it. The language makes my mouth feel fluid and competent. It's an honor to speak. And its history is incredibly rich. Occasionally I come across a word like δυνιας, a Greek word for "world", that is an obvious carryover from Greek-speaking Muslims and people exposed to them -- "dunya" is an Arabic word for "world" that is used in diaspora communities in the USA. And oh my god. You guys. THE FRICATIVES.

I HAVE SO
MANY
FEEEELS
about these FRICATIVES.

[Comrade Nasser]

I'm actually envious now. And LOL @ "Allah Babble", Hahahaha

Yeah "Allah Babble" was so funny when I first heard it I keeled over in laughter. Although the person meant it in a derogatory manner lolz :laugh:

[Manulearning]

I like farsi, tried learning it a few years back but my Iranian friend moved away so it became even more difficult to learn without someone to converse with. Anyone on here speak it?


I took classes for it but did not devote time regularly to it, but i am again picking it up soon.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

I like Arabic the best (I speak it fluently and very often so yeah) I've actually heard people say it sounds like "ducks screwing" or "derka derka language" or "blow-up language" or my favorite "Allah babble"

Enough of that, but besides that I think Tagalog sounds cool and Japanese when spoken quickly is like music to my ears.

Where the fuck does 'derka derka' even come from? It's like saying Mandarin sounds like 'ching chong'. There is no sound connection to either. The only language where I think this sort of slander actually makes sense is Dutch - where it's just choking. IKH HACHTEN GLOUDENBOAFTAKHACHAKHTEN.

Semitic languages sound quite beautiful. I had a short spell learning arabic, before failing miserably. It's hard to find a good teacher too, because most in our city also wanted to convert you. :laugh:

[Pretty Flaco]

Spanish, i speak it daily. ;)1

[homegrown terror]

i speak english and spanish, but i can understand about 50-75% of written portuguese, french and italian, and i can make out a little bit of written romanian. i'm hearing impaired, so being able to follow any spoken language other than english or spanish is beyond me. i love to hear things in irish gaelic or russian, even more so if it's a performance that i have a line-for-line translation i can follow along with.

[homegrown terror]

(the one used by Dax Riggs of Acid Bath, for example, which I'm not sure how to classify)

(off topic) my fiance and i met him at a show in nashville, smoked a bit out backstage and all that. it was pretty interesting.


I find Mid-Western American to be a bit grating, honestly.

"have yerself a pahp and yell calm right down, down'cha kno'?"

[Sentinel]

My first language, finnish, sounds ugly and is totally impossible to understand for outsiders, except for estonians and a few half-extinct groups within the Russian federation. It's also related to Hungarian but so remotely that it doesn't really matter.

If it wasn't for a ton of loan words from swedish it would sound like martian to non-speakers. It's also very hard to learn as we 'bend' the words, ie alter the word according to context.

Thus there are a billion different forms of each noun, example:

talo- house
talon - of (a) house / house's
talo / talon - house
taloa - house (as an object)
talossa - in (a) house
talosta - from (a) house
taloon - into (a) house
talolla - at (a) house
talolta - from (a) house
talolle - to (a) house
talona - as a house
talosta - from being a house
taloksi - to a house
taloin - with the houses
taloineen - with the house(s)

So it's very hard to learn other than as a first language - but once you know finnish, it's a fantastically rich, nuanced and beautiful language, with some of the best descriptions, details - and definitely the best insults and swearwords.

This is proven by the fact that people belonging to the swedish speaking minority in Finland, even many of those who refuse to speak finnish otherwise, use finnish cursewords when they really get pissed off. :lol:

While I wouldn't like to move to Finland and generally prefer Sweden in every way, the finnish language is definitely my favourite one of the ones I know (I also speak swedish and english and understand some german).

[Paul Pott]

Is Finnish a lot like an ancient language in that it uses changes to the words rather than word order to convey meaning? Or is that just for some things?

I know Tolkien loved Finnish, and it was an inspiration behind his elvish conlang called Quenya (which he actually used in the books).

[Paul Pott]

I find all of the Romance languages to be neat. I don't really know anything about Romanian, though.

