When Poles speak English, they often sound dilatory, almost wishy-washy, perhaps because of those drawling nasals, along with that rising inflection in the voice pitch:
Hallao, Aj emm frrrahm Vawrrsaow, aj em stahdeeink laow ott jooniwairrrsiti....
Compared with Russians, Poles come across almost naive. Russians on the other hand sound lazy, disrespectful and indolent, swallowing their words American style and seeming to give the rest of the world the finger:-)
Germans seem to come out swinging, loud and full throttle with no holds barred, practically spitting out their words, clearly and distinctly (...much as most would speak their native tongue LOL)
I've heard girls speaking very soft and rather quiet.
Good point. Women continue to speak in a normal tone and softly. It's hard to keep up with men. I feel like I'm yelling. No voice the next day. Throughout this, men do continue to be polite to women. Generalization.
Apropos of 'morze', 'może', imagine a Swede pronouncing either of those two words, the result of which probably sounding like 'imorge' (imorschuh) in Swedish. LOL
Exactly my point! Typically, most Scandis devoice their final-'s', initial-'ch'/'sh' and 'z'-sounds in other languages, among them English f.ex. "My tsildren (instead of the harder'tsch'-sound of 'ch') sometimesss loose (pronounced so, instead of 'lose' with a voiced 'z-sound)their sjorts (for 'shorts', creating almost a 'syorts' effect).
I'd imagine in strongly velar as well as dental languages like Slavonic (German, for the former), i.e. Polish and Russian, Swedes (like Danes, Norwegians, Icelanders etc.) must have a heck of time in pronunciation LOL
Polish to me sounds not understandable. Only few words I recognize, like the K-word and the P-word and Tak, Nie and a few more. How to make Polish more pleasant for me? Well, I think everybody should speak Dutch anyway, so you might guess the answer to that question :)
'Birds chirping', I like the expression! So Polish does not sound like Russian?
It sounds like Russian, but you can always tell the difference: Russians sound like a windbag or respirator, as if they had to force their breath in and out when speaking. :) ('Abrupt', to quote Sean.)
Polish, Czech, Slovak, Serb - they sound softer. Russian, Latvian, Ukrainian - they sound harsher.
What's more, I am interested to hear how can I make Polish sound more pleasurable when speaking to foreigners?
Krysia if you spoke Polish to me i'm sure it would sound just fine and dandy :):) in fact i could not think of many things sexier than you speaking in that soft Polski voice of yours :)
How do you perceive Polish? What is unpleasant, what is pleasant?
On a serious note if Polish is spoken in anything but a soft calm voice it sounds aggressive, apart from that though i find Polish easy to listen too. If i'm on the bus and i can hear foreign languages been spoken around me, Polish isn't usually the loudest or most annoying one.
Hallao, Aj emm frrrahm Vawrrsaow, aj em stahdeeink laow ott jooniwairrrsiti....
Ha, ha, that's a good transcription of a Pole trying to imitate the lond and short vowels in English, but failing to notice that vowels have various intonations as well.
I asked a friend how his English were, and he gave me a sample just like this one. Also, I found that if I'm not trying to imitate the accents, I am actually understood better, - with the flat vowels, rolling Rs et c. Dracula-style.
And it's indeed amazing: I once sifted through a Polish booklet pretending to be a quick guid to English at the workplace. Some sounds in there are just explained wrong. "From" indeed was explained phonetically as "Fram" and "wrong" as "rang". No wonder, I say.
Well of course they are, MareGaea! The pamphlet was doubtless written by native Polish rather than English speakers. As throughout the rest of the non-native English-speaking world (and that's just about everwhere), governments would rather be penny-wise but pound-foolish and hire the cheapest available local to translate into English, while merrily insisting that only a native of the other country be used to translate into Polish, French, German, etc...
My bete noire here at PF. There's a double standard as to how English is perceived in most countries.
Polish sounds like szrzrszrzzsz to me.. to many sz and rz. but i like to listen to Polish:D i sometimes watch tv Polonia and it sounds cool.especially spoken by kids.i think it is pleasant to listen.of course not as much as French:)) but there are "ugly" languages. i hate scandinavian and german lgs.
Why are German and the Scandinavian languages "ugly" to your ears? Swedish sounds appealingly sonorous and melodic, with it's rhythmic sing-song, almost like Welsh:-) In the case of German, is it not perhaps the political stereotyping of associating all those who speak German with Hitler and the Nazis??
A Francophile friend once remarked, 'French sounds gorgeous spoken, but horrible sung. German sounds horrible when spoken, yet gorgeous when sung.' (Think of Schubert, Wolf or Mahler art songs etc..)
To me, Polish sounds wildly excited, at the same time passionately romantic, especially the love poetry of Słowiacki, Tuwim and Iwaszkiewicz!
I used to like the sound of Polish. Until I saw a movie with some Polish friends. The movie had a "lektor" in it. Since then, my view on the Polish language has somewhat altered.
Aj omm Dahhkoollah, aj beed yoo vallkohm!! Now you're talking about the Hungarians, with their measured, unslurred cadences, not the querky-jerkiness of the Poles!Bondi might roundly disagree:-)
Vat ár yu tolking öbáut? :-D
(Actually, when my sister came to England, the English bus-driver asked her if she was German! :)
Oh well, to each his own. Każdym człowiekiem to swoje.
As far as German's being 'well known' for sounding 'harsh' long before Hitler's ranting fustian, by whom was this known, and where?? Just curious. I'll also confess to being an unabashed Germanophile to my very bones (z krwi i kości)
Mozart's >Die Zauberfloete< Schubert's and Brahms' Lieder, I think speak for themselves. As Mark Twain put it, one can listen to German folks songs and weep buckets, even if the meaning of their words is unclear because of the sheer expressiveness of the language.
Why are German and the Scandinavian languages "ugly" to your ears?
i agree with everybody who says that German sounds harsh. compare it to Italian, Spanish, or even English.i think they are easier to listen
as for Scandinavian languages- i can't explain it, i just don't like. i know some Danish people and often heard them speaking to each other. then Swedish and Norwegian sound much better when they are sung rather than spoken but maybe it's just because there're lots of good singers
No, the harshness and hardness of German was widely known before Hitler was born (or so I like to think!).
I don't think so! That is lingering from WWII and the propaganda (also newsreels, to many movies about marching soldiers, barking officers and spitting Hitlers). It also did hell to the german image in public and if you don't like a people generally you are also not inclinced to like their language. (I personally don't like french and can't stand italian for more than ten minutes, they grate on my nerves)
But that is changing now, people around the world are singing along to Rammstein or Tokio Hotel, in german!
...before the wars german was known as the language of the poets!
I agree with BratBoy here! German acquired its reputation as being a harsh and militaristic-sounding tongue almost exclusively owing to its sad association with the language of Hitler and his minions!
Up until the 1930's, trust me, German was seen as the noble language of poets, philosophers, scientific treatises, romantic balladeers and of course, the lofty writings of Goethe, Schiller and Heine
I come back again to the German language as the language of the art song:-)
Isn't it though! I get such a thrill watching old Bergman films. The language just transports one to another era.
Come to think if it though, when last in Sweden, much Southern Swedish dialect/slang sounds pretty nasty, in fact. Skaansk is practically Swedish with a caricatured vulgar Copnehagen accent.
What they speak in Malaren. Now, that's lovely indeed.
Skaansk is practically Swedish with a caricatured vulgar Copnehagen accent.
Skansk was always influenced by Danish - Skania (Skaane) has only become part of Sweden in the middle of the 17th century - and it's language has always been something halfway from Danish to Swedish (according to my book knowledge ;)
