What is your favorite foreign language?

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and the opera wouldn't quite be the same without some Italian, would it?

lyrics included with translation, for sing-alongs

Recitar! Mentre preso dal delirio, [To act! while taken with delirium,]
non so più quel che dico, [I do not know what I'm saying]
e quel che faccio! [and what i do!]
Eppur è d'uopo, sforzati! [yet it is necessary, strain!]
Bah! Sei tu forse un uom? [Bah! Are you not a man?]
Tu se' Pagliaccio! [You are a Clown!]

Vesti la giubba e la faccia infarina. [Put on your costume and the face powder]
La gente paga, e rider vuole qua. [The people pay, and they want to laugh]
E se Arlecchin t'invola Colombina, [And if Harlequin invites away Columbina,]
ridi, Pagliaccio, e ognun applaudirà! [laugh, Clown, and everyone will applaud!]
Tramuta in lazzi lo spasmo ed il pianto [transmute into jest the spasms and your tears]
in una smorfia il singhiozzo e 'l dolor, Ah! [in a grimace the tears and the pain, Ah!]

Ridi, Pagliaccio, [Laugh, Clown]
sul tuo amore infranto! [on your love broken!]
Ridi del duol, che t'avvelena il cor! [Laugh at the pain that poisons your heart!]

[this song makes me cry every time ]

Spanish
Serbian
Japanese

German

any songs in those languages you like?
now some of my homeland tongue-

lyrics in video

First I'd have to decide what counts as foreign.

Southern US foreign language - Juliette Lewis

I would have agreed this morning, but having just been forced to listen to "Jolene" 20+ times by a fairly persistent 3 year old I am not sure any more.

I am a sucker for religious ceremonial language, softly spoken classic Arabic in a crowded mosque or Kaddish being read at a funeral...

Along the same vein I rather like the Sami languages and yoiking.

To cover all my bases I will also throw in Laura Palmer speaking backwards.

Edited to add: Above all silence though.... although i might be being overly negative after my recent over exposure to Dolly Parton.

Listen to Miley's version instead - its awesome

My 3 year old agrees with you. Sadly i think i am too scarred to hear much difference.

Your 3 year old has great taste

I am scarred by Barney & The Teletubbies ( that stuff was brainwashing )

I'm very bad with learning different languages.

My favorite languages, spoken, are French and Spanish.

I find many other languages to be mellifluous when spoken.

My life in languages (timeline):

German (until age six was my primary language)
English
Tried Japanese in junior high
Spanish (high school and college)
Got interested in Serbian and Russian because some of my favorite tennis players (Tipsarevic and Istomin) are from those countries
My Spanish began coming back to me when I started following the tennis players (Nadal, Ferrer, Ferrero) from Spain. I know, weird!

Serbian is written in Cyrillic, like Russian.

Do you find Serbian to have similarities to Russian?

I know both are Slavic languages.

She does have fairly good taste, her absolute favourite song is "hounds of love" by Kate bush, she can have it on repeat for hours. My 8 year old only listens to opera or classical music.

Yes, gosh.... teletubbies are the worst.

Spanish and ASL.

it actually uses both alphabets!! cyrillic and latin
i've been to serbia once and it's very weird like depending on the area you will find more stuff written in latin or cyrillic or in both