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What do you like / dislike about each language ?

German Hops

GAF's Nicest Lunch Thief
The more fluent one becomes in a (foreign) language and the more one can judge what they like/dislike about it.

English

English is my favorite language of expression, because of its richness of vocabulary, flexibility and grammatical convenience (all the useful nuances without the annoying rules), and because it combines the Latin and Germanic cultures. Yet, there are things I dislike about the English vocabulary. For instance, the lack of home-related words compared to French .

I find quite primitive and unscientific to have words ending in "-fish" for sea/water creatures that are not fish, like shellfish, crayfish, jellyfish, etc. I also dislike words like 'pineapple' or 'eggplant', because a pineapple is not related to an apple, and 'eggplant' sounds too weird (it's just a word vaguely based on the appearance of an "egg"). Fortunately the latter is only American English.


French

I prefer French to English is formal or business situation because I find it has more "fixed" polite expressions, which makes it easier (like in Japanese). In informal situation or when writing I prefer English though.

What I dislike most about French is the ridiculously irregular grammar ("don't forget the exception to the exception to rule blablabla which applies in this case because of position of the subject in relation to the indirect object" ).

Quite a few French idioms are so metaphorical or old-fashioned that they sound really ridiculous or nonsensical. Of course, English has plenty of metaphorical idioms too, but some French ones are just uniquely ridiculous (while some other are well found indeed). In French, an idiomatic way to say that something happened by chance is to say literally "at the little happiness the chance" (au petit bonheur la chance) - frankly, what's that ! If you want to say that you "enjoy yourself", you can say that you "take your foot" (prendre son pied) in French. It's a very common expression but I never like it because it is too ridiculous.
 
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NeoIkaruGAF

Gold Member
ENGLISH
Like: it’s so flexible, you can pretty much make up an expression or mash two expressions together and the meaning will probably get through. Made-up stuff in English is less annoying than actual grammar mistakes. Also has a lot of words that can summarize meanings that would require quite a few words in other languages.
Dislike: very uncreative swear words. Pronunciation is so often unrelated to the actual spelling of words, you really have no clue how to pronunce a vowel if you don’t know the word already (I used to pronunce “vinegar” with an “i” like in “wine” for years). Lots of homophones. Too many -fish and -berry.

ITALIAN
Like: beautiful sound. Lots of words that sound complicated but are really no more than two different words jumbled together that retain their individual meaning. Unparalleled variety of swear words. Will accept foreign words and decline/conjugate them like they were always part of the language anyway. Very few discrepancies between spelling and pronunciation. Basically anything in nature has a unique name (like, every berry has its name and absolutely no one has “berry” in it).
Dislike: lots of exceptions and irregularities. Absolutely abstruse when it gets technical, to the point of becoming completely unfathomable to foreigners who just want to refill their tank at gas stations. Italian isn’t far from Japanese as a language where social roles and hierarchies can be easily inferred just from pronouns and vocabulary. Very long words, even if not as bad as in German and Scandinavian languages. Poetry and songs require very good skills to not sound extremely corny. Barely a shared language even in the 21st century - basically every region has different words for everyday stuff.

FRENCH
Like: the sound, specially from women, is incredible. Very creative. Lots of inflections - can sound amazingly suave and powerfully rude according to the situation.
Dislike: the accents are very hard to learn. Still stubbornly unwilling to accept foreign words, even in technical jargon.
 

GymWolf

Member
ENGLISH
Like: it’s so flexible, you can pretty much make up an expression or mash two expressions together and the meaning will probably get through. Made-up stuff in English is less annoying than actual grammar mistakes. Also has a lot of words that can summarize meanings that would require quite a few words in other languages.
Dislike: very uncreative swear words. Pronunciation is so often unrelated to the actual spelling of words, you really have no clue how to pronunce a vowel if you don’t know the word already (I used to pronunce “vinegar” with an “i” like in “wine” for years). Lots of homophones. Too many -fish and -berry.

ITALIAN
Like: beautiful sound. Lots of words that sound complicated but are really no more than two different words jumbled together that retain their individual meaning. Unparalleled variety of swear words. Will accept foreign words and decline/conjugate them like they were always part of the language anyway. Very few discrepancies between spelling and pronunciation. Basically anything in nature has a unique name (like, every berry has its name and absolutely no one has “berry” in it).
Dislike: lots of exceptions and irregularities. Absolutely abstruse when it gets technical, to the point of becoming completely unfathomable to foreigners who just want to refill their tank at gas stations. Italian isn’t far from Japanese as a language where social roles and hierarchies can be easily inferred just from pronouns and vocabulary. Very long words, even if not as bad as in German and Scandinavian languages. Poetry and songs require very good skills to not sound extremely corny. Barely a shared language even in the 21st century - basically every region has different words for everyday stuff.

