CAA: Christian Anime Alliance

One thing I've noticed in watching subs is that certain voices seem to have a certain "melody" to them. I don't know why, but I think the Japanese language can sound very beautiful at times once you get used to it.

The Japanese language is more melodic than English. English stresses syllables by changing volume as well as pitch. Japanese does it entirely by pitch.

But yes, one thing I've always noticed when comparing subs and dubs is that certain types of voices that sound nice and normal in Japanese often sound really silly and stupid in English.

Of course, that could just be because I'm a native English speaker. I could imagine the Japanese viewers saying "Man those English voices are great, but us Japanese get stuck with some of the silliest-sounding voices."

Korean and especially Thai are actually much more melodic that Japanese. /fun fact

Conversational American English is one of the less flowing languages. It can sound almost broken in a way (everyday conversations that is. Well written speeches, poems, stories, etc. are a different matter). But it may be, like Midori said, because we're used to our own language that others sound interesting to us. Even different accents of English are more interesting than our own, I think.

Most likely because it's a tonal language.


English is a very choppy language and inconsistent sounding.

I do remember hearing Kotomi Ichinose's Japanese voice ^__^ Very beautiful <3

This all started when I was re-watching the Japanese version of Rahxephon. The Japanese voice for Quon is so pretty to listen to. The English voice is great too, but she just sounds cuter in the original voice. Same thing with Edward in Cowboy Bebop. Her Japanese voice is more playful than the English voice. (although her English voice is cute too.)

rocklobster (post: 1495811) wrote:One thing I've noticed in watching subs is that certain voices seem to have a certain "melody" to them. I don't know why, but I think the Japanese language can sound very beautiful at times once you get used to it.

Yes, I've noticed this, too. And I agree-- Japanese is a beautiful-sounding language.

Although there are Japanese voices I would say I find beautiful, I can't say I find Japanese in general particularly melodious or beautiful in the way that I admire any instance of, for example, French. (I understand no more than a few words of either language, though I suppose French is related to English in ways that Japanese definitely isn't.)

But that's probably just down to taste.

IMO one of the reasons Japanese sounds so nice is because of the sheer frequency of vowels in every word...

goldenspines (post: 1495826) wrote:Korean and especially Thai are actually much more melodic that Japanese.

Quote from my dad: "[Korean] makes German sound like high French."
More than anything, I think he may have been referring to how much easier it is to distinguish between words people pronounce, melodious it be or not.


As far as the Japanese-English relationship:
I have to wonder this myself. I think it maybe a combination of many factors. One was already mentioned by Goldy: we're so used to hearing our language. A second factor maybe it is more beautiful or at least softer. Another factor might be the fact that you've fallen in love with the language by watching too much anime. That latter factor may have a greater impact than we'd like to acknowledge.

[quote="Midori (post: 1495817)"]The Japanese language is more melodic than English. English stresses syllables by changing volume as well as pitch. Japanese does it entirely by pitch.

But yes, one thing I've always noticed when comparing subs and dubs is that certain types of voices that sound nice and normal in Japanese often sound really silly and stupid in English.


There's a cultural thing going on too, in which it is acceptable and even encouraged for Japanese females to use "little girl" high pitched voices in a way that's hard for English voice actors to do without sounding creepy or fake. When I was young (ages ago!) if you ate in a Japanese restaurant all the waitresses would speak to you (in English) in a very high little girly voice even if they were older women. This isn't as true anymore, and I've noticed the change in amime as well.

Interesting English point (learned in linguistics training)--English female speakers use more levels of tone than male speakers, and English more than Spanish--I've been told that Spanish speaking children new to the American school system always wonder why their female teachers sound so angry all the time.

Riona (post: 1496511) wrote:Interesting English point (learned in linguistics training)--English female speakers use more levels of tone than male speakers, and English more than Spanish--I've been told that Spanish speaking children new to the American school system always wonder why their female teachers sound so angry all the time.

I am not a student anymore but still have that same feeling when talking to most native English speakers. I am Hispanic.
I am liking this thread!

goldenspines (post: 1495826) wrote:But it may be, like Midori said, because we're used to our own language that others sound interesting to us. Even different accents of English are more interesting than our own, I think.

I definitely agree with that! Everyone I know thinks British accents are really cool... but we're all speaking the same language.

I also think that the high-pitched, girly voices sound better in Japanese. In English, they tend to end up sounding weird.

