# What other languages would you like to learn?



## Ravellian

Being classical lovers, I think most of us are interested in other cultures and languages. There are several languages I'd love to learn, and I intend to do so as soon as I can afford to blow some money on a top-notch language learning software (NOT Rosetta Stone). The following list which languages I intend to learn, in approximate order:

1 (first): *Spanish*, mainly because I already know some Spanish, and it's probably one of the easiest languages to learn for an English-speaker....and my country's half-Spanish at this point anyway.

2:* German*, so I can experience the operatic and vocal works of my beloved Wagner, Mozart, and Schubert (and others) as they were originally meant to be experienced.

3: *Japanese*, because I love Japanese culture so much, especially anime. I list it third because Japanese is a COMPLETELY different language from English, very difficult for us to learn... there are some aspects to the speech like the honor system and the different ordering of words in the sentence (verbs are always last, for example) that are very confusing to me.

Those are the big three I'd like to learn. French may be a distant fourth, with all the great French literature out there (including my favorite comic_ Asterix the Gaul_).

Also, does anybody have any ideas which software is the best for learning new languages? I've heard Rosetta Stone is way overpriced and doesn't teach you enough material to be worth it. I've heard very positive things about TellMeMore and Language101.com, both of which seem to be popular..


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## clavichorder

Seeing that I'm not a language fanatic(english still is my only language), I don't want to work on any obscure ones, but ones that first and foremost have practical and intellectual value to me.

*Russian*, first and foremost so I can read all the great literature and music analysis of the music I'm currently obsessed with, and its a massive part of the world, in a cold climate, I like that.

German has even more texts on music and vocal works as you said, would be nice to be able to understand.

Spanish because its so practical and not that hard and opens up most of the new world to me.

If I were more into languages, I would try to learn as much of the reconstructed Visigothic language that exists, Greek, Latin. How typical of a western culture wannabe nerd I am.

And for eastern languages, certainly Japanese would be the top priority, but Mandarin a close second for practicality's sake, and Arabic wouldn't be too bad to learn either. I'm not touching ancient Sanskrit though.


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## Meaghan

I would love to learn German because, contrary to what lots of folks say about it, I think it's a beautiful language.


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## science

Now this is a topic!

If I could do my youth over again, I'd learn Chinese, Spanish and Arabic. 

Another language I wish I knew is German, just for fun. I've got enough French to satisfy myself. I'm also satisfied with my Korean, but my wife and her family are not.


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## science

Ravellian said:


> 3: *Japanese*, because I love Japanese culture so much, especially anime. I list it third because Japanese is a COMPLETELY different language from English, very difficult for us to learn... there are some aspects to the speech like the honor system and the different ordering of words in the sentence (verbs are always last, for example) that are very confusing to me.


I don't know any Japanese, but people tell me it has the same structure as Korean (so it is very easy for Koreans to learn, as Spanish or French are easy for English speakers). If that is true, then the experience appears to be: for the first 6 months to a year, depending on how bright you are and how good your teacher is, it is extremely hard, and you make much less progress than you would with an easier language. After that, however, most of the hurdles are past, and you can move on at a normal pace.


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## Aksel

I'd like to learn several languages. I'd like to learn all of the Germanic languages, especially German and Icelandic. I already know three of them (Norwegian (duh), Swedish, and Danish) and sort of maybe understand two (Icelandic, and German), but it would be rather wonderful to actually know them all. They are such beautiful languages (except Danish which I firmly believe is a throat disorder, but that doesn't count), and there is so much beautiful music written with German texts. I'd also like to learn French, Italian, and Latin much because of the same reason I want to learn German.
I would also like to learn Arabic and the Celtic languages.


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## violadude

I want to learn Japanese for the same reason as Ravellian, and Thai because my girlfriend is Thai and if I learned Thai I could hang out with her and her friends and understand what they're saying. Also German because it's a badass language.


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## Almaviva

I know English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian, although the latter I understand well but speak poorly - in spite of having dual citizenship Italian-American, oh the shame! So first and foremost I'd like to perfect my Italian. Next, I'd like to learn German to be able to better understand the libretti of opera in German. Same for Russian.


