Now that I have a passport (yes…more on that later), the need to learn other languages besides English, if only to be polite and not the Ugly American when I travel to other countries, has become more pressing.  The logical choice for a first other language for me here in the U.S. is Spanish, and as my first trip out of the country will be to Mexico, I’ve been trying to pick up a little basic tourist Spanish, although they say in most resort areas by the beach English is spoken enough that you can get by.  But I want to be polite.

For various personal reasons I am also trying to pick up some German (read that however you want).  So I was attracted to this headline on Fark.Com…

EU wants more people to learn German. You know…just in case

Never mind the gratuitous Nazi joke there…the comment thread on that article became really absorbing…

Ugliest language on earth.

—- 

A long time ago, I was playing a recording of the Vienna Boys Choir. My aunt stopped, listened, and said, "That’s beautiful! They must be singing in French!" And I said, "No, it’s German."

A friend of my mother’s wanted me to say something in French, so I did. She made me repeat it, I did. She said it put shivers up and down her spine, it was so beautiful. She asked me for a translation. I said, "Take out the garbage."

If you say a language is beautiful or ugly, you reveal more about yourself than the language. 

—

To us southern California folk, people in Spain sound remarkably like gay Mexicans. 

—

No, actually, I think Moroccan Arabic (if not Arabic in general) holds that honor. Never have I heard an angrier sounding language. Even spoken in normal tones, it sounds like people are arguing with each other.

German *can* sound quite sexy. Arabic, not so much.

Arabic can sound pretty damn sexy too. My husband sounds almost like he’s purring when he rolls his r’s and I just adore it. Maybe I’m a little biased because I love him so much. :)
But you’re right, the Moroccan dialect does come across a little harsh. Palestinians and Egyptians are a little more lyrical and pleasing to the ear. And the Algerian dialect is beautifully intertwined with French.

Anyone here know what language the Vikings spoke and whether it’s still around? I wonder if THEY sounded angry.

—

It´s quite easy for Germans to learn English, because most English terms evolved out of the German language and therefore have many similarities.

—

The vikings spoke norrønt mål (aka Old Norse). The closest living equalents today are Icelandic and Faroese – allthought as a Norwegian I have little trouble understanding written norrønt given a bit of time. And personaly, i don’t find any of the North Germanic languages to sound particulary angry…

German is the perfect language for giving commands in though; even to tell someone you love them (Ich liebe dich!) sounds like a direct order.

—

German is an brilliant language. I dare someone to find me a another language that has more words for "the".

—

It has one word for the, its just inflected. 

—

Oh fine, if you wanna get all nit picky…

"I dare someone to find another language that has more variations for "the"". Is that alright? Does my point make sense now? I hope the German’s aren’t going to be that pedantic when I go to Wacken.

—

You’re a brave man, doing that in front of the Germans.

—

On a related note, whoever invented different genders for words should be drawn and quartered.

THIS

I live in Switzerland and not only do I have to learn Hoch Deutsch in school but I have to try to understand Berndeutsch, which is a dialect that is totally different from German. I love hearing Germans speaking in the streets because I actually understand what they say. It’s damn frustrating to leave German class and stand open-mouthed at some store clerk who has mumbled some simple question to you in Swiss that you, of course, don’t understand.

Btw, I read somewhere that the different gendered articles for nouns probably originated from assigning articles to animate objects versus inanimate ones and that eventually evolved into a gender-based system. 

—

And we don’t sound angry all the time. But a swearing german is scary.

Am arsch! I find German is missing a good substitute for the word fark though. 

—

I’ll have to agree on that. "Ficken" doesn’t sound quite right for swearing.

—

Also, I never realized how much Spanish I knew until I tried to survive in Germany and learn German. Spanish comes to mind easily. German is like getting blood from a stone.

—

I live in a town of about 13,000 people about 1.5 hours north of Hamburg by train. I have found a local primary doctor who speaks English (trained in Boston), a pediatrician who speaks English (fluent enough, but sometimes we miscommunicate), and there is a teacher at my child’s school who speaks English well enough. I travel 15 minutes to a nearby town for banking because there is someone there who speaks English well. I can order in a store in German well enough and I traveled to Kiel for purchasing appliances etc. The salespeople there were fine. There are fluent people around, but most people studied it in school (decades ago) and then never used it or just know enough phrases to minimally interact with tourists. The good part is that it forces me to work on learning.

—

That must be nice, when I use german here they just respond in English, which is why I have been here a year and my skills are mediocre at best.

—

English and Mandarin are the languages of business. I would add Spanish. If a person knows these three language, they can travel anywhere in the world and communicate with most people.

A person who speaks 3 languages is trilingual. A person who speaks 2 languages is bilingual. What do you call a person who only speaks one langauge?…an American.

Good day!

Heh.  Of course that’s not fair, we’re not all like that.  But I can see how we might seem that way to the rest of the world.  Hopefully when I go traveling abroad I won’t be doing my part to reinforce any negative stereotypes.  One of the things I wish now that I could do over again, is have traveled abroad more.  But there was never a whole lot of money for travel in my household…we pretty much stuck to the beaches a few hours drive away…and I never had enough nerve to try wandering all over Europe with only spare change like some kids did back in the 70s.  I’m starting to appreciate in my middle age now, how that lack of nerve I always had stifled my life in so many ways besides romance.