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Feliks knows several languages, just like any other Nation. They've all had plenty of time to learn, and it makes things easier — sometimes, things get lost in translation, or you can't express the same things in this language that you can in another.
But for them, creatures (because they're not quite human, are they now?) that have their own tongues written into the very core of their existence, into every fiber of their being, foreign languages often carry certain feelings.
For example, English initially felt– stuffy. Flat and overly formal, with sounds that were too soft and sentences that needed too many words. He thought the overly-proper manner of speaking he associated with it fit England quite well — too stiff, too orderly, much like how he found the other Nation at first. It loosened some after he met America, learned his way around the language. English became easier, in a way, more casual and laid-back, where emotions fall freely from the lips but don't carry much feeling, aren't so strong. It's a friend's language and he can see how it became so universal, even ignoring all the colonization. It felt a bit sour, a bit spoiled on his tongue in the second half of the twentieth century — but it's fine, now, and he doesn't mind speaking it without much thought.
He's not sure how French gained the reputation of being the language of love. For Feliks, each carefully formed letter drips with blood, each rolling sound has a swordfight whistling in the background. Sometimes, it sounds like victory, like crackling flames and falling blades. Other times, it's the more foreign sound of surrender and betrayal, the bitter cries of loss. It's a language fit for music, in his opinion, for loud bar sing-alongs and low war songs. It's too focused on pleasing sounds for him to think anything else, France himself only reinforcing the idea — he didn't even try to hide the grimace when Feliks spoke while still learning, didn't stop himself from correcting every little accent. It left some of a bitter taste in his mouth, how much of a perfectionist the other man was, how high his standards were, how comfortably he used any little chance to show his superiority over others.
Feliciano and Lovino could not have had a language that fit them better — lilting and melodic, just right for the two artists. He knows most people only think so about the North of Italy, how his bubbly manner only accentuates the language's pleasant, happy sounds, but clearly, they have never heard Romano throw out paragraphs of rapid-fire curses, an art form in and of itself. Italian feels fluid and sturdy at the same time — sentences have their rigid structures where, if you swap the order of words, they stop making sense, but you also speak half with your hands, where gestures you make up yourself in the spur of the moment are understandable to everyone around you. It's fast and sweet, and how much he enjoys it has absolutely nothing to do with the books of creative swears he learned by listening to Romano rant about this and that.
Hungarian is like home away from home, filled with warmth and helping hands. There were times it was colder than ice, times it felt like a burning dagger digging into his chest– but those are rare, and most days, it's sweet and caring, even if occasionally, he wants to curse Erzsi out for it when he tries to find any common links between it and the other languages he knows. He loves it regardless, and loves Erzsi with it, especially when they laugh while mixing up each other's "sz" and "s" sounds.
When he speaks Lithuanian, he thinks of honey — sweet and sticky and golden, gluing his mouth shut so he has to force out the words. He can’t have too much of it or it becomes too sugary. That’s not– bad, Tolys is the same about Polish. They just have their limits they can’t go over, and that’s fine, even if sometimes it feels like his teeth are being ripped from his mouth when he can’t get another word out. The only thing is– it wasn’t always like this, because he remembers when the sounds weren’t as sticky, when they dropped from his lips just as sweet, just as golden, but easier as he wove them into songs and poems that were to never leave the walls of his and Tolys’s room. But it’s not like that anymore, because he made it into something more like tar and it was black and toxic for decades before they finally tried to fix it and it's so much better now, even if there's still a sour aftertaste sometimes, even if sometimes he has to stop mid-sentence because he’s had too much.
German isn't– it's not angry, not in and of itself, because it can be soft and caring, he knows, but– but he hasn't heard it so in centuries, at least not directed at him. He's only heard hate and cruelty in it for so long, and it's all he can think about when he tries to force the words through gritted teeth. His tongue is stone around the sounds and the letters tear at his throat like sandpaper. It’s not bad, it’s technology, it’s cars, it’s beer, it’s music, and those are good, so good, but he hates it nonetheless and wishes far too often it was still nieme and gibberish because understanding it makes his body burn and itch and crawl with invisible ants and his mind flare up with dread he doesn’t want to feel. He wants out of his skin when he hears it, when it surrounds him, because it’s pain pain pain–
He never intended to learn Russian. It’s too similar and too different from Feliks’s own Polish, in his opinion. It’s just so off, every time he hears it, because there are words that are his own but a bit to the left, and there are ones he isn't supposed to know at all because he never wanted to learn– It grates on his ears and it’s like there’s sand in his teeth when he’s forced to speak it. It’s a slap in the face, a punch in the stomach, hurting and bruising him all around. It's choking on rocks while a hand tightens around his neck, squeezing words out letter by letter. He can't recall many times he has spoken Russian willingly.
He knows more. He knows Czech that he laughs at to cheer him up, he knows Yiddish that pricks his tongue with grief, he knows Kashubian that feels right and wrong at the same time. He knows more, but to him, the others are just languages, just collections of words and sounds, rather than reflections of their Nations.