Does English sound like other Germanic languages?

blanche   Tue Apr 21, 2009 3:45 pm GMT
yes, it does.
Leasnam   Tue Apr 21, 2009 4:24 pm GMT
<<yes, it does. >>

Sure it does ;)
You're always right...
hake   Tue Apr 21, 2009 4:34 pm GMT
I speak Danish (my mother tongue), Norwegian and some Swedish. I do understand German fairly well, and I also have some knowledge of the Dutch language. When I listen to English, I don't feel that it sounds similar to one of these languages, and it doesn't sound similar to Romance languages either. English is too much a melting language which makes it so different in many ways.
curious   Tue Apr 21, 2009 7:01 pm GMT
I wonder whether the English pronunciation is tough for the speakers of Germanic languages. Is it more difficult than German?
blurb   Tue Apr 21, 2009 7:05 pm GMT
Sorry if this pushy, but could some one who's not a native English speaker take a look at this and tell if it sounds like English?

Pretake, disbreak, and amake an autostate of antisorts. Unspeak the dewritten presound of expaper. Bookified people antisell piecelings of undeery stories to automice. Automice forewalk through orangeness, unloud and unsignfull. Subplants are ecofactions for undeer and uncats to alead yellowization from disbroken leatherish predeer. They retalked anear to bemake or adraw unisound.
blurb   Tue Apr 21, 2009 7:10 pm GMT
"I speak Danish (my mother tongue), Norwegian and some Swedish. I do understand German fairly well, and I also have some knowledge of the Dutch language. When I listen to English, I don't feel that it sounds similar to one of these languages, and it doesn't sound similar to Romance languages either. English is too much a melting language which makes it so different in many ways."

Are there ever times when it sounds like one thing or the other?
blurb   Tue Apr 21, 2009 7:16 pm GMT
Sorry, curious, for changing the subject. To anyone out there, go ahead and answer curious's question first if you want.
blurb   Tue Apr 21, 2009 7:28 pm GMT
"I wonder whether the English pronunciation is tough for the speakers of Germanic languages. Is it more difficult than German?"

Actually, I think I can answer that question. I'm a native English speaker, but I also know some German. Frankly, I can't imagine English pronunciation is easier than German. German is quite logical in pronunciation, but English is very inconsistent. I would think it would be hard for a native German speaker to learn English, but if there's anyone who's done this, maybe you could back me up and lend more credence to this?
de   Tue Apr 21, 2009 7:56 pm GMT
If you used the International Phonetic Alphabet to learn both English, and German, English's idiosyncratic spelling system wouldn't make much of a difference. In some ways German is more difficult because it has the rare front rounded (umlaut) vowels.
Jasper   Tue Apr 21, 2009 7:57 pm GMT
"I wonder whether the English pronunciation is tough for the speakers of Germanic languages. Is it more difficult than German?"


I can't answer this question directly, but I can shed some light on it from an opposing point of view.

Just for fun, I have shadowed French, Spanish, and German for short periods of time. I have noticed that shadowing German is significantly easier than shadowing French, and especially Spanish. I don't know exactly why, but I posit the notion that perhaps the sounds are produced in a similar area of the mouth. With this in mind, I think that perhaps English might be a relatively easy language for a German to articulate.

Spanish, a labial language in which the words are pronounced in the front of the mouth, was exceedingly difficult for me to execute, despite the fact that it's supposed to be the easiest language to learn for an American.
blurb   Tue Apr 21, 2009 8:08 pm GMT
"If you used the International Phonetic Alphabet to learn both English, and German, English's idiosyncratic spelling system wouldn't make much of a difference. In some ways German is more difficult because it has the rare front rounded (umlaut) vowels."

I'm sorry. I'm not exactly sure what the International Phonetic Alphabet is. I do believe that German pronunciation is quite logical though. It seems like I could never learn English now because it is to inconsistent.

"Just for fun, I have shadowed French, Spanish, and German for short periods of time. I have noticed that shadowing German is significantly easier than shadowing French, and especially Spanish. I don't know exactly why, but I posit the notion that perhaps the sounds are produced in a similar area of the mouth. With this in mind, I think that perhaps English might be a relatively easy language for a German to articulate."

Yeah, that could be. It's just again, the inconsistency of English spelling is the thing.
de   Tue Apr 21, 2009 8:56 pm GMT
There's nothing illogical about the *pronunciation* of English. It's just the writing system which no longer corresponds very well to how English is spoken today. If you learned English and German both through the International Phonetic Alphabet (or indeed any other phonetic script) English would seem no more or less difficult than German (barring of course your ability to hear and produce the correct sounds).
blurb   Tue Apr 21, 2009 9:05 pm GMT
Uuuh, yeah. Okay. Sorry. I don't really have anything more. I still say English is more illogical.

Could we move on to something else? because this looks like deadlock.
blurb   Tue Apr 21, 2009 9:11 pm GMT
" 'I speak Danish (my mother tongue), Norwegian and some Swedish. I do understand German fairly well, and I also have some knowledge of the Dutch language. When I listen to English, I don't feel that it sounds similar to one of these languages, and it doesn't sound similar to Romance languages either. English is too much a melting language which makes it so different in many ways.'

Are there ever times when it sounds like one thing or the other?"

Here's a question I asked before that I would be interested to find out about, but we can keep talking about how complicated English is. As I said, it just seemed like deadlock. I don't want to be rude.
blurb   Fri May 01, 2009 6:59 pm GMT
Hey, here's a helpful link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFKRCjf5sVg