Favourite Language

Crann na Beatha

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karl_m

French. The only other language besides English I can remotely speak.

Enkidu

As a person, Irish, granny's language, e.t.c.

As a linguist, Persian. Beautiful sounds, logical grammar and over a millennium of some of the best literature and poetry in the world can be understood if you learn it.

conor.hogan.2

Chinese and japenese, because of their writing systems (and my somewhat obsession with both cultures and histories)

HalloweenJack

Spanish and/or Portuguese.

They're both far easier and more logical grammatically than English and they sound nicer to me too. Also, some of the expressions you get are much more interesting than English ones.

I have a strong fondness for Irish but that'd be for cultural reasons rather than aesthetic ones.

wonton

Enkidu wrote: »

As a person, Irish, granny's language, e.t.c.

As a linguist, Persian. Beautiful sounds, logical grammar and over a millennium of some of the best literature and poetry in the world can be understood if you learn it.

I love the sound of persian too. There was a thing in the paper yesterday about funny product names from around the world and one of the products was persian and I was chuffed that I knew what the word meant :cool:


http://i.imgur.com/n37l5.jpg


barf is snow

earwax_man

Polish, Dutch, German or Finnish

I love difficult grammar and logical languages. I can also speak 3 of them fluently God I'm such a nerd polyglot :pac:

somairle

I love the sound of italian, I hope to learn it one day im currently learning french but thats more practical, italian would be purely for the culture & sound

Manach

Latin, the language of Empire and High Mass.

Lady Chuckles

There are so many marvellous ones to choose from! :eek:

I love odd languages, sounds that I don't hear very often. I love the culture associated with languages and I love looking at foreign phrases and trying to figure out where they are from. There's beauty in most languages, perhaps even in all of them :pac:

I really like the sound of Hebrew

blackdog2

I love how Cantonese sounds (and I am the only person I know who does, including native speakers!)

Alex152

I can speak Hindi but I do like French, it's very romantic

feargale

Cardinal Mezzofanti, renowned polyglot, said that the two most beautiful languages were the English of Shakespeare and the Italian of Dante. Some French guy, I forget who, said the two most beautiful were French, ( naturally ! ) and Classical Greek.

davwain

I like how Russian sounds, despite my inability to speak it very well. I won't give up trying to improve my ability to speak that language, however.

niallcon4re

The Italian accent is my favourite.

I only really speak Spanish and I find it a more colourful language than English in terms of expressions.

I can't speak it at all but I love listening to Icelandic. It's difficult to find decent resources to learn it, and it's admittedly a language with limited usage outside of Iceland (which I have yet to visit, though it's on my list) but I would love to learn it some day. In fact, I like the Nordic languages in general. I've dabbled with Danish and Swedish on Duolingo. Swedish is certainly the "prettier" of the two but there's something about the rugged (some may say ugly) sounds of Danish that I find really charming.

I'm mainly focussed on learning German at the moment though; if I could go back in time I'd have picked to study German in secondary school instead of French.

Outside of the Nordic/Germanic family, I like the sound of Russian. The Russian course on Duolingo is over 90% completed so am looking forward to seeing it.

sryanbruen

earwax_man wrote: »

Polish, Dutch, German or Finnish

I love difficult grammar and logical languages. I can also speak 3 of them fluently God I'm such a nerd polyglot :pac:

So you would love my language Sryanonese - cause it has very difficult grammar in some parts. My favourite language is French because plenty of the words I already know from every day life and thus, is so easy to learn - not to mention how some of the irregular verb's endings that match each other.

feargale

earwax_man wrote: »

I love difficult grammar and logical languages.

Is that not a contradiction?

Caoimhgh1n

My favourite foreign langauge is English.

feargale

Caoimhgh1n wrote: »

My favourite foreign langauge is English.

That's clear to be seen. Keep practising it and you could be good at it.

Caoimhgh1n

feargale wrote: »

That's clear to be seen. Keep practising it and you could be good at it.

My apologies,I was typing too quickly..

Dughorm

I identify very strongly with the auld Gaeilge but I like the romance languages also - I especially look forward to the day I learn Italian!

feargale

Caoimhgh1n wrote: »

My apologies,I was typing too quickly..

Oh I see. I thought you were born abroad in a non-English speaking country or born in Ireland to immigrant parents who had not yet got citizenship, and raised with Polish or Chinese. Otherwise you should get out more if you think English is a foreign language here. FYI it's the first language of more than 98% of the population and is no more foreign here than French in Belgium or Switzerland, Swedish in Finland or Spanish in Peru. The Irish language is badly served by such misconceptions and misrepresentations.

Caoimhgh1n

feargale wrote: »

Oh I see. I thought you were born abroad in a non-English speaking country or born in Ireland to immigrant parents who had not yet got citizenship, and raised with Polish or Chinese. Otherwise you should get out more if you think English is a foreign language here. FYI it's the first language of more than 98% of the population and is no more foreign here than French in Belgium or Switzerland, Swedish in Finland or Spanish in Peru. The Irish language is badly served by such misconceptions and misrepresentations.

It is the most used language. That doesn't mean it is not foreign.

feargale

Caoimhgh1n wrote: »

It is the most used language. That doesn't mean it is not foreign.

I must remember that when I go to New Zealand. "Why are yez all speaking a foreign language? Yez are all foreigners."

Caoimhgh1n

feargale wrote: »

I must remember that when I go to New Zealand. "Why are yez all speaking a foreign language? Yez are all foreigners."

Just because somebody doesn't speak native languages doesn't make them foreign. English is technically a foreign language to New Zealand, but I fully recognise it is by far their main language. I don't have anything else to say on the subject.

Crann na Beatha

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feargale

Caoimhgh1n wrote: »

Just because somebody doesn't speak native languages doesn't make them foreign. English is technically a foreign language to New Zealand, but I fully recognise it is by far their main language. I don't have anything else to say on the subject.

I have one last thing to say. On your reasoning English is a foreign language in England, introduced from the Continent by Anglo-Saxons, and by the same token Irish is a foreign language in Ireland, having displaced a pre-Celtic language. Good day to you.

Lady Chuckles

Ah, in fairness, maybe Caoimhgh is native in Irish and surely then English could be considered foreign to him. I don't get why you're picking on him.

I'm not sure if I personally think of English as my favourite language, but I do feel pretty special when I speak it. Like a movie star
In that sense it's pretty awesome :pac:

An Irish accent helps making it extra special

Crann na Beatha

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XR3i

deutsch ist besser

feargale

JT26 wrote: »

I actually enjoy speaking Irish!

So do I, but for God's sake don't tell people it's your favourite foreign language.

sryanbruen

JT26 wrote: »

I actually enjoy speaking Irish!

So do I.... if only I could learn speaking it! Thanks to the stupid education syllabus