One way that Japanese and English are the same as opposed to Spanish and French (the language I studied most) is that for Japanese and English each syllable has a tone that is pretty much level, while in the romance languages each phrase has a curvy tone that belongs to the whole phrase. This means if you are trying to speak in French and you say one word at a time you sound like a robot.

On the other hand Japanese and Spanish are both syllable timed, which means they flow along at an even rate, while English and French are stress timed, which means:

EACH STRESSED SYLlable is aBOUT at the SAME RATE just like a CLOCK TICKing

so if you say that sentence like a typical English speaker you will say
"SYLlable is aBOUT" and "RATE just like a CLOCK" very fast and the rest of it pretty slowly. This means that we hear Japanese and Spanish as "too fast!" and they hear English as "too fast!"

Riona (post: 1496532) wrote:One way that Japanese and English are the same as opposed to Spanish and French (the language I studied most) is that for Japanese and English each syllable has a tone that is pretty much level, while in the romance languages each phrase has a curvy tone that belongs to the whole phrase. This means if you are trying to speak in French and you say one word at a time you sound like a robot.

On the other hand Japanese and Spanish are both syllable timed, which means they flow along at an even rate, while English and French are stress timed, which means:

EACH STRESSED SYLlable is aBOUT at the SAME RATE just like a CLOCK TICKing

so if you say that sentence like a typical English speaker you will say
"SYLlable is aBOUT" and "RATE just like a CLOCK" very fast and the rest of it pretty slowly. This means that we hear Japanese and Spanish as "too fast!" and they hear English as "too fast!"

Wow, that's true. Though I'd put stress on the "just" too.

Yes, WOW is true. I have heard English speakers saying that we "sing" when we talk in Spanish. Now I know why.

Here's a list of languages whose sounds I'm familiar with, in order from most to least beautiful:

<_< Tolkien Elvish >_>
Japanese
Spanish
Italian
Turkish
Russian
French
Chinese
Korean
British, Australian, New Zealand English
German
Dutch
American English

This is looking at them as objectively as I can, though of course it's impossible to completely sever a language from the encounters you've had with it.

What I like the most about Japanese isn't so much is "melodic" quality (though I love that too). It's a very sharp sort of language, with precise sounds at the front of the mouth, and vowel sounds in between each consonant sound and everything. I just love that, because Germanic languages like English are very round and clumpy-sounding.

the_wolfs_howl (post: 1499516) wrote:Here's a list of languages whose sounds I'm familiar with, in order from most to least beautiful:

<_< Tolkien Elvish >_>
Japanese
Spanish
Italian
Turkish
Russian
French
Chinese
Korean
British, Australian, New Zealand English
German
Dutch
American English

This is looking at them as objectively as I can, though of course it's impossible to completely sever a language from the encounters you've had with it.

What I like the most about Japanese isn't so much is "melodic" quality (though I love that too). It's a very sharp sort of language, with precise sounds at the front of the mouth, and vowel sounds in between each consonant sound and everything. I just love that, because Germanic languages like English are very round and clumpy-sounding.

I agree with this list from top to bottom! *nods*
Except that you forgot Hebrew, which I also love. Also Zulu.

Dumelang! Wena o kae?
Dumelang, ee ki teng, wena o kae?
Ee ki teng.

Hello! How are you?
Hello, I am fine, how are you?
I am fine.

That's all I remember from Tswana class in primary school.

Yes, I think "certain" voices are melodic, no matter what language, and by the same token, certain voices drive me up the wall, irregardless of language XD It's probably why I don't watch too many shojo or girly-type anime (too many high-pitched voices), or have taken to watching comedic or action anime, because at least I'm prepared for the voice types going all over the place. That said, Japanese voice actors are pretty good at what they do, and I enjoy listening to them do their thing

Falx (post: 1499614) wrote:Dumelang! Wena o kae?
Dumelang, ee ki teng, wena o kae?
Ee ki teng.

Hello! How are you?
Hello, I am fine, how are you?
I am fine.

That's all I remember from Tswana class in primary school.

That's awesome! I forgot you're from South Africa!
I've been to South Africa twice! [Durban area, Kwazulu-Natal]

I looove their language! [The Zulu's that is]
I went there on 2 different missions trips talking to the kids about what HIV/AIDS even is, and the best way to stay away from getting it. [Unless you're raped or something like that, you can't really help that] But making other wise choices in life to prevent from getting that disease which is practically killing them all one day at a time.

It was a really great experience, the teens there were so respectful to us from the USA and they loved having their picture taken. Hehe.


Yeah, fun times.