FRENCH
Like: the sound, specially from women, is incredible. Very creative. Lots of inflections - can sound amazingly suave and powerfully rude according to the situation.
Dislike: the accents are very hard to learn. Still stubbornly unwilling to accept foreign words, even in technical jargon.
The opposite of this guy.
English sound way cooler than italian and i hate how french sound.

I like the spanish\portuguese\brazilian from serials like narcos but i hate european spanish especially from women, every time i watch something with normal spanish dub i want to kill myself:lollipop_grinning_sweat:
 
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Alx

Member
English
like : sounds great in songs, is easy to understand even with imperfect sentences
dislike : hard to know the right way to pronounce some words, there's no logic behind it (notwithstanding geographical variations).

French
like : sounds great in poetry, great choice of words and phrases with complex history, allows for big creativity in building sentences
dislike : crazy spelling, grammatical rules you can't explain you just have to roll with it.

German
like : the way it sounds (but only when spoken by natives), the logic of its structure
dislike : grammar, the way non-native speakers butcher it, making it sound harsh and unappealing.

Spanish
like : the general warmth in its musicality, its no-bullshit spelling and grammar (it's like French but without the crazy rules)
dislike : I'll never manage to roll the "r" correctly.
 
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Gp1

Member
It's curious how every language is a direct expression their counterpart culture.

English: Simple, direct, and flexible. No word for this, no problem we create and don't give a f about it. And probably it will be incorporated by every other language.

German: It's precise and logical. Even if non-native find it hard and strange, you can see the logic behind it (bar some unnecessary over complications). It's basically everything that anyone would say about german engineering in a linguistic form.

Spanish/Portuguese : Warm and musical. It sounds good (as the other Latin languages) etc.
 
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NecrosaroIII

Ask me about my terrible takes on Star Trek characters
English: Robust. Several different ways to express an idea.

Jaoanese: Syllablic which gives it a flowing sound that is pleasant. Cool writing system
 

Ememee

Member
English - like: Pretty much everything. I love the English language, I love how formal it can come across, I love the ridiculous amount of words, the backstory, everything. Dislike: Its more of a human thing w/ language as opposed to exclusive w/ English, but I hate how everything progressively becomes shorter. Less formal. For example “what will we be having for dinner tonight?” Is regulated to “what’s for dinner?” Etc etc

Spanish - Like: It’s an incredibly rhythmic, sensual and passionate language to speak in. Sound wise?..it sounds lovely. Dislike: Everything else. Especially all the masculine/feminine ish.
 

Rickyiez

Member
Japanese
like - everything about Japan is great
dislike - the same word can have 415673711531 numbers of writings and meanings

Chinese (Mandarin)
like - precise and not ambiguous in relative to other language
dislike - some of the dialects from China sounds bad

English
like - comprehensively easy in relative to other language
dislike - can be easily convoluted as well
 
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DogofWar

Member
I like Swedish because it is my native language and it is filled with interesting dialects.
I dislike Swedish because you can sound like a wuss when cursing "Amen va-faaAAn!"

I like English because all my favorite quotes are in English and because of Scottish.
I dislike English because it eats up all the other languages in the world.

I like Polish because I can finally curse and sound like I mean it.
I dislike Polish because the word "man" is "mężczyzną ".
Seriously, my other languages (Swedish, English, German) that word is "man, man and Mann" respectively. And then this?!

I like German because cursing, sounding militaristic and singing in it sounds great.
I dislike German grammar.

Then dislike I a lot of languages because they sound like shit in general.
 

K1Expwy

Member
You can understand many Chinese characters before you even know how to pronounce them. Sometimes you can guess the pronunciation of single or compound characters, based on their radical parts that you've seen somewhere else

Also, Chinese writing or loan words makes you partially literate in other Asian languages. Even if the speech is completely different, you can understand basic signs, titles and news headlines with Chinese characters. I've been watching Parasite and other Korean movies recently, and I heard some vocabulary of Chinese origin that I learned from Japanese, even though I never really studied Korean or their writing system

As for dislike, I'm not a fan of mainland simplified Chinese--how some of the radicals look, and how some characters were selected and rewritten specifically to erase their original meaning that the government didn't approve of. Hong Kong switching to simplified is probably inevitable
 
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NeoIkaruGAF

Gold Member
The opposite of this guy.
English sound way cooler than italian and i hate how french sound.

