How have the feelings you get about your target language changed as you learn more about it?

This is kind of a strange question I know, but I don’t think many people talk about this. As I’ve learned more about a languages, my perception of them has changed a bit.

For example:

Spanish: with Spanish, I had always felt like it has a powerful tone when I was young, but as I’ve gotten older and learned some of it, it has softened on my ear. I think the most shocking thing to my perception of it is is just how many similar words there are to English in Spanish. I don’t mean this in a bad way, but now often Spanish sounds kind of like “spicy English ™️” to me now (happens the most with scientific articles and news, most everyday things still sound really different. I now pick up on accent differences as well, and I have been able to pick out speakers whose voices and pronunciation I like more, so that’s cool. Specifically, there are some people who really hit the “rr” sound hard while others make it more of like a cat purr, I’m more of a cat man myself haha.

Japanese: I used to get a really “old” feeling from Japanese. It just always sounded so rooted in tradition and grace. To an extent it still does, but now it also just feels....long?? What I mean is that I feel like I’m always using so much to say so little. Not that it’s a bad thing, I think it’s really fun, but the cool feeling it has has changed into more of a “word puzzle” that’s fun to figure out.

French: I’m still really new to this one so not too much to say yet. At times now it feels like singing in slurred English, but elegantly. As I’m learning more though I’m picking up more on how much the r kind of sounds like TV static. It’s not a negative point, but it’s strange how it slipped my ear before.

German: before I learned a few words it sounded like a fairy language. Now that I know maybe 100 words, it sounds like a fairy language but with rules. I really want to learn more sometime.

So this has been my subjective experience, how about you all?

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