I wish the Celtic languages weren't all but dead.

[Comrade Nasser]

Where the fuck does 'derka derka' even come from? It's like saying Mandarin sounds like 'ching chong'. There is no sound connection to either. The only language where I think this sort of slander actually makes sense is Dutch - where it's just choking. IKH HACHTEN GLOUDENBOAFTAKHACHAKHTEN.

Semitic languages sound quite beautiful. I had a short spell learning arabic, before failing miserably. It's hard to find a good teacher too, because most in our city also wanted to convert you. :laugh:

Well 'derka derka' is popular here in America because of the movie "Team America: World Police" and they are in Egypt at one point and the locals are all speaking Arabic because they are Arabs lol and the main character cant decipher what they are saying and can only make out 'Derka Derka' and 'Alllaaaaaaaaaa Muhammed Jihad'

[Sentinel]

Is Finnish a lot like an ancient language in that it uses changes to the words rather than word order to convey meaning? Or is that just for some things?


I'm not sure how to explain it better, but basically most words are changed in different ways depending on context; nouns, but also verbs and etc.



I know Tolkien loved Finnish, and it was an inspiration behind his elvish conlang called Quenya (which he actually used in the books).


Really, I hadn't heard that. My guess would have been orcish. :grin:

Nah but seriously speaking, I personally do find finnish kind of beautiful, but I think it's mostly as I'm a native speaker. Many swedish for example think both the language, and the accent if speaking swedish, sound strange or even ridiculous (and love to point that out :glare:).

[Rusty Shackleford]

americans dont worry youre not the only ones sucking at foreign languages. brazilians try so hard to learn english bless our hearts but very few actually succeed. and not much else apart from english. i know but a handful of people with a working knowledge of french and maybe a few more who can actually speak spanish. i should note that all brazilians think they speak spanish but few actually do.

a friend of mine form brazil studied spanish in Argentina. She moved to San Francisco CA and had to basically re-learn spanish, if i remember her story right, people thought she was argentinian so i guess it was that obvious compared to mexican or central american spanish. oh and she speaks english too.



As for me.

My first language infatuation was Russian when i was 10 or 11 years old. Why? someone said "Da" in a cartoon to sound cool but he then had to explain it to his friends. I fell for the cool part. What helped with my enthusiasm for study was a crush i had on a Russian girl in my 5th grade class haha. Im hardly fluent but i can read cyrillic generally i basically memorized the alphabet and that hasnt left me yet! Then when i moved to the part of california that i am now in, one of my first friends was Ukranian and cyrillic is not rare but its also not common to see on signs in places. Plus theres this ukranian market in my area which i visit when im near by to get a can of Kvass. Im far too shy with languages to use my Russian though.


My second language was Spanish. In high school i took 2 years of it and more than german or russian, i can actually possibly get by in a conversation depending on the subject. I once had a slow and tedious conversation with a homeless man in spanish in San Francisco when i was waiting for something. Plus i talk to some of my co-workers in spanish on occasion.

My third language is German. Probably the one i like the most just because as far as foreign languages go, it is fucking simple. plus, i love rolling rs and phlegm. it doesnt necessarily sound great but its fun to sing in.

I know a few verses of the Partisan Song and Avantio Popolo in Italian which i LOVE to sing while working because they are just so fun. no one knows what im saying too.

I usually pick of a few words from a few languages. like i asked my co-worker what 'Ng' in tagalog was and i was shocked to find out it was pronounced 'Nang' and meant 'of' i always though it was 'ang' or 'eng' or some forced ng sound (not like the gerund ing sound)



but yeah if i learn a language, i learn to sing in it. even if i have a shit singing voice. i dont care, i love it.


as for Yiddish which i saw a few mentions. I recently have taken a strong liking to it over the last few months. Why? Music. Particularly that Klezmer sound. fuuuuuuuck.



saying 'ik' instead of 'ich' sounds much more fun too.
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Original kRCt0vkDKfY


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[Flying Purple People Eater]

a friend of mine form brazil studied spanish in Argentina. She moved to San Francisco CA and had to basically re-learn spanish, if i remember her story right, people thought she was argentinian so i guess it was that obvious compared to mexican or central american spanish. oh and she speaks english too.



