Over 90% of Germans speak English. What foreign language do you speak?

[JDPriestly]

85. Time is the big problem. You could try listening to opera and other Italian music.

Maybe singing along you could learn some. Reading in the language can develop vocabulary. It's tiresome to look the same words up over and over, and you begin to catch on. But you have hear it too. I sang in Italian, and the language is phonetic at least much more so than English so you can catch on if you read and try to pronounce the words.

Italian has such a wonderful sound. I guess that is why it is a language in which the music is so melodic. I have a theory which may be totally wrong, but still, it is that the music of a country or people tends to imitate or be based upon the language. Italian is so melodious because it is a vowel-driven language. German is consonant, guttural consonant driven, so we get Beethoven with his big chords and rhythms. Of course, Verdi used big chords and percussion for effect, but more for explosive dramatic effect. And that is like Italian if you listen to it spoken. That is just my theory.

Mozart is very Austrian in feeling. While Austrians speak German, they speak it in a more melodious way. Could that be because Austria lies between Germany and Italy? I don't know but it is another of my crazy theories.

If you listen to French classical music you hear the flow of the language. In my view it is not as musical as is Italian and not at all as rhythmic (maybe bombastic would be a better word) as German. I really love hearing and speaking German because I think it is such a funny language. That is especially true of Austrian. Austrians speak in a sing-song very often. It's really funny and then it is mixed in with those rhythmic, guttural sounds. Hilarious at times.

English -- well I think that jazz is the music that most sounds like American English. The African-American origins of jazz are of course evident. But I think it is interesting that, at least in my view, that is what freed our music from the European music that is based on the European languages and grew out of them. Jazz really fits American speech. And the British rock music of the 60s in my view borrowed from the jazz and blues music which then freed British music and permitted the pop musicians to express their own linguistic heritage in music.

But I am just talking about my impressions and it may interest no one.