Why on Earth do people think German and Russian sound similar?

[belfpala]

Never heard this comparison mentioned either. Although some people have a terrible ear for other languages.

I mean... if I wasn't paying attention, I might confuse Russian and other eastern European languages. Hell, even Portuguese sounds vaguely Russian sometimes. But German? No way.

[Deleted]

Sounds like Durka Durka to me.

[Deleted]

I've not heard anyone say they sound similar in terms of the actual language, but I've compared them both seeing as they both sound like angry languages. Every time the Russian girl in my class speaks Russian I always think she's contemplating murdering the person on the other end of the phone.

[Deleted]

Googled

german and russian sound same

first hit is this thread.

"german and russian sound similar"

First hit this thread again

Checked without tracking cookies ;X

[Kasierith]

Considering German is a guttural Germanic family language, and Russian is from the slavic languages family, and they've been distinctly separate for thousands of years, I have a hard time believing that any substantial portion of any population believes this. Confusion within a linguistic family is pretty understandable if you don't know anything about the languages itself; but confusing a Germanic language with Slavic language is about as silly as confusing Swahili with Korean.

[Envojus]

I speak a lot both Russian and German. I learned Russian earlier, and after I started learning German, Russian helped me quite a bit. Of course, you can say that with any other languages, but Russian And German share quite a lot of words surprisingly. For example, Potatoes. Kartoffeln in German and картофель in Russian (Kartofel). I can't really explain what, but there are similarities.

[Deleted]

Because "Hollywood dialect" German/Englich and Russian/Englich sound similarity, mostly in tone of a angry voice of a evil villain. You never here a Hollywood character who use a friendly voice and say "ich liebe dich" or the Russian equivalent.

Yeah, this is probably the reason why some get that idea. Villains in movies are often Russian or German, and their accent in the English language sounds similar.

German and Russian languages itself don't sound similar though. So blame Hollywood for grouping them together and for failing to deliver a convincing accent.

[God8010]

Unless you count one through ten, I couldn't tell you which is which. Unless it's a lyric in a Rammstein song.

DU HAST!

[Deleted]

never heard anyone saying they sound similar.
maybe its cause the beer and the vodka language sound similar after drinking enough alcohol

From my experience, every language sounds the same after enough amount of alcohol....that and demonic possession seem pretty common when people drink too much ( at least in case of my friends )

[Deleted]

German and Russian languages itself don't sound similar though. So blame Hollywood for grouping them together and for failing to deliver a convincing accent.

Swedish language are giving the same German/Russian Hollywood treatment, It sound so wrong then John Ericsson or Alfred Nobel speak Hollywood Swedish/English.

[Deleted]

Never heard of anyone thinking russian and german sound alike..

[Sathnick]

Googled first hit is this thread.

First hit this thread again

Checked without tracking cookies ;X

I get like 20 other results before - thank you Google information bubble....

[God8010]

I know for me it's languages I don't see. Only lived on the east coast US, half my life in north and half south. Expanding to the culture around me each time I'm still only forced into Spanish and French. I mean no insult.

[Kerath]

This is news to me.
I learned some German at school, so I wouldn't mistake German for Russian or vice versa, because I'm familiar(ish) with one of them.
I wouldn't be able to tell the difference between Russian and another Slavic language though

[Terridon]

I'm a language nerd so I read a lot about it and people's impressions are also among the things I read. I've noticed a lot of people grouping up both languages together as if they had some similar note to them but they actually don't.

It's first time ever i hear that, and several in my family is interested in linguistic. I just like to understand it, but not overall interested in it. But i will go out on a limb and say that those you've heard saying that the languages are similar have no damn clue >.>

[Deleted]

I get like 20 other results before - thank you Google information bubble....

They get past the private browser setting that is mean. Damn ;(
I can't use duckduckgo or something as reference.

[Deleted]

Because people have diffrent opinions. There is no right or wrong when you think Spanish sounds like Dutch.

[CaptainArlong]

Ignorance, plain and simple. I've never talked to anyone German or Russia, but even from just hearing it on TV/movies, it's easy to tell they're both very different.

[Wildtree]

Why on Earth are all of this are horrible examples???

The German examples are overly aggressive sounding, and they are meant to sound that way.

Let's try this again, and use an artist that actually has significance and importance, and isn't overly zealous aggressive
Westernhagen... Possibly the countries biggest star.. Kinda Germany's equivalent to Bruce Springsteen.. Many similarities, including Clarence Clemons playing for both...

I picked this song, since it has subtitles.. But it's an iconic song from him at the same time..

[Chirri]

Never heard this comparison mentioned either. Although some people have a terrible ear for other languages.

I mean... if I wasn't paying attention, I might confuse Russian and other eastern European languages. Hell, even Portuguese sounds vaguely Russian sometimes. But German? No way.

I would confuse Russian and Portuguese looong before Russian and German, OR Portuguese and Spanish. They both sound very, very fluid to me, but then I listened to Portuguese on and off for perhaps 15 years from two very different families from Brazil. German and Spanish have a much more staccato sound to the ear, even with some of the rolling sounds in Spanish.