# German vs. French



## SiegendesLicht

Pick the language you like better, for whatever reasons, musical or nonmusical.


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## mamascarlatti

I grew up in France (and Switzerland) and speak the language so I'd have to pick French. I'm a long way away from there but got the opportunity to go back in June and it felt like home.


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## Art Rock

Fluent in German, a status I never reached with french even though we lived there for two years.


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## Manxfeeder

I prefer French, but I wish I were fluent in German. A ton of the great sacred works are in German, and I dislike having to stare at librettos with imprecise translations. 

As for French, I remember once someone asked a renouned linguist what his favorite word was. He immediately said, 
"Fr-o-o-o-m-a-a-a-ge." Leave it to the French to have a beautiful word for something as basic as cheese.


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## Art Rock

For the French, cheese is definitely not basic - it is to be savored in all its variations.


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## presto

In vocal music, especially the baroque, French is so much more fluent and natural sounding.
I've always found the German language awkward and ugly with music.
The only composer that seems to transcend this successfully is the great JS Bach.


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## mamascarlatti

I really would love to understand German as there are often great interviews in the German press.


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## Lenfer

Languages I speak in order of preference:

French, Italian, Spanish, English, Dutch, Flemish, German and lastly Romansh. 

I also know a little Yiddish but don't ask me to say anything please. I also did Latin at school but I don't claim to remember it.


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## Lenfer

mamascarlatti said:


> I really would love to understand German as there are often great interviews in the German press.


It's never to late to learn *Mama* a cheap book from *Amazon* and off you go.  There are a lot of German interviews of the classical kind on *YouTube* well worth watching if you know a little German.


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## Ramako

Every time they sing "Niiiiiiibelung" I always have to smile.



"Niiibelung"

But other than that one word I prefer french.


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## SiegendesLicht

Just my $0.02, don't buy that _Rosetta Stone _course. From what I've heard about it, it is ridicilously overpriced and not all that helpful.


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## Ramako

SiegendesLicht said:


> Just my $0.02, don't buy that _Rosetta Stone _course. From what I've heard about it, it is ridicilously overpriced and not all that helpful.


My language learning capabilities are only matched by my love of popular musical genres. I learnt French for 12 years and I can barely go to the supermarket on holiday there. I'm not learning either at this stage I think.


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## SiegendesLicht

As for myself, I am a hopeless, incurable Germanophile, both as concerns music and the language as such (in fact I fell in love with the language a bit earlier before I fell in love with Wagner). I am listening to parts of _Siegfried_ right now and cannot detect any ugliness whatsoever


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## Lenfer

SiegendesLicht said:


> Just my $0.02, don't buy that _Rosetta Stone _course. From what I've heard about it, it is ridicilously overpriced and not all that helpful.


I agree with *Siegey* it won't teach you anything that a book or audio CD/mp3 can't for much cheaper.


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## Manxfeeder

Lenfer said:


> I agree with *Siegey* it won't teach you anything that a book or audio CD/mp3 can't for much cheaper.


Thanks, both of you! I've always felt guilty for not shelling out big bucks for that.


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## moody

presto said:


> In vocal music, especially the baroque, French is so much more fluent and natural sounding.
> I've always found the German language awkward and ugly with music.
> The only composer that seems to transcend this successfully is the great JS Bach.


Oh no! what about Schubert's lieder?


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## StlukesguildOhio

Well... let's see. Speaking purely in musical terms I love French mélodies... Berlioz, Gabriel Fauré, Debussy, Ravel, Poulenc, etc... I am also starting to dig deeper into French Romantic opera: Massenet, Bizet, Chabrier, Berlioz, Gounod, Offenbach, etc... as well as older operas in French: Rossini's _Guillaume Tell_, Gluck's _Iphigénie en Aulide, Armide, Alceste, Echo et Narcisse_, and _Orphée et Euridice_ as well as the operas of Lully and Rameau.