I like the spanish\portuguese\brazilian from serials like narcos but i hate european spanish especially from women, every time i watch something with normal spanish dub i want to kill myself:lollipop_grinning_sweat:
The infatuation so many Italians have for Spanish is incomprehensible to me. Those people call men “caballero” in the 21st century, for cryin’ out loud :messenger_grinning_smiling:
I will always hold the opinion that nobody would care for Spanish if sex wasn’t involved, lol.
 

lock2k

Banned
I'm a native in Portuguese and I'm fluent in English and Spanish and despite having the majority of my family from Italy I nevear learned it (I should).

English is my all time favorite language. Perfect for everything.

I love Portuguese and I think it's a great language for humor. However, I have an intense dislike of it for music. Especially rock and metal. Portuguese sounds lame as fuck in those language. And Bossa Nova sucks balls. I do like European Portuguese in songs a lot though, I love fado.

I also love Spanish in music. Two other languages I adore in music are Japanese and German. German sounds badass.

I hate French. I have French roots as well but it mostly sounds lame as fuck in music. Thank God Gojira sings in English hehe. (woman speaking it sounds hot tho).
 
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Happosai

Hold onto your panties
The more fluent one becomes in a (foreign) language and the more one can judge what they like/dislike about it.

English

English is my favorite language of expression, because of its richness of vocabulary, flexibility and grammatical convenience (all the useful nuances without the annoying rules), and because it combines the Latin and Germanic cultures. Yet, there are things I dislike about the English vocabulary. For instance, the lack of home-related words compared to French .

I find quite primitive and unscientific to have words ending in "-fish" for sea/water creatures that are not fish, like shellfish, crayfish, jellyfish, etc. I also dislike words like 'pineapple' or 'eggplant', because a pineapple is not related to an apple, and 'eggplant' sounds too weird (it's just a word vaguely based on the appearance of an "egg"). Fortunately the latter is only American English.


French

I prefer French to English is formal or business situation because I find it has more "fixed" polite expressions, which makes it easier (like in Japanese). In informal situation or when writing I prefer English though.

What I dislike most about French is the ridiculously irregular grammar ("don't forget the exception to the exception to rule blablabla which applies in this case because of position of the subject in relation to the indirect object" ).

Quite a few French idioms are so metaphorical or old-fashioned that they sound really ridiculous or nonsensical. Of course, English has plenty of metaphorical idioms too, but some French ones are just uniquely ridiculous (while some other are well found indeed). In French, an idiomatic way to say that something happened by chance is to say literally "at the little happiness the chance" (au petit bonheur la chance) - frankly, what's that ! If you want to say that you "enjoy yourself", you can say that you "take your foot" (prendre son pied) in French. It's a very common expression but I never like it because it is too ridiculous.
English: It's my first language. I've been exposed to different dialects and regional English in my short 32 years. I grew up in the MidWestern U.S. and can't stand when people use the bed tenses incorrectly. I'm Northern Illinois (I was from Central), people would say, "I seen that." Other gripes about English are the way some can pronounce the blended words correctly in French but cannot pronounce common words of Latin origin correctly.

Spanish: This is my second language and I migrated to Mexico over 4-years ago. Simple profanity annoys me because I feel it's misinterpreted to English. Examples: Diablos is supposed to equate to words like "Damn it" in English...it means Devil (s). Maldicion is supposed to equate to an anger "Damn" in English...it means Curses. Demonios is supposed to equate to "Crap, Hell, etc"...it means Demons. So, if you literally translate those softened words to English rather than interpret...someone who's pissed off is saying: Curses! Devils and Demons!

Gana, Ganancia, Ganar...when teaching English this becomes frustrating translating back to Spanish. Gana can mean: Earn, Win, Gain. So, due to it being used too much for different words, I've had students say things like: I've won weight at the buffets in Vegas. I win a lot of money at my job.

I don't hate either languages. Just nitpick about small things. I've only been speaking Spanish for a few years, so I notice more with Spanish.

