Beautiful Languages

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Michelle on January 9, 2012 at 6:16pm

I think this is an interesting subject as well :) I told one of my friends that I was learning Korean, which I think sounds better than Chinese (fluent--my parents are from China) because it just seems..I don't really know how to describe it..softer? However, my friend was taken aback, and she said, "Are you serious? I don't like the way Korean sounds--Japanese is so much better. Learn that instead." And..I don't like the way Japanese sounds. lol. I think it's just a matter of preference. Of course, this is assuming that "beautiful" regards sound, rather than syntax. 

Permalink Reply by Sawssen Turki on April 20, 2012 at 3:15pm

hey Michelle !

I do agree wih you .. well last year we had a korean student called " Kim seongwan" in the university in the arabic departement !! he was studying the arabic language and we became friends.. we had a deal " I helped him learning and practising both arabic and english " and he taught me a bit of korean !! it was great, I did enjoyed speaking Korean, some of my friends thought I was "babo" and weird when speaking !! :D but I can tell you it was totally worthed !

beautiful languages when you do enjoy practising and learning them!

cheers :)

Permalink Reply by Olivia Baker on January 9, 2012 at 6:56pm

I think all languages are beautiful, but I definitely have preferences when it comes to sounds and the way languages work. I prefer languages that don't sound pretentious, but have a natural flow to them.

For example, I dislike French and British English. French sounds really pretentious and whiny. But, that doesn't mean French is a bad language, I've taking it for 4 years and France is a beautiful country and many nations across the world speak French. British English is my least favorite dialect/accent of English. 

But, I don't really /dislike/ many languages. Portuguese, Korean, Japanese, Scandinavian languages (Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Icelandic,) and Turkish (lovelovelovelovelove) are my all-time favorites. I love the SOV structure, but I think those languages have a nice sound to them. They just flow off the tongue.

It's just a matter of taste and I don't think having a preference is wrong, I think letting it get in the way of where you want to go culturally is not the best idea. All languages intrigue me and I hope to spend time in Latin American someday (a far-off dream) so I will probably learn Spanish although it's not my favorite language, I'll learn any language wherever I go because learning the language is important to learning the culture.

Permalink Reply by Michelle on January 9, 2012 at 11:25pm

I love SOV as well :) I think it makes talking easier. Many people get stuck on the verb conjugations, but if you have the subject and object, you've got 2/3s of the sentence and it's not grammatically incorrect until the verb is said wrong :)

Permalink Reply by Christa on January 10, 2012 at 12:27am

I honestly find just about every new language I hear to sound beautiful :) but I've always preferred Middle and Far East languages over Western ones in general. Especially I guess a lot of the more common Romance/Latin languages (Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, etc.) because of the aspects of them that are similar to English and each other, and I find a completely clean slate really refreshing to the ears and to learn, lol. I think, even though I still find them very beautiful and interesting in their own right, they are my least preferred for their sound and linguistic structure and how much fun I find learning them, for whatever reason.

As far as Western languages, I prefer the sound of/learning Germanic languages (including my own English! those similarities I don't mind as much, I dunno) and particular North Germanic languages (all those Scandinavian ones, basically) and again, I just love, love, love the way they sound. I want to learn German and Norwegian quite badly xD I used to know quite a bit of Norwegian when I was a lot younger, but...use it or lose it ):

Far East languages <3 I want to learn them all. But I don't know much about them besides Japanese and Chinese. I love the sentence structure of both. I once saw someone say that because of Japanese being SOV where the action is revealed last it's like every sentence is a mystery until the end about what was actually happening. I think that's an apt and amusing way of putting what's cool about it! My brother thinks Japanese sounds so much more beautiful than Chinese and that Chinese isn't that beautiful at all, but I think Chinese sounds amazing and every word is a little song and all put together it's just a lyrical language. I do love the way everything flows so much in Japanese though. I also really admire the Chinese language's way of description. Everything is so intricate, beautiful and metaphorical. They have the most amazing poetry <3 And the grammar is so clear and 'common sense' to me, the tones a pain to learn but why it's so musical, and the written language the most fascinating and beautiful I've seen - but that's kinda off-topic :/

I love British English (probably from watching too much Doctor Who) more for the words and the way it's spoken than the accent itself. Maybe it sound pretentious, I dunno? lol

And for some reason I adore Scottish accents. I wish I knew more about languages in the Middle East, India, Turkic languages but I love the way they sound also and would love to study them one day.