Having said this... on the side of German-language music we have the cantatas of Bach and Buxtehude, Mozart's _Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Der Schauspieldirektor_, and _Die Zauberflöte_. Joseph Haydn's _Die Schöpfung, Die Jahreszeiten_, and _Die sieben letzten Worte unseres Erlösers am Kreuze_, Beethoven's lieder, _Fidelio_, and of course _Ode an die Freude_, Schubert's lieder, Schumann's lieder, Carl Maria von Weber's _Der Freischütz_, Hugo Wolf's lieder, Johannes Brahms' lieder and _Ein deutsches Requiem_, Richard Wagner's operas, Gustav Mahler's orchestral songs and vocal passages from the symphonies, Richard Strauss' operas, lieder, and orchestral songs, the operettas of Johann Strauss II, Franz von Suppé, and Franz Lehár, Arnoold Schoenberg's Gurrelieder, Alban Berg's lieder as well as _Wozzeck_ and _Lulu_, Joseph Marx lieder, orchestral and choral songs, Engelbert Humperdinck's _Hänsel und Gretel_, Erich Korngold's _Die tote Stadt_ and _Das Wunder der Heliane_, Alexander von Zemlinsky's _Der Traumgörge, Eine florentinische Tragödie, Der Zwerg_, etc..., Franz Schreker's Die Gezeichneten and Der Schatzgräber, etc..., Hans Pfitzner's _Palestrina_, operas and other vocal works by Kurt Weill, Paul Hindemith, Ernst Krenek...

I have to go with the Germans


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## Squirrel

I voted for German, but then I would do because I'm a Wagnerphile 

A slightly different subject I've been thinking about...in a certain respect, can you appreciate singing more when it is performed in a language you are not as naturally familiar with as your own? As I listen to Wagner's operas on CD, I sometimes feel a bit like a devout but illiterate medieval person being mystified and entranced by a religious service in Latin...there is something "magical" about the whole performance. Could an English opera have quite the same effect on me? I'm not so sure.


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## MaestroViolinist

SiegendesLicht said:


> Just my $0.02, don't buy that _Rosetta Stone _course. From what I've heard about it, it is ridicilously overpriced and not all that helpful.


Almost got Rosetta Stone, but got this other thing instead, which is called 2speaklanguages or something. Learning Russian. Then Italian.


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## Sid James

French, or any Latin language, basically sounds better sung than German. The old cliche is compare their words for butterfly. Papillon versus schmetterling.


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## Lenfer

Sid James said:


> French, or any Latin language, basically sounds better sung than German. The old cliche is compare their words for butterfly. Papillon versus schmetterling.












The French thank you *Sid*. ​


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## StlukesguildOhio

French, or any Latin language, basically sounds better sung than German.

And French, Spanish, and Italian all sound far more poetic and fluid than not only German... but also English... and yet the English language has produced an unrivaled wealth of great literature. It's not the instrument that matters... but what use it is put to.


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## Sid James

^^English is probably the most durable. Being the international language, and also adaptable to more popular forms - not only rock but also musical theatre. Its wierd that English in musicals sounds quite natural to me (or in some modern things like Gershwin's 'Porgy and Bess,') but not so much in opera.


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## mamascarlatti

Lenfer said:


> There are a lot of German interviews of the classical kind on *YouTube* well worth watching if you know a little German.


Yes I follow this route and see what I can puzzle out and then look up some words I don't know. But I'm not systematic enough about it. Too many other calls on my time.


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## elgar's ghost

Both French and German are connected one way or another with the English language but when it comes to music I have no preference for any language. Some folk dislike Germanic (and Slavic) tongues because they're supposed to be 'harder' as regards consonant emphasis and less free-flowing than French or other Romantic languages but I think there's beauty in all of them. 

I'd be interested to see some comments from our non-British Isles/North America/Australasia members who speak English well if they think English sounds to them like any other Western European language when spoken - being English I can't see it objectively or subjectively but I'm guessing that on the ear it might slightly resemble Dutch if anything at all.


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## Couchie

I am learning German. Unfortunately I am horribly ungifted at learning languages.

French is perhaps the ugliest language. Horrible, runny, monotonous gibberish. And public announcements take twice as long as they need to be... first English, then French... not to mention when you're at the supermarket and the damn French label is facing the aisle so you don't know what it is!


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## Cnote11

I happen to think English is quite the beautiful language.


