What do different languages sound like to you?

[Roma_Victrix]

The title says it all. This thread should be simple enough. To your ears, how do various languages sound? Try not to be rude or vulgar, or intentionally insulting (lighthearted humor is welcome), and certainly don't break the ToS in your descriptions. Also, a preemptive apology to anyone I may offend. Also, I'm not trying to be racist, these are just what the languages sound like me, the unlearned and non-initiated.

To me, Portuguese sounds like a drunk Russian trying to recollect the Spanish that he learned in college.

Italian sounds as if a Latin-speaking Roman had made a systematically concerted effort to make himself (or herself) sound more sexy in order to pick up dates.

Spanish sounds like Latin with a twist of lemon...and steroids. It also sounds like a Roman with a lisp...while trying to eat a lemon.

French sounds like an ancient drunken Roman slurring all his words while trying to imitate and make fun of Franks.

German sounds like it was invented for the sole purpose of shouting military orders; so does Japanese.

Dutch sounds like someone trying to speak English after they just awoke from surgery following blunt force trauma to the head.

Mandarin Chinese sounds like the presumptuous, imperious, cocksure version of Cantonese.

Vietnamese sounds like the backwoods version of Korean.

Russian sounds like it was made by drunks for drunks in an effort to troll other Slavs.

Hindi sounds like a tribe of Romanians and Greeks got isolated on an island together for 500 years, intermarried, and reentered modern society with their funky Indo-European language.

Romanian sounds like a bunch of Sub-Saharan Nubians trying to speak Latin to a confused Roman.

Tamil sounds like an Arab with a cold and a stuffy nose.

Hebrew sounds like someone speaking Arabic with a piece of Scottish haggis stuck in their throat.

Danish sounds like German with a speech impediment.

Turkish sounds like a German trying to speak Arabic.

Greek sounds like a professor trying to read off a bunch of mathematical formulas, while adding an enchanting flourish to it.

Well, now that I've surely offended about half the people at TWC, now it's your turn to tell us all what foreign languages sound like to you!

[Sir Winston Churchill]

You know I've always wondered what English sounds like to a non-native speaker... it's something I'll never ever be able to comprehend.

[Legio_Italica]

You know I've always wondered what English sounds like to a non-native speaker... it's something I'll never ever be able to comprehend.

[Gatsby]

I like German because it sounds very clear to me, even when I can't understand most of it. Spanish and French sound "lazy" when I hear them. The long "l"s and rolled "rrr"s and "th"s instead of "z"s just don't really mesh with my voice.

I mean, how can it not be pronounced "tchor-eets-oh"? How? Why must I make a fool of myself whenever I want tapas?

Also apparently its pronunciation is often most similar to how ancient Latin is imagined to have sounded - Caesar was said really quite similarly to "Kaiser", and that kind of thing.

[Ciciro]

Bar bar bar bar bar bar bar.

[Copperknickers II]

German:
Hallo, ich heiBe Hans, ich bin Deutsch.
Hello, I want to kill all of your degenerate family members.

Gaelic:
'shardy bardhy garchy barchy television, garchy barchy nich na goo Mercedes, archy dich na bich na kich English bastards!'

French:
If a man, sounds like a drunk cat being sick. If a woman, the most alluring language in the world (same goes for Arabic).

Italian:
I really hope that Latin was spoken with a similar rhythm to Italian, because that would make my imagined version of Ancient Rome amazing.

'Mamma mia, et-a tu Brute!'

Portuguese:
A load of drunk Russians went on holiday to Spain, spent all their money on alcohol, and tried unsuccessfully to learn Spanish.

American English:
All Americans, but especially black Americans, somehow convey the impression that everything they say is a line from a particularly cheesy religious-themed Musical. Its hilarious watching the contrast betwen X Factor UK and X Factor USA:

Judge: So what are you hoping to achieve

Brit: Well I want to be a famous singer and become the next Kylie Minogue.

American: 'I BELIEVE IT WAS MY DESTINY, THAT GOD PUT ME ON THIS EARTH TO BE HERE TODAY, TO BE THE WORLDS GREATEST ARTIST, AND I KNOW THAT MY TIME HAS COME, AND GOD WILL GUIDE ME AND TAKE ME ALL THE WAY, THANK THE LAWD, AMEN!'

West African Languages, or West African accent in English:
Everything sounds so interesting. Even conversations about the price of petrol seem like heated debates about the future of the human race.

[Roma_Victrix]

Great responses so far guys, thanks. And thank you Legio_Italica for sharing that video; I now understand everyone else's pain in trying to understand English if it's not their first language.

[Legio_Italica]

Great responses so far guys, thanks. And thank you Legio_Italica for sharing that video; I now understand everyone else's pain in trying to understand English if it's not their first language.

It's funny because the dialogue is just scrambled. If you listen closely, you can decipher the gist of what they're saying...

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

German sounds like an angry man making all sorts of strange grunting noises.

Pretty much all Asian languages sound like someone making really quick ching chang noises, in fact I think Japanese is the only one where I can actually hear a pronunciation.

