Which languages do you believe are the most guttural and unpleasant to the ears?

Personally, I think that German, Dutch and Malay are extremely guttural, with German by far being the worst.

Italian is perhaps the most beautiful language in existence, followed by French and then Spanish. English is 'meh, so-so'.

What do you all think?

hehe would the PC-POLICE get upset if you criticised the "sound" of another language?

I guess its ok because you've criticised 2 european languages?

Have you ever heard people shouting in chinese?

Wlesh is rather annoying when spoken in a high, nasal voice typical of female welsh teachers (that is, teachers who are welsh and who teach the welsh language, not all techers of the welsh nationality)

I think Latin is the most beautiful one.
As the ancient Romans used to say: Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.
(Anything said in Latin sounds profound.)

I hope to start seriously learning it next year at my uni. :)

The best language to my ears is the universal one. The language called silence.

I think the sound of a language matters most to people who can't actually speak it. At least, when I hear English I focus more on the meaning...

For fictional languages, Klingon is gutteral and harsh, since it was designed using consonant combinations which occur in no natural languages. Quenya, on the other hand, is gentle and beautiful. Tolkien modelled his Elvish languages on Welsh and Finnish, the two European languages he loved most, but there are obvious borrowings from others such as Italian.

I don't think all gutteral languages are ugly, though. German can objectively be said to be gutteral, if you're referring to the use of sounds like velar fricative 'ch' formed at the back of the throat. I don't think that makes it ugly though. German can be spoken with a full range of emotions like any other language.

Italian is perhaps the most beautiful language in existence

Italian just sounds greasy. I don't like it at all. And Latin sounds so goofy, since no one really knows how to pronounce it. They just read it. That, and the endings of the words sound hilarious. I bet it's an easy langauge to rhyme in.

Punjabi.....hearing this language sounds like being hit in the head with a brick repeatedly.


Urdu is probably one of the most sweetest and poetic languages in the world. Every sentence uttered sounds like poetry rolling off the tongue....on the opposite end ofcourse; punjabi.

I know quite a bit of German. I've read German poetry. It sounds just fine, even with the ach-laut. In fact, I really like the sound of the language. I don't consider guttural to mean unpleasant, at least not for Germanic languages.

But I guess I'm not a good judge, since the sounds of German are comprehensible to me. This would also apply for English. I find I'm unable to judge how English sounds and assign meaningful adjectives. It just sounds average, uninteresting, and unexciting to me, and I'm sure it's because it's my native language.

I don't think a language can really sound 'unpleasant' – rather, it just has a certain sound that one may simply not care for. It's all a matter of personal taste.

Here's how I perceive the sounds of a few major languages:

German is manly.
French is lovely.
Spanish is spicy.
Italian is classy.
Portuguese is velvety.
Japanese is airy.

i cant stand the german language.
hebrew, which i speak is very guttural.
dutch, which i speak is like a gay frenchman trying to speak german (this is how i learned pronunciation in dutch)
russian is a very beautiful language, in my opinion.

portuguese is spanish to me. Sounds exactly the same. My favorite is french. I don't really find any languages ugly.

portuguese is spanish to me. Sounds exactly the same.
To me, Portuguese has more SH sounds in it. But other than that, Brazilian Portuguese does sound a lot like Spanish. European Portuguese, though, sounds a bit Russian-esque to me.

I really love most languages, like Italian, Spanish, French, Russian, Japanese,etc except english. Maybe because its my native language--i think its really ugly and uninteresting.

Have you ever heard people shouting in Chinese?That's very unusual. The Chinese are very disciplined with the sounds of their language. They believe that shouting is losing control and is a violation of the social contract everybody makes with everybody else. If you start talking loudly and angrily among Chinese they suddenly start acting like you're not there.Portuguese is Spanish to me. Sounds exactly the same.Wow, that's amazing. I can only conclude that you must be European. In writing the relationship is obvious and if you listen to the unnatural pronunciation of song lyrics many of the words even sound alike. But spoken Brazilian Portuguese, with its soft SH, J, and ZH sibilants and its gargled R, on top of the language's casual vowels, many of which are nasalized, sounds more like French. You'd never mistake it for Spanish with its always-perfect cardinal vowels, its lightly trilled R, and its tongue-between-the-teeth N, T, D, and L. I think Spanish and Portuguese set the record for being so very closely related but sounding so very different. Czech and Polish, Danish and Swedish, now those sound similar. I think Italian sounds more like Spanish than Portuguese does.

You can get a whole new dimension of sound texture by listening to a foreign language spoken by a non-native speaker. German is just rapturously lovely from the mouth of a Swede. Laura Pausini, the Italian singer, just made a CD in Spanish that's all over the Spanish-language stations, and it's heavenly.

