Language meme! :D

[the24thkey]

SO. I was listening to the pod_aware podcast on accents and thought to myself: Wouldn't it be cool if all the podfic readers recorded themselves talking in their native language/languages they can speak aside from English? And by 'thought to myself' I mean 'posted on twitter', obviously. And then  sylvaine, who is an enabling enabler who enables, liked the idea and now we are making it a meme! Which means everyone should do it so we can listen to all the beautiful languages everyone speaks, even if we don't understand a word they say. Because fuck yeah, languages, that's why. <3

I don't have her dedication to actually search for fic in the languages I speak, so here's me, reading stuff from some books I had lying around:

The German excerpts are, in order, from Faust, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the civil code of Germany. Yeah. The French (I'M SO SORRY FOR THAT /o\) and Japanese excerpts are from some text books.

So this was fun! :D

If you record your own version, make sure to comment on sylvie's post with the link! That way, everyone can find everyone else's posts. <3

Comments

[sylvaine]

FAUST!! ♥♥♥ Oh my, I had entirely forgotten how pretty the language is. *now has urge to get a bunch of German podficcers together to record it*

Also, LOL, not dedication so much as "fuck! How do I only have English books here?! Except for a bunch of recipe books which lol no not reading those?"

Eigentumsverlust bei Bienenschwärmen?! XDDD

ETA: Oh my goodness the Japanese is bringing back all these anime feels. I recognize some phrases! Not enough to actually understand what you're saying, but enough to go OMG THAT SOUNDS REALLY FAMILIAR. :D

[the24thkey]

It's REALLY nice to read aloud. Recording it would take forever (and a bajillion people). I guess you could record some scenes with just Faust and Mephistopheles? IDK. But now I also I want to record more of it. <.<''

I have way too many of my old school books still in my room. The Japanese is from my first text book, it's a letter from a student to his teacher, about living in Tokyo and so on - it was the only running text I could find. :)

Und ja, das BGB ist manchmal echt strange. XD

[sylvaine]

... I am putting that on my project list for next year ok. Because Faust! It's so terribly dull to read but it would be SO MUCH FUN to record & listen to. >.>

[anotherslashfan]

\o/

Your Japanese sounds very accomplished -- to me at least (who doesn't speak a word, but has listened to a lot of Japanese).

[kdheart]

Awww, I wish I could speak German. Unfortunately it's one of the languages that didn't stick (like Russian) :(

I think your French is better than mine and your Japanese definitely is.

And it's so interesting to hear how people's voices change depending on the language.

[the24thkey]

I always imagined German must be a really hard language to learn (Though not the hardest by far, of course).

Reading French is okay, but I don't think I can form complex sentences anymore, so anything beyond introducing myself is impossible. :) I never felt very comfortable using the language, even though I chose it as one of my main subjects in my last years of school. Then again, that decision was mostly made because I liked chemistry/physics/biology even less. <.<

It really is fascinating, isn't it? My Japanese voice sometimes really surprises me with how different it sound.

I hope you do this meme, too! <3

[argentumlupine]

Ah, languages are lovely, even if I don't understand a word of them. Your reading of Faust was beautiful, by the way. :)

[the24thkey]

Thank you! I honestly didn't care much for the story when we had to read it in school, but reading it out loud is really nice. The language used, outdated as it is, just has such a beautiful feel to it.

[hananobira]

Because I thought you could all use a laugh to brighten your day, I recorded my own: Mandarin, French, and Japanese.



Edited because the SoundCloud stream isn't showing up, so here's the URL.
http://soundcloud.com/hananobira/hananobira-language-meme

[the24thkey]

Yaaaay! <3 I listened to this earlier today and was really impressed. Somehow the way you read makes it sound (well, to someone who doesn't know the language) like you've been speaking Mandarin for way longer than a few weeks. And no matter which language you're reading, your voice is always so incredibly comforting! It's really nice. <3

[hananobira]

Thanks, bb! Unfortunately to true Mandarin speakers, I'm pretty much unintelligible. My pronunciation's passable, but my tones are all wrong... and the tones are more important than the pronunciation anyway. The professor says that there are so many dialects of Chinese that everyone's pronunciation is different, so you have to make sure your tones are 100% or no one can understand you. He very often finds me totally incomprehensible. Oh well, shouldn't be so hard on myself at this point, I guess.

You sounded lovely, of course. Faust! <3333333