Arabic, Hebrew and Persian sounds like a guy making gargling and hissing sounds, kind of like someone with a really sore throat and lots of phlegm.

[Stavroforos]

As someone already said: bar bar​

[Sir Adrian]

German sounds like I'm about to have my spleen ripped out and be beaten to death with it.
Norwegian sounds like Germans who have learned to calm down
Swedish sounds like norwegians with meatballs in their mouth
Danish sounds lime norwegians with potatoes in thier mouth
French sounds like Spaniards who wish to be germans
English sounds like Germans who wish to be french
Portuguese sounds like Legio_Italica's video sounds to native English speaker.
Spanish sounds like portruguese and italians had a kid but couldn't decide on which language to teach him so they taught him both at the same time.
Hungarian sounds like turks who wish they were mongols
Russian sounds like Nyan cat
Italian sounds like melodramatic romanian
Greek sounds like Italian with a lisp
Polish sounds like russians who have a passion for j and v

Romanian sounds like a bunch of Sub-Saharan Nubians trying to speak Latin to a confused Roman.

Oh crap, we've been made. Hurry disguise the giraffe before more people catch on to the truth.

"No sir, that is not a giraffe, jsut a really big goat. See it even has a stubble and horns. What? Nooo that tongue is normal, it's blue because we gave it soem grape juice."

[Roma_Victrix]

Damn, this thread is already bearing fruit, I see.

Farsi (Persian) sounds like a Hindi-speaking person trying to speak Greek but accidentally using some Arabic that he learned.

Tibetan sounds like a Chinese person with a bad hangover and on a comedown from drugs.

Urdu sounds like a Hindu had a baby with a Pashtun, who mixed up Hindi and Pashto.

[Vítor Gaspar]

Spanish sounds like a constipated Portuguese hillbilly talking (no offence, you guys).

French is the sexiest language ever when spoken by women and shares with Portuguese and Romanian the dubious merit of being the scariest-sounding Latin language when spoken by some angry man.

Italian seems artificial to my Portuguese-ears. It's as if they tried to make that language rhythmic on purpose. It sounds sexy though.

Greek - "kaskaskaskaskaskaskask, pitecus, plomeus". I can't help but thinking of Basque.

Romanian - that's the weirdest thing: that's Portuguese they're speaking but you can't get what the hell they're saying.

Latin American Spanish - that's just wrong. Once again, it's a constipated Portuguese hillbilly speaking but he also happens to have a running nose.

Brazilian-accented Portuguese - that's sex, you guys. You pick up the fast-speaking European Portuguese, slow it down a little, tone down the Slavic-ish accent and bring in an Italianesque way of pronouncing some words and leave some 19th century Portuguese words in it just for the sake of sounding sophisticated. Picture Adriana Lima speaking while some smooth jazz or bossa nova plays on the background.

Or you just talk like a goddamn moron who has no grasp of the minimum requirements for being understood and talking a language, conjugating verbs with the wrong subjects and tenses. It can go both ways.

[Col. Tartleton]

German is pronounced like Latin and English isn't, which is really weird since English is basically German with far more Romance infusion.

I've always enjoyed Dutch because it really does sound like English spoken by someone with severe brain damage. And vice versa of course. English must sound like Dutch being spoken by a chimp. Unfortunately the Dutch are all fluent in English and the English are never going to bother learning Dutch.

Latin American languages sound far better than their European equivalents. Like Spanish in Colombia or Mexico is markedly better than Spanish in Castle or Catalan.

[Treize]

Well Danish sounds like a Norwegian with a cerebral infraction... Turkish sounds like tjsjtjsjtjesjjt.

[Roma_Victrix]

Picture Adriana Lima speaking while some smooth jazz or bossa nova plays on the background.

Great post. LOL. Portuguese hillbillies...

[Kraut]

French is the sexiest language ever when spoken by women

This.

To my German ears, French is probably just the most beautiful and best-sounding language of the planet.

Everytime a Madame speaks French, whatever she says, I only hear "Rrrrrrr, I want to sleep with you. Come on, you hairy barbaric menace from across the Rhine, explore me, invade me...!"
Everytime a Monsieur speaks French, whatever he says, I feel the burning desire to beat him up, because he obviously is trying to seduce my wife. Obviously.

In French, even gangsta rap sounds witty and educated.

[Sir Adrian]

Everytime a Madame speaks French, whatever she says, I only hear "Rrrrrrr, I want to sleep with you. Come on, you hairy barbaric menace from across the Rhine, explore me, invade me...!"
Everytime a Monsieur speaks French, whatever he says, I feel the burning desire to beat him up, because he obviously is trying to seduce my wife. Obviously.

That is probably the best summary of WWI and WWII I've ever read.

[Treize]

Ah, Portugal... Glorious homeland of Zé do Pipo.

[Stavroforos]

I don't get why French sounds sexy, either from males or females. It sounds like phlegmatic peasants who can't speak a Romance language.