UniLang

I'm sick of hearing which is the most beautiful/cultured/romantic language in the world. (Hint: it's Italian, French or Francotalian.). Let's hear which ones you can't stand the mere sight and sound of.

I'm going to have to go with Vietnamese (sorry, it just sounds bad), Portuguese and Mandarin. Interestingly that's a big part of why I like the latter two.

Talib wrote:I'm sick of hearing which is the most beautiful/cultured/romantic language in the world. (Hint: it's Italian, French or Francotalian.). Let's hear which ones you can't stand the mere sight and sound of.

I'm going to have to go with Vietnamese (sorry, it just sounds bad), Portuguese and Mandarin. Interestingly that's a big part of why I like the latter two.

I think Portuguese, Vietnamese and Cantonese all sound pretty bad. Mandarin I like, but not Cantonese.

For me, no Asian language sounds nice. The only exception would be Japanese. It doesn't sound ugly, just very annoying.

Formiko, are you talking about European Portuguese or Brazilian Portuguese? The latest can't sound ugly! Hehe. Well, European Portuguese sounds like Russian and I love Slavic languages, so I like it too.

Damn, I forgot Cantonese. It's even worse than Mandarin.

Formiko, are you talking about European Portuguese or Brazilian Portuguese? The latest can't sound ugly! Hehe.

Both sound bad to me in their own way. Have you ever heard caipira speech?

I find Norwegian, Hindi/Urdu, Indonesian/Malay, Cushitic languages, Basque, Dutch, Polish and Breton tough on my ears. I also really detest languages with enormous phoneme inventories, like the Khoi-san family, Salishan family etc., they just drive me crazy.

Also, I just want to say that I seem to love the languages that people seem to dislike. Case in point: Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese...the list goes on.

Talib wrote:Both sound bad to me in their own way. Have you ever heard caipira speech?

Yes, I have. Many languages can sound both nice and ugly, Ithink. Spanish and Portuguese, for example. A big deal depends on the person who speaks.

Norwegian is my favourite language, ILuvEire. I really like the sound of most Germanic languages. Maybe not all them sound "pretty" but they do sound very attractive to me. Even Danish.

Arabic.
Turkish.
Spanish.
Catalan.
French.
Hindi/Urdu.
Korean.
Swedish.
Tonal languages.

Curse them, we hates them >:{

I tend to find beauty in a lot of languages that most do not; the only language I've really thought was downright unpleasant sounding in general is Hungarian. It always sounds very halting, like it's being played on a CD that keeps skipping; it's nothing special to look at either. I've also found myself largely unimpressed with Norwegian despite the fact that I think Swedish is extremely beautiful and like Germanic languages in general.

Also, it's hard for me to have an objective viewpoint as it's my native language, but I think English is going down a bad road in both sight and sound. I really like the sound (as best as we can figure) of Old English as well as the ways it's most commonly written, but it's pretty much been downhill from there.

Oh and French is way overrated.

Danish (!), Dutch (!), Swedish, Russian, Norwegian, Polish, Hebrew, Tagalog, Malay, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Arabic, Turkish, Gujarati, Hindi...

I could go on and on... Here are some of the languages I find very unattractive.

I can find something I like about how most languages sound except: Hebrew, Chinese, Arabic, Dutch, Italian.

Also, I just want to say that I seem to love the languages that people seem to dislike. Case in point: Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese...the list goes on.

Maybe you just like tonal languages? I don't mind Chinese in small doses, but after a while it starts to get really grating. But Vietnamese (and other Southeast Asian languages) is just awful. Plus it's an eyesore.

Yes, I have. Many languages can sound both nice and ugly, Ithink. Spanish and Portuguese, for example. A big deal depends on the person who speaks.

I'm going to have to call shenanigans on this one. While Spanish can occasionally sound mincing and lispy, Portuguese almost always sounds bad to me. I think it's mainly that gross r.

Arabic.
Turkish.
Spanish.
Catalan.
French.
Hindi/Urdu.
Korean.
Swedish.
Tonal languages.

What do you like then? Over half of the world's languages are tonal.