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## Timotheus

There are plenty of languages I want to know. Wanting to learn them is a different matter.

I have some interest in latin, ancient greek, german, italian and french. But the biggest reasons (to me) for learning a language are because you are moving there or you want to read something that can't be translated without loss. But to get to the point where you can read, say, The Divine Comedy in the original language takes a tremendous amount of work...even English stuff sends me to the dictionary. Shrithe? Atheling? Sester?

Perhaps if I find a book or two that I really want to read that aren't translated into English.


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## Polednice

1. *French*. I'm actually fairly proficient in French. I could hold a reasonable conversation in it, and I catch myself thinking in French occasionally. I should make more of a habit to practise though, just for the sake of expanding my vocabulary.

2. *German*. For two main reasons: first, for the musical reasons that you would expect, it being a language of vital importance to so many classical works. Second, because my degree is in Old and Middle English literature, the former being English at its most Germanic. I studied a bit of German at school as well, so it shouldn't be too difficult to pick up again.

3. *Icelandic*. Given my degree subject, I also study a bit of Old Norse-Icelandic. I really love old Nordic literature, though I'm not sure if I'd end up just confusing myself if I tried to learn a foreign language in both ancient and modern forms!


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## Polednice

Timotheus said:


> But the biggest reasons (to me) for learning a language are because you are moving there or you want to read something that can't be translated without loss.


There's always something lost in translation, and probably more than most people would expect. It just depends on how much you're willing to lose.


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## Meaghan

Polednice said:


> 1. *French*. I'm actually fairly proficient in French. I could hold a reasonable conversation in it, and I catch myself thinking in French occasionally. I should make more of a habit to practise though, just for the sake of expanding my vocabulary.


I'm also fairly proficient in French. It's the only language other than English I can speak reasonably well. Sadly, I think my French is slipping a little since I stopped studying at school a year ago (not enough room on my class schedule when I'm trying to double-major in sociology and music). I still read stuff in French so I don't lose my comprehension skills, but I need a conversation partner. I don't want to lose my speaking skills.

I wish I had time to learn another language! Maybe when I retire.


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## Polednice

Meaghan said:


> I'm also fairly proficient in French. It's the only language other than English I can speak reasonably well. Sadly, I think my French is slipping a little since I stopped studying at school a year ago (not enough room on my class schedule when I'm trying to double-major in sociology and music). I still read stuff in French so I don't lose my comprehension skills, but I need a conversation partner. I don't want to lose my speaking skills.


From now on, I'll help you practise by leaving little messages in French at the end of my posts for you to decipher 

_Je suis le meilleur compositeur dans le monde! Sauf Brahms, naturellement. _


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## itywltmt

Polednice said:


> _Je suis le meilleur compositeur dans le monde! Sauf Brahms, naturellement. _


Je suis le meilleur compositeur *au *monde! Sauf *pour *Brahms, naturellement.

Pas trop mal, quand même.


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## Kopachris

German, because I took four years in high school and it wasn't enough
French, because 18th and 19th century France just oozes culture
Italian
Swiss-German, because it's almost a totally different language
Russian
Arabic
Chinese
Quechua, because it sounds interesting
Latin, just because
Klingon, because I'm a Trekkie


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## itywltmt

I am fluent in French, English, and Spanish (at Gr. 12 level, on good day). I took 2 years of Latin, but other than the odd sentence in Asterix comic books, I'm afraid I don't get to practice...


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## Philip

itywltmt said:


> Je suis le meilleur compositeur *au *monde! Sauf *pour *Brahms, naturellement.
> 
> Pas trop mal, quand même.


your french sounds franco-ontarien. using the same words, i'd phrase it:

_je suis le meilleur compositeur du monde! sauf (hormis, excepté, à part...) brahms, naturellement (bien entendu)._

pas mal, quand-même...


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## Klavierspieler

German: Because Bach spoke it and because I'm around half German, Austrian, and Swiss. Also, I already have a limited knowledge of the language.

Irish Gaelic: Because I am also part Irish and also just 'cause.

Romansh: Because it's a little known language that is practically unrecognized except in Switzerland.

French and Italian: Just 'cause.


