I have become addicted to watching Chinese dramas and have learned a bit.
The thing that gets me is the letter combination for sounds. I now get annoyed when I hear an American try to pronounce a Chinese word. The zh letter combination, for example has the same sound as the American j and the chinese x sounds like the sh sound in America.
Linguistics is something that interests me but when it comes to the actual sound of some languages it can throw me, especially when the characters are different like in Russia and Asia. 😁
Chinese is quite interesting, when I first learnt Qi is pronounced as Chi, imagine my shock! I do watch Korean Drama and their pronunciations always bug me, haha!
Asian languages have a distinct language root than English, which comes from latin. French is really close to English, as English borrowed a lot of words from French and it is also of the same root.
I love different languages. I just wish I could speak more then one fluently.
Ever since I saw the series Firefly I have been in love with the idea of speaking Chinese. I have to say the actors did not speak in proper tones but the words themselves were something foreign and beautiful to me. 😁
Yeah I totally know what you mean about actors having not the proper accent. When you don't understand the language at all, it seems impressive of course but when you do, lol, its another story.
Same happened to me with a song I love sung by Annwn (Douce Dame Jolie), which is an old french song and she singer is German. I was only able to detect heavy german accent and improper pronunciation when I myself was a bit good at French!
The song itself is amazing, try that here -