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Just continuing thread "Most beautiful sounding languages". I read in this thread, for example, than European French for many people sounds better than Quebec French. What else?
P.S. Lol, my first thread which isn't a poll.
Just continuing thread "Most beautiful sounding languages". I read in this thread, for example, than European French for many people sounds better than Quebec French. What else?
P.S. Lol, my first thread which isn't a poll.
I think that people can be used to hearing a language in one dialect and can find an unfamiliar or very different one they've rarely heard before grating. I am a native English speaker from Quebec and find the French I grew up around pleasant to the ear, while European accents can sound annoying to me. Most people, however, learn European French first and Canadian accents sound unpleasant because they're unexpected, rarely encountered, and different.
I think that people can be used to hearing a language in one dialect and can find an unfamiliar or very different one they've rarely heard before grating. I am a native English speaker from Quebec and find the French I grew up around pleasant to the ear, while European accents can sound annoying to me. Most people, however, learn European French first and Canadian accents sound unpleasant because they're unexpected, rarely encountered, and different.
See, I'm the opposite. I grew up in California and heard Mexican Spanish, different dialects of Mexican Spanish even, my whole life. I find European Spanish much more pleasant sounding as well as Argentinian and I don't hear those nearly as often.
Rating English accents on "Beauty":
1. High British (Queen's English)
2. Australian
3. New Zealand (Kiwi)
4. South African
5. American (standard Midwestern)
6. Canadian
7. American Southern
8. Irish
9. Scottish
10. American Northeast (Boston/New York)
11. Cockney
See, I'm the opposite. I grew up in California and heard Mexican Spanish, different dialects of Mexican Spanish even, my whole life. I find European Spanish much more pleasant sounding as well as Argentinian and I don't hear those nearly as often.
I'm the same way, though I don't speak Spanish very well... I can tell the difference between Spain Spanish and Mexican Spanish. My ex-fiance was fluent in Spanish but spoke with a Castilian accent and candor... much slower than Mexican Spanish, but more fluid and more graceful sounding. It's definitely more "musical," as I've heard people say. Mexican doesn't sound "musical" to me, it just sounds super rapid-fire.
But, as she discovered after we moved from Boston to LA, speaking Spanish with a Castilian accent didn't generally impress the local Hispanic population: to a lot of them, it was the equivalent of someone using a super-posh English accent to a working-class person in the South. There was a definite social strata quotient that rubbed people the wrong way, especially since she'd go out of her way to use it with people even if they were more than capable of speaking English. It just came across as haughty and showy.
I'm the same way, though I don't speak Spanish very well... I can tell the difference between Spain Spanish and Mexican Spanish. My ex-fiance was fluent in Spanish but spoke with a Castilian accent and candor... much slower than Mexican Spanish, but more fluid and more graceful sounding. It's definitely more "musical," as I've heard people say. Mexican doesn't sound "musical" to me, it just sounds super rapid-fire.
But, as she discovered after we moved from Boston to LA, speaking Spanish with a Castilian accent didn't generally impress the local Hispanic population: to a lot of them, it was the equivalent of someone using a super-posh English accent to a working-class person in the South. There was a definite social strata quotient that rubbed people the wrong way, especially since she'd go out of her way to use it with people even if they were more than capable of speaking English. It just came across as haughty and showy.
Mexican Spanish has a sharpness and abruptness to it that even other Latin American countries don't seem to have as much in addition to the mach 12 speed at which they speak. Chilangos (those from Mexico City) have a whiny element to their speech.
I am a French-speaking Canadian who has lived surrounded by the English Canadian accent in the so-called English Canada for much of his life. The standard English Canadian accent, which is similar to the neutral North American English one, I do not find displeasing but I do find relatively banal.
I find the British-influenced accents (UK, OZ, NZ, SA) more charming to my ear.
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