Fun, which language do you find most pleasant to hear?

Sander · Fun, which language do you find most pleasant to hear?

I do believe we've all seen The Lion King, and I think we also all know that this was a movie meant for children (

André in Zuid-Afrika

The first seven! Good grief, you really want us to work, don't you.

Well, I have to go for the Zulu as the best, as that is the original version.

Deborah

I haven't heard them all yet, but so far I love it in Spanish (especially the singing voice of adult Simba) and Arabic.

Sander

dorayakii

I did like the Zulu version too, but i'd put that number 2... after Finnish, i thought it was a very fluid version of the song... 3rd for me would be Italian, and 4th Japanese.

It seems that the languages which have more of a (consonent+vowel) stucture and which avoid rough velar and uvular fricatives and even hissing sibilant fricative get more of my vote. In fact, Finnish, to my untrained ear, really seems to resemble Japanese (which i'm studying at Higher-Further level).

I wasn't sure where to rank the Arabic version. I say i don't like the uvular fricatives, yet i adore the swallowed pharyngeal fricatives and glottal sounds of Arabic... it ranks very high for me... yet Hebrew ranks extremely low.

To me Serbo-Croation sounded the worse. It was full of rough throaty fricatives and annoying hissy sibilants. Closely followed by either Polish, Hebrew or German (but ordinarily i love the sound of German).

I've left a few languages out, mainly because i couldn't make up my mind...

1. Finnish
2. Zulu
3. Italian
4. Japanese

Hungarian

Arabic

French

Swedish
Norwegian
Danish

Spanish

Greek

Korean

Bulgarian

Cantonese
Mandarin

German/Polish
Hebrew
Serbo-Croation

Sander

Thanks dorayakii~!

Deborah

Of the ones I've heard so far, I thought Russian sounded the strangest in the song. I generally like the sound of Russian, but somehow it just seemed wrong for this style of singing. French didn't sound quite right, either. I liked Hungarian, but I may have been influenced by having heard quite a bit of Hungarian spoken by a couple of people I liked very much, while I was visiting a friend last week.

Another one I really liked the sound of generally was European Portuguese. (The Brasilian Portuguese never loaded, so I can't say anything about it.)

Deborah

Now that Sander has lowered the favorites number to 4, here's my list after having listened to about half of the languages (if I get around to listening to the rest, I'll post a modified list):

1. Spanish
2. Arabic
3. European Portuguese
4. Hungarian

Worst: Russian (only because I didn't like how it sounded in the song)

Akoni

1. Arabic
2. Norwegian
3. Spanish
4. Japanese

Cool

Sander

#1 Norwegian (The way Simba pronounces "hakuna matata" just makes me want to learn Norwegian)
# Finnish (Nice and fluent, sounded a bit oriental to me for some reason)
# Polish (Normally I can't hear any difference between Slavic languages, but compared to the other 3 this one just stood out. Very nice.
# Spanish (Gutteral at times but quite fluently sung whoever did the Adult Simba has a beautiful voice)
# Hebrew (Nice and gutteral, a lot like Arabic but for some reason it didn't get the "mooth")

Worst: German. Just terrible, they sounded like very bad opera singers complete miss of atmosphere.

Funniest: Cantonese ... I just couldn't stop laughing. Just hilarious. It sounded like a Xylophone.

Deborah

Loic

I thought the Cantonese version wasn't soooo bad. It did, however, make me think of an advertisement.

In my opinion, the Mandarin version was the worst. Timor and Pumba sound so effeminate when they were gaily singing the evergreen melody.

The French version wasn't as good despite its overall beauty of the language.

So here's my top 4 rankings:

1. English
2. Spanish
3. Dutch (the novelty appealed to me, I reckon)
4. Iberian Portuguese

Fredrik

Wow, I never knew that so many languages could sound so similar. (And that Cantonese sounds like Dutch!) Impossible to pick a favourite.

What impressed me most was that they found so many actors/singers from so many countries with so similar voices. I guess voices essentially are like languages, basically very similar...

And I found that understanding or not understanding what is said has a lot to say for how you evaluate it.

