Yesterday I mentioned a revolutionary new globally interactive Blog-cept, and here it is.
It’s a question of the day!
Yeah, underwhelming I know. But I am interested in the fact that Google analytics tells me that I have quite a diverse readership out there. Over the last week alone, I’ve had visitors from 66 countries. Now I want to harness that collective knowledge by asking you some probing questions.
I’ve already written the questions, and they’ll be appearing at Noon (Hobart time) for each day for the next business week, yes. that means five days of questions. As it is only fair, I will answer my own question first on the comments page. You can be as concise or as loquacious as you wish. As is my wont, I’m open for answers as long as this here Internet lasts.
My intention is to give it a bit, l crunch the data and then wax lyrical as to what I might be able to conclude from it. Onto the question!
Given the linguistic and cultural diversity lurking out there, I’m looking to you guys to answer a question that has plagued me for some years now. I have mentioned a couple of times in the past that I’m interested in accents, always have been. I rate myself a very good “picker” of accents, but am terrible at “doing” accents (although my “angry South African woman isn’t bad).
Now, I know what I like and dislike in accents, but have no-idea how people in other parts of the world gauge different accents. So my first question for the day is really three questions.
It’s a question of the day!
Yeah, underwhelming I know. But I am interested in the fact that Google analytics tells me that I have quite a diverse readership out there. Over the last week alone, I’ve had visitors from 66 countries. Now I want to harness that collective knowledge by asking you some probing questions.
I’ve already written the questions, and they’ll be appearing at Noon (Hobart time) for each day for the next business week, yes. that means five days of questions. As it is only fair, I will answer my own question first on the comments page. You can be as concise or as loquacious as you wish. As is my wont, I’m open for answers as long as this here Internet lasts.
My intention is to give it a bit, l crunch the data and then wax lyrical as to what I might be able to conclude from it. Onto the question!
Given the linguistic and cultural diversity lurking out there, I’m looking to you guys to answer a question that has plagued me for some years now. I have mentioned a couple of times in the past that I’m interested in accents, always have been. I rate myself a very good “picker” of accents, but am terrible at “doing” accents (although my “angry South African woman isn’t bad).
Now, I know what I like and dislike in accents, but have no-idea how people in other parts of the world gauge different accents. So my first question for the day is really three questions.
- What is your primary language, and do you have a regional accent?
- Do you speak any other languages?
- [Most importantly] What do you think is the sexiest accent or language to your ear?
Comments
1. English, and I am told that I have a touch of “country” (NW Tasmania) about my voice. In the context of accents though, it is very minor.
2. I would dearly love to say yes, but the odd word in German, Spanish, French, Italian, or Czech does not amount to a second language!
3. It is a toss up for me, but both involve a confident woman scolding me in either Russian or German. Make of that what you will...
2. A bit similar to you - no actual second language skills, just a small collection of amusing German word-concepts, & some retail-transaction phrases in French.
3. Hmmm...it really depends on who the accent is attached to. But on the whole, I enjoy the sound of German accents better than the average.
2)I took a number of years of French, but that was a long time ago and I don't remember much of it.
MY family, half of them, were/are Italian, so I learned a little of that.
I was trying to study Spanish--we have a Spanish-speaker in our family now and my grandchildren speak Spanish. But I haven't gotten very far with it. (I got tapes and listen and repeat, but . . . old dogs are slow at learning new tricks--or don't learn them at all!)
3)I think a British or Australian accent is the cutest and sexiest followed by maybe a German accent.
2. I speak excellent French and can converse as well as any French toddler.
3. I love hearing a French person speaking English with a British accent mixed with their French accent.
2. Smatterings of French and Italian. Oh...and one or two words of Klingon in my Star Trek phase(hahaha).
3. I have gone out with a French guy who I didn't care what he was saying...it just sounded 'magnifique!!'
2. English a little, also West Japanese a little.
3. native Kyoto woman's accent.
The accent question has come up in the Librivox forums too, as you can imagine. Some people complain about Americans recording Thomas Hardy and Shakespeare, or Chinese accented people reading Mark Twain. But the beauty of Librivox is that they invite anyone who wants to help record every publication in the public domain. Out of those discussion threads, I've learned that Britons find South African accents "ten kinds of hot". I'm partial to West Country English myself, because my grandfather was from Cornwall. Oh, wait. Jumping the gun.
2. I survived in Hungarian for a couple of years, but was incredibly dense about really getting it. I was told my accent could be pretty good, but I know my grammar was almost non-existent. I remember almost nothing from high school German. I had courtesy greetings and the names of some edibles in Turkish decades ago. But all that is buried under the train wreck that is my Hungarian now.
3. Similar to Petrea's answer, I like the sound of a Hungarian man speaking English learned from the BBC. Of course, the underlying vocal quality has a lot to do with it. The purr of Hungarian "r"s is lovely when they read Hungarian poetry. But then, that Cornish accent is lovely when it isn't caricatured into the "pirate" accent.