Riona (post: 1496532) wrote:One way that Japanese and English are the same as opposed to Spanish and French (the language I studied most) is that for Japanese and English each syllable has a tone that is pretty much level, while in the romance languages each phrase has a curvy tone that belongs to the whole phrase. This means if you are trying to speak in French and you say one word at a time you sound like a robot.

On the other hand Japanese and Spanish are both syllable timed, which means they flow along at an even rate, while English and French are stress timed, which means:

EACH STRESSED SYLlable is aBOUT at the SAME RATE just like a CLOCK TICKing

so if you say that sentence like a typical English speaker you will say
"SYLlable is aBOUT" and "RATE just like a CLOCK" very fast and the rest of it pretty slowly. This means that we hear Japanese and Spanish as "too fast!" and they hear English as "too fast!"

Lots of interesting facts here. Another way in which japanese and spanish are similar is that we both have a frigging single way of pronouncing each vowel. Ah, eh, e, oh, oo. I find really easy to pronounce japanese words and have fun seeing my english-speaking friends struggling to pronounce correctly the simplest words even after hearing them.

A funny experiment I once read about the absurdity of the way english letters -especially vowels- may be pronounced: take the following made-up word and figure how to pronounce it -Ghoti.

Done? Give yourself a cookie if you said [spoiler]"fish". Confused? "Gh" is pronounced as in "touGH", "o" is pronounced as in "wOmen", and "ti" is pronounced as in "presentaTIon."[/spoiler]

And so thousands of examples can be made. I have to say it's the most frustrating aspect of learning english.

Maokun (post: 1501563) wrote:Lots of interesting facts here. Another way in which japanese and spanish are similar is that we both have a frigging single way of pronouncing each vowel. Ah, eh, e, oh, oo. I find really easy to pronounce japanese words and have fun seeing my english-speaking friends struggling to pronounce correctly the simplest words even after hearing them.

A funny experiment I once read about the absurdity of the way english letters -especially vowels- may be pronounced: take the following made-up word and figure how to pronounce it -Ghoti.

Done? Give yourself a cookie if you said [spoiler]"fish". Confused? "Gh" is pronounced as in "touGH", "o" is pronounced as in "wOmen", and "ti" is pronounced as in "presentaTIon."[/spoiler]

And so thousands of examples can be made. I have to say it's the most frustrating aspect of learning english.

So true! I think if I had not been taught English as a young child and my mom had spoken to me in more Spanish than English, I think I would still have a tough time learning it. They say its one of the hardest languages to learn for a reason.

But since I do understand a lot of Spanish, I have also found Japanese pretty easy to pronounce because the flow and syllables and sounds are so similar!

Whereas my husband, who has never learned Spanish or any other language besides written Latin and Greek. He has the funniest way of trying to pronounce words. It's very entertaining.

ABlipinTime (post: 1496291) wrote:Quote from my dad: "[Korean] makes German sound like high French."

(I know he wasn't talking about how 'pretty' the language is, I'm just using this as an example)

I'm getting really tired with the whole "French is pretty and German is ugly" thing. German isn't nearly as 'ugly' or 'rough' as people make it out to be. It can actually sound quite beautiful. I think a lot of the people who say it is ugly haven't really listened to it. One language that does sound ugly: The Black Speech of Mordor. That's an ugly language. But I think the main reason people say German is 'ugly' is because of certain sterotypes *cough*Hitler*cough*.

American English, except for some accents, sounds rather ugly. English accents sound quite soothing to me though. But I agree with the_wolfs_howl
that Tolkien Elvish (especially Sindarin imo) sounds very beautiful.

Edward (post: 1505867) wrote:(I know he wasn't talking about how 'pretty' the language is, I'm just using this as an example)

I'm getting really tired with the whole "French is pretty and German is ugly" thing. German isn't nearly as 'ugly' or 'rough' as people make it out to be. It can actually sound quite beautiful. I think a lot of the people who say it is ugly haven't really listened to it. One language that does sound ugly: The Black Speech of Mordor. That's an ugly language. But I think the main reason people say German is 'ugly' is because of certain sterotypes *cough*Hitler*cough*.

American English, except for some accents, sounds rather ugly. English accents sound quite soothing to me though. But I agree with the_wolfs_howl
that Tolkien Elvish (especially Sindarin imo) sounds very beautiful.

I actually find German to be really pretty. We had an exchange student a couple years back and it was cool just to hear her talk in German.

I always think of English as sounding more like a box, with the words rattling in the corners while other languages, like Japanese are more circular.