I grew up in France (and Switzerland) and speak the language so I'd have to pick French. I'm a long way away from there but got the opportunity to go back in June and it felt like home.

 

Fluent in German, a status I never reached with french even though we lived there for two years.

 

I prefer French, but I wish I were fluent in German. A ton of the great sacred works are in German, and I dislike having to stare at librettos with imprecise translations.

As for French, I remember once someone asked a renouned linguist what his favorite word was. He immediately said,
"Fr-o-o-o-m-a-a-a-ge." Leave it to the French to have a beautiful word for something as basic as cheese.

 

For the French, cheese is definitely not basic - it is to be savored in all its variations.

 

In vocal music, especially the baroque, French is so much more fluent and natural sounding.
I've always found the German language awkward and ugly with music.
The only composer that seems to transcend this successfully is the great JS Bach.

 

Oh no! what about Schubert's lieder?

 

I really would love to understand German as there are often great interviews in the German press.

 

It's never to late to learn Mama a cheap book from Amazon and off you go. There are a lot of German interviews of the classical kind on YouTube well worth watching if you know a little German.

 

Languages I speak in order of preference:

French, Italian, Spanish, English, Dutch, Flemish, German and lastly Romansh.

I also know a little Yiddish but don't ask me to say anything please. I also did Latin at school but I don't claim to remember it.

 

Languages I speak in order of preference:

French, Italian, Spanish, English, Dutch, Flemish, German and lastly Romansh.

I also know a little Yiddish but don't ask me to say anything please. I also did Latin at school but I don't claim to remember it.

I still struggle to just speak English. :lol:

 

Every time they sing "Niiiiiiibelung" I always have to smile.



"Niiibelung"

But other than that one word I prefer french.

 

Just my $0.02, don't buy that Rosetta Stone course. From what I've heard about it, it is ridicilously overpriced and not all that helpful.

 

My language learning capabilities are only matched by my love of popular musical genres. I learnt French for 12 years and I can barely go to the supermarket on holiday there. I'm not learning either at this stage I think.

 

As for myself, I am a hopeless, incurable Germanophile, both as concerns music and the language as such (in fact I fell in love with the language a bit earlier before I fell in love with Wagner). I am listening to parts of Siegfried right now and cannot detect any ugliness whatsoever

 

Well... let's see. Speaking purely in musical terms I love French mélodies... Berlioz, Gabriel Fauré, Debussy, Ravel, Poulenc, etc... I am also starting to dig deeper into French Romantic opera: Massenet, Bizet, Chabrier, Berlioz, Gounod, Offenbach, etc... as well as older operas in French: Rossini's Guillaume Tell, Gluck's Iphigénie en Aulide, Armide, Alceste, Echo et Narcisse, and Orphée et Euridice as well as the operas of Lully and Rameau.

Having said this... on the side of German-language music we have the cantatas of Bach and Buxtehude, Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Der Schauspieldirektor, and Die Zauberflöte. Joseph Haydn's Die Schöpfung, Die Jahreszeiten, and Die sieben letzten Worte unseres Erlösers am Kreuze, Beethoven's lieder, Fidelio, and of course Ode an die Freude, Schubert's lieder, Schumann's lieder, Carl Maria von Weber's Der Freischütz, Hugo Wolf's lieder, Johannes Brahms' lieder and Ein deutsches Requiem, Richard Wagner's operas, Gustav Mahler's orchestral songs and vocal passages from the symphonies, Richard Strauss' operas, lieder, and orchestral songs, the operettas of Johann Strauss II, Franz von Suppé, and Franz Lehár, Arnoold Schoenberg's Gurrelieder, Alban Berg's lieder as well as Wozzeck and Lulu, Joseph Marx lieder, orchestral and choral songs, Engelbert Humperdinck's Hänsel und Gretel, Erich Korngold's Die tote Stadt and Das Wunder der Heliane, Alexander von Zemlinsky's Der Traumgörge, Eine florentinische Tragödie, Der Zwerg, etc..., Franz Schreker's Die Gezeichneten and Der Schatzgräber, etc..., Hans Pfitzner's Palestrina, operas and other vocal works by Kurt Weill, Paul Hindemith, Ernst Krenek...

I have to go with the Germans

 

I will just point out to both you and Squirrel that I'm sure he means the sound of the languages.

 

I voted for German, but then I would do because I'm a Wagnerphile

A slightly different subject I've been thinking about...in a certain respect, can you appreciate singing more when it is performed in a language you are not as naturally familiar with as your own? As I listen to Wagner's operas on CD, I sometimes feel a bit like a devout but illiterate medieval person being mystified and entranced by a religious service in Latin...there is something "magical" about the whole performance. Could an English opera have quite the same effect on me? I'm not so sure.

 

French, or any Latin language, basically sounds better sung than German. The old cliche is compare their words for butterfly. Papillon versus schmetterling.

 

The French thank you Sid. ​

 

French, or any Latin language, basically sounds better sung than German.

And French, Spanish, and Italian all sound far more poetic and fluid than not only German... but also English... and yet the English language has produced an unrivaled wealth of great literature. It's not the instrument that matters... but what use it is put to.