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## Polednice

Philip said:


> your french sounds franco-ontarien. using the same words, i'd phrase it:
> 
> _je suis le meilleur compositeur du monde! sauf (hormis, excepté, à part...) brahms, naturellement (bien entendu)._
> 
> pas mal, quand-même...


Damn my rusty syntax! I'll compromise and leave out the 'pour' but take the 'au'


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## Meaghan

Polednice said:


> _Je suis le meilleur compositeur dans le monde! Sauf Brahms, naturellement. _


Je voudrais bien d'entendre ta musique!


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## Philip

Meaghan said:


> Je voudrais bien d'entendre ta musique!


my ears!!!


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## mamascarlatti

Philip said:


> your french sounds franco-ontarien. using the same words, i'd phrase it:
> 
> _je suis le meilleur compositeur du monde! sauf (hormis, excepté, à part...) brahms, naturellement (bien entendu)._
> 
> pas mal, quand-même...


Meanwhile we are letting Polednice get away with his outrageous claim.


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## Meaghan

Philip said:


> my ears!!!


Haha, sorry. I'm rusty!



mamascarlatti said:


> Meanwhile we are letting Polednice get away with his outrageous claim.


Proof, Polednice, give us proof!


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## Kopachris

Unfortunately for me, the only phrase I really got to use a lot in French class was _Ah, non! J'ai oublié mes devoirs!_


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## Machiavel

It's not Je voudrais bien d'entendre ta musique. Je voudrais bien écouter ta musique. Entendre is like hearing but not listening.

Also to Polednice you should not always finish you sentence with an !.

As far as the question was I would say german and russian and japanese. I'm A french guy and well everything on the web is pretty much english so you got to learn, no choice.

Sometimes I feel that's maybe a reason as to why most people do not mention often berlioz, saint-saëns, debussy and ravel in polls and forums. French is not that far from english but I feel there is much more nuance, color in it for similar words and melodies do not evolve quite the same way. I totally agree with Kopachris when he says that 18th and 19th century just Oozes culture.It's a bottomless pit of literature of the highest degree or should I say a Mighty tower! Not to steal anything from english but I think on this level it's not even a contest


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## elgar's ghost

Aksel said:


> I'd like to learn several languages. I'd like to learn all of the Germanic languages, especially German and Icelandic. I already know three of them (Norwegian (duh), Swedish, and Danish) and sort of maybe understand two (Icelandic, and German), but it would be rather wonderful to actually know them all. They are such beautiful languages (except Danish which I firmly believe is a throat disorder, but that doesn't count), and there is so much beautiful music written with German texts. I'd also like to learn French, Italian, and Latin much because of the same reason I want to learn German.
> I would also like to learn Arabic and the Celtic languages.


Aksel, your English seems pretty top drawer - would you still class English as a Germanic language or has the influence of Norman French 'diluted' it over the centuries? I've always thought that very broadly English seemed more akin to Dutch (another Germanic language) than anything else.


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## World Violist

One language I've been fascinated with for a long while is Finnish, being the beautiful language that it is. Lately I've been interested in Dutch as well, since Amsterdam seems like a pretty great place (I leafed through a book about it once). I mean, they've got the Concertgebouworkest and Ton Koopman, how bad can they be?


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## Ravellian

_Entendre is like hearing but not listening._

Oh god! And entender means to LEARN in Spanish. This is going to be so confusing..


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## elgar's ghost

Finnish! Man, it looks fantastic written down as well! I wish anyone well who wants to learn it - I'm told it's VERY unusual. I'm guessing Estonian would be similar in this regard. Finnish is tenuously linked to Hungarian in language group categorisation, so I gather. Surely the only thing that could connect Finnish and Hungarian is their respective singularity?


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## Yoshi

I want to learn everything!

Unfortunately I'm only fluent in portuguese and english for now. I'm currently trying to get fluent in italian, because I can read most of it and had one year of lessons. One of my dearest friends is also italian and we speak sometimes in that language.

Other ones I would like to learn the most in order:

1- Russian
2- Japanese
3- Turkish
4- French (I had 3 years of it in highschool and forgot pretty much everything)
5- Latin
6- Everything else


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## Norse

I know some French and recently started looking seriously at German. My language wish or goal would be to speak these two more or less fluently.