What do I like about both languages? You need both to survive in North America. I'm as pale as a ghost with light eyes and stand out in public places. To strangers, they assume I can't speak or understand Spanish because my wife and I get caught speaking English. It surprises them every time when I start speaking with full Poblano-Mexican accent in Spanish. Family here used to say personal things in Spanish to keep affairs private. Now, they know I can repeat back every sentence interpreted and have become more transparent. So, it's nice to speak a foreign language...although...It's not really foreign to me anymore.
 
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English - consider myself fluent

Like - It's so easy to learn, its all over TV and media that i think its almost impossible to not have a basic understanding of English. My 3 year old can already speak simple sentences despite English being her 3rd language

Dislike - The attitude about English. Not sure if this is a thing everywhere but here people get nasty or bitchy about "speaking English properly" There are several people i work with who always talk about how they studied English in university and if you need help go to them so they can help you, we have a few native English speakers in the office and one Australian guy after telling everyone native speakers dont actually care if you have a strong accent or use incorrect grammar as long as they can understand you was told he was wrong and didnt understand English by a non native speaker. That interaction is from where i learned the phrase "fuck me sideways mate".

Latvian - Native speaker

Like - Its my native language so im biased. Its quite unrelated to any other language on Earth so when im in different countries i feel safe knowing a lot of people wont understand me when i speak with friends

Dislike - Its quite complicated to teach, 33 letters and with male and female words. The native English speaking foreigners struggle to learn it

Russian - consider myself fluent

Like - I find it quite expressive and its my go to language for swearing

Dislike - That i was forced to learn it growing up and continue to need to speak it despite our gaining freedom from the soviets nearly 30 years ago. Its a matter of contention here that many ethnic Latvians under 30 dont speak or learn Russian on principle and it leads to awkward situations where people will refuse to speak Latvian and Russian to each other. Example being someone will speak in Russian to you at the store but you will only answer in Latvian. I dont think that way and will switch to Russian if i can tell the person is struggling but a lot wont on principle, this doesnt apply to English i have noticed, we happily switch to English.

Danish/Swedish - mid business conversational

Like - Nothing, i find it fucking hard to learn and have been learning them the last 6 years. I love how danes and swedes will speak to each other in their own language and understand each other but swear on their lives that they are not similar

Dislike - Its hard to learn and Danes speak such good fluent English and are polite enough that if they hear me speaking and struggling they automatically switch to English but then it gives me less chance to practice
 

notseqi

Member
Dislike: lots of exceptions and irregularities. Absolutely abstruse when it gets technical, to the point of becoming completely unfathomable to foreigners who just want to refill their tank at gas stations. Italian isn’t far from Japanese as a language where social roles and hierarchies can be easily inferred just from pronouns and vocabulary. Very long words, even if not as bad as in German and Scandinavian languages. Poetry and songs require very good skills to not sound extremely corny. Barely a shared language even in the 21st century - basically every region has different words for everyday stuff.
I thank Italian for giving me an insight to latin languages after being on the other side of the road with german and english but by god is it wasteful in terms of word count to actual statements made.

German long words tend to be several integrated to one, i.e. the infamous Doppelkupplungsgetriebe -> doubleclutchtransmission if you'd do it 1:1.

edit: i done a new line
 
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jufonuk

not tag worthy
I'm a native in Portuguese and I'm fluent in English and Spanish and despite having the majority of my family from Italy I nevear learned it (I should).

English is my all time favorite language. Perfect for everything.

I love Portuguese and I think it's a great language for humor. However, I have an intense dislike of it for music. Especially rock and metal. Portuguese sounds lame as fuck in those language. And Bossa Nova sucks balls. I do like European Portuguese in songs a lot though, I love fado.

I also love Spanish in music. Two other languages I adore in music are Japanese and German. German sounds badass.

I hate French. I have French roots as well but it mostly sounds lame as fuck in music. Thank God Gojira sings in English hehe. (woman speaking it sounds hot tho).
What about sepultura?

English is my native language. For me it just makes sense to use. I’ve never really thought about it much before.
Seems a simple to use language.

sometimes though the way Is word is spelt is not how it’s pronounced.

throw/though
Fault / thought

Read read
Lead lead.
Live live.
etc.

french.
The spelling of words and the way they are pronounced is different ?!?

verbs need different conjugations depending on if you talking to him her , you (friend) you(boss) us etc. Plus in the past.
It seem anytime I think ok I’m getting the hang, it’s like nope we do this instead ?

even my own mother-in-law has said that french is so complicated most people don’t understand all the rules. (She is native french)

but slowly slowly I hope lol.

also pronunciation of french is hard for me. I do am exaggeration of french it seems to be ok but if try to talk normally people can’t understand me.
 
