So, I just came back from a trip to Copenhagen. Having lived in Sweden for a while, I have got used to the melodic sounds of the Swedish language, and assumed that Danish would be similar.
Dear God, I could not have been more wrong! The Danish language is by far the ugliest I have ever heard, it sounds like someone is repeatedly trying to throw up and failing. No ‘melody’ like Swedish, no beautiful words like Italian or French, no cheerful sounds like Norwegian… Danish has literally no redeeming features.
And yet, I can’t really point out WHAT it is that makes a language like this ugly. I just know that it is. So yeah, can anyone here tell me what exactly it is that makes a language sound good or bad to different people? Of course you’re very welcome to explain which languages you dislike while you’re at it
I listened to some Danish on YouTube and yeah, that’s a pretty good nomination. I’d put Dutch kind of in the same category. They both sound like an extremely drunk American attempting German and failing miserably.
I have described it as the language of dry heaves–I sit next to the Ranting Dane at work. I’ve said much the same about Swedish, though it’s less pronounced with Swedish.
If German is on any list of ugly languages, Yiddish should be at its side. Yiddish is the Pug of languages; so, so ugly, but so much fun at the same time.
Icelandic. Such an incredible literary heritage for having only 300,000 speakers. It’s too bad it sounds like a drunk German trying to imitate a Russian trying to imitate a Norwegian trying to speak Danish.
(The angry bald guy with the goatee? He’s the mayor of Reykjavik. Really.)
I actually love the sound of Glaswegian. It’s so melodic and full of character. And a woman speaking with that accent is such a turn-on for me.
German’s kind of harsh-sounding to my ears, but I remember teaching a couple of Hungarian girls English and somehow getting into a conversation about various languages. They told me they loved German and that it was the most beautiful sounding language to their ears. That’s the only time I’ve ever heard that said of German from a non-native.
Hungarian sounds lovely to my ears–it’s full of open and harmonious vowels. You don’t have stupid crazy consonant clusters or deep gutturals or objectionable sounds like that. I’m surprised anyone would find it harsh or ugly.
I’m not familiar enough with Middle Eastern languages, but to my unaccustomed ears, Arabic sounds a bit rough to me. ETA: Actually, shit, yeah. Mandarin is one that really grates on my ears. That would probably be my vote off the cuff.
For those of you saying Mandarin, I think it was a typo and you meant Cantonese. Mao on a pogo stick, that’s an awful sounding language. Famous throughout China as being a loud nasty language.
The way you describe it, Cantonese does sound like a better fit. I couldn’t identify Mandarin from Cantonese, but the language I’m thinking of sounds like a sing-song syllabic onslaught of pure anger, irritation, and annoyance. At least to my Western ears, no offense to Cantonese speakers.
