Nice sounding natlangs

[Thry]

But WHAT Arabic? dialects vary so much it's pretty much impossible to pass judgement on all of them. I think most Maghreb dialects are ugly as sin and likewise Iraqi, but Levantine and Egyptian are quite pretty (although Levantine sounds a bit whiny).

Moroccan is the one I hear IRL. I can't imagine any dialect of Arabic being pretty... unless they give up all their /x/-like sounds and glottal stops and whatever, which I don't know if is the case for Egyptian since I don't really know anything about Arabic.

[Shrdlu]

Sko,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9-0ScD4Yec

That was nice.

So have I changed your opinion?

[Ser]

But WHAT Arabic? dialects vary so much it's pretty much impossible to pass judgement on all of them. I think most Maghreb dialects are ugly as sin and likewise Iraqi, but Levantine and Egyptian are quite pretty (although Levantine sounds a bit whiny).

Moroccan is the one I hear IRL. I can't imagine any dialect of Arabic being pretty... unless they give up all their /x/-like sounds and glottal stops and whatever, which I don't know if is the case for Egyptian since I don't really know anything about Arabic.

Erm, Moroccan doesn't even have glottal stops... And uvular/pharyngeal/epiglottal sounds are not necessarily markers of ugliness: apparently [ʁ ~ ʀ̥] is statistically the most common sound in French and people still like it. :/

[Thry]

Erm, Moroccan doesn't even have glottal stops... And uvular/pharyngeal/epiglottal sounds are not necessarily markers of ugliness: apparently [ʁ ~ ʀ̥] is statistically the most common sound in French and people still like it. :/

So? All I said holds true. No, I don't hear the glottal stops in Moroccan; but yes, I know Arabic as a whole has them and it contributes to the ugliness, so I added it anyway. And that factoid about ʁ will not change my (or anybody's I guess) opinion that Arabic is ugly; firstly because it's stupid to argue people's impressions (not like they're reasoned, they're... likings) and secondly because the argument is irrelevant, as much as you like Arabic, the phonology as a whole having uvulars, pharyngeals and epiglottals makes it sound ugly to many's ears - and that people like French doesn't mean they like that sound about French [plus people who hate French often do because of the sound, and the number of people who dislike French is not unimportant, for example my sister, and me myself sometimes].

Overall, my most reasoned argument for disliking Arabic is that from the people I've heard it, it sounds as if they were about to puke, no matter what they were saying.

[Vuvuzela]

[plus people who hate French often do because of the sound, and the number of people who dislike French is not unimportant, for example my sister, and me myself sometimes].
.

Personally, I don't find French all that attractive. I like Portuguese (which seems very much in the speaker's nose) and I absolutely adore Arabic (which seems to be in the speakers throat), but French, being both nasally and uvular, is just a bad combination of the two. IMHO.

[Thry]

Personally, I don't find French all that attractive. I like Portuguese (which seems very much in the speaker's nose) and I absolutely adore Arabic (which seems to be in the speakers throat), but French, being both nasally and uvular, is just a bad combination of the two. IMHO.

The Portuguese variety I speak is also rich in ʁ, which combined with the nasality (I concur) makes me unable to say "oh this is so beautiful", but I don't find it horrible because I speak it. I guess that if I spoke Arabic my opinion would change, they say recitations of the Qur'an are charming, for instance.

[Vuvuzela]

The Portuguese variety I speak is also rich in ʁ, which combined with the nasality (I concur) makes me unable to say "oh this is so beautiful", but I don't find it horrible because I speak it. I guess that if I spoke Arabic my opinion would change, they say recitations of the Qur'an are charming, for instance.

I was talking about a variety of BRAZILIAN Portuguese (which I know to actual Portuguese people sounds like an insane moon man language, but still), which had /X/. I don't know why, but I find /X/ to be less throaty than /ʁ/. I guess it's because I don't hear it as well.

[Thry]

I was talking about a variety of BRAZILIAN Portuguese (which I know to actual Portuguese people sounds like an insane moon man language, but still), which had /X/. I don't know why, but I find /X/ to be less throaty than /ʁ/. I guess it's because I don't hear it as well.

If Brazilian didn't have palatalization, I'd like it much more than I do now.
A Brazilian-American friend of mine told me that Portugal Portuguese sounded to her like Chinese xD.