Everyone thinks Hindi sounds horrible I'm sad now because Im learning a bad sounding language


Okay Languages I cant stand are: Dutch, German, Spainish, French, Italian, Latin, Russian, Chinese, Norwegian, Icelandic, Danish, Sweedish, Jappanese, Korean, Portuguesse, thai, Veitnamese and hebrew.

thoughtsafar wrote:I tend to find beauty in a lot of languages that most do not; the only language I've really thought was downright unpleasant sounding in general is Hungarian. It always sounds very halting, like it's being played on a CD that keeps skipping; it's nothing special to look at either. I've also found myself largely unimpressed with Norwegian despite the fact that I think Swedish is extremely beautiful and like Germanic languages in general.

Also, it's hard for me to have an objective viewpoint as it's my native language, but I think English is going down a bad road in both sight and sound. I really like the sound (as best as we can figure) of Old English as well as the ways it's most commonly written, but it's pretty much been downhill from there.

Oh and French is way overrated.

Ooh, I just love English. Old English is okay, I don't love it as much as some seem to, but Middle English? Early Modern English? Most dialects of modern English? Oh yeah, that's the best

Talib wrote:

Yes, I have. Many languages can sound both nice and ugly, Ithink. Spanish and Portuguese, for example. A big deal depends on the person who speaks.

I'm going to have to call shenanigans on this one. While Spanish can occasionally sound mincing and lispy, Portuguese almost always sounds bad to me. I think it's mainly that gross r.

Talib, you make me sad, Portuguese is so gorgeous. But anyway, I know what you mean, applying it to a language I really don't like. It's like, even if it's being spoken by a gorgeous guy, he still sounds like he's regurgitating and that is not sexy.

Stawrberry wrote:Catalan.

you're definitely deaf. j/k.

Anyone not liking Latin does not have a heart in their chest.

Languages I find ugly: Hebrew. Polish. Czech.

Danish is ugly but in a very cute way.

Well I can get used to any language given enough time, however, going on first impressions, languages which will probably never sound "good" to me (because nothing will really sound awful)

1/ Kannada it just sounds so shithouse. Ew.

certain dialects of arabic; french (srsly, why do people even like you?); most dialects of spanish; viet; Brazilian portuguese (true portuguese sounds sexig); flemish; certain dialects of swedish; bavarian & swiss german; heavily dialectal hungarian; Most slavic languages (special mention to russian, czech, and formerly polish which I hated even more than czech for a while); English (really, I just fundamentally hate english); Navajo and most indian languages south of North US; thai; the aboriginal languages. The list goes on, clearly aesthetics are not a big thing for me.

English, especially British English
Arabic
Chinese
…

I find no language horribly ugly, and the beauty also depends on the speaker. But I'm not fond of Arabic, Dutch and Danish. However I don't know how many languages sound: some people mentioned native American or Indian languages, but I couldn't recognize them.

And unlike some people here, I like Swedish, Japanese and Czech.

''' wrote:Brazilian portuguese (true portuguese sounds sexig)

-looking for my gun-

To all those who don't like Norwegian: I know where you live.
You obviously know in your hearts that this is the coolest language.

Talib wrote:I'm going to have to go with Vietnamese (sorry, it just sounds bad)

You'll never be able to like it if all you watch is Paris By Night and crappy Vietnamese comedy. See how it's rated as one of the better-sounding languages of Asia, just because the sample sounds good. How a language appeals depends just as greatly on the speaker as on that language's phonetic inventory.

Some languages however simply get on my nerve no matter what, with the people speaking them largely to blame: redneck/chav/bogan English (speakers are stupid), Indian English (many speakers are nigh-incomprehensible), Mandarin (speakers are incredibly pushy, non-apologetic and just spit Mandarin into my face without asking where I'm from first), most socio-dialects of Vietnamese (speakers are petty and tragic) etc.

I find Norwegian, Hindi/Urdu, Indonesian/Malay, Cushitic languages, Basque, Dutch, Polish and Breton tough on my ears.

Are you sure you've heard enough of Breton? There are many different dialects and accents, and I think you can't say you hate the sound of Breton if you haven't heard all of them.


The languages that don't sound nice to my ears are Spain standard Spanish, Standard German, several dialects of English (esp. American ones), Mandarin, Danish, Standard French...