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lock2k

Banned
What about sepultura?

English is my native language. For me it just makes sense to use. I’ve never really thought about it much before.
Seems a simple to use language.

sometimes though the way Is word is spelt is not how it’s pronounced.

throw/though
Fault / thought

Read read
Lead lead.
Live live.
etc.

french.
The spelling of words and the way they are pronounced is different ?!?

verbs need different conjugations depending on if you talking to him her , you (friend) you(boss) us etc. Plus in the past.
It seem anytime I think ok I’m getting the hang, it’s like nope we do this instead ?

even my own mother-in-law has said that french is so complicated most people don’t understand all the rules. (She is native french)

but slowly slowly I hope lol.

also pronunciation of french is hard for me. I do am exaggeration of french it seems to be ok but if try to talk normally people can’t understand me.
Sepultura rarely sings in Portuguese and some of the experiments with the language sound cool but it's mostly in English and ot sounfs better this way. I love them :)
 

NeoIkaruGAF

Gold Member
I thank Italian for giving me an insight to latin languages after being on the other side of the road with german and english but by god is it wasteful in terms of word count to actual statements made.
Yup. Unfortunately, verbal diarrhea has long been presented as the surefire sign that the speaker/writer means serious business. Literates and politicians have done such a good job with that, Italians are by nature extremely suspicious of any sentence that’s too terse and to the point. They know there must be more to it - lots more. This may also have something to do with the way Italians disrespect road signs: surely “STOP” can’t really mean you have to stop on all occasions, no matter what? :messenger_grinning_sweat:
 

lock2k

Banned
Yup. Unfortunately, verbal diarrhea has long been presented as the surefire sign that the speaker/writer means serious business. Literates and politicians have done such a good job with that, Italians are by nature extremely suspicious of any sentence that’s too terse and to the point. They know there must be more to it - lots more. This may also have something to do with the way Italians disrespect road signs: surely “STOP” can’t really mean you have to stop on all occasions, no matter what? :messenger_grinning_sweat:

I once read that Italians view road signs as suggestions, not law.

The majority of my DNA is Italian. I think I understand this. :messenger_beaming:
 
S

SLoWMoTIoN

Unconfirmed Member
Russian just hurts my ears. So does most Eastern European languages though. That's it.

Oh also Spain's spanish is too effeminate.


:)
 

notseqi

Member
I once read that Italians view road signs as suggestions, not law.
They disregard the law but are usually corteous to eachother. Should they have an accident it's of course about who can pull the most dramatic theatre performance but they rarely leave without a 'right-ho, back to business'.

Yup. Unfortunately, verbal diarrhea has long been presented as the surefire sign that the speaker/writer means serious business.
'You have to say it like this', said my colleague and gave me the correct example that doesn't work one town over.

I had so many italians staring at me when I learned the language as if I should have something to add to the sentence or statement given. Because I got really good at pronouncing the words in the right way early on they didn't suspect me being german, my colleague butting in with 'lui é tedesco' netted an understanding nod and the conversation could carry on.
 
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GymWolf

Member
The infatuation so many Italians have for Spanish is incomprehensible to me. Those people call men “caballero” in the 21st century, for cryin’ out loud :messenger_grinning_smiling:
I will always hold the opinion that nobody would care for Spanish if sex wasn’t involved, lol.
Le ragazze spagnole suonano come delle burine e lavandaie quando alzano un filo la voce, volgare quasi...

e oddio il doppiaggio spagnolo, sono monocorde da far schifo, non che il doppiaggio italiano sia tanto meglio con la ridicola scelta delle voci nella maggior parte dei casi...
 
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Spanish (native language): I don't know -- if I hadn't been born in México, I probably wouldn't have bothered learning it, to be honest. I curse a lot, so having a huge arsenal of swear words in my mother tongue is just absolutely fantastic. I also like that foreign girls love hearing me talk in Spanish, for some reason, so that always scores some extra points without me even trying.

English: My preferred language by far! I just see it as a surprisingly easy and flexible way to communicate with so many people.

Dutch: Fuck me... where to start. First of all, the way a word is written sometimes doesn't correspond with the way it's pronounced, which makes learning it even harder. Everything is incredibly difficult to pronounce. Knowing which words are de words and het words is also pretty dumb. And finally, sometimes the order (Subject-Verb-Object) changes dramatically, and with it, the meaning of the sentence. It's a nightmare of a language to learn, that's for sure.
 
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