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## dionisio

Couchie said:


> I am learning German. Unfortunately I am horribly ungifted at learning languages.


Me too! I speak portuguese, english, french and i'm learning german.

Portuguese is my native language. English is universal. I worked in France almost a yeat and i learned it by myself. Unfortunately i''ve forgotten some french, i can still read and have small talk.

I'm studying german because i'm thinking about moving to Germany to work.

I don't have any favourite languages (if i had i'd say mine, because is the one i know better)


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## moody

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Well... let's see. Speaking purely in musical terms I love French mélodies... Berlioz, Gabriel Fauré, Debussy, Ravel, Poulenc, etc... I am also starting to dig deeper into French Romantic opera: Massenet, Bizet, Chabrier, Berlioz, Gounod, Offenbach, etc... as well as older operas in French: Rossini's _Guillaume Tell_, Gluck's _Iphigénie en Aulide, Armide, Alceste, Echo et Narcisse_, and _Orphée et Euridice_ as well as the operas of Lully and Rameau.
> 
> Having said this... on the side of German-language music we have the cantatas of Bach and Buxtehude, Mozart's _Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Der Schauspieldirektor_, and _Die Zauberflöte_. Joseph Haydn's _Die Schöpfung, Die Jahreszeiten_, and _Die sieben letzten Worte unseres Erlösers am Kreuze_, Beethoven's lieder, _Fidelio_, and of course _Ode an die Freude_, Schubert's lieder, Schumann's lieder, Carl Maria von Weber's _Der Freischütz_, Hugo Wolf's lieder, Johannes Brahms' lieder and _Ein deutsches Requiem_, Richard Wagner's operas, Gustav Mahler's orchestral songs and vocal passages from the symphonies, Richard Strauss' operas, lieder, and orchestral songs, the operettas of Johann Strauss II, Franz von Suppé, and Franz Lehár, Arnoold Schoenberg's Gurrelieder, Alban Berg's lieder as well as _Wozzeck_ and _Lulu_, Joseph Marx lieder, orchestral and choral songs, Engelbert Humperdinck's _Hänsel und Gretel_, Erich Korngold's _Die tote Stadt_ and _Das Wunder der Heliane_, Alexander von Zemlinsky's _Der Traumgörge, Eine florentinische Tragödie, Der Zwerg_, etc..., Franz Schreker's Die Gezeichneten and Der Schatzgräber, etc..., Hans Pfitzner's _Palestrina_, operas and other vocal works by Kurt Weill, Paul Hindemith, Ernst Krenek...
> 
> I have to go with the Germans


I will just point out to both you and Squirrel that I'm sure he means the sound of the languages.


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## SiegendesLicht

Well, I would like to clarify too, that it is the sound of the language that I like the most about German


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## appoggiatura

I speak French and I love it! It's such a rich, romantic language... I get automatically butterflies in the stomach when I hear French songs. Fauré mélodies, Mon coeur s'ouvre à ta voix etc... But perhaps that is also because I know a handsome French man who sang Fauré so beautifully 

So... I voted for French but I like German as well (thanks to schubert's winterreise!)
I'm learning German


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## Lukecash12

German, because I prefer their literature.


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## presto

Lenfer said:


> Languages I speak in order of preference:
> 
> French, Italian, Spanish, English, Dutch, Flemish, German and lastly Romansh.
> 
> I also know a little Yiddish but don't ask me to say anything please. I also did Latin at school but I don't claim to remember it.


I still struggle to just speak English. :lol:


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## Lenfer

presto said:


> I still struggle to just speak English. :lol:


My family are pretty "European". They're all over the place and growing up where I did help.

French is still in the lead I see. 










*As you can see I'm not bias in anyway.​*​


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## Xaltotun

Europe is nothing but the French/German dynamic, so there can't be one without the other; we necessarily need both. I have the greatest respect for the French but my heart beats in German; the heart wins.

Oh, we were talking about languages, not nation-souls? Well, that's the higher reality that the languages reflect, so my point stays.


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## MaestroViolinist

I am still undecided... I like German, but French sounds nicer I think. Meh, I'll go with German.


