Does English sound like other Germanic languages?

I don't see why English should be seen as sounding differently than the other germanic language. English has a lot of variations and to me all sounds being part of the germanic familiy. That doesn't mean that they sounds like german. German is one germanic language among others, like enlgish is, you don't need to sound german to sound germanic. English definitly doesn't sounds like german, but definitly sounds very germanic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kn3_bYcAnWI

Hi again, im completly agree with you, just me, for me that i speak usually spanish and catalan( its is another latin lang.) and learning english and german, i have had find similarities?betwen this two as germanic languages. I can say that italian sonds latin, but portuguese or spanish sounds completly different as italian, for example.

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I can understand that. Your first impression was that it sounded terrible.
I don't recall where you lived in the South, but I can imagine that the delivery you described would probably sound harsh to some Georgians.

It would be interesting to know if Italian and Japanese also sound unpleasant to you. They have similiar vowel sounds, but the language flows differently.

Spanish accents vary considerably. I wonder what accent you first heard, and under what circumstances.

Ah, my message was for Jasper. Anyway, thinking about your idea again, I find it interesting. Most of the time on the languages forum, folks are arguing about the most beautiful language, etc., so the sound value of languages seems to be extremely important.

I admit that there is one language whose sounds I don't like. However, I also don't like the cultural practices of some of the people who speak the language. I can get over not caring for the sounds, but not liking the cultural practices on top of that has been a real problem for me.

The language used to sound like waterfowl to me. I can recognize the sounds, and they didn't sound terrible, just funny.

KT, I find that Italian sound like "liquid-y" Spanish to me; it dramatically softens the often-too-harsh sounds of Spanish. I don't find it particularly pleasant, nor particularly unpleasant, either.

I could probably use the same analogy for Japanese. It sounds like a liquid-y version of some undefined Asian tongue. Not particularly pleasant, but not dog-ugly, either.

The language which I find most beautiful is Swedish. The above analogy holds with Swedish, too—it's a liquid-y version of German.

Now, I don't wish to offend anybody on this board, but I think all of us of European heritage would find American Indian languages unpleasant. Even taking account the PERCEIVED nasal quality of some of the Northern varieties of GAE, all of us of European heritage would find American Indian tongues almost aggressively nasal; no European languages would even come close on this issue.

Note that all these opinions are mine, and mine alone. I welcome divergent opinions on this topic.

KT, I forgot to mention that, generally speaking, it's not the vowels in Spanish that make it sound harsh, but rather the consonants.

I didn't notice until very recently, for example, that the pronunciation of the letter "p" is different. In Spanish, it's quite a bit more explosive and more precise than it is in English, which washes and softens the consonant quite a bit with a small aspiration of air.

With this example in mind, I can see why English would be perceived as mushy mumbling from the viewpoint of a Spaniard.

On the contrary dear, in English p is more "explosive". In Spanish p is dry, not spitting like in English.

<<On the contrary dear, in English p is more "explosive". In Spanish p is dry, not spitting like in English. >>

English "p" is more plosive than Spanish "p". Often, an Englishspeaker will hear a Spanish "p" as "b", as in "pero" (sounds to us like "bero", "bedo"), but this is really for sake English "p" is like "p+h", like in "pit"

Yeah, and a Spanish speaker will hear an English "b" as "p". for instance when I listen to the Beattles it seems that they say "let it pe". English p and b are pronounced stronger than in Spanish.

CID: "English "p" is more plosive than Spanish "p". Often, an Englishspeaker will hear a Spanish "p" as "b", as in "pero" (sounds to us like "bero", "bedo"), but this is really for sake English "p" is like "p+h", like in "pit" "

CID, I agree, but to my ears, the English "p + h" softens the sound, not hardens it. In the end, does it really matter? I still maintain that while Spanish sounds like a machine gun to us, English must sound to them like we have a mouthful of "mess".

At any rate, there seems no doubt that the "p"s are different, which is a feature I'd not noticed until very recently. (We all know that the "N"s and "L"s are different, but that's another topic.)

Well, I'm not dumbfounded-yet.

Jasper,
I perceive certain Spanish accents as very pleasant, others less so. There are five major accent groups afaik. They sound VERY different to me. I almost felt like I was learning a new language everytime I tackled a new accent in Spanish. I guess that's why I wonder what accent you heard first.

Comments on your comments...
Japanese: Japanese just sounds "clean" to me. It doesn't sound anything like any other Asian language at all with the possible exception of Korean and even then not so much.

I don't know much about native American languages. I wish I did. Probably you have more experience with them based on your comment. I've heard Lakota and I've studied a little Navajo. They sound okay to me. Welsh and Navajo share one very cool weird sound-an LL sound that is made by positioning the tongue to make the "l" sound, then...blowing! It's voiceless.

KT, I agree with you; the different Spanish accents do indeed sound different

I always thought Argentinian Spanish the most pleasant dialect due to it's smooth, liquidy sound, while finding Castilian Spanish the most unpleasant due to its harshness. But Mexican-Americans I've spoken to find Argentinian Spanish utterly revolting; go figure.

Uriel once posited the notion that we process the same data through a different set of models, hence our utterly different perceptions of the same things. This explanation seems as good as any.

Concerning American Indian languages, most, but not all, of my exposure has been to Cherokee. It's so aggressively nasal that speakers sound...well, constipated.

Very astute of our Uriel...

I see that we share some things.

I like the Argentinian accent as it is the first one I learned to understand. I also do not understand why some other Spanish speakers dislike it.

On the other hand, I like European Spanish too.

I may have heard Cherokee once or twice. I'll listen to it again.

So, I guess Swedish is number one for you in sound, followed by Dutch and German.

I have one other seemingly silly question, but I'm always curious about the connections between music and languages.

Would you say that you like a lot of music (a variety of styles, genres), one or two types, or don't care for music that much?

This doesn't have anything to do with playing an instrument or singing, just wondering about your musical preferences and whether they may have anything to do with your sound preferences.

I like how Tina Turner sings in English. I can understand a lot of what she sings. This is rare because most of the English singers , specially the American ones, only mumble and one can barely understand the meaning of the lyrics.