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

[sractarius]

I don't think they sound similar at all to be honest...



German just has an odd inherent badassery in it. They can't help themselves. It's freaking German.



Russian has a very unusual fluidity and flow. It's almost hard to notice where the words start and where they end, they just flow into each other smoothly. It's almost like a poem or song.

WotLK had some good voice-overs, here's more.

Russian:



German:

[Deleted]

Because chinese and japanese are also identical sounding!

[Anakso]

I've never heard anyone say that before. Coincidentally, although I am not that familiar with either language, I'm right now rewatching x-men first class which has both languages in it. They definitely don't sound similar.

[Snaige]

Never heard anyone say that, never thought so too. However, I speak both languages so when you understand what is being said, so would not be able to think they sound the same. Much easier when unknown languages are compared, they are both just a meaningless flow of sounds - easier to try and connect something

[Deleted]

No idea, but a lot of people think that Scottish and Irish accents are the same. Quite irritating lol, but slightly understandable

[ifrah]

Haven't heard of that, but then again there's a fair share of Einsteins who think that Chinese and Japanese are also similar, so I'm not surprised at all.

[shise]

or portuguese and spanish.

Well, we actually get to understand each other quite well considering that they are two completely different languages. Not as easy as between Italian and Spanish tho.

[Deleted]

I don't think they sound AT ALL similar, and have NEVER heard of this before. Judging by the comments on here everyone else feels the same way, so I really have no idea where YOU got your sources.

Also fun fact : after hearing those 2 songs....I've changed my mind, they do sound similar ! Thanks for opening my eyes

[leviathonlx]

Haven't heard of that, but then again there's a fair share of Einsteins who think that Chinese and Japanese are also similar, so I'm not surprised at all.

Well they're similar in that they come from the same base language. But that's kinda the same with a lot of European languages as well.

[Everett]

I am a German teacher and I get that response all the time. Typically, I suspect those sort of people know very little about the world, thinking that perhaps Germany and Russia are neighbors. Perhaps since the DDR was under Soviet control for so long, people tend to think the countries are closer together than they really are?

Not too sure, it boggles the hell out of me.

[Deleted]

It's the rough h, zh, ch, sh sounds. Similar how languages with rolling r, sound similar.

Swedish and Spanish sound similar in the ears of someone that doesn't speak either language?

[Deleted]

Who thinks like that?

[KCguy]

I've never heard anyone, ever say that both languages sound similar. Ever. And from what I'm reading in here, everyone is saying the same thing. lol.

[Deleted]

These both languages have nothing in common in terms of the sound, for instance German is built on diphthongs and Russian doesn't have any, German R is either a short vowel or the guttural one while the Russian R is rolled, etc. We also share nearly nothing in common in other aspects, like grammar. We both have cases but in German they're completely different too. The closest language to Russian grammar-wise would be Latin, but German is as far from Russian as it can get. Here are some songs with both languages:

1st of all im sure reading the replys on your post u will realize that its only you that believe ppl think German and Russian sound similar
2nd EU languages are like this EU=>Latin=>Greek 1st and most simple thing that you need to do in order to realize that is to check the alphabet of each EU country
3rd even tho as i said all the EU country's got roots from Latin+Greek the Russian is a different story they share a lot of similarities with Slavic dialect reason is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saints_Cyril_and_Methodius
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrillic_script
on the Cyrillic script link after u will read everything check which country's using it
http://imageshack.us/f/10/a5kp.png/
not mach of a language nerd as you said in another reply

[FluFF]

If anything German and Dutch are way more similar than German and Russian.
If you know Dutch you got no problem reading German , fast listening or writing can be a tad tedious however many words are written in a similar way.

[Zangeiti]

I understand how they could sound "similar" its probably the words gaps. Just like English.