 

^^English is probably the most durable. Being the international language, and also adaptable to more popular forms - not only rock but also musical theatre. Its wierd that English in musicals sounds quite natural to me (or in some modern things like Gershwin's 'Porgy and Bess,') but not so much in opera.

 

Both French and German are connected one way or another with the English language but when it comes to music I have no preference for any language. Some folk dislike Germanic (and Slavic) tongues because they're supposed to be 'harder' as regards consonant emphasis and less free-flowing than French or other Romantic languages but I think there's beauty in all of them.

I'd be interested to see some comments from our non-British Isles/North America/Australasia members who speak English well if they think English sounds to them like any other Western European language when spoken - being English I can't see it objectively or subjectively but I'm guessing that on the ear it might slightly resemble Dutch if anything at all.

 

I am learning German. Unfortunately I am horribly ungifted at learning languages.

French is perhaps the ugliest language. Horrible, runny, monotonous gibberish. And public announcements take twice as long as they need to be... first English, then French... not to mention when you're at the supermarket and the damn French label is facing the aisle so you don't know what it is!

 

I am learning German. Unfortunately I am horribly ungifted at learning languages.

Me too! I speak portuguese, english, french and i'm learning german.

Portuguese is my native language. English is universal. I worked in France almost a yeat and i learned it by myself. Unfortunately i''ve forgotten some french, i can still read and have small talk.

I'm studying german because i'm thinking about moving to Germany to work.

I don't have any favourite languages (if i had i'd say mine, because is the one i know better)

 

I happen to think English is quite the beautiful language.

 

Well, I would like to clarify too, that it is the sound of the language that I like the most about German

 

I speak French and I love it! It's such a rich, romantic language... I get automatically butterflies in the stomach when I hear French songs. Fauré mélodies, Mon coeur s'ouvre à ta voix etc... But perhaps that is also because I know a handsome French man who sang Fauré so beautifully

So... I voted for French but I like German as well (thanks to schubert's winterreise!)
I'm learning German

 

I feel the same. The gorgeousness of both French music and French men has a lot to answer for- it's probably because of Gérard Souzay that I realised I had become a Francophile (and also thanks to him that I discovered Winterreise, which is still the pinnacle of musical greatness for me). So, French is the language of love and (Lieder aside) of music as far as I am concerned. For everyday purposes, however, I prefer German. Even though A levels were more than two decades ago, my German is still better than my French (which I've taught myself, in fits and starts, as an adult) and it's easier to pronounce and to understand when spoken. I haven't voted in the poll yet because I'm not sure how I'm going to interpret the question- maybe after a couple of months more study I will be able to give my wholehearted vote to French!

 

German, because I prefer their literature.

 

Europe is nothing but the French/German dynamic, so there can't be one without the other; we necessarily need both. I have the greatest respect for the French but my heart beats in German; the heart wins.

Oh, we were talking about languages, not nation-souls? Well, that's the higher reality that the languages reflect, so my point stays.

 

We can do without either.

 

I am still undecided... I like German, but French sounds nicer I think. Meh, I'll go with German.

 

For me, the spirit of it works more on me than the sound. French is dripping thought-wise with love, with pastoral thought, and with it's own fair share of other ideas and French culture and history, but German is so heroic, familial, pastoral, jovial, passionate, masculine, harsh, all kinds of other things distinctly German. I'd much rather say "father" or "humor" in German than I'd like to say the same things in French. But I am too biased towards German. Their roots have been laid bare much more by me. Surely the Galts and their neighbors are worth my time, very interesting people, but I'm not there yet. Who in history wasn't interesting? Is there a group that just sat around and didn't think or do anything interesting? But who's to appreciate them all? Maybe time will change this for me, my preference towards German.

Of course, part of it is how damned crazy the ancient Germans were, throwing people into rivers in inane sounding tests of guilt. But the Germans still wanted to know the answer. They had these quirky ideas about what made up a person, what made up the world around us (really, we ought to strike up something about this kind of stuff some time). And then they took whatever was quirky that they liked from Rome, really mainly the quirky stuff. I just love that. They had their heads just screwed on upside down or something. Even Eastern European gypsies weren't as weird as these conquerors of Rome. And their language still reflects that, although a lot of the references are dead. German people today don't know how much sick, hilarious, and sickly hilarious stuff they reference all the time. And the funny expressions they use. Not to mention that it's hard to beat the word schadenfreude. That's an achievement of a word right there.

 

I'm suddenly reminded of a Blackadder quote: "the Teutonic reputation for brutality is well-founded: their operas last three or four days; and they have no word for "fluffy".... "

 

I'm suddenly reminded of a Blackadder quote: "the Teutonic reputation for brutality is well-founded: their operas last three or four days; and they have no word for "fluffy".... "

Das Wort ist "flauschig."

I voted for Schumann.

 

Yeah - I prefer Latin - definitely more texture for Palestrina Masses and Allegri/Lassus etc.

French next. Then Polish. And then German.

I can speak all of them, except Polish. I do however have a good 'Allo Allo accent in Polish