Most of the time I hear Brazilian it seems like just [h].

[Jipí]

Portuguese Portuguese sounds like Russian.
Danish sounds like Chinese.
Trufax.

[Thry]

Portuguese Portuguese sounds like Russian.
Danish sounds like Chinese.
Trufax.

tbh I've never heard Danish.

[Nooj]

-
Portugeuse
(Standard) Italian. Haven't heard other Italian dialects/languages, so I can't say about the others.
Catalan
Loud Mandarin on buses or the train, like any other language spoken loudly by inconsiderate people. But loud Mandarin annoys me more for some reason.

+
Maori
Any Australian language I've ever heard.
Japanese
Korean

[Melteor]

Good
Italian, some of the people I know who speak it make it sound really too whiney, but it's good overall, and it's easy
Swedish and Norwegian, I like what I hear and it's easy to get the hang of,like German without the annoying sound
Hausa, this language sounds very sweet, even breathy. I like a lot of African languages even if I think the vowel quality is too harsh quite frequently.
Japanese, very neat sound, i like most words and sentences but the glottal stops at the end and beginning make it all too clipped-sounding. And I like Korean, at least when it's spoken by Lady Rainicorn.
The Slavic languages are pretty cool. I don't like Russian but I like Polish and Bosnian.
I like Irish but dislike Scottish. Scots sounds kind of flat intonation-wise.
Estonian

Bad
Spanish, this language sounds really harsh and clipped, and Mexican Spanish is too slow. Insipid.
Portuguese,sounds good but I can't tell what you're saying. A lot of stuff just seems too rounded off like final L.
French, even worse than Portugese but I can amazingly enough understand everything. Sound kind of like parrots.
Native American languages, they don't sound like they have much for intonation patterns but the words are kind of nice like with Japanese.
German mostly because the uvulars but it can be kind of funny when spoken by Klaus on American Dad.
Mandarin, I've never heard spoken in a way I like, super whiney and painful. Also too many sibilants and kind of clipped.

Some languages just sound louder than others andi like the quiet, private ones, ie Japanese, polish and Italian and Hausa.

[Maulrus]

Native American languages, they don't sound like they have much for intonation patterns but the words are kind of nice like with Japanese.

Seems like a pretty huge generalization.

Good:
Japanese
Lakota
Inuktitut

Bad:
English w/ Boston accent (I don't know what bothers me so much about it. I like the GA accent, don't mind most of the other American accents, but man Boston's really gets to me.)
Thai
Italian

[Ser]

Spanish, this language sounds really harsh and clipped, and Mexican Spanish is too slow. Insipid.

Some languages just sound louder than others andi like the quiet, private ones, ie [...] Italian[...].

Where are you from? You don't seem to be versed in US stereotypes, which are pretty much the opposite of these two (Mexican Spanish is thought to be fast over there, and Italian loud).

[Thry]

Where are you from? You don't seem to be versed in US stereotypes, which are pretty much the opposite of these two (Mexican Spanish is thought to be fast over there, and Italian loud).

Btw, Sinjana, I was wondering, what are the stereotypes of Peninsular to you El Salvadorans and other hispanoamericans, in case you know? Lisp lisp lisp?

[Ser]

Lisp, lisp, lisp. Yeah.

And saying ¡coño!, ¡joder!, ¡cojones!, ¡carajo! ¡gilipollas!, ¡capullo! every couple of seconds.

[Thry]

Lisp, lisp, lisp. Yeah.

And saying ¡coño!, ¡joder!, ¡cojones!, ¡carajo! ¡gilipollas!, ¡capullo! every couple of seconds.

So lisp, insults, and loudness (according to Torco), lol.

The funny part is that it's true xD.

[clawgrip]

I don't think Mongolian would qualify as a "nice-sounding" language, but I like it anyway. Of all the languages I am familiar with the sound of, Mongolian seems the most to me like just a bunch of random sounds thrown at each other and pronounced whatever way they happened to fall.

[Jipí]

German mostly because the uvulars but it can be kind of funny when spoken by Klaus on American Dad.

What a highly elaborate judgement.