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## Lukecash12

MaestroViolinist said:


> I am still undecided... I like German, but French sounds nicer I think. Meh, I'll go with German.


For me, the spirit of it works more on me than the sound. French is dripping thought-wise with love, with pastoral thought, and with it's own fair share of other ideas and French culture and history, but German is so heroic, familial, pastoral, jovial, passionate, masculine, harsh, all kinds of other things distinctly German. I'd much rather say "father" or "humor" in German than I'd like to say the same things in French. But I am too biased towards German. Their roots have been laid bare much more by me. Surely the Galts and their neighbors are worth my time, very interesting people, but I'm not there yet. Who in history wasn't interesting? Is there a group that just sat around and didn't think or do anything interesting? But who's to appreciate them all? Maybe time will change this for me, my preference towards German.

Of course, part of it is how damned crazy the ancient Germans were, throwing people into rivers in inane sounding tests of guilt. But the Germans still wanted to know the answer. They had these quirky ideas about what made up a person, what made up the world around us (really, we ought to strike up something about this kind of stuff some time). And then they took whatever was quirky that they liked from Rome, really mainly the quirky stuff. I just love that. They had their heads just screwed on upside down or something. Even Eastern European gypsies weren't as weird as these conquerors of Rome. And their language still reflects that, although a lot of the references are dead. German people today don't know how much sick, hilarious, and sickly hilarious stuff they reference all the time. And the funny expressions they use. Not to mention that it's hard to beat the word _schadenfreude_. That's an achievement of a word right there.


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## Art Rock

I'm suddenly reminded of a Blackadder quote: "the Teutonic reputation for brutality is well-founded: their operas last three or four days; and they have no word for "fluffy".... "


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## Klavierspieler

Art Rock said:


> I'm suddenly reminded of a Blackadder quote: "the Teutonic reputation for brutality is well-founded: their operas last three or four days; *and they have no word for "fluffy"*.... "


Das Wort ist "flauschig."

I voted for Schumann.


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## Klavierspieler

Lenfer said:


> Languages I speak in order of preference:
> 
> French, Italian, Spanish, English, Dutch, Flemish, German and lastly Romansh.
> 
> I also know a little Yiddish but don't ask me to say anything please. I also did Latin at school but I don't claim to remember it.


You speak all the languages I ever wanted to learn and more.


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## moody

Xaltotun said:


> Europe is nothing but the French/German dynamic, so there can't be one without the other; we necessarily need both. I have the greatest respect for the French but my heart beats in German; the heart wins.
> 
> Oh, we were talking about languages, not nation-souls? Well, that's the higher reality that the languages reflect, so my point stays.


We can do without either.


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## Head_case

Yeah - I prefer Latin - definitely more texture for Palestrina Masses and Allegri/Lassus etc. 

French next. Then Polish. And then German. 

I can speak all of them, except Polish. I do however have a good 'Allo Allo accent in Polish


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## superhorn

I don't have a preference for either loanguage . But each language is perfectly suited to the vocal music of whatever composer . Wagner sounds decidedly odd in French or Italian , and there are a number of (mostly) old recordings of famous French and Italian opera singers of the past singing excerpts from Wagner in their native languages , and a number of complete recordings of Italian and French opera sung in Germany by German opera companies in the past . For example, an EMI Nozze di Figaro sung in German conducted by the late Otmar Suitner from Dresden and a live Salzburg one conducted by Furtwangler,also on EMI .
Nowadays, opera cxompanies almost always perform using the original languages, because casting has become very internationalized . It's totally unrealistic to expect Italain singers to learn roles they have performed often in German when they perform in Germany .
The operas of Massenet are perfectly adopted for the French language, those of Verdi and Puccini and Rossini perfectly adopted for th e Italian language etc.
German can sound unpleasant at times, but a lot depends on the individual speaker . For example, Austrian German is much softer and more lilting than the way say, north Germans speak the language .
Nobody could call Austrian German harsh sounding !
Czech is rather weird in that it has some impossible consonant clusters which make it very difficult to pronounce . There's tongue twister in the language which goes like this : Strch prst skrz krk !
This means "stick younger finger down your throat ". No vowels ! The ch is pronounced like the German Bach .
I'm something of an amateur linguist and like to study exotic languages like Turkish, Hungarian, Finnish, Georgian etc .


