Name: 為什麼學會這些語言能讓你更有魅力？（有些語言不行喔！） (Why Some Languages Make You More Attractive (And Others Don't))
Uploaded: 2026-03-03T08:40:02.000Z
Duration: 8 min 32 s

We know that speaking multiple languages is great for our brain and memory.

我們知道說多種語言對我們的大腦和記憶很有幫助。

程度副詞

But what if languages also affect how attractive we come off to friends, dates and even life partners?

但如果語言也會影響我們在朋友、約會對象甚至人生伴侶眼中的吸引力呢？

As I've traveled, listened to and learned different languages around the world, I've noticed that there's just something inexplicably attractive about languages and the people they draw us to.

在我旅行、聆聽和學習世界各地不同語言的過程中，我發現語言本身以及它吸引我們去認識的人，就是有種難以言喻的魅力。

So, out of curiosity, I wanted to dig into some of the research for this video to better understand why we're attracted to certain languages.

所以，出於好奇，我想要為這支影片深入研究一些相關的學術研究，來更瞭解為什麼我們會對某些語言產生吸引力。

Which languages are most appealing, and what this means for you as a language learner?

哪些語言最吸引人，這對身為語言學習者的你來說又代表什麼呢？

Language Attraction Psychology Lets start with a simple question.

語言吸引力心理學 讓我們從一個簡單的問題開始。

What language does this sound like to you?

If you guessed Italian and American English, you'd be right.

如果你猜是義大利語和美式英語，那就猜對了。

But the thing is, none of those were actual words.

但實際上，那些都不是真正的單字。

And this is part of what Phonaesthetics explores.

這也是 Phonaesthetics 探討的一部分。

This field helps us understand three reasons why we find certain languages attractive, and

這個領域幫助我們瞭解，為什麼我們會覺得某些語言有吸引力，有三個原因，

the fourth that's interesting for anyone who likes music.

還有第四個原因，對喜歡音樂的人來說也很有趣。

But let's look at the first one, the cultural effect.

但我們先來看看第一個，文化效應。

Say I gave you two columns, one with words like sun, beach, heat, colorful, and

假設我給你兩欄，一欄是像 sun、beach、heat、colorful 這樣的詞，

a second with cold, organized, clean, hard.

另一欄則是 cold、organized、clean、hard。

Now, what if I asked you to organize these six languages into one column each?

現在，如果我請你將這六種語言分別歸類到其中一欄，你會怎麼做？

You can pause the video and try it for yourself, but

你可以暫停影片，自己試試看，但

很多人可能會得到一樣的答案。

If you organize the six languages somewhat like this, then you wouldn't be the only one.

如果你把這六種語言這樣分類，那你不是唯一一個這麼做的。

Vanita Chand of the University of Essex says that the attractiveness of a language often depends on how we think about the place places that speak that language.

來自艾塞克斯大學的 Vanita Chand 博士說，語言的吸引力常常取決於我們怎麼看待說這種語言的地方。

And for Spanish, this often tends to be pretty warm.

而對於西班牙語，通常會讓人聯想到溫暖的感覺。

Dimitrinka Nikleva, a professor at the University of Granada in Spain, says that images of Spain and Latin America typically include themes like sun, beach, joy, celebration and fun.

來自格拉納達大學的教授 Dimitrinka Nikleva 說，西班牙和拉丁美洲的意象通常會包含陽光、海灘、歡樂、慶典和趣味等主題。

And there's a popular belief that Spanish speaking countries have vibrant cultures associated with rhythm, dance and passionate, welcoming people.

而且普遍認為，西班牙語系國家擁有充滿活力的文化，與節奏、舞蹈以及熱情好客的人們有關。

These aspects all promote a positive side of Spanish speaking cultures, and

這些面向都促進了西班牙語系文化正面的一面，

in turn they shape the perception of the language itself.

Even simplistic stereotypes from movies and TV shows of Spanish speaking characters as suave and charming also contribute to how the culture and language are perceived.

即使是電影和電視節目中，將西班牙語系角色描繪成風度翩翩、魅力十足的簡單刻板印象，也會影響人們對文化和語言的看法。

而且這不只發生在西班牙語上。

Cultural perceptions of France's ties to art have also painted a positive view of the French language in the US for example.

像是文化對法國藝術的印象，也讓美國人對法語產生了正面的看法。

But on the flip side, historical tensions between the US and Russia have shaped why the Russian language may lack some appeal in certain parts of the country.

