A new study by Preply has named German among one of the least attractive languages in the world. Two guesses for which languages came up roses.
Rubbing out the mystery to get to the cold hard facts of romance, a new study has found that, based on a listener’s average number of heartbeats per minute, Italian, Portuguese and French are the world’s most attractive languages.
Datafying the doting, hearing Italian made listeners’ hearts beat 23 percent more per minute, Portuguese 20 percent and French 18 percent more.
According to linguist and translator Aleksandra Stevanovic, the explanation is relatively simple. "Languages which are considered easy to sing, like Italian, follow the one vowel-one consonant pattern. Each syllable ends in a vowel. These languages sound musical to the human ear which can be perceived as “more attractive," Stevanovic explained.
In the study, German managed to raise heartbeats by 15 percent for listeners, the same amount as Japanese and less than Chinese, which got hearts racing 17 percent more than normal.
Despite its international reputation as an “ugly” or “unromantic” language, German wasn’t at the bottom of the pile, this lonely spot was reserved for Dutch, which only got hearts racing 15 percent more than normal.
While the beauty of Zweisamkeit, Geborgenheit, geil, the lyrics of Goethe and the poetry of die Fantastischen Vier were thrown by the wayside, we all know, that what really matters is what’s being said.
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