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## dieter

presto said:


> In vocal music, especially the baroque, French is so much more fluent and natural sounding.
> I've always found the German language awkward and ugly with music.
> The only composer that seems to transcend this successfully is the great JS Bach.


Ah Presto, Saxon is your mother tongue...


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## Pugg

I am still undecided... I like German, but French sounds nicer I think.:tiphat:


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## SiegendesLicht

In the four years since the start of this thread my love for all things German has grown to truly epic proportions  Especially since I am now a Germanophile with a certificate, quite officially.


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## SixFootScowl

Like both for opera, but if choosing between the two for a language I'd like to be able to speak, I would go for German.


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## majlis

Don't like French (don´t remember anything from college. Well, it was 50 years ago). And positively hate German.


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## Guest

Definitely Italiano.


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## Figleaf

appoggiatura said:


> I speak French and I love it! It's such a rich, romantic language... I get automatically butterflies in the stomach when I hear French songs. Fauré mélodies, Mon coeur s'ouvre à ta voix etc... But perhaps that is also because I know a handsome French man who sang Fauré so beautifully
> 
> So... I voted for French but I like German as well (thanks to schubert's winterreise!)
> I'm learning German


I feel the same. The gorgeousness of both French music and French men has a lot to answer for- it's probably because of Gérard Souzay that I realised I had become a Francophile (and also thanks to him that I discovered Winterreise, which is still the pinnacle of musical greatness for me). So, French is the language of love and (Lieder aside) of music as far as I am concerned. For everyday purposes, however, I prefer German. Even though A levels were more than two decades ago, my German is still better than my French (which I've taught myself, in fits and starts, as an adult) and it's easier to pronounce and to understand when spoken. I haven't voted in the poll yet because I'm not sure how I'm going to interpret the question- maybe after a couple of months more study I will be able to give my wholehearted vote to French!


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## znapschatz

I like both equally well, selecting French only because I have a musically influenced bias for the Romance languages. Conversational Italian sounds to me like music, depending on context, of course. "Give me your wallet" has much the same effect in any tongue. But I remember once watching a grubby Italian film in which three lowlife characters were talking to each other about doing their dirty deeds, thinking to myself, "God! It's like they're singing!"


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## Bellinilover

I love the sound of German, particularly sung German. For whatever reason, I'm not so crazy about the sound of French, though I will admit that sung French has its advantages. For one thing, I think that because French lacks the "open" vowels of Italian it tends to prevent the singer from over-singing.


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## Abraham Lincoln

No option for Frerman? Or Gench?


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## Pugg

Abraham Lincoln said:


> No option for Frerman? Or Gench?


Speciality for you we start a new poll


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## Antiquarian

I suppose I must vote for French, because I can read it, understand it, and speak it (badly). I understand very little German, and this deficiency does irk me sometimes, particularly when listening to Wagner. I must content myself with this situation; I am simply too old to try learning a new language. My brain has lost most of its flexibility when it comes to learning.


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## Dim7

Antiquarian said:


> I must content myself with this situation; I am simply too old to try learning a new language. My brain has lost most of its flexibility when it comes to learning.


Too lazy to argue or provide evidence, but you're wrong


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## SiegendesLicht

Dim7 said:


> Too lazy to argue or provide evidence, but you're wrong


Yes. It is never too late. The only part of language learning one probably cannot master after a certain age is the accent, but I might be wrong here.


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## Meyerbeer Smith

French. It's my second language; I spent my late childhood and early teens in Brussels, so I find it instinctive. I like its elegance, its wit, its charm and its lucidity. French opera is my favorite - the sheer versatility of Massenet, for instance, is breathtaking. 

I studied German at school and have been brushing it up this year. I respect it, but I don't find it intuitive - the cases, the compound words!


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## Huilunsoittaja

The poll is perfectly split as I post this, 50/50!


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## TxllxT

Well, there was an immense struggle in my head between a grumbling Wotan and the choirs of Roméo et Juliette. Wotan however was destined to go down in a Götterdämmerung. + The French need to win the European Championship.


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