# How many Languages Can You Identify by Ear **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 8, 2022, 9:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-can-you-identify-by-ear/969297 "2022-08-08T09:11:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Moonrise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moonrise/32/14764_2.png) [@Moonrise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moonrise)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2022, 9:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-can-you-identify-by-ear/969297/1 "2022-08-08T09:11:57Z")
_Poll ([view on site](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-can-you-identify-by-ear/969297/1))_ Inspired, very indirectly, by these [two](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prey-the-hulu-predator-movie/969233/20) [threads](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-would-you-rather-master-language-or-music/969275) As for me, **English** **Dutch** **German** **Swedish** I would probably struggle with Nowegian, Danish and Icelandic. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to recognize Faroese. All the national Romance languages Within a couple of seconds **French** **Italian** **Spanish** **Portuguese** easily, but requiring just a little bit more time. **Romanian** would give me some trouble but I could identify it after about a minute. **Russian** Perhaps Polish and Serbian **Greek** is always diffcult for me to recognize until I realize that it sounds like Spanish but that I don’t understand a single word. Then, I know it’s Greek. **Finnish** , easily but not Estonian or Saami **Hungarian** , probably **Arabic** , both Classical and North African, but not the other varieties. **Hebrew** , probably **Japanese** **Chinese**. I’d be completely unable to distinguish between the different Chinese languages but I’d sure identify them as “Chinese”. ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2022, 9:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-can-you-identify-by-ear/969297/2 "2022-08-08T09:58:58Z")
> [@Moonrise](#): > > **Portuguese** easily Lisbon Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese sound extremely different. Do you know how they each sound? ---
**Author:** ![Moonrise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moonrise/32/14764_2.png) [@Moonrise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moonrise)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2022, 10:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-can-you-identify-by-ear/969297/3 "2022-08-08T10:27:37Z")
Good question, I’m not sure. I mainly know Brazilian Portuguese through music and singing can mask accents. Portuguese Portuguese, I only know through a few people I’ve met and I didn’t get to know them well enough to pay attention to the differences with the sung South American varieties. ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2022, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-can-you-identify-by-ear/969297/4 "2022-08-08T15:29:14Z")
I could probably tell Portuguese from Spanish if the speaker spoke slowly enough. Same with Spanish and Italian. French is pretty much unmistakeable, German sounds different to Dutch so I can tell them apart pretty readily. I can pick out Japanese from any other Asian tongue within a few syllables. I wouldn’t be able to tell Mandarin from Thai from Vietnamese if my life depended on it. The Nordic languages (or Scandinavian or whatever the right word is) all sound exactly the same to me. I don’t think I’ve ever heard spoken Romanian or Romansch, so they would sound like gibberish to me. Same with more niche European languages like Flemish or Luxembourgish or what have you. I’d have to guess that all Slavic languages would sound exactly the same to me. I could probably tell Hebrew from Arabic if the speakers spoke slowly. ---
**Author:** ![Moonrise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moonrise/32/14764_2.png) [@Moonrise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moonrise)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2022, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-can-you-identify-by-ear/969297/5 "2022-08-08T15:50:31Z")
> [@HeyHomie](#): > > German sounds different to Dutch so I can tell them apart pretty readily > … > I don’t think I’ve ever heard spoken Romanian or Romansch, so they would sound like gibberish to me. Same with more niche European languages like Flemish… Written Flemish and Dutch are basically the same language, but pronunciation is _very_ different. Dutch sounds like Flemish spoken by an Anglophone with a severly stuffed up throat. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2022, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-can-you-identify-by-ear/969297/6 "2022-08-08T15:52:19Z")
> [@CairoCarol](#): > > Lisbon Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese sound extremely different. Do you know how they each sound? Seems like different accents to me, and no doubt different phrasing, but I can pick out the individual words without a problem. Not being fluent may help since I wouldn’t recognize any grammatical difference. Also, throughout Brazil accents change greatly, a friend born and raised in the US spent almost 40 years living in Brazil. She found that locals could tell she had some kind of accent but assumed it was just from somewhere else in Brazil. Portuguese also has variations in the Atlantic islands, sometimes mixed with Spanish by among the diverse populations. ---