I always thought Romanian was one of the most beautiful languages to listen to. If you want guttural, it's hard to beat Russian, or most of the northern Slavic tongues for that matter. An entire language family with no vowels. :)

fraggle:
russian language uses vowels!!
my (soon to be) wife is a native russian speaker, and i hear it constantly..especially when i dont take out the garbage..

cmon sargent punjabi's a fun language..its like hindi with a lotta energy..
my mother tongue malayalam is not guttural but very low-toned and difficult to make songs with..and the sounds are difficult for other people to produce..

Russian language uses vowels!!Of course, I'm exaggerating. Still, most people think that English is a little light on vowels, with words like "squirrel" and "extract." But Russian makes English look as vowel-intensive as Japanese or Hawaiian. Many English speakers can never learn to pronounce words like "knyiga" (book), "gdye" (where), "chto" (what), or "Dnyepr" (name of a river).

SHCH is considered one consonant, there's even a single letter in the Russian alphabet for that sound!

K, S, and V all by themselves with no vowel are prepositions!

Czech is even worse. "Plzen" (name of the city we call Pilsen), "vstup" (entrance), "khtsi" (I want). [I wrote that out phonetically, it's really spelled "chci".]

I forgot to mention Korean as a language that sounds rather guttural to most American ears.

I understand, speak (and read (slowly)) Russian, but can't imagine how anybody can find it a beautiful language, as far as the sound of it goes. But that's subjective, I guess.
It seems very rough sounding to me.

p.s. That doesn't mean I don't find it nice, Russian is a very powerful language.

Here's one song in Russian if anybody's interested: (by Anna Annushka) http://www.undine.lv/pic/music/Annuska02.ogg

Actually I am american. I remember taking a spanish class though, and we had a brazillian foreign exchange student in the class. He spoke in portuguese and it sounded exactly the same as the spanish, except I didn't understand it.

As for russian, I do find it a beautiful language.

cmon sargent punjabi's a fun language..its like hindi with a lotta energy..
my mother tongue malayalam is not guttural but very low-toned and difficult to make songs with..and the sounds are difficult for other people to produce..

oh yeah, Malayalam, another unpleasent sounding language.

German is just rapturously lovely from the mouth of a Swede. Laura Pausini, the Italian singer, just made a CD in Spanish that's all over the Spanish-language stations, and it's heavenly.
Where can I get my hands on this stuff? I'm especially interested in the Swede speaking German, as I'm learning German.

I don't exactly know how you can get your hands on a Swedish stewardess who speaks German, especially the one I heard on an SAS flight in 1973.

Laura Pausini's latest Spanish-language CD is entitled "Escucha." ("Listen.") I'm sure you can get it cheap on Amazon.

How about if I merge these two concepts and give you a Swede singing in Spanish? "Baladas en Español" by Roxette. All translations of their English-language songs. (Did they ever record a song in Swedish?) I thought they were the original instrumentals with new vocal tracks until I started learning the bass part to "Habla el Corazón" ("Your Heart is Speaking"), the Spanish version of "Listen to Your Heart." I noticed that there are subtle differences and they in fact recorded the entire song a second time.

As a language tutor, I strongly recommend if you're a beginner learning a new language that you try to only listen to native speakers. You'll have a hard enough time getting the vowels and consonants right, much less the cadence, tone of voice, etc. We Americans tend to find people speaking our language with a foreign accent to be charming, but that's not a universal attitude: just ask a Frenchman or a Japanese. You probably would be better off not learning to speak German with a combination Swedish-American accent. :)

damn sargent you really know your languages!! i would have bet a 100$ that noone in here even heard of Malayalam...im impressed :)

yeah and german sounds really sexy i think...definitely male....i heard one of Einstein;s speeches on RRRRRRRRRELATIVITY!! didnt follow a thing but got really turned on :D
(on mp3 ofcourse)

Of course, I'm exaggerating. Still, most people think that English is a little light on vowels, with words like "squirrel" and "extract." But Russian makes English look as vowel-intensive as Japanese or Hawaiian. Many English speakers can never learn to pronounce words like "knyiga" (book), "gdye" (where), "chto" (what), or "Dnyepr" (name of a river).

SHCH is considered one consonant, there's even a single letter in the Russian alphabet for that sound!

K, S, and V all by themselves with no vowel are prepositions!

Czech is even worse. "Plzen" (name of the city we call Pilsen), "vstup" (entrance), "khtsi" (I want). [I wrote that out phonetically, it's really spelled "chci".]

I forgot to mention Korean as a language that sounds rather guttural to most American ears.


i understand now. :)
i agree.

ive not heard czech, but i have heard serbian.


when a man speaks russian, it sounds rough, but when a woman speaks russian, it sounds like music.
one of my most pleasant memories of recent years was waking up to the sound of my fiancee speaking with her mother in russian in the room next to mine. sounds like birds, almost!!

Lately, I've been liking Italian the most. Dutch and Polish are harsh. I don't like the German rhythm. For some reason I don't mind Hebrew. It has those throaty sounds, but they seem to be of lower frequency and not as bad.

damn sargent you really know your languages!! i would have bet a 100$ that noone in here even heard of Malayalam...im impressed :)

Thank you.

I also can't help cringing hearing Gujrati.