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## kv466

Already completely bilingual with spanish, I'd like to continue my learning of italian and french and eventually continue my pursuit of learning lithuanian...within english and spanish there are countless dialects you have to know to make it through even a day in this city but they're fun to know just the same


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## Guest

A little while back I was fluent in German, and passable with some Germanic dialects (Allemannisch and Schwaebisch from Southern Germany, Zurituutsch from Canton Zurich in Switzerland), but haven't had much opportunity to speak any of them since I left there over a decade ago. I still can read German quite well, and have several books that I pull out from time to time to refresh myself.

Were I to learn another language, I think I'd like to learn Latin. I know, it is a dead language, but I am intrigued by the possibility of reading some historical works in the original Latin.


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## itywltmt

Philip said:


> your french sounds franco-ontarien. using the same words, i'd phrase it:
> 
> _je suis le meilleur compositeur du monde! sauf (hormis, excepté, à part...) brahms, naturellement (bien entendu)._
> 
> pas mal, quand-même...


_Tel est pris qui croyait prendre_

A few comments:

1 - *I should not add comments to the Forum past my bedtime* - After a good night's sleep, I realize that it was in poor taste of me to try and correct a well-intentioned attempt by Polednice. I gather from his later comment that he took it in good humour (as he should have), but it's still poor form from my part.

2 - I hope Philip's corrections were in good humour as well. The nuns taught you well, _mon ami_.

3 - I have not lived long enough in Ontario to "speak" or "write" fluent franco-Ontarian, but I have lived 14 years in Calgary (1994-2008), so I must have more of a franco-Albertan twang in my French. From what I gather, they are very similar, except franco-Albertan does not have Provincial Sales Tax. My French got rusty over the years I spent living among the Red Neck, which is the reason I got into bilingual blogging.

4 - As for wither "au monde" or "du monde", I suggest we conjure up the spirit of Jean-Marie Laurence to make the call. (I hope you get the reference, Philip ).


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## Vesteralen

I am currently attempted to learn Ελληνικοσ (my keyboard won't do the correct sign for the final "s"...sorry)


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## World Violist

elgars ghost said:


> Finnish! Man, it looks fantastic written down as well! I wish anyone well who wants to learn it - I'm told it's VERY unusual. I'm guessing Estonian would be similar in this regard. Finnish is tenuously linked to Hungarian in language group categorisation, so I gather. Surely the only thing that could connect Finnish and Hungarian is their respective singularity?


Finnish and Estonian are directly related (both in the Finno-Ugric group).

And whaddaya know, I looked up Finno-Ugric languages and found that Hungarian is also one! Looks like they are connected at a deeper level after all.


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## Philip

itywltmt said:


> _Tel est pris qui croyait prendre_
> 
> A few comments:
> 
> 1 - *I should not add comments to the Forum past my bedtime* - After a good night's sleep, I realize that it was in poor taste of me to try and correct a well-intentioned attempt by Polednice. I gather from his later comment that he took it in good humour (as he should have), but it's still poor form from my part.
> 
> 2 - I hope Philip's corrections were in good humour as well. The nuns taught you well, _mon ami_.
> 
> 3 - I have not lived long enough in Ontario to "speak" or "write" fluent franco-Ontarian, but I have lived 14 years in Calgary (1994-2008), so I must have more of a franco-Albertan twang in my French. From what I gather, they are very similar, except franco-Albertan does not have Provincial Sales Tax. My French got rusty over the years I spent living among the Red Neck, which is the reason I got into bilingual blogging.
> 
> 4 - As for wither "au monde" or "du monde", I suggest we conjure up the spirit of Jean-Marie Laurence to make the call. (I hope you get the reference, Philip ).


its all good... i just have a thing for anglicisms in french. btw you can say both "au" or "du", i picked du because in keeping with his original choice of words he said "dans le" for « de le » which cannot be said and is actually "du".


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## elgar's ghost

Vesteralen said:


> I am currently attempted to learn Ελληνικοσ (my keyboard won't do the correct sign for the final "s"...sorry)


Maybe a capital S would be the closest?


