Tuesday, 21 June 2011

• Can You Say One More Thing for Me?

  

  While I was studying abroad in England, one of my roommates was on the phone with her parents, speaking to them in French. As soon as she hung up, I burst out saying, "I forgot how much I LOVE hearing people speak French! I think it's the sexiest language."
  
  "Really? Why? I think it sounds kind of nasty. It's so guttural."

  "I actually really like the pronunciation of the 'r' and the way Nino and Amélie spoke to each other while before they spent the night together in that movie. It made it seem like French was the best language to use in bed. And I remember crushing on someone really hard whose parents were from France, and every time he started to talk I melted a little inside... he always used to say, 'vous êtes comme une fleur fragile' to me..."

  Before I realized what that guy was actually saying--"you are like a fragile flower"--thanks to Google Translate, hearing the way "fleur" rolled out of his mouth, his lips parting so slightly with gentle breath strangely turned me on. Quickly, too. Maybe it was my association of flowers and romantic moments, or maybe it was just because his French was so smooth and eloquent and foreign... but it would just make me imagine what it would be like if he spoke French to me all the time. He could have totally French-ed his way to the forefront of my affection.

  As someone who grew up only speaking American English, I was fascinated anytime I heard someone else speaking another language, or if they were speaking with an accent other than one from an American-based dialect (linguistic anthropology really pointed out hundreds of regional differences in dialects within America for me). I usually paid close attention to their articulation, the different positions their lips worked into to make unfamiliar sound blends. The differences in pacing and breathing. I imagined how their words looked as they spoke, placing periods and commas wherever it sounded fit, eagerly awaiting the next string of spoken phrases.

  Other languages and accents other than my own always fascinate me, and maybe because I feel so far removed from them, the mystery of this difference is alluring. Mysterious. "Say one more thing for me," I always want to say. "I just want to listen to you all day." Somehow a foreign language or an accent makes a hot man even more attractive to me.

  I was someone who sometimes read British fiction to myself, giving characters their own voices with renditions of my best British accent (it works out well in my head, of course, not so much out loud), and while I was in England hearing the British accent in action all the time made these British fiction novels really come to life for me. The most obvious character that comes to mind is Mr. Darcy from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice--incredibly charming by the end of the novel:

  You must know... surely, you must know it was all for you. You are too generous to trifle with me. I believe you spoke with my aunt last night, and it has taught me to hope as I'd scarcely allowed myself before. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes have not changed, but one word from you will silence me forever. If, however, your feelings have changed, I will have to tell you: you have bewitched me, body and soul, and I love, I love, I love you. I never wish to be parted from you from this day on.

  Hearing someone say this with a British accent in person... yum.
  

  Do accents other than your own turn you on? Which ones? What do you think is the sexiest language?

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