3. Russian
Part of the reason that Russian is so sexy it’s because it’s totally unintelligible to us. It’s the first entry so far on this list, and for that matter, the last one, whose speakers don’t share our alphabet. It also, arguably more than German, evokes humourless, unembarrassed intensity. Russians don’t seem to be afraid to be considered “too intense” the way we do over here. This comes through not only just in their accent, their personality becoming entwined in the way it’s conveyed (i.e. their accent). But their accent also gets confused simply with their delivery. We might attribute their very un-whimsy way of speaking to tones and accentuations getting “lost in translation”, while they are actually perfectly cognizant of the effect they’re having and in fact they’re seeking it out.
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