Let me guess. You've only heard German on the internet, i.e. in clips from The Downfall, and maybe in some other American WW2 flicks, and as parodied through a cartoon character that likely wasn't even voiced by a native German speaker. You may have had some grandparent who still spoke German to you as a child, but that was awkward and you didn't like that they did. What I want to say is that German's rap in my experience seems to be mostly based on stereotypes of nazis when people on the internet say they don't like it for its "gutturalness", or more elaborately, "its use of uvulars".

[Ser]

Lisp, lisp, lisp. Yeah.

And saying ¡coño!, ¡joder!, ¡cojones!, ¡carajo! ¡gilipollas!, ¡capullo! every couple of seconds.

So lisp, insults, and loudness (according to Torco), lol.

The funny part is that it's true xD.

I've never actually heard the stereotype of speaking loud in El Salvador, not until I joined the forums and saw Europeans mentioning it altogether actually.

Oh, and the demonym is "Salvador(i)an" in English, and salvadoreño in Spanish (no El, though in Spanish, if it's preceded by a de, it is indeed written as de El Salvador).

[communistplot]

Oooh, lists, I <3 lists:

Success
Non-Rhotic English Dialects (minus Bostonian, but that's only due to my bias as a NYer)
Spanish, it's a beautiful language especially as spoken by us Puerto Ricans, though I will say (as much as I still enjoy it) Peninsular Spanish speakers, especially ones who've retained /T/ sound kinda pompous.
Portuguese, both European & Brazilian, if I were to serenade a girl, I'd use Portuguese it comes off as very romantic to me.
Sardinian, Romance with retroflexes? Yes, another beautiful sounding language in it's quirkiness.
Arabic, especially beautiful when sung but that's true for me of all Semitic languages.
Hebrew, as said before, sung Hebrew is amazingly beautiful, it's why I enjoy synagogue.
Japanese, my first love, it's always kinda sounded like someone was telling a children's tale whenever they speak it.
Swedish, my current love, it's so sing-songy and delicious, I love Germanic languages in general though.

Fail
Most Rhotic English dialects, except West Country, Scottish & Vermontese, whenever I hear a rhotic dialect, and this ain't necessarily a bad thing, I think of farming and farmers. I find rhotacism to be an ugly feature though.
French, ugh French, it's never won any linguistic wars, it sounds terrible to my ears, I feel like when Latin was passing out features to it's daughters, French, and oïl languages in general, got all the bad ones. And like Peninsular it sounds pompous though with a lack of anything pleasant sounding.
Mongolian, Mongolian, it's Mongolic, I honestly don't know what I don't like about it, it just sounds funny I guess.
Latvian, the lesser sounding Lithuanian.

[Thry]

Spanish, it's a beautiful language especially as spoken by us Puerto Ricans, though I will say (as much as I still enjoy it) Peninsular Spanish speakers, especially ones who've retained /T/ sound kinda pompous.

qué dices [ke 'di.TE]
(xD pompous? )

[communistplot]

Spanish, it's a beautiful language especially as spoken by us Puerto Ricans, though I will say (as much as I still enjoy it) Peninsular Spanish speakers, especially ones who've retained /T/ sound kinda pompous.

qué dices [ke 'di.TE]
(xD pompous? )

Oh gawd, I just had flashbacks of my 10th grade Spanish teacher, who declared all Latin American dialects to not be true Spanish, our school was full of Puerto Ricans & Dominicans and thus we all hated her.

[communistplot]

Spanish, it's a beautiful language especially as spoken by us Puerto Ricans, though I will say (as much as I still enjoy it) Peninsular Spanish speakers, especially ones who've retained /T/ sound kinda pompous.

qué dices [ke 'di.TE]
(xD pompous? )

Oh gawd, I just had flashbacks of my 10th grade Spanish teacher, who declared all Latin American dialects to not be true Spanish, our school was full of Puerto Ricans & Dominicans and thus we all hated her.

[Thry]

Oh gawd, I just had flashbacks of my 10th grade Spanish teacher, who declared all Latin American dialects to not be true Spanish, our school was full of Puerto Ricans & Dominicans and thus we all hated her.

Beause it's true!! Stop seseating my true language!!

Just kidding. You should've told her that if she wanted to be sooo authentic she'd have to go back to the Golden Age and speak like Cervantes; or even better, back to Cid's time. But I presume she didn't realize Quijote as Quixote xD.

P.S.: On the other hand, linguistically you're all just one big basement in Seville haha.