但反過來說，美俄之間的歷史緊張關係，也影響了俄語在美國某些地區吸引力較低的原因。

So cultural stereotypes really affect our attraction to languages, but

所以文化刻板印象確實會影響我們對語言的喜好，但是

they don't fully explain why Certain languages draw us in and others don't until we consider the second effect.

如果沒有考慮到第二個效應，這些刻板印象並不能完全解釋為什麼有些語言會吸引我們，而有些則不會。

Chapter 2 the closeness effect Imagine you're a Spanish speaker out traveling.

第二章 親近效應 想像一下，你是一位正在旅行的西班牙語使用者。

You need help, and the only two people around are a Portuguese speaker and a German speaker.

你遇到困難，身邊只有一位葡萄牙語使用者和一位德語使用者。

You'd likely pick the Portuguese person, and this is partly due to the closeness effect.

你很可能會選擇葡萄牙語者，這部分就是親近效應的關係。

This explains why languages that sound like our mother tongue or come from the same language family often sound more appealing and draw us in because of their familiarity.

這就解釋了為什麼聽起來像母語或來自相同語系的語言，常常因為熟悉感而聽起來更吸引人，進而吸引我們。

According to ethnologue, Portuguese and Spanish have a lexical similarity of about 89% because they come from the same Latin root.

根據 Ethnologue 的資料，葡萄牙語和西班牙語的詞彙相似度大約有 89%，因為它們都源自相同的拉丁語系。

This means that if you speak Spanish, you might understand close to 90% of the words in Portuguese and vice versa.

這表示如果你說西班牙語，你大概能聽懂近 90% 的葡萄牙語單字，反之亦然。

And if you look at the phrase where do you recommend I eat?

然後看看這句「你推薦我去哪裡吃？」

It looks and sounds very similar across the two dondemer recomiendas comer on jivo.

這兩個語言聽起來和看起來都非常相似，dónde me recomiendas comer？

But if we try the same for English and Spanish, the story is different.

但如果我們試著比較英語和西班牙語，情況就不同了。

English and Spanish are not as similar, so you'll find that Spanish and Portuguese speakers tend to like each other's languages in many cases.

英語和西班牙語沒有那麼相似，所以你會發現西班牙語和葡萄牙語的使用者在很多情況下，似乎都比較喜歡對方的語言。

But then we hit a wall with when we actually survey most Spanish and Portuguese speakers, they usually prefer to learn English as their target language.

但當我們實際調查大多數西班牙語和葡萄牙語的使用者時，他們通常會選擇英語作為他們想學習的目標語言，這就遇到了瓶頸。

The Exposure Effect there's an old adage that familiarity breeds contentment, and

曝光效應，有句老話說「熟能生巧」，

這就告訴我們關於曝光效應的知識。

This is the theory that we usually find a language more attractive and less stressful to listen to if we've already heard it before, even if we don't speak the language ourselves.

這是一種理論，認為如果我們曾經聽過某種語言，即使我們自己不會說，我們通常會覺得它更有吸引力，聽起來也比較不費力。

And English is a great example as a fairly ubiquitous language.

而英語就是一個很好的例子，因為它是一種相當普及的語言。

Many people around the world find English attractive because it's common and globally known in the news, on tv, on the Internet, in the clothes we wear.

世界上許多人覺得英語很有吸引力，因為它很普遍，在新聞、電視、網路上、我們穿的衣服上都廣為人知。

English is the most popular language in 90 plus countries, but there are some even more intriguing examples.

英語是九十幾個國家中最受歡迎的語言，但還有一些更有趣的例子。

In North American countries, many kids grow up being exposed to part of Japanese culture through anime and manga like Naruto and Dragon Ball Z.

在北美國家，許多孩子透過像《火影忍者》和《七龍珠Z》這樣的動漫接觸到日本文化的一部分。

And as these art forms have become more popular, so too has interest in the Japanese language in these regions.

隨著這些藝術形式越來越受歡迎，日語在這些地區的興趣也隨之增加。

And in Peru, Chile and Argentina, we see a surge of interest in wanting to lear Korean.

在祕魯、智利和阿根廷，我們看到學習韓語的興趣激增。

And this seems to mimic the rising popularity of K pop groups like BTS and Blackpink.

這似乎模仿了像 BTS 和 Blackpink 這樣的 K pop 團體日益增長的人氣。

The musical case of Korean is particularly interesting because it hints at the fourth key psychological trigger, the singing effect.

