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"Soft" languages?

od Rohan, 21. november 2008

Sporočila: 42

Jezik: English

ceigered (Prikaži profil) 02. december 2008 05:32:47

Rogir:No, it's still a fricative, but close to an approximant. I don't think it will make you sound like a foreigner, but like a Limburger or Brabander, which may be worse.
I thought as much ridulo.gif Nonetheless, I like the sound of Dutch even with the fricative which I can't pronounce.

Brilanta Stelo:I think Greek is a really soft language... But I am only used to hearing women speak the language...
I've heard spoken greek before, and it is softish, but unfortunately many of the young greek speakers in my city speak a basic, slang version, but it doesn't sound much like Greek, akin to how some 'gangsta' slang versions of English don't sound much like English.

Zafur (Prikaži profil) 03. december 2008 20:37:38

Hm. I'm not too sure about this. I might be odd, but I find German, Russian, etc to sound way better to me than the Romance languages in general. From what little spoken French I've heard(one movie), the vowels tend to sound deep in the throat, which I dislike. I think French sounds harsher than the others. Spanish spoken here (Mainly Dominican) sounds... Whiny almost. I think it's more of the stress on sentences than the letters here though.(Not meant to be offensive.) Other than that, it sounds about neutral, but that might just be because Spanish is the equivalent to a first language to me, without actually understanding it. I don't even really like how Esperanto sounds too much. Could use more ĥ, it must be the least used letter.xD One "soft" language I like is Japanese. The vowels are clear, not throaty, and the consonants are sharp, for the most part.
I really don't understand why most people think the Romance languages sound so much nicer. All languages have some bad and good qualities...
About the R, I have to check up on what terms mean which sounds, but I prefer the R used in English and Japanese. French and Spanish R's tend to sound... Off.
I like a nice amount of k,r,ĥ, and ŝ to balance vowels. I find nicer languages have flowing vowels with a bit of "harsh" or "sharp" consonants to balance them out.
Forgive me if my post seemed kinda weird. I don't seem able to properly elaborate on my thoughts at the moment.xD

ceigered (Prikaži profil) 07. december 2008 06:55:27

Mmm, the deep in the throat vowels in French generally are the nasalised vowels.

Rohan (Prikaži profil) 07. december 2008 09:52:09

ceigered:Mmm, the deep in the throat vowels in French generally are the nasalised vowels.
I disagree.

For the most part, the only difference between nasal and non-nasal vowels is that in the case of the former, air is allowed to flow out through the nasal tract as well, instead of just through the oral tract, which is what happens in the non-nasal vowels (and, in fact, in all non-nasal sounds).

Vowels which are phonetically termed 'back vowels' are the vowels which are produced with the tongue relatively far back in the vocal tract. Back vowels are present in English as well:

The 'o' in 'do'
The 'a' in 'mall'

Also, French has front or mid nasal and non-nasal vowels as well.

By saying that vowels in French tend to sound 'deep-in-the-throat', you have certainly conveyed your perception, but I think that phonetically, it's not a very valid statement.

ceigered (Prikaži profil) 07. december 2008 11:34:26

Well, I get that the nasalised vowels aren't back in the throat, it just sounds a tad like that from an extremely non technical point of view. But yes, you're definitely right, I didn't actually think for one second about how 'back' some of the French vowels are... But, come to think of it, they do have a moderately good range of vowels, with two rounded vowels, one neutral, etc. One thing that annoys me though is the pronunciation of the nasal consonants, however I've noticed that the same thing seems to be gradually occurring in English with a vowel+N, but only vary rarely and it's virtually unnoticeable. Nonetheless, I wish French people spoke slower (or stress a regular syllable more often) so I could have a moment to understand them or at least get the rhythm.

En Français: Comment appellez-vous, sil vous plaît?
En Anglais: What's your name, please?

French: 8 syllables
English: 4 syllables

And yet, they're pronounced almost in the same amount of time! ridego.gif

Zafur (Prikaži profil) 07. december 2008 18:07:32

Interesting. As I said, I heard a limited amount of spoken French. Definitely not enough to be able to tell if it was the speakers themselves that made the vowels appear deeper or if it was the language.

Rohan (Prikaži profil) 08. december 2008 10:07:50

ceigered:En Français: Comment appellez-vous, sil vous plaît?
En Anglais: What's your name, please?

French: 8 syllables
English: 4 syllables
You can make it 9 syllables... because the correct sentence in French is:

Comment vous appelez-vous, s'il vous plaît?

LunaMouse (Prikaži profil) 08. december 2008 14:54:41

I have a certain fondness for Mandarin and Norwegian, but I'm hardly qualified to say whether either is particularly soft or not. I just like listening to people speak in those languages.

Makes me feel all happy inside.

Rohan (Prikaži profil) 08. december 2008 16:27:33

LunaMouse:I have a certain fondness for Mandarin and Norwegian, but I'm hardly qualified to say whether either is particularly soft or not. I just like listening to people speak in those languages.

Makes me feel all happy inside.
Come now... Fortunately, presently, no one needs any qualifications to be able to express their personal opinions. ridulo.gif

LunaMouse (Prikaži profil) 08. december 2008 16:51:25

Rohan:
LunaMouse:I have a certain fondness for Mandarin and Norwegian, but I'm hardly qualified to say whether either is particularly soft or not. I just like listening to people speak in those languages.

Makes me feel all happy inside.
Come now... Fortunately, presently, no one needs any qualifications to be able to express their personal opinions. ridulo.gif
My only experience in Mandarin in speech is hearing Faye Wong talking once, the rest is in music (...mostly, but not entirely, her music). The same with Norwegian, but of Liv Kristine's singing, and a friend I once had a brief chat with on the phone who was being a bit flirtatious. So, basically, just a few encounters with a few different people isn't enough to base a solid opinion of either upon.

I suppose given the choice of those listed, I'd pick English, but I tend to have a great deal of soft poetic rhythm floating through my brain in English.

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