Saying what languages you want to learn is easier said than done of course, but I do have my ambitions!

1. Chinese (I know some basic to intermediate Chinese, but I'm still lacking and would like to take it to a higher level at some point).

2. Biblical Greek/Biblical Hebrew

3. Arabic (I'll do some studying up on the dialects as well).

4. Vietnamese (It's the most beautiful language I've heard thus far).

Nothing wrong with posting this here, but I thought I'd bring your attention to this thread: What languages are you learning or planning to learn? You'd have a better chance of getting into an interesting discussion there.

Indeed. I'm somewhat new to "foruming" anyway. Just one question, do I click "reply" or "new topic"? I'm pretty sure it isn't new topic now.

You may be the only person in the world who thinks that.

Yeah, I've heard Vietnamese described in a lot of ways but beautiful isn't one of them.

Woah! You guys are insane! I don't know why, but I love the "doinginess". It seems to flow nicely. Have you ever listened to Tam Doan?? I guess I just have a particular fondness for Asian languages.

What do most people think of Vietnamese anyway?

Well, Asia's huge & that's a lot of languages. I do like many non-tonal Asian languages including (but certainly not limited to) Japanese, Korean, Manchu, Malayo-Indonesian, Hindustani, Nepali, & Sinhala. The only tonal Asian languages I care for are Thai, Tibetan, & Cantonese.


I don't find it very appealing. The main things I don't like about it are the monosyllabic morphemes & the tones. I think the combination of those 2 traits make it sound very choppy.

I can deal with tones to an extent but when you get into those Southeast Asian languages where tone and something called "register" interact in various ways, I'm just confused. Like "the low-dipping tone is glottalized as well as featuring traits of creaky voice." What the hell?

For Vietnamese in particular I think it looks ugly, but that's something different from its sound.

Although I also dislike the modern Vietnamese orthography, I do like the unfortunately obsolete chữ Nôm system.

Although Vietnamese isn't the most beautiful sounding language one would first think of, spoken by certain people, it does have a certain beauty to it as with any language. Unfortunately, the majority of Vietnamese speakers speak it with "too much emphasis" leading to it sounding harsh and slurred. I'd say only 1 in every 4 or 5 Vietnamese speakers would sound "decent". Then again, it certainly isn't the harshest sounding language that I've come across, unfortunately Cantonese isn't any much better to me even though my dad speaks it fluently, and neither is Arabic, Thai or Khmer. Mandarin is starting to sound so repetitive to me.

As for the script, as much as I like Chữ Nôm more than Quốc Ngữ, it would be a waste of resources to change scripts, especially during this transitioning period within Vietnam.