Language sounds

[AJBryant]

When I was in Japan, I had a friend who'd lived in Holland. (We made the usual "rangaku learning" jokes, of course.) She described Dutch as "German, with a speech impediment."


Tony

[guitarplayer7694]

If I could be granted with the knowledge of languages of my choosing it would be German, Russian, and Japaneses I like the rough sound of German and Russian, and Japaneses has just always drawn me.

[kayuu]

Dutch has some crazy sounds. What's with that ch sound they make with their throats? It's insane, I spent some time learning Dutch but it's just not physically possible for me to make that sound. When I listen to Japanese I don't think it seems to flow together as much as, say, the romance languages. However - English is, after all, a Germanic language and so it seems to flow in the same kind of way as German and Dutch.

[shades_of_ben]

funny, i've always found that "ch" sound easy to make. it's used alot in hebrew (another beautiful language in my opinion). i don't know an ounce of hebrew, but i would love to learn it.

[chikara]

tanuki wrote:
English sounds different depending on the dialect. Some British and Australian dialects (and maybe some American dialects) sound like the speaker has a potato in their mouth.

A potato or a plum?

speak with a plum in your mouth (British & Australian)
"If someone speaks with a plum in their mouth, they speak in a way that shows they are from a very high social group"

People who speak with a plum in their mouth are generally wankers

I agree that English certainly sounds different depending on the dialect or nationality of the speaker. To me English spoken by the Irish is almost melodic where as English spoken by the people from certain parts of the USA is almost grating to my ear.

[Gundaetiapo]

Here's a site with sample voice acting in different languages.