I think it's just preference. I'm Canadian - so I spent many years in school learning French, lived in France for a while in my twenties, and I use my now-rusty French when in our Montreal office.

Italian, on the other hand ... very exotic (combined with a thing for Italian men).

IIRC the verb for to have sex, perhaps a bit more crude, is baiser; it might be reflexive like se coucher, to go to bed, not use a couch. To me, it is reminiscent of debasing oneself. Not nice.

I can't get past all the rude hand gestures in Italian. They almost seem threatening, plus there's the risk of accidentally really insulting someone and the resulting consequences.

I get it.

I'm a big fan of languages ... and I guess I'm relatively talented at it. As a result, I try to find what's cool in all languages I come across. For example, having recently traveled to Sweden, I've been teaching myself Swedish (not that it was in any way practical or necessary) and have been having lots of fun seeing how interrelated Swedish, German and English all are. It's kinda like comparing French, Italian and Spanish.

I've always resented having English as a mother language. It's boring and ugly. But I've come to appreciate the fact that it has one of the most interesting histories of all the languages with which I'm familiar. That and f#@k has got to be about the coolest, most versatile swear word out there. Every language has something neat about it.

Everyone tells me that I'm always using my hands when I talk. I never notice this. But it must be why I enjoy speaking Italian so much!

I love the hand gestures, and don't find them threatening at all. They are often a language unto themselves. In what other language can you flick your fingers under your chin (the best I can think of to describe it), and EVERYONE understands what you just didn't say (I don't know the ASL equivalent)

It depends on the dialect. I'm still a fan of the old fashioned "foutre". As used in a sentence, and very handy for Montreal traffic: Va te faire foutre! (The familiar form of go f**k yourself...).

I don't believe baiser would be reflexive in this context, although my once perfectly fluent native French is slowly dying away from 30+ years of disuse. Not surprisingly, masturbate (se masturber) is a reflexive verb in French.

Yeah, makes perfect sense!

aaaaahhhhhh ... you're taking me back to high school. We didn't actually learn how to SPEAK French, we just learned the grammar and how to conjugate verbs (I haven't heard the term "reflexive verb" since grade 12.). I couldn't actually hold a conversation until I lived in a place where I had to .. and my first few months were worthy of the Bugger Am I Drunk thread, where my best French was spoken after learning a few of their drinking games!

German is wonderful for expressing displeasure. I've got the mucous clearing sound down pat. Can argue with Germans with the best of them.

Saw a great t-shirt the other day that read "I'M NOT YELLING, I'M GERMAN!

You're right, to me everything in Qu�b�cois just sounds funny.

romantic may not have been the most appropriate word but it is one of the romance languages

The f word in English is definitely the best profanity in any language that I'm aware of, and I can curse effectively in more languages than I know many other words in . Some of the Quebec French profanities are interesting, in that they derive from religious terms and aren't present in other dialects of French.

I do enjoy how this thread has partly become which language has the best profanities . It's also rather Euro-centric dare I say, but Portuguese hasn't been brought up, which is quite an interesting language in its long development. I find Korean rather interesting myself, in that it looks unapproachable at first, but actually has a relatively simple basis for formation of sounds and hangul symbols, certainly far simpler than that of Japanese or Chinese. Eventually I want to learn Korean. However, many Southeast Asian languages such as Thai or Khmer look incredibly confusing to me in script, I know I'll never have a chance at learning them! It would probably take me 5 years of full out study to even acquire a moderate ability with a language from that area.

Hahahahaha, Italian is another language I don't find attractive - actually, just the opposite. I think it has to do with the fact that I went to grad school in a program that had lots of Italians, and they were frequently overly affluent, entitled douches.

I hear Italian and immediately roll my eyes a little bit inside. That's probably a bit of an extreme reaction, I admit

LOL ... I definitely have a "type" .. both ex-Mr. LITW and Mr. LITW are both of Italian descent, look decidedly "Roman" (if there is such a thing) and speak the language (and my friends tell me they look identical to each other).

My cousin has the exact same attraction for French men .. start speaking French to her and she just can't help herself.

I guess we all have something we're attracted to ...

This phrase always bothered me, as it uses the formal "vous" form. Presumably, you have a closer relationship with the person you're asking. Wouldn't it be something like "Voudrais-tu coucher avec moi?" Otherwise, it's something like saying, "Pardon me, madame, but would you possibly care to have intercourse with me this evening?"

I may be wrong and I'm far from fluent in French, but I do know when to use "vous" and when to use "tu."