fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2244 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2244 ⌋

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OP

Yeah, they do all sound vastly different to me, and they all sound grating. Japanese sounds the least grating to me, though.

I've lived in India for four months at a time on two separate occasions (I have family in India on my mother's side), and Hindi and Urdu being spoken around me constantly never bothered me at all. My mother speaks Bengali on the phone with her parents quite frequently, and I never been bothered by that. I've also spent extended vacations with family friends who spoke French around the house all the time, and that never bothered me either (although to be fair French is a lot closer to English than Asian languages). I habitually play songs, especially African folk songs and classical music sung in Italian or German, because I find singing without being distracted by the meaning of the words to be incredibly soothing too.

I have an especially hard time with the way vowels are pronounced in all four Asian languages I mentioned. They sound subtly different in each language (although I'm most used to Korean and Vietnamese) but they all just kind of stick out to me. And I never get used to it. It's strange. I thought I would inevitably get used to it.

I don't blame you for not giving me the benefit of the doubt though. I know how bad it sounds and that's why I'm never telling anyone non-anon.

I have an especially hard time with the way vowels are pronounced in all four Asian languages I mentioned. They sound subtly different in each language

And this is why I call shenanigans. They don't sound subtly different, they sound completely different. I speak fluent Japanese and I tried and failed to study Chinese because the sounds were so different that I couldn't manage them at all.

I honestly think there's some self-examining you need to be doing, and I think you're blaming another issue on your "ears and nose."

OP

They only sound subtly different to me. But I admit that I'm not as exposed to Japanese and Chinese as I am to Korean and Vietnamese.

And thinking about it objectively, yes, I can totally see how actually studying Chinese if you only speak Japanese would be difficult when I listen to it closely, but when it's just background noise, like it is for me, the similarities between the four languages are the parts that start sticking out.

I really don't know how to explain it, but it's like...even though the four languages are different, there's some elements they all share, and it's those elements that I notice and that grate on my ears. I'm sure I only hear it that way because I myself crap at identifying and speaking different languages myself and don't speak ANY Korean, Vietnamese, Chinese or Japanese at all.

Honestly, at this point, I don't think you're going to convince me that you're not just making excuses for yourself.

I agree. Chinese isn't even one language like Korean and Vietnamese are. Cantonese, Shanghainese, Taiwanese, Mandarin all sound completely different from each other and are not understandable between each other. These aren't the only Chinese languages either. There are a LOT of Chinese languages.

On top of that, Korean and Japanese aren't pitched like Chinese languages and Vietnamese are. Korean, Japenese, Vietnamese and Chinese(*) all have sounds unique to themselves and their cadences are different too. I've no idea what op is on about.

Fair point -- when I said studying Chinese, I meant Mandarin. That said, I admittedly can't tell the difference between the dialects just by hearing. But I certainly can tell Korean from Chinese and those two from Japanese!

I'm familiar enough with standard Japanese to recognize when someone's speaking a Japanese dialect instead of standard Japanese. Korean is the one that sound like my Korean friends. As for Chinese, I can tell what is Mandarin and what is Cantonese but when you throw the rest of the lot in, I can tell they are different but I won't be able to name them.

Now if you add other tonal Asian languages in like Thai and Lao... @_@

OP

Oh, I can definitely tell the languages apart. I just can't focus on the differences because well, I never studied them so I'm going entirely by what my ear has gotten used to, and it's not that somehow, because they're all different, I shouldn't find them all grating. I personally do hear similarities between all of those language, and it's those specific similarities that I notice and that I don't like the sound of. W

hat can I say? You say that they're all very different -- you're right, but I just don't know enough to pay that much attention to them and notice how they're different. You say they have no similarities, and I say well, sorry, but I do hear similarities. Maybe I'm deluded or something, but I do hear them.

Let me put it this way: there are no similarities that exist between those languages that don't also exist between the individual languages in that group of four and many other world languages.

it's not that somehow, because they're all different, I shouldn't find them all grating.

No, what's suspect is that they're all different and you find them all grating yet don't find other non-East-Asian languages that also share features with those languages grating.

What is your opinion on Spanish, op?

I can definitely tell the languages apart. I just can't focus on the differences because well, I never studied them so I'm going entirely by what my ear has gotten used to

You say they have no similarities, and I say well, sorry, but I do hear similarities.

Do these statements seem to contradict each other, or is it just me?

OP, I speak Mandarin and Japanese, Korean dramas are heard everywhere is my house, and I hear Vietnamese every day in school. On top of that, I hear Cantonese, Hainanese, Hokkien, and Hakka all the time because of my country.

None of these languages sound the same. I have massive problems trying to pick up German right now because there are so many similarities between German and English that I get so confused about German syntax and pronunciations and separating English and German from each other.

I'm calling bullshit.

That's an interesting mix of languages. Are you from Vietnam by any chance?

I'm from Singapore.

I speak Mandarin as my native language, Japanese I picked up from anime mostly, Korean dramas are literally everywhere and I can't escape them no matter how hard I try, and Vietnamese I hear from the foreign students in my university. There's a lot of Vietnamese linguists. 8D

I hear practically every Chinese dialect in a hawker centre if I pay attention. Even more than that, my father is Hakka, my mother is Hokkien, my best friend is Hainanese, and Cantonese comes from Hong Kong dramas.

I also hear Malay and Tamil on a regular basis because those are the other two of our official languages, and if I go to the really expensive malls in town I hear European languages everywhere. I can differentiate most of them by hearing a sentence or two. Except Spanish and Portuguese.

My country is very cosmopolitan.

That's so cool! You're very lucky to live there.

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