What do foreign languages sound like to you?

  • Lingusitics
  • Thread starter Sophia
  • Start date
  • Tags
    Sound
In summary: I don't know, but it's related to Mongolian?Turkish is not.Japanese and Chinese are not related.Spanish, French, Italian, German, and Danish are all Romance languages.Japanese and Chinese are not related.
  • #36
Samy_A said:
For me it's almost the same. I have trouble with Danish, Dutch, Swedish and Norwegian, because they have just enough in common with Dutch that I understand a word here or there. But not enough in common to allow me to make sense of it.
Don't you have to learn some of the other languages in school? As far as I know there are four official languages there.
 
Science news on Phys.org
  • #37
The official language of Malaysia is Malaysian. But kids aren't required to learn it in school. Tamil and Chinese Malaysians have their own schools. So English is the only language almost everyone understands
 
  • #38
Swedish sounds like something recorded and played backward.
 
  • #39
fresh_42 said:
Don't you have to learn some of the other languages in school? As far as I know there are four official languages there.
Three official languages.
Normally you learn Dutch, French and English in the Flemish and French schools. In the German schools obviously German, and I assume also French and English (don't know for sure, maybe they also have Dutch).
Of course some pupils learn additional optional languages.
But I don't believe many Belgian schools teach one of the Scandinavian languages.
 
  • #40
Samy_A said:
Three official languages.
Normally you learn Dutch, French and English in the Flemish and French schools. In the German schools obviously German, and I assume also French and English (don't know for sure, maybe they also have Dutch).
Of course some pupils learn additional optional languages.
But I don't believe many Belgian schools teach one of the Scandinavian languages.
What about letzeburgisch?
 
  • #41
Hornbein said:
Swedish sounds like something recorded and played backward.
That's exactly what I was thinking about the Czech version of Wabash Cannonball I just posted!

fresh_42 said:
Gruezi. Are you a fan of the famous Swiss group ABBA, too?
Canada plus Swiss? You're cherry picking, don't you?
haha, yes!.. mostly by luck I got to say.
I do like a few Abba songs, but to say I'm a fan would be an overstatement.. I do like Schwitzerorgli and traditional Swiss music, though I get my fill of it quickly.
 
  • #42
fresh_42 said:
What about letzeburgisch?
Not an official language in Belgium, though used in a few communes along the border with Luxembourg. No idea whether it is taught in the schools in these communes.
 
  • #43
Rx7man said:
I do like a few Abba songs, but to say I'm a fan would be an overstatement.. I do like Schwitzerorgli and traditional Swiss music, though I get my fill of it quickly.
In case you're homesick:
 
  • #44
Hornbein said:
The official language of Malaysia is Malaysian. But kids aren't required to learn it in school. Tamil and Chinese Malaysians have their own schools. So English is the only language almost everyone understands

That's interesting. I have friends from Malaysia and they have told me that all schools are required to teach Bahasa Malaysia (i.e. the Malay language) in their schools, at least as a second language even in the Chinese, Tamil, or English-language schools (although I was told that English is the common lingua franca among the different ethnic groups).

So I assume that you are from Malaysia then?
 
  • #45
StatGuy2000 said:
That's interesting. I have friends from Malaysia and they have told me that all schools are required to teach Bahasa Malaysia (i.e. the Malay language) in their schools, at least as a second language even in the Chinese, Tamil, or English-language schools (although I was told that English is the common lingua franca among the different ethnic groups).

So I assume that you are from Malaysia then?

I've been there a lot. You know how it goes when kids are required to learn something.
 
  • #46
OK, I hate to go nuclear but...



This is English.
 
  • Like
Likes Sophia
  • #47
Vanadium 50 said:
OK, I hate to go nuclear but...
This is English.
I made it until 0:27. In which country was it?
 
  • #48
fresh_42 said:
I made it until 0:27

Oh, but it gets better. And better still!

It's Bulgarian.
 
  • #49
Vanadium 50 said:
OK, I hate to go nuclear but...



This is English.


So is this.



I like it like that.

In east Asia books are often sold with English titles ever if they aren't in English. I never understood that. It would be like selling English books in the US with Chinese titles.

South Korean pop music is often a mixture of Korean and English. It's not unusual for the artists to speak English perfectly.
 
  • #50
And I always thought this was weird:



But I'd put him to Italy. Until I looked it up: Ohio.

Edit: @Vanadium 50 I've now made it till the end. That was really mean. But my toothache doesn't feel so bad anymore.
 
  • #52
  • Like
Likes OCR
  • #54
Hornbein said:
The song that made crowdsourced software pop idol Hatsune Miku a star.

This... ?
 
  • #55
Here's the misheard lyrics of Nightwish - Wishmaster (I think they're swedish?)
 
  • Like
Likes Sophia and HossamCFD
  • #56
 
  • Like
Likes Sophia
  • #57
Rx7man said:
Here's the misheard lyrics of Nightwish - Wishmaster (I think they're swedish?)


As I've thought: Nightwish are Finnish! (The crazy punks among the Scandinavian people. The Swedish are more the pop musicians. Long live prejudices!)
 
  • Like
Likes Sophia
  • #58
DrClaude said:


During the past 100 years USA English has become an extremely throaty language. Mandarin is the opposite: the sounds are produced at the teeth, or seemingly in the air in front of the teeth.

To speak Indian languages or Indonesian pull your tongue in. In Indonesian use your nose a lot, but not in India.
 
  • #59
OCR said:
This... ?

You bet. Here's Levan Polka as interpreted by Adolph Hitler.

 
  • Like
Likes Tosh5457
  • #60
I don't know what flavor of 'chinese' this is, Cantonese, Mandarin, or other, but it's a pretty good laugh too..

 
  • #61
I think it's Madarin.
 
  • #62
Whenever I don't understand the language, I always hope that the other person will speak louder and slower...
(see about 8:25)
 
  • #63
Silicon Waffle said:
I think it's Madarin.
My best friend moved to Taiwan and learned Mandarin.. He's actually the guy who showed me that video about 10 years ago, before he started learning it... I'll have to send it to him again and see if he can translate now :)
 
  • #64
Choppy said:
Whenever I don't understand the language, I always hope that the other person will speak louder and slower...
This is so oh true.
 
  • #65
German seems angry all the time, and French sounds snob :biggrin: Nordic countries languages I find odd and interesting. Russian sounds oddly like European Portuguese, if I'm distracted I could mistake someone on a public transport speaking Russian as speaking Portuguese, since the sounds are very similar. On the other hand, Spanish is a very similar language to Portuguese, in vocabulary, but sounds totally different (sounds more similar to Brazilian Portuguese).
 
Last edited:

Similar threads

Lingusitics Sounds of g and c in Romance languages (and some of English)
Replies
9
Views
3K
Lingusitics Learning to comprehend a foreign language.
Replies
17
Views
4K
Lingusitics Do Foreign Languages Really Sound Faster to Non-Speakers?
Replies
12
Views
4K
I have to take a foreign language
Replies
5
Views
2K
What American English Sounds Like to Non-English Speakers
Replies
4
Views
6K
Lingusitics Language & Thought: Can It Determine Reasoning?
Replies
6
Views
2K
Which Second Language Should a Physicist Learn for International Collaboration?
Replies
7
Views
3K
Foreign Language over the summer?
Replies
1
Views
2K
Which foreign languages to learn as a mathematician?
Replies
14
Views
5K
How many foreign languages can you take at once?
Replies
1
Views
1K

Hot Threads

Recent Insights

Back
Top