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## Aksel

elgars ghost said:


> Aksel, your English seems pretty top drawer - would you still class English as a Germanic language or has the influence of Norman French 'diluted' it over the centuries? I've always thought that very broadly English seemed more akin to Dutch (another Germanic language) than anything else.


Well, English is classified as a Germanic language, and I do view it as such. I just forgot to add it. Most of English is still German.

And thanks! It's always nice to get compliments on one's English.

And this is my 1000th post. Yay me.


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## Vesteralen

elgars ghost said:


> Maybe a capital S would be the closest?


Well, let's see...ΕλληνικοS.

Hmmm....


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## Kopachris

Vesteralen said:


> I am currently attempted to learn Ελληνικοσ (my keyboard won't do the correct sign for the final "s"...sorry)


Final sigma is Unicode U+03C2, or HTML #962: Ελληνικος

You can use Unicode characters on the forums by typing an ampersand, a pound, the HTML character number, then a semicolon, like this, but without spaces between each part: & # 962 ;


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## Vesteralen

Kopachris said:


> Final sigma is Unicode U+03C2, or HTML #962: Ελληνικος
> 
> You can use Unicode characters on the forums by typing an ampersand, a pound, the HTML character number, then a semicolon, like this, but without spaces between each part: & # 962 ;


Ελληνικος...

okay, that works. Thanks!


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## Argus

Question for the non-native English speakers.

How does the English accent come across to you? Either when hearing the person speak in English or in your own native language.

For instance, German accents tend to come across as stern and harsh, Dutch as laid back, French as either slightly arrogant or very sultry, Scandinavian languages as kind of stiff and scientific etc.


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## Aksel

Argus said:


> Question for the non-native English speakers.
> 
> How does the English accent come across to you? Either when hearing the person speak in English or in your own native language.
> 
> For instance, German accents tend to come across as stern and harsh, Dutch as laid back, French as either slightly arrogant or very sultry, Scandinavian languages as kind of stiff and scientific etc.


I'm not sure if I understand the question. Do you mean when a non-English speaker speaks English as opposed to the speaker's original language?
And the accents, do you mean the different dialects of the language in question or how non-English speakers of different nationalities speak English? Or did I just make it all even more confusing?


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## Argus

Aksel said:


> I'm not sure if I understand the question. Do you mean when a non-English speaker speaks English as opposed to the speaker's original language?
> And the accents, do you mean the different dialects of the language in question or how non-English speakers of different nationalities speak English? Or did I just make it all even more confusing?


You're in Norway so I'll use Norwegian in this example. It's two questions really but they tie together.

How do English people sound when speaking Norwegian (or whatever your native language is) and/or when speaking Norwegian but with a thick English accent apparent in their speech?

I find it hard to describe some accents like Indian, which I'd say has a round kind of sound or Spanish which is kind of Mickey Mouse. Then there are the Chinese languages when spoken sound so unfamiliar it's hard to recognise even words you know because the pronunciation is so different from European languages


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## Kopachris

Adding to what Argus is asking: many Americans believe that Americans and Canadians have no accent. Do non-native English speakers believe otherwise? If so, how would you describe an American accent?


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## Philip

Kopachris said:


> Adding to what Argus is asking: many Americans believe that Americans and Canadians have no accent. Do non-native English speakers believe otherwise? If so, how would you describe an American accent?


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## Kopachris

Philip said:


>


What is this I don't even


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## Yoshi

Yeah... that was pretty much how it sounded to me before I learnt english :lol:. I wish there was something like that video for portuguese, because being my mother tongue I always wondered how it sounds to foreign people.


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## Polednice

Kopachris said:


> Adding to what Argus is asking: many Americans believe that Americans and Canadians have no accent. Do non-native English speakers believe otherwise? If so, how would you describe an American accent?


Hey, _native_ English speakers (UK ones, anyway) know that Americans have accents! Horrible ones at that!


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## Tapkaara

English is, of course, my native language. I am fluent in French and proficient in Finnish.

I'd like to learn Albanian, Romanian, Japanese, Icelandic and perhaps Latin.