Sander

Fredrik

Yeah, it really does, probably because of the diphtongs. Doesn't sound very Asian. Though not guttural, so perhaps I should say Flemish.

BTW I got treated to a lot of Dutch yesterday. Watched Het Schnitzelparadijs in the cinema.

Sander

Akoni

Fredrik

OK, I see. But I meant the Cantonese version, Sander!

Daniel

1. Tagalog (maybe I'm a bit biased but it sounds so pretty)
2. Inuktitut (you should hear it - so beautiful, very ethereal)
3. Portuguese (Brazilian version)
4. Catalan
5. Spanish

I agree with Sander on Cantonese being the funniest to hear.

I was in Hong Kong last month and I went to this 7-Eleven to buy some noodles for my lunch when I just listened to the animated conversation between a shopkeeper and the customer. They spoke so fast and it just sounded so funny in a funky way. I smiled and chuckled the whole time especially when I heard words like "gei duk" (sounds like 'gay duck'), "fuk" (sounds like 'fuck') and "ho" (like the shortened form of "whore"). There's a shop called "FUK TAT".

(fuk tat gei duk ho). :D

Erol · Lion King

Hello my friends;

This is my first post

Listen these are from Lion King again in Istanbulite turkish ;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RB...TTwE&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMdd-fo--WE

Shouga

Welcome to the forum Erol! The songs sound very pretty in Turkish, especially 'Love will find a way'.

I love this videos! I appreciate it, Sander, that you made this post. Without it I wouldn't have known what so many languages sounded like when spoken, and I wouldn't have developed such a love for spoken Icelandic

Erol

Hello , Shouga

Nice to greet you , as well. Here are some other examples of this language ;

Video for "Perdeler" by famous Turkish rock singer Sebnem Ferah. This is the title song from her 2001 album " Perdeler" ("Curtains" or "blinds" in english).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vm8qh9YeXDk

Another clip of a song of her from the same album called "Sigara" ;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egULhSpCDWs

Or from Hande Yener a contemporary turkish singer & her song "Biraz Özgürlük" = "Little Freedom" ,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mc31u60PpPY

Hande Yener "Kelepçe" = "Handcuff",
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0U-H6Q6Bp8

Thank you , enjoy

Icke

Welcome Erol!

I like the sound of the Turkish language! So, I guess you are from Turkey or are you just an adorer of this language?

Erol

Greetings , Icke. My heritage is off of many versions of Balkan substratum , like Slavic , Illyrian , Hellenic , etc.

This language & speakers are interesting , when they speak the language in foreign language environment , depending on the accent of the regional origin , the status etc. of them , they encounter with various opinions , like "Is it a romance language?" , "Is it a verison of slavic or hungarian?"
Turkish sounds very versatile depending on the speaker. Sometimes people can say, " The languages that these two people speak are turkish? They don't sound like , they're speaking in the same language , at all! "

I lived in lovely Türkiye for long time , as well . I know urban Turkish culture , which is the most dominant in Türkiye , that's not known much in Deutchland , isn't it?

Loic

Hello, Errol! Say, were you inspired by Harry Potter when you chose this name? Wasn't Errol the name of an owl in the book series?

Irrintzi

I find most pleasant different languages;

I appreciate the languages through the musics, i like the mixed song languages

Erol

Loic

Erol

Thanks Loic. I'll tell about this curious language later . maybe we have to open a new thread about " the foreign & native male/female names in the languages" What do you think?

Wanderin

Finnish sounds just great, especially in songs, German of course, Czech, Turkish, too much languages which I like ayayay....And Don't foreget about Swedish

a good finnish song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x7bCVeMghY

Loic

I agree that German sounds good in songs. I was introduced to Wir Sind Helden. I have no idea what the cute chick was singing, but I absolutely loved some of their songs, especially Nur ein Wort.

By the way, welcome to the forum!

Didier69

Even with the links I couldn't find all the versions. According to to the few ones I was able to listen to. I didn't know neither did I that such different languages could sound the same.

TaylorS

I find Spanish and Greek very pleasant. Mandarin and Cantonese sound goofy. Arabic and Danish sound like throat diseases.