Russian. Don't know why, I've never liked the sound of it though.

I think Finnish sounds beautiful, especially women's voices - like skis on snow!

I like the Boston accent but I don't like the surrounding New England accents. I don't like the US Southern accent - or I should really say, accents, because there are huge regional variations. I have spent little time in the south, so I am not able to easily distinguish between most southern accent. But Bush's accent is most definitely a Texas accent, it's very distinct from accents in the rest of the south.

For the most part, it's not whole accents that bother me, but pronunciations of certain words. It bugs me, for some reason, when some people from New York say "yoo-man" instead of "human". When people pronounce the word "mature" as "ma-toor" rather than "ma-chur". Really petty things, I know!

The Canadian accent is for the most part very similar to a US midwestern accent. For the most part I can only distinguish it from the US through a few "shibboleth" words that have a distinctive Canadian pronunciation.

For me, Scottish accents are the most difficult in the English-speaking world. I am not very familiar with the different Scottish accents, and sometimes I really have to listen hard to understand. Also, some accents in the deep South of the US are hard for me to understand. We seldom hear such accents on TV, and while I frequently have contact with southerners, they are from "more northern" parts of the south, with accents that are easier to understand. I worked for a while with a guy from Mississippi. For the first couple weeks it took me a few extra moments of 'processing time' to understand what he said and answer him, when he spoke to me. That improved with time but I still really had to listen hard.

jchthys:Japanese.

Boo! Hehe I'm kidding... I am still learning Japanese, I like it.

Senlando,

No I totally understand what you are saying, that "er" sounds so annoying and snobbish..to me anyway. Actually Mandarin is really annoying to attemt to learn in my opinion. Probably because I'm not nearly as smart enough to learn it...

Oh and with some English American accents can be annoying such as saying "y'all", guess that makes me a hypocrite!

ebeckhusen:For me there really isn't one particular language, it's more the various accents here in the US. I really can't stand listening to a strong Maine or Massachusetts accent. I'm okay with most of the New York ones, since I was raised there, though "Brooklynese" still gets on my nerves. Mostly I think for me it's a matter of how far an accent strays from the original.

HOW UUUU DOIIIN'?

hehehe!!! I understand your pain! My aunt who's an artist lives in New York and has that accent. I'm in California so I hear a lot of valley girl speak...

ceigered said:

Some American English* or New South Welsh accentsdialects that don't use intonation or draw out vowels. (NSW being a state of Australia). Spoken Australian English with a fake American accent (seems to be the 'hip' thing for some groups). Other than that, I love the sound of just about any other language or dialect, even the 'harsh' ones like German (which is soft in my opinion), Dutch, Japanese, Mandarin (even the 'er' sounds, I feel like a pirate!), Scots etc.

Hehe, that's my accent. I have a flat "caaat" "baaath" way of talking...I'm not offended! I love Australian and Scottish accents...very sexy!

eikored85:Sorry Ceigered, I hope I'm not offending your variety of English, but...

When I was watching the movie "Wolf Creek" (it's a very bad horror movie, don't bother with it), which takes place in the Australian outback, the accent of the evil villain was so thick that I could not understand it with my American-tuned ears. I had to turn on the subtitles just to understand him!

As for annoying sounding English dialects...I have to say the American southern accent really bothers me...it's often the accent used to caricature Americans (Bush uses this accent).

I agree with everything you said...that guy in Wolf Creek had a really heavy accent, too heavy to understand.

Also I don't like most southern accents, especially the very slow southern accent...

I have two languages that I prefer not to hear. With no reflection on the people, they are Spanish and Vietnamese.

One aspect of Spanish in particular is the sound of 'd', as it comes across like the speaker has a lisp and ends up sounding like a 'th'. The speed and sounds of the spoken word make me feel like I'm on a bumpy road ride.
Strangely enough, I used to have a similar opinion of Japanese in that it always sounded too choppy to know where words started and ended. After I learned the language and spent a few years with a Japanese friend, it became far more pleasant. In fact, I enjoy listening to Japanese now. Maybe it just needs a bit of experience to get used to it?

As I mentioned, the other language whose sound tends to irk me is Vietnamese. Pronunciation sounds lazy yet the intonation sounds almost extreme. The two clash in my mind and give me a headache after a while.

ZOV:

ebeckhusen:For me there really isn't one particular language, it's more the various accents here in the US. I really can't stand listening to a strong Maine or Massachusetts accent. I'm okay with most of the New York ones, since I was raised there, though "Brooklynese" still gets on my nerves. Mostly I think for me it's a matter of how far an accent strays from the original.

HOW UUUU DOIIIN'?

hehehe!!! I understand your pain! My aunt who's an artist lives in New York and has that accent. I'm in California so I hear a lot of valley girl speak...

Lol....I'm in California now, but in San Diego, so I don't have to deal too much with the valley girl speak. Some teenagers do like to put it on, though, because they think it's "cool" (but to me it automatically lowers their IQ by about 20 points!).

Wow, after looking at what other people have said, I think it's interesting how some people can see one feature of a language as something pleasant, while others think it's unpleasant. I guess this just goes to show how different we are in our tastes

I've noticed that some people seem to say that Romance languages sound good, but to me, they're not created equal. I like the way French sounds because it's so smooth and "fluid" sounding. Italian on the other hand, sounds choppy to me because of the intonation and stress, and frankly, annoys me.

As for Japanese, I actually think it sounds pleasant. Japanese and Spanish both have simple syllabic structures (usually CV or CVC) and when spoken quickly, both languages flow nicely, and due to their "fluidity", it can also be hard to hear word boundaries (if you're a beginner). Contrast this with Germanic or Slavic languages, which sound a bit harsh to my ears, due to their complex consonant clusters.