In conclusion, I wrote way too much! But I just love languages in general :)

Permalink Reply by Nina Wilson on January 11, 2012 at 11:14pm

I like Scandinavian languages too! I visited Iceland this year, and that is an amazing language. I was trying to pinpoint what it is I like about the ones I mentioned before, I think it's something about how the melody changes....that's what I like about British English. Turkish is cool too :)

Permalink Reply by Allie Campbell on January 15, 2012 at 12:51pm

All languages are beautiful, and very unique in their own way :) There are some I prefer more than others, but it really just depends on your taste. :) maybe you like more European languages--like me! Or maybe you like Spanish.

Each language holds its own beauty :)

Permalink Reply by Lily Feldman on January 15, 2012 at 4:55pm

Personally, I love written Chinese - the way you can trace characters back to their origins as true pictographs is so cool (and when I say cool, I mean both fascinating and beautiful). I also like that Chinese grammar tends to be really easy (yay, no conjugations!). I don't think there are any "ugly" sounding languages - although American English is often kind of dumb. :)

Permalink Reply by Tia Ajauna on January 18, 2012 at 10:16pm

Okay for the most part I agree with the comment with most languages that aren't your own are automatically cool, because they are unique, but I must admit I do have favorites. I love the Roma (gypsy) language spoken throughout Europe. That culture itself is just amazing to me. I also love Spanish and Portuguese b/c I speak English and Spanish and so if some one speaks Portuguese to me I get the just of what they are trying to say, but at the same time with the languages I already know (esp Spanish) there are times where because of dialect accent and overall the region one may be from, there can be alot of things lost in translation, yet unlike Nina my fave Spanish accent is Carribean (Cuban to be more specific) but thats just me. I love the accents of Westenized cultures just because there never is just one for each country. England has many accents that are never given credit when I witness Americans try to mimic, but even in America we range in accents and even dialect based on region like the New York/New Jersey accent is nothing like a country or Valley Girl accent (the American accent stereotypes). Just recently on vacation I encountered a Dutch family, which was really cool b/c the mom was African, father's ancestry was only from the Netherlands, and the uncles ranged from being middle eastern etc. and daughter raised in America, but they all had different accents even when they all spoke Dutch, which I found to be a great conclusion that any language can be even more unique based on whose speaking it and other factors like I recommend listening to Hip-Hop in another language (me and my friends like to rap in other languages when we are bored) and you can never look at it the same.

Permalink Reply by Jessica Mitchell on January 24, 2012 at 9:53pm

German? I have a friend who's German and even she doesn't like how it sounds! I think Welsh and other Celtic languages are really over-rated. Swahili has lovely musicality to it. French is the most beautiful romance language, but I like Italian too. Hands down, Polish is the best sounding language of all time. Slavic languages are so underappreciated! Chacun ses goûts!

Permalink Reply by muna sarhan sando on January 25, 2012 at 7:43pm

اعتقد انه لمهم ان يكون المرء ملما باكثر من لغة لانه سوف دائما يملك شعور الثقافي والثقة لانه يتقن اكثر من لغة وكل اللغات لهاميزة خاصة ومن الذكاء الوصول لهذه الميزة والتوفيق للجميع احب اللغة الفرنسية ومشاهدة الاغاني والافلام الهندية والغة الايطالية واكثر اتمنى اتقانها بطلاقة متناهية هي الانكليزيةز

Permalink Reply by Zahid Hussein on January 27, 2012 at 3:03am

Greetings from Lahore, Pakistan.

For me, to say which language is the most beautiful, I have to first really know a language to give an answer. I know English, Urdu, Punjabi (mother tongue), Farsi (Persian). I can safely say Farsi is the most beautiful language!

Farsi is backed by thousands-of-years old Iranian culture. It has a centuries-old historic relationship with the Indo-Pak subcontinent. Farsi  is euphonious, melodious, lilting, soft to hear and speak and a joy to read.

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