I do OK in Spanish since it's so close to French, but I certainly understand more than I can produce.


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## science

Polednice said:


> Hey, _native_ English speakers (UK ones, anyway) know that Americans have accents! Horrible ones at that!


We didn't make the English language.

We made it better...

j/k of course!


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## mamascarlatti

Don't get me started on accents...


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## Couchie

Kopachris said:


> Adding to what Argus is asking: many Americans believe that Americans and Canadians have no accent. Do non-native English speakers believe otherwise? If so, how would you describe an American accent?


Canadian English is the ideal, neutral English (non-)accent. The accent degenerates as you cross the border, and increasingly as you travel south. Avoid Boston. When you cross the Atlantic, everything just goes to ****.


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## Argus

Couchie said:


> Canadian English is the ideal, neutral English (non-)accent. The accent degenerates as you cross the border, and increasingly as you travel south. Avoid Boston. When you cross the Atlantic, everything just goes to ****.


Canadian is like American Lite, eh?

There is no neutral accent. The ideal English one is Sean Connery's Scottish accent because almost no Scot sounds like that. Here are some typical Scotch accents:






No one's told me what English sounds to non-English speakers yet.


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## elgar's ghost

Argus said:


> Canadian is like American Lite, eh?
> 
> There is no neutral accent. The ideal English one is Sean Connery's Scottish accent because almost no Scot sounds like that.
> 
> 
> True. Sean Connery's Scottish accent sounds almost as bogus as the Irish one he sometimes used in films. His 'real' accent even sounded phoney in early films like Hell Drivers. Can't imagine him saying 'Imbra' somehow...


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## Polednice

Broad Scottish accents are my absolute favourite! The people were questionable in Argus's video, but their voices were dreamy!


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## Klavierspieler

Polednice said:


> Hey, _native_ English speakers (UK ones, anyway) know that Americans have accents! Horrible ones at that!


And every American English speaker knows that British folk sound so awfully funny with those silly accents of their's!


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## elgar's ghost

Klavierspieler said:


> And every American English speaker knows that British folk sound so awfully funny with those silly accents of their's!


I wouldn't fancy suggesting that to a miner from the Rhondda Valley or a nightclub doorman from Glasgow! I like to think Polednice was jesting about your accents, of course...

From an American viewpoint are there any traditional accents over there that are generally deemed as being difficult to follow?


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## Polednice

elgars ghost said:


> I wouldn't fancy suggesting that to a miner from the Rhondda Valley or a nightclub doorman from Glasgow! I like to think Polednice was jesting about your accents, of course...


Of course! Anybody who starts to pick on my little American buddies about their words and accents, and about how annoying or _unBritish_ they are will likely have an appointment with my fist.


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## Guest

elgars ghost said:


> I wouldn't fancy suggesting that to a miner from the Rhondda Valley or a nightclub doorman from Glasgow! I like to think Polednice was jesting about your accents, of course...
> 
> From an American viewpoint are there any traditional accents over there that are generally deemed as being difficult to follow?


There can be regions in the U.S. where the accents are difficult to follow - generally more rural areas. Go to the bayou regions of Louisiana, where you have Cajuns and Creoles, and it can get tricky. Otherwise, the different accents are easily recognizable, but not difficult to understand. Some are more extreme than others - the Boston accent, the New York accent, the Southern accent, the nasally Midwest accent.

Canadians do have accents. Just compare the way a Canadian says the word "sorry" to how an American would say it. A Canadian says it more like "soary" pronounced like the word "soar." For an American, the "or" sounds more like the "ar" in "car." And Canadians stick "eh" at the end of a lot of phrases.


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## Vesteralen

elgars ghost said:


> I wouldn't fancy suggesting that to a miner from the Rhondda Valley or a nightclub doorman from Glasgow! I like to think Polednice was jesting about your accents, of course...
> 
> From an American viewpoint are there any traditional accents over there that are generally deemed as being difficult to follow?


I don't know whether it's difficult to understand, but one of the strangest American accents is unique to the city of Pittsburgh, and is generally known as Pittsburghese. It features both words and pronunciations that are unlike anything you've ever heard anywhere else.