Do you speak any other languages? French, Serbian (fluent)
[Most importantly] What do you think is the sexiest accent or language to your ear? --Gotta be French...
2. I lived in Germany for 8 years.. so I speak German. I live in France currently.. so I speak French.
3. This girl swoons for an Australian or Irish lilt.
:)
2) Some Spanish, although it's 13 years since I spent time in Argentina, so it is pretty rusty these days.
3) French and Scottish (not together).
My native language is Marathi, which evolved from Sanskrit through Prakrit and Apabhramsha.
In school I learnt Hindi and English.
And the sexiest language to my years is for some odd reason Spanish. :-)
2) I speak Romanian (not fluent but pretty good: I can read the papers and watch the TV have a decent conversation and interview people and understand what they're saying and make myself understood). I used to speak French to a pretty good standard, but as I haven't really used it since I was 18 (I'm now 39, eek) whenever I try to speak it, Romanian comes out. I did have to read a book chapter in french recently though and pretty much got what was going on without having to look up every single word. I spent a year learning Russian a couple of years back, but although I can now understand the alphabet and could read out a line of text, my understanding is minimal if it's anything more complicated than a shop sign.
3) Sexiest accents are some Scottish accents (definitely not Glaswegian though!) but more so, Irish accents. *swoon* I wouldn't say no to sweet nothings being whispered in my ear in french either.
2. If my daughter didn't speak so many languages that I've lost count, I might say I have a second language. I studied French back in the dark ages but only know enough to apologize for not being able to speak it.
3. I love accents in general, the more pronounced the better. I even like accents from my part of the world so it's not a case of thinking everyone else has an accent. I can't really pick one although German, French, Italian, and Russian would be in the running. I wish I knew enough about those languages to pick out the accent from a particular part of the country where the languages originate. I know I like some German accents better than others. One thing I like about where I live is there are people from all over the world and I love to be on a walk and hear a couple speaking in German or French so I can listen to the accent even though I don't understand the words.
2. Only my own made up language that no one else seems to understand most of the time. I'm thinking of starting and Adult Ed course so I don't feel so alone. A little bit of German due to having a German stepmother (sorry Kris, she's taken), but we tend to make up more faux German words than use real ones.
3. irish, maybe. Most accents make me cringe, especially French and English. Once, while bonking a French guy on my sister's washing machine, he started talking French and it ruined the whole thing. Yep, wayyyy too much info there.
Languages I can speak - Bengali, Hindi, English and German. Hope to learn Sanskrit, Latin and French one day
I think I can discern the various english accents - like if the person is from the US, then which part, if she is from the UK, Australia,etc.
Sexiest Language - French and Irish English. Of couse, the Aussie's Oi Mite (Oye Mate) is very sexy too.
2 - I can get by in Spanish, and I speak a little Arabic, but definitely not fluent in it.
3 - Honestly, I love all accents, except a few that I find a bit annoying - like Fran Drescher's accent. I really love Australian and South African accents.
Can speak elementary Sicilian, German, French and Italian. Don't expect me to get my cases right though!
The sexiest accent for me is south Italian.
2 French
3 Italian - gorgeous
1. German is my mother tongue, but we have a lot of regional districts, very different to each other. Here in Cologne some people speak the cocal dialect 'kölsch', same name as the local beer (haha). Kölsch is lingualistically seen 'ripuarian', a very old language with its own grammar and a lot of funny words. It is not looked at to be spoken by 'better' people.
2. English, French, some words of Italian and Dutch, 3 or 4 words in Spanish.
3. sexiest: a French speaking german, that's great.
2. also Greek
3. sexiest language to my ear? spanish spoken with latino accent
2.Filipino (tagalog) and english. and I can understand a smattering of different local dialects.
3. British accent (among others).
2. English, Russian
3. Best sound Estonian and French, Best English accent award goes to mild Scottish:)
2. Some Spanish, a little French (Canadian version)
3. Definitely the accent from Newfoundland or Cape Breton, Nova Scotia! The lilt is amazing and their idioms are magical. ;-)
2. I speak very little spanish.
3. British and Australian... it's a tie.
2. New Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, English, German, some Icelandic, Russian And French.
3. To me it's Brazilian, but Russian does the trick as well. English with a Russian accent is powerfull. German does nothing for me, everything sound as a treat. Ich liebe Dich (I love you) sounds like: I'm gonna kill ya.
2. New Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, English, German, some Icelandic, French and Russian.
3. To me Brazilian and Russian does the trick. English with a Russian accent is delish. German does nothing for me. Everything sounds like a treat. Ich liebe Dich (I love you) sounds like I'm gonna kill ya. I always wonderd how the germans make babies