韓語的音樂案例特別有趣，因為它暗示了第四個關鍵的心理觸發點：歌唱效應。

Howard Gills, a professor of communication at the University of California, put forth the inherent value hypothesis that explains some Languages might just be naturally more beautiful than others because of their sounds.

加州大學傳播學教授 Howard Gills 提出了內在價值假說，解釋了有些語言可能因為其發音而比其他語言更自然地美麗。

And the singing effect takes this further to say that languages that are better for singing will be naturally more beautiful.

而歌唱效應更進一步指出，適合歌唱的語言會自然更美麗。

For example, you might often hear that operas are better in Italian because Italian is a musical language.

例如，你可能常聽到歌劇在義大利語中聽起來更好，因為義大利語是一種音樂性的語言。

但什麼讓一種語言變得有音樂性呢？

Well, think about the emotions you get listening to this clip.

嗯，想想聽這段影片時你感受到的情緒。

O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?

And compare those to the emotions you get from this clip.

然後比較你從這段影片感受到的情緒。

And has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin, vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of vill felt more pleasant and relaxing, likely the first one.

並誓言要剷除這些貪婪而惡毒的害蟲，守護美德，並保證暴力、惡毒和貪婪的侵犯，讓人感覺更愉快和放鬆，很可能是前者。

And Shakespeare would say that this is due to assonance, which is a poetic technique that creates a calm feeling by using many vowel sounds in a sentence.

而莎士比亞會說，這是因為頭韻（assonance），這是一種詩歌技巧，透過在句子中使用許多母音聲音來營造平靜的感覺。

And Italian has its fair share of vowels.

Just look at the word aguole, which is made up almost entirely of vowels.

看看這個字 aguole，幾乎全都是母音組成的。

The bias for vowels can make Italian better for singing because it helps singers go through phrases without interrupting their airflow for consonants.

偏愛母音讓義大利語更適合歌唱，因為這能幫助歌手順暢地唱完樂句，而不用為了子音而中斷氣息。

And that singing quality carries through when speaking Italian.

這種歌唱般的特質在說義大利語時也會延續。

And it can make the language almost like a song to trigger the parts of our brain that love music.

這能讓語言聽起來像歌曲一樣，觸發我們大腦中喜愛音樂的部分。

On the flip side, some languages don't sound as melodic.

相對地，有些語言聽起來就沒那麼有旋律感。

Languages that have strong consonant usage, like Russian, Polish, and

German, they might not benefit much from the singing effect.

德語這類子音較強的語言，可能就沒那麼受益於這種歌唱效果。

It means powerful and has 14 letters, but only three of them are vowels.

它代表「強大的」，有 14 個字母，但只有三個是母音。

Another side is tonal languages like Vietnamese, Thai, or Chinese.

These can have a different tone for each word in a sentence.

It can mean something like horse, hemp, scold, or mother, and

These different tones can make these languages overall more difficult for singing.

另一種情況是像越南語、泰語或中文這類的聲調語言。

So together, these four effects start to explain some of the psychology of why we like certain languages.

它們在句子中每個字都可以有不同的聲調。

舉例來說，中文的「媽」這個字。

Which languages attract us and which ones don't?

它可以是馬、麻、罵，或是媽，

The Language Attraction Survey Babbel, a language learning app with millions of users, tried to get to the bottom of the language attraction question.

They sent a survey to roughly 15,000 Westerners, asking them what languages they found most attractive and guess which languages took the top spots.

他們寄了一份問卷給大約 15,000 位西方人，問他們覺得哪些語言最有吸引力，猜猜看哪些語言名列前茅。

As expected, French, Italian, Spanish, and English.

不出所料，是法語、義大利語、西班牙語和英語。

And then the list began to diverge after that.

Answers change quite a bit depending on who you ask.

答案會因為問的對象不同而有很大的變化。

The National Academy of Sciences shared a 2023 study where 228 people listened to 2,000 Polish plus recordings in over 200 languages.

美國國家科學院分享了一項 2023 年的研究，其中 228 人聽了 2,000 段波蘭語以及超過 200 種語言的錄音。

And they did this to discover what language sounded most beautiful, but

他們這麼做是為了找出哪種語言聽起來最悅耳，但

answers changed a lot depending on what language the listener spoke.

答案會因為聽者說什麼語言而有很大的不同。

Chinese speakers preferred Mandarin and then English, English speakers preferred English and then Italian and so on.

中文母語者偏好國語，然後是英語；英語母語者偏好英語，然後是義大利語，以此類推。

When they averaged out all the scores, languages didn't differ by more than 2%.

當他們平均所有分數後，語言之間的差異不超過 2%。