The thing is, not all Pittsburgh natives speak it. Some people who were born and raised there can't even imitate it very well. Others who just lived in the city for a few years can speak it like a pro - but, usually only when they're joking around (which in Pittsburghese would sound more like "joke'n araahn").


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## Guest

Oh, but let's not forget some gems from our friends across the pond, where even if you can make out what they are saying, you still have no clue:


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## Klavierspieler

elgars ghost said:


> From an American viewpoint are there any traditional accents over there that are generally deemed as being difficult to follow?


Yes, some New Yorkers are really hard to follow just because they talk so bloody fast!


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## Meaghan

Klavierspieler said:


> And every American English speaker knows that British folk sound so awfully funny with those silly accents of their's!


Haha, most college-aged American women I know think British accents are dreamy!



elgars ghost said:


> From an American viewpoint are there any traditional accents over there that are generally deemed as being difficult to follow?


As Dr. Mike said, mostly in rural areas. But here in Portland, we don't have accents.


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## Meaghan

Klavierspieler said:


> Yes, some New Yorkers are really hard to follow just because they talk so bloody fast!


You can't say "bloody"; you're American.


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## Klavierspieler

Meaghan said:


> You can't say "bloody"; you're American.


Who says I can't say 'bloody', blast you! 

My brother went to England on a trip and came back with a fake English accent, I picked it up from him. Now almost everyone I meet asks me at some point whether I am Irish (or Scottish or English, but usually Irish).


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## Argus

Meaghan said:


> Haha, most college-aged American women I know think British accents are dreamy!


I'm trying to imagine a Scouse accent being described as dreamy. Impossible. Now a thick Brummie accent turns everything into pure poetry.

Here's near enough what my accent sounds like, although I think I have a slight Manc twang (unfortunately) but most Southern softies I know say it sounds more Yorkshire.






Here's similar to what my great grandad talked like. Even I can't understand half of it.


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## Polednice

Argus said:


> I'm trying to imagine a Scouse accent being described as dreamy. Impossible. Now a thick Brummie accent turns everything into pure poetry.


Hahaha! 

Personally, I have - as far as English accents are concerned - a very neutral, unplaceable accent. Just something vaguely Southern, but not posh. The only noticeable thing is that, having grown up in Essex, I picked up the habit of dropping all my 't's...


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## kg4fxg

I am working on Latin currently. It also helps improve one's grammar.


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## starthrower

I'm not sure about the nature of the New York accent? My parents grew up in Brooklyn and they don't talk like Vinny Barbarino. My grandparents grew up there too. No New Yawk accent.


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## Il_Penseroso

Italian (I speak a little)

Russian 

Norwegian

Greek 

Latin


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## Il_Penseroso

Tapkaara said:


> I'd like to learn Albanian, Romanian,* Japanese*, Icelandic and perhaps Latin.


What !? I've always thaught you're quite fluent in Japanese (But why !?)


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## starthrower

You people are far too ambitious. I'm sticking with English. I wish the rest of my countrymen and women would learn it too. I'm getting a bit tired of phrases such as "I was like", and "like ya know, dude!"


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## Aramis

I'll be satisfied if I will get fluent at English, French and German (all of which I learned to some extent so far) before I reach 25. Overally there are more languages I would like to master than it is possible. Or it is possible, but you have to be renaissance thinker to achieve it. I am not, unfortunately.


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## Polednice

Does anybody else think that there's something pleasant and intriguing about speaking to a fluent foreign speaker of your own language who doesn't necessarily have _every_ aspect of grammar, syntax, and idiom perfected? I have a very close friend who is French but who speaks marvellous English - all the same, she naturally makes a lot of unimportant errors. But I like that - it's fun to speak to her because it feels as though I'm seeing my own language from a fresh perspective, and it helps to highlight the little inconsistencies in our own speech that we take for granted every day.


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## starthrower

My long time partner is Vietnamese, and she has her own quirky style of English. Unfortunately, I haven't made much headway learning her native language. I cannot understand a word she speaks in Vietnamese, and pronouncing some of the words is difficult to do correctly. Maybe she talks too fast, I don't know?


