The Official Languages Thread

[Rían]

Yes, some sounds, I imagine, would be pretty much impossible to pick up as an adult. It's interesting to hear the accents of my family-in-law; they went over to South America when the oldest kid was 6 and they (parents-in-law) were in their late 20's. My father-in-law speaks Spanish the best, vocabulary-wise, and his accent is quite good, but not as good as his kids, who picked up the language when they were quite young.

I'm sure my German vowel sounds weren't flawless, but I'm lucky enough to have a good ear in this area, and once fooled a Swiss storekeeper into thinking I was German when I greeted her in German as I came into her store. I doubt if I could do well with your Muslim friend's family names, tho, altho I would like to try my hand at it - it would be interesting!

I wish we could get samples of everyone's voices, since we represent quite a lot of languages here at the Moot

Another sound I picked up fairly well, and which is not in English, was the Thai "ng" at the beginning of words. It was really hard to get - very unnatural in English - but I finally got it to the satisfaction of my Thai friend.

Languages are interesting!