How does Japanese sound?

[bz_jpn]

Hello. I'm Japanese native speaker and very curious to know how Japanese sounds to non-Japanese speakers. Is it beautiful or ugly or elegant or awful etc. ? Please tell me your impression and thought.
Thanks.

 

[Grandpa Frank]

The Sound Doesn't Stand Out In My Mind....

as much as the facial expressions! I think Japanese people have facinating expressions as they talk. People from other countries & languages can look like they are asleep or dead when they talk.

Frank

 

[EscaFlowne]

I like the sound...it sounds unusuall, so as i learn japanese-on my own- i like to listen to them to see if i pick up on any words. and remember what it sounds like.

 

[kirei_na_me]

It's okay, but it's not French...

 

[EscaFlowne]

now a french woman. they sound sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo good!
my god i'm sweating...

 

[Elizabeth]

For some reason Japanese aurally conjures up the image of waves washing up on a shore, monotonous and sort of elegant with periodic bursts of activity but there is a true beauty and mystery about it as well. Or maybe I just understand too much already.

 

[Ewok85]

It's a bit unusual but I like Japanese when people are shouting at each other, sounds pretty scary. nanisundayo? KORRRRRA!

 

[beluga]

When I was small, I saw some Japanese singing competition on the television. I then told my cousin, "Japanese definitely sounds weird to be sung in tunes". I could still remember, it was George Michael's Careless Whisper in Japanese.

I guess lotsa people think Japanese is a cute language, thanks to the popular anime.

 

[beluga]

Its a bit unusal but i like japanese when people are shouting at each other, sounds pretty scary. nanisundayo? KORRRRRA! :box:

Ah, reminds me of Last Samurai 's "UTE! UTE!"....

 

[beluga]

as much as the facial expressions! I think Japanese people have facinating expressions as they talk. People from other countries & languages can look like they are asleep or dead when they talk.

Frank

Yea, I like Japanese' surprise expression.... Always comes with "eeeeh????"

 

[okaeri_man]

a lot of uneducated minds think japanese and chinese sound the same. ie chin cha chong cha etc.
i think japanese and chinese are two opposites. chinese is all slured and flows into one continuous jumble of sounds, whereas japanese in general is short and quite pronounced. i dont think japanese sounds beautiful... but english doesnt sound beautiful either.

 

[Mrs. Camui]

okaeri_man has a point. I can't understand why people can mix Japanese and Chinese either. They differ so much! I'm interested in both languages but I understand more Japanese. To me, Japanese sounds somewhat funny but also very cute. It's funny because my native language Finnish has same words but in very different meanings. You can check my post about the similarities if ya want to.

Japanese and Finnish

I've noticed some cute similarities between Japanese and my native language, Finnish, while studying. It's rather strange how two so different languages can have these similarities. But strange in a good way, of course! :) First of all, I'm not saying that the similarities are huge, but there's...

jref.com

But most of all to me Japanese sounds extremely cute. I love to learn it even on my own. It's a great hobby!

 

[Elgin]

It depends who's talking I think this guy sounds kool. But when I talk it sounds weird and wimpy.

 

[TyPe-ZeRo]

I'm okay with women in general but anyway, Japanese is a cool language, although i'm taking french and i'm really mad at the french for making such a complex language (or maybe i'm stupid?) but whats unique about some japanese women, is that the voice is all like.. high pitched or something but in general, i'm sure just about everyone in this thread likes japanese

 

[robbi]

It sounds a little horrofic at times but sometimes it can sound nice, depends

 

[Macrend]

Beautiful

Well, at the beginning since I did not understand a word it was funny. But now I found japanese beautiful. Specially when a woman talks in that "駅" style.

 

[Elgin]

What is this "駅" style? I would look it up but that takes effort

 

[Eternal Wind]

Well,I find it rather astonishing!!
But I kinda find find it too quick if I were to pronounce it
Overall I am fine with it!

 

[MikeM]

its similar to English... it doesn't sound beautiful, it sounds cool.

French and Italian on the other hand though... they sound beautiful.

 

[MrFour44]

Point of view...

Hello. I'm Japanese native speaker and very curious to know how Japanese sounds to non-Japanese speakers. Is it beautiful or ugly or elegant or awful etc. ? Please tell me your impression and thought.
Thanks.

Depends on your point of view... Some people find it strange and obscure...

I find it beautiful and poignant, even though some Japanese tend to avoid speaking in a poignant fashion (no offense!) because they want to be polite. But yes, very elegant, beautiful, and crisp. You could say 'cool' but then it'd just seem like a trend that comes and goes (and probably does for some people...).

By poignant I mean, deeply emotional, causing a lot of feeling, but in a good way.

English is also very beautiful and just as poignant. Maybe even more so (depends on the speaker - the English tend to avoid showing emotion and being direct, while Americans thrive on being straight-to-the-point). English and Japanese are worlds apart and complete opposites of each other, but... equally as beautiful... even though Japanese is a bit more crisp, while English is warmer in that respect (there aren't a lot of lone consonant combinations in Japanese).
Japanese grammar is much more forgiving (i.e. simpler), though.
Certainly much more forgiving than that of any Indo-European language, I'll tell ya that! LOL

 

[Mike Cash]

Digging up a thread that has been dead for almost EIGHT YEARS must be some kind of a record in the world of necro-posting.

 

[MrFour44]

LOL

Digging up a thread that has been dead for almost EIGHT YEARS must be some kind of a record in the world of necro-posting.

Sorry, I hadn't noticed it's been dead for ...phew... quite a while.

 

[trickster0]

I've always thought japanese sounds very bouncy and the words flow off of each other very well.

 

[Kristiyan]

I've always thought japanese sounds very bouncy and the words flow off of each other very well.

Japanese sounds weird. It sounds like someone who is shy yet cocky at the same time. It is confusing to explain