**Author:** ![Tabco](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tabco/32/7644_2.png) [@Tabco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tabco)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2022, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-can-you-identify-by-ear/969297/7 "2022-08-08T20:14:02Z")
English Spanish German Japanese Took 4 years of Spanish so that’s why I rcognize that one. German sounds pretty distinct to my ears, and I’ve been studying Japanese for a little bit as well. I have impaired hearing which messes with my speech recognition pretty badly so unless I’ve studied or otherwise am interested in a particular language I can’t really tell them apart. ---
**Author:** ![teelabrown](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/teelabrown/32/8412_2.png) [@teelabrown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teelabrown)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2022, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-can-you-identify-by-ear/969297/8 "2022-08-08T20:24:34Z")
Me: English French German Spanish Italian Japanese Hawaiian Korean Chinese (ditto **Moonrise** ’s remark about dialects in China) ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2022, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-can-you-identify-by-ear/969297/9 "2022-08-08T20:33:22Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Not being fluent may help since I wouldn’t recognize any grammatical difference. I don’t know if there is any grammatical difference since I never studied Brazilian Portuguese. What I do know is that Mozambique, where I lived for two years, used very “Portuguese-Portuguese” and whenever a Brazilian Portuguese speaker and a Mozambican Portuguese speaker encountered each other for the first time, both sides were always kind of freaked out! However, they could understand each other for sure, at least once their ears adjusted. To me, Brazilian Portuguese sounds much closer to Spanish in its lilt and vowel sounds. Lisbon Portuguese sounds almost like Polish or something. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2022, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-can-you-identify-by-ear/969297/10 "2022-08-08T21:06:52Z")
I don’t know if I encountered any Portuguese speakers from Mozambique. I wrote ‘grammatical differences’ trying to find a way to describe the parts I wouldn’t notice like idioms and sounds that seem to change the word to me. But that’s because at best I’m picking up maybe 2/3 of the words individually and much less meaning in phrases. I can understand the freak out feeling when it doesn’t sound right, I need my ears to adjust just to misunderstand what I’m hearing. I tell Portuguese speakers that I speak a little bit. Without fail they’ll ask me to say something and I’ll respond “No fala Portuguese.” After a chuckle they’ll tell me how good my pronunciation is. ---
**Author:** ![Moonrise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moonrise/32/14764_2.png) [@Moonrise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moonrise)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2022, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-can-you-identify-by-ear/969297/11 "2022-08-09T08:17:36Z")
> [@CairoCarol](#): > > Lisbon Portuguese sounds almost like Polish or something. Funny, the Portuguese people that I’ve met all joked that Portuguese was “weird Spanish pronounced by a Slav”. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2022, 9:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-can-you-identify-by-ear/969297/12 "2022-08-09T09:42:10Z")
Definite: English German French Italian Spanish Mandarin Chinese Shanghainese Cantonese Japanese Welsh Equivocal: Welsh – It feels I am more recognizing the accent than any specifics of the language. I’ve only ever heard native speakers speak Welsh, so there is no distinction. Swedish – there are certain sounds I recognize as Swedish, which might not be present in a single sentence. But I could tell that, say, a TV is showing a Swedish channel. Jamaican Patois – Debatable if it’s a language, but plenty of English-speakers cannot understand a word. I’m just gonna say 6-10 ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2022, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-can-you-identify-by-ear/969297/13 "2022-08-09T14:50:46Z")
My country has 11 official languages. I can identify 4 of those _relatively_ easily (English, Afrikaans, Xhosa, Zulu), 2 with time (Tswana, Sotho), plus I can identify a couple of extra non-official ones (Nama, Fanagalo). Then there are foreign languages that are somewhat prevalent here in recent immigrant populations in one way or another, like French, Portuguese, German, Shona, Swahili, Arabic and Hindi. That’s 15 languages already, all without leaving my own country. If we include media, work or travel exposure, I can identify Korean, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Flemish, Welsh, Irish and Finnish. I have a hard time telling Slavic languages and Nordic languages apart, though. Can’t really tell Polish from Russian or Norwegian from Swedish. But yeah, more than 20. ---
