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Japanese definitely sounds the most European since it's very vowel-oriented rather than consonant-driven. It just sounds more aesthetically pleasing, similar to how Romance languages tend to sound prettier to many people (including me).
There's actually been a trend towards less "Germanic" sounding and more "Romance" sounding names for girls over the past several generations in the United States. This is why people are naming their daughters Isabella, Olivia, Amelia, Savannah and so on instead of Joan, Susan, and Phyllis.
Personally I think it depends on the case whether Germanic or Romance words/names sound beautiful or not. Some Germanic words can sound elegant and clear as a bell others are ugly and throaty. Some Romance words can sound well romantic and regal and others can sound pretentious or downright trashy.
I dont know much about other languages, but I dont think Chinese sounds like any European languages, as it uses pinyin and it has tones for each word. As far as I know, French has some tone-like things, but it's totally different, I mean, in tones. And Chinese is often spoken not as fast as European languages.
I don't think it sounds entirely like French at all but I can see what the OP means by how it has a lot of common ground phonetically with French. A word like "borgeuois" could easily be Mandarin and pinyin'ed as "Bo Jwa".
I don't think it sounds entirely like French at all but I can see what the OP means by how it has a lot of common ground phonetically with French. A word like "borgeuois" could easily be Mandarin and pinyin'ed as "Bo Jwa".
The "r" sound in Mandarin is very similar to the "j" sound in French, and this sound is rare in other languages. English has it, as the first consonant in "genre", but it is not commonly used either.
Also Mandarin has a lot of (partly) nasalized syllables, the same as French.
I heard that Telugu, a Dravidian language, sounds like Italian due to the vowel pattern, and so would Japanese. But there's something about the Japanese pitch accent that makes it sound quite distinct.
Arabic and German form plurals mainly through vowel changes in the word rather than adding suffixes, but I don't think that would make them sound alike. Modern Hebrew sounds a bit like German due to the Yiddish influence of Eastern European immigrants to Israel.
Location: The western periphery of Terra Australis
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Originally Posted by UrbanLuis
Don't flatter yourself, your opinion doesn't matter. You probably never even heard anyone speak Spanish.
No I've managed to avoid hearing one of the most commonly spoken languages. I've been to LA, I've heard Spanish spoken IRL and on TV. Look maybe my comment was a bit harsh. I was thinking of very clipped conversational spanish. Funny I once considered learning Spanish not for its sound but because I am interested in Latin America.
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