Anonymous wrote:French or Mandarin as the most beautiful.
German and Dutch sound harsh to me.

Dutch sounds harsh? German I get - but Dutch sounds very soft to me.

Love Mandarin. Hate French.

Love Korean and Portuguese.


Do not like most Eastern European languages like Polish and Bulgarian. Cannot stand Saxon German and Austrian.

I think Portuguese sounds cool. Neutral about French/ Italian which I know is more popular. Also neutral about German since I know people who speak it without sounding harsh at all- they are Swiss German though so I don’t know if that’s the same as German.

I must admit I don’t like the sound of nasal (tonal?) languages like Vietnamese, Cantonese although I’m Asian myself.

Korean is kind of a nice language.

Love French, hate German.

I always felt like people in Germany were angry or scolding me. Just the way the language sounded to my ear.

To the poster who said, all languages are beautiful. That is in the eye of the beholder (or in this case, listener)

Anonymous wrote:The ugliest language is German. Always German. All I can hear is Hitler when I’m around it.

Agree, schnell, and I envision bunch of Nazis killing people.

Anonymous wrote:I like the sound of the Russian language. I don't like the sound of French, which makes me an outlier, I'm sure. It's the guttural sound used between words and in pauses that bugs me the most.

I don't like the whiny Parisian french, but i just LOVE the african french - it's so bubbly and alive and bursting. hard to describe. But i love hearing it.

Estonian but when singing it. The language has a lot of double letters which is perfect for singing.
There's a song 'Kuula' in 4-5 languages and I think the Estonian version is the best.
Ugliest? I don't know. German is harsh I have to agree.

I like the sound of the Russian language. I don't like the sound of French, which makes me an outlier, I'm sure. It's the guttural sound used between words and in pauses that bugs me the most.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Vietnamese for sure. I live in an area and work in a job where we get people from all over the world. And Vietnamese is the most unpleasant language to listen to, by far.

It has nothing to do with not being able to understand it. Because there are other languages that I do not understand, but don’t mind listening to.

Do you know if it's northern, mid-region or southern vietnamese accent? They sound very different. I find the southern vietnamese accent to be harsh but the northern to be soft.

If you use Rosetta Stone to learn a language, the northern accent is used to teach. Most American's experience are likely with the southern vietnamese accent.

Anonymous wrote:Vietnamese for sure. I live in an area and work in a job where we get people from all over the world. And Vietnamese is the most unpleasant language to listen to, by far.

It has nothing to do with not being able to understand it. Because there are other languages that I do not understand, but don’t mind listening to.

Do you know if it's northern, mid-region or southern vietnamese accent? They sound very different. I find the southern vietnamese accent to be harsh but the northern to be soft.

Anonymous wrote:I dislike the sound of Vietnamese even more than German.

Vietnamese sounds sing-songy to me b/c of it's monosyllabic nature.

Vietnamese for sure. I live in an area and work in a job where we get people from all over the world. And Vietnamese is the most unpleasant language to listen to, by far.

It has nothing to do with not being able to understand it. Because there are other languages that I do not understand, but don’t mind listening to.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Languages are ugly or beautiful based on your understanding of it so it's really a reflection of your ignorance

Meh. Some languages are definitely harsher. Some dialects are awful to understand and are hard on the vocal cords. The speakers are used to the harshness of their language so they don't notice. But there's nothing ignorant about pointing this out.

It's because you don't understand. A language wouldn't evolve to be harsh on the vocal chords if you can speak it properly

As an international family with members who speak German, English, French, Japanese and Vietnamese...

... I think this thread is slightly questionable.

It also very much depends on regional variations, accents and native vs. non-native speakers. I think native speakers have a softer, more musical enunciation than non-natives. Southern French sounds very different than northern French, and there are tons of different accents, just like in the USA (I once heard a colleague from South Carolina, and he had such a lovely lilt to his English!). My German will sound harsh, because I'm French and can't soften it like a native speaker. My Parisian French will sound more lilting than a Vietnamese speaking in French with a Vietnamese cadence. I've heard very soft-spoken Japanese face-to-face, and then I switch on the TV, and the voices seem harsher, for clarity maybe?

All languages are beautiful and fascinating.