**Author:** ![zimaane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a3d4f5/32.png) [@zimaane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zimaane)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2022, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-can-you-identify-by-ear/969297/14 "2022-08-09T15:02:50Z")
I speak English, Spanish and French, so those would be easy. I know enough to identify Portuguese, Italian, and Romanian. I studied Russian and recently I’ve been dabbling in Arabic, so I’ve got those. I can recognize Mandarin and Cantonese (but wouldn’t know Fujian from Hokkien or anything like that) and Japanese from TV and films. From living in Africa, I could identify Waali, Dagaare, and Twi (there are lots of dialects and related Akan languages that I wouldn’t get though.) ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2022, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-can-you-identify-by-ear/969297/15 "2022-08-09T15:20:09Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Norwegian from Swedish There are certain dialects of Norwegian and Swedish that are much closer to each other, than those sam dialects are to dialects in their respective language. Or, IOW, Norwegian and Swedish are so damned close they should be considered dialects, not distinct languages. This is true of the Finland version of Swedish (official language there), which isn’t further away than Norwegian. Maybe similar to South African and New Zealand English? BTW, Afrikaans sounds as if I should be able to get a little bit of it, from the phonemes, but nu-uh. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2022, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-can-you-identify-by-ear/969297/16 "2022-08-09T17:23:57Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > I have a hard time telling Slavic languages and Nordic languages apart, though. Can’t really tell Polish from Russian or Norwegian from Swedish. These two language families are a also my stumbling blocks. Though I can tell Danish from Swedish and Norwegian. Danish sounds like a cross between Dutch and Swedish, spoken with a slight English accent and a towel in the mouth. So let’s see: German English French These are the languages I speak, so that’s easy. Spanish Italian Greek Portuguese Dutch (I couldn’t tell Dutch from Flemish easily, though. My rule of thumb: if it sounds more like English, it’s Dutch, and if more like French, it’s Flemish) Danish Swiss-German (if that counts as a single language) Arabic Turkish Japanese Finnish Hungarian These are mostly languages from countries which have prominent contingents of immigrants in Germany, so I hear those a lot in real life. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2022, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-can-you-identify-by-ear/969297/17 "2022-08-09T17:29:57Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > Swiss-German (if that counts as a single language) Then you can add Austrian in general and [Carinthian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carinthia) in particular too. I am surprised nobody has stated Latin yet. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2022, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-can-you-identify-by-ear/969297/18 "2022-08-09T17:37:54Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > Then you can add Austrian in general and [Carinthian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carinthia) in particular too. It really depends on the Austrian region. Viennese I understand just fine, but I once saw an interview with one of Hitler’s nephews (I know, way to Godwinize a harmless thread 😂) who was from the region of Braunau (Adolf’s birth town). He was a simple man, a farmer, and I didn’t understand a word of it (gladly it was subtitled). He was even harder to follow than most people speaking Swiss-German for me, though I’m usually dependent on subtitles there too. > [@](#): > > I am surprised nobody has stated Latin yet. That’s a good point. Add it to my list, I even learned it in school, though only for three years. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2022, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-can-you-identify-by-ear/969297/19 "2022-08-09T18:08:25Z")
Oh, I don’t understand them (Carinthians and Swiss) either, but the point of the OP was “identifying by ear”. That I probably could. But I am loath to answering the question right away, as a professional interpreter I am having much too many second thoughts, buts and ifs spinning in my head right now. If I had to give an answer at gunpoint our lists would overlap a lot, mine would include Catalan, Galizian and Basque too, minus Arabic, probably (but… if… ach!). ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2022, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-can-you-identify-by-ear/969297/20 "2022-08-09T18:30:04Z")
> [@Charlie\_Tan](#): > > Maybe similar to South African and New Zealand English? IME, NZ and SA English are pretty close. More differences of accent than anything else. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-languages-can-you-identify-by-ear/969297.md?page=2)