Themed Mixtape Game

[The Ozzman]

What languages do you consider to be nicer than English?

We have so many nice words in English like:

Cunt

Amirite?!

 

[Phylactery]

Haha, I used to think cunt sounded really unpleasant, but I've seen it used so much in the past few years that it doesn't bother me anymore. There are definitely times where it's the only word which will suffice.

 

[Vegard Pompey]

What languages do you consider to be nicer than English?

Purely in terms of how it 'sounds'? Most of them

I love Japanese, not so much for the way it sounds but for how elegantly minimalist it is. The logographic writing system is beautiful too (if terribly inconvenient), though it shares that with other asian languages. In terms of sound though, the most beautiful language is finlandssvenska (variant of Swedish spoken in Finland).

We have so many nice words in English like:

Ephemeral, serendipity, evocative, eloquence, grandiloquence, cataclysmic, apocalyptic, etc.

Those are cool words, but almost all of them are from Latin and barely changed from their original forms. Though one point in English's favor is that a perhaps unprecedented number of excellent wordsmiths have worked with the language and enrichened its vocabulary considerably. Case in point; serendipity.

 

[Elric of Melniboné]

@Vegard Pompey

What country do you live in?

 

[Vegard Pompey]

Sweden.

 

[Elric of Melniboné]

That's cool. For a while, it seemed obvious to me that you aren't from a country where English is the main language, because of your word choices often being pretty distinct. That isn't a knock on you though, as you actually communicate very well in English. Sorry if it seems that way.

 

[Phylactery]

I always thought you were from the US when I first joined because your grammar and use of vocabulary is excellent. Then after being here a while it became apparent that you weren't from the US but I still didn't know exactly where you were from. Would have guessed Sweden or Norway.

 

[Elric of Melniboné]

On the subject of English and other languages, I read something at some point by some European author who says that his preference for writing in English is due to the sheer number of different words that can be used to indicate variations of the same thing, which seems to be lacking in some other languages. I don't know how accurate that actually is, but it was an interesting explanation.

 

[Phylactery]

Purely in terms of how it 'sounds'? Most of them

I love Japanese, not so much for the way it sounds but for how elegantly minimalist it is. The logographic writing system is beautiful too (if terribly inconvenient), though it shares that with other asian languages. In terms of sound though, the most beautiful language is finlandssvenska (variant of Swedish spoken in Finland).

Harsh!

I'm not very familiar with Japanese at all, so I can't comment there. Back when I was playing WoW a lot I did know a lot of Swedish people on there and I tried to learn some of the basics of that language. I didn't like it at all. My biggest issue was those three "new letters" that you use. They're not new, they're an existing letter that's been glorified with some embellishments. I'd have no issue if it was actually a new letter but they aren't. I suppose I didn't mind the sound of it, but I couldn't really get the hang of the grammar.

 

[Internally Deformed]

There's no point learning a Scandinavian language as all the bloody Scandinavians already speak English better than we do.

 

[EspaDa]

I also thought Vegard was an english native speaker.

 

[Internally Deformed]

It's creepy how Scandinavians can fool you into thinking they're American or British. Like that guy who plays Jaime Lannister in GoT - his accent is flawless.

 

[Vegard Pompey]

My accent is far from flawless though. I lose around 20 points of IQ when I have to actually physically speak English.

I'm not very familiar with Japanese at all, so I can't comment there. Back when I was playing WoW a lot I did know a lot of Swedish people on there and I tried to learn some of the basics of that language. I didn't like it at all. My biggest issue was those three "new letters" that you use. They're not new, they're an existing letter that's been glorified with some embellishments. I'd have no issue if it was actually a new letter but they aren't. I suppose I didn't mind the sound of it, but I couldn't really get the hang of the grammar.

My favorite thing about Swedish esp. compared to English is that the pronunciation is very intuitive. That is to say, figuring out how a word is pronounced from the way it is spelled is a very straightforward process. You complain about the extra vowels, but we need those extra letters because each vowel character represents a single specific sound (except in the case of some exotic loan words).

 

[EspaDa]

I'm going to learn Swedish on my studies that begin in October. I used to learn Norwegian so I'm glad they are rather similar languages. Despite the fact that those Scandinavian pronounciations sound like vomiting, I'm keen on learning.

 

[Elric of Melniboné]

I would still like a few more songs for this mixtape.

 

[Phylactery]

How many do you have so far?

 

[Internally Deformed]

If you have 10 then post it already. An album length playlist is probably ideal for single session listening. And no doubt some cunt has thrown another 15-20 minute track in there, lol.

 

[CiG]

I'd like to learn Arabic or Hebrew one day.

 

[Internally Deformed]

Learn both. Then you can quote the Talmud to Muslim people and pass it off as Koranic wisdom.

 

[Elric of Melniboné]

How many do you have so far?

Ten. I'll be posting it soon. I was hoping for a couple more.