As for me.

My first language infatuation was Russian when i was 10 or 11 years old. Why? someone said "Da" in a cartoon to sound cool but he then had to explain it to his friends. I fell for the cool part. What helped with my enthusiasm for study was a crush i had on a Russian girl in my 5th grade class haha. Im hardly fluent but i can read cyrillic generally i basically memorized the alphabet and that hasnt left me yet! Then when i moved to the part of california that i am now in, one of my first friends was Ukranian and cyrillic is not rare but its also not common to see on signs in places. Plus theres this ukranian market in my area which i visit when im near by to get a can of Kvass. Im far too shy with languages to use my Russian though.


My second language was Spanish. In high school i took 2 years of it and more than german or russian, i can actually possibly get by in a conversation depending on the subject. I once had a slow and tedious conversation with a homeless man in spanish in San Francisco when i was waiting for something. Plus i talk to some of my co-workers in spanish on occasion.

My third language is German. Probably the one i like the most just because as far as foreign languages go, it is fucking simple. plus, i love rolling rs and phlegm. it doesnt necessarily sound great but its fun to sing in.

I know a few verses of the Partisan Song and Avantio Popolo in Italian which i LOVE to sing while working because they are just so fun. no one knows what im saying too.

I usually pick of a few words from a few languages. like i asked my co-worker what 'Ng' in tagalog was and i was shocked to find out it was pronounced 'Nang' and meant 'of' i always though it was 'ang' or 'eng' or some forced ng sound (not like the gerund ing sound)



but yeah if i learn a language, i learn to sing in it. even if i have a shit singing voice. i dont care, i love it.


as for Yiddish which i saw a few mentions. I recently have taken a strong liking to it over the last few months. Why? Music. Particularly that Klezmer sound. fuuuuuuuck.



saying 'ik' instead of 'ich' sounds much more fun too.
6KFVVKFxr60
Original kRCt0vkDKfY


NGCWS0XqQFA


That first song is gold!

[NoOneIsIllegal]

Icelandic is my favorite language. It's one of the hardest to learn in the world, but it's beauty to the ears.

[Rusty Shackleford]

Icelandic is my favorite language. It's one of the hardest to learn in the world, but it's beauty to the ears.

Sigur Ros changed the world for Iceland haha. seriously, them voices.

[Princess Luna]

My favorite langauge is definitely Breton, but before I spend the time to learn it, I want to learn a more "practical" language first, so I settled on Farsi.

[Durruti's friend]

Another language I love - Basque. It's totally unrelated to any other language and is extremely hard to learn but I like it. Maybe I'll start learning it sometime, although I don't have the slightest idea where I could do that :sleep:.

[Narodnik]

Latin. I like it's clarity and simplicity. Reading latin classics without a translation is priceless.

[tuwix]

I don't have favourite language, besides my native one. :) But to be honest the most simplest natural language is English. And it is the best thing what American imperialists imposed on humanity. :)

[Narodnik]

English is nowhere near simple. It has one of the most chaotic set of phonological and orthographical rules, and it being so far on the spectrum of synthetic languages makes it closer to isolating languages like Chinese then to some European languages.

[homegrown terror]

english is a system of cobbling together about five or six different languages and trying to make them all work together. basically, english is linguistic imperialism.

[Philosophos]

I like japanese, esperanto, spanish, french and russian :grin:

[Vanilla]

I love the way French sounds. It is very sing-songy and I'm trying to learn it. I also like the way Dutch sounds; it reminds me of German but it's cuter. To be honest, I've never heard that many languages outside of your basic European ones that are taught in schools.

[Rugged Collectivist]

English is okay but to me it's the "default" language so I can't really appreciate it the same way I can other languages. It's nearly impossible for me to focus on the sound of English because all I hear are the words. If that makes sense.

I really like Turkish and I want to learn it because it's beautiful. I feel like I should learn Spanish instead because it's more practical.

I like Russian and German because they sound powerful. I like Latin because it sounds really cool. I like Japanese because it flows really well and I like Chinese because it doesn't flow well.