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## Couchie

Ravellian said:


> What other languages would you like to learn?


Hmmmmm...

- French
- Mandarin
- Love
- Linear A
- Propositional calculus


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## KaerbEmEvig

starthrower said:


> My long time partner is Vietnamese, and she has her own quirky style of English. Unfortunately, I haven't made much headway learning her native language. I cannot understand a word she speaks in Vietnamese, and pronouncing some of the words is difficult to do correctly. Maybe she talks too fast, I don't know?


Vietnamese is a tonal language - you won't be able to learn it, unfortunately.


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## sabrina

Jan said:


> Yeah... that was pretty much how it sounded to me before I learnt english :lol:. I wish there was something like that video for portuguese, because being my mother tongue I always wondered how it sounds to foreign people.


I love Portuguese! As I learned some Spanish, I sometimes understand a little when it is spoken and much better when written. Portuguese sounds to me like a rapid river flowing through a canyon. Beautiful language, and I love Portuguese music. I sometimes find it as a mixture of Greek, Romanian, Sardinian/Sicilian. Except Greek, the others are all Latin languages.
Portuguese is one of the languages I would like to learn. 
Unfortunately, I tend to forget languages I don't use. I spoke French and Spanish very well, but right now they are rusted. I understand Italian very well, but I don't speak it as well. My German is quite basic...


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## Yoshi

sabrina said:


> I love Portuguese! As I learned some Spanish, I sometimes understand a little when it is spoken and much better when written. Portuguese sounds to me like a rapid river flowing through a canyon. Beautiful language, and I love Portuguese music. I sometimes find it as a mixture of Greek, Romanian, Sardinian/Sicilian. Except Greek, the others are all Latin languages.
> Portuguese is one of the languages I would like to learn.
> Unfortunately, I tend to forget languages I don't use. I spoke French and Spanish very well, but right now they are rusted. I understand Italian very well, but I don't speak it as well. My German is quite basic...


I like that description . For some reason I was expecting it to sound a bit weird/ugly to foreign people.


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## Klavierspieler

KaerbEmEvig said:


> Vietnamese is a tonal language - you won't be able to learn it, unfortunately.


You can learn Vietnamese, it will just be very, very difficult; more so than just about any other language. I once met someone who had learnt a great deal of Chinese in his adult years and that is fairly similar to Vietnamese (from an English speaker's perspective).


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## superhorn

I would like to learn Georgian ,Circassian or Chechen,since I've long been fascinated by the Caucasus. They're extremely difficult languages though, and make Russian,to which they're totally unrelated, seem like a piece of cake. Georgian has its own strange-looking squiggly alphabet. 
Pronouncing Circassian is supposed to be practically impossible unless you're a native speaker, because it has more different consonant phonemes than practically any other language. It's also the weirdest-sounding language I've ever heard, and is sounds more like Klingon than any other language I've ever heard. It's by far the most guttural language I've ever heard, far more than even Arabic !
To hear this bizarre language, go to Circassians on You tube, and go to where it says "The Hatti" (an ancient middle eastern people believed to have been their ancestors.).
Chechen sounds weird,too. It sounds like some one speaking some language backwards on a tape, and is full of hiccuping sounds.
Turkish is a cool language, with an incredibly regular grammar(no irregular verbs !) ,
but it has postpositions instead of prepositions, and the word order is subject,object,verb. If English were like this we would say John a dog saw, instead of John saw a dog., and the house in, instead of in the house. 
It also has something called vowel harmony, where words are constructed sort of like chords, with the vowels of the suffixes agreeing with the vowels of the roots for euphony. Everything in Turkish is roots and zillions of suffixes attached to them,making for very long polysyllabic words. Sometime, an entire Turkish sentence is one polysyllabic word ! It tends to combine all the parts of speech into single words. 
Turkish is also very similar to the languages of central Asia, such as Kazakh,Kyrgyz,Turkmen,Uzbek and uygur, and is spoken by at least one third of the people in Iran,also.


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## Chris

After much googling there are still five of Cantaloube's Songs of the Auvergne that I have not found translations for. I would like to learn *occitan* to learn what those five are about.


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