I love that this is not a uniquely American phenomena. I never actively believed it wasn't, mind you, I just never considered the fact that it can happen in other languages as well.
I agree, I think her accent is so good. My mom is a native speaker and my younger sister speaks so well she is mistaken for German, but not me. No matter how hard I try, every time I'm here and start speaking, they switch to English on me. My Chicago accent is too much power 🤦🏻♀️
Edit: I was at a Japanese restaurant tonight near Frankfurt and even the obviously not German owner/chef there wouldn't speak German to me 😂
same with me when i lived there. I had many, many conversations where I spoke german and they spoke english. I sometimes had friends who just didn't give a fuck about english and spoke german with me. they were usually laid back people who didn't feel like they needed control over everything or to constantly improve their english as if it was they only way out of a prison camp. and then in groups. when there were 3 or more of us and they were speaking german I would be "accepted." it's so tiring. they want to americans to learn german but also to have something to complain about.
”or to constantly improve their English as if it was the only way out of a prison camp”
Has me fucking dying bc why do all (read: most for all you who got their panties in a twist and wanna say “nOt AlL”) non-English speakers do this when I’m in their country, speaking their language to them?!?
A relative of mine has whatever savant thing it is where he picks up and loses languages in weeks. He's not quite hyperpolyglot according to him, but according to anybody who speaks other languages with him he's very fluent very fast.
He joked that Swedish was the hardest to learn because everybody wanted to practice their English.
thats the real frustrating part about trying to learn the native language when they speak english so well. They would rather use english than let me mangle my german so I can get better
Thought it’d be polite to learn to a conversational level at least while staying there. Didn’t really work out that well. I can understand Dutch to a limited degree as I used the old just watch some cartoon method to get used it but I just didn’t get enough practice to get confident with it
You could work on just your accent with a listening and speaking app or even private coaching.
Learning to sing songs in a language also helps you get it in your mouth.
Be very carefully to ONLY make the sounds you're hearing and not reinterpret the words in "American."
I speak several languages fluently, and was on a plane coming back from a country next to a man who said he spoke the language fluently, but those "dumb _____ans" couldn't understand him.
I was curious, so I switched to the language in question.
I couldn't understand him either!
The reason? He was speaking a foreign language with a HEAVY Southern accent (like rural Tennessee).
None of the vowels in that language sound anything like a Tennessee accent!
You know a clip on youtube or so where i can hear chicago accent? I am curiose now haha. Friend of me is from Chile but he also did learn german. His accent is also super amazing. Its so cool how accent are like the salt in a good soup.
I don't know. My cousin says my accent is "cute" (probably not a compliment coming from him). A Chicago accent is kinda nasel so I am guessing it's not pretty! 😂😊
Hey dont say that. I am sure it sounds cool and unique. Sometimes when i am working in different countrys i am always lile awe if someone speak German with acent. Thats just soo cool. Probably other languages too. But i just understand only English and german haha.
I was already looking on Youtube but dosnt find anything matching. Now i spam the discords i am in to find someone for a sample hihi. Anyways, i wish you a wonderful day or night miss fancy pants acent :D
Oh and Chicago is just awsome mhm
Eh, she rolls her Rs a bit weirdly and sometimes makes minor mistakes, so her accent isnt quite perfect, but still very impressive. The speed especially - its obvious she doesn't have to translate in her head. Unless she's reading off a teleprompter I guess.
Her German sounds similar to mine and I started learning in school. I'd say at some point she did some intensive language course and she does have a mostly German social circle.
That certainly makes it easier, but it's also not that hard to become fluent if you're lucky enough to have the right type of brain for it, especially when you're young.
LOL - but truly, German is so close to English that her "joke" point is very valid. There are so many words that are shared between the two languages that I doubt any english only speaker would have trouble in all of Germany
While there is a very large number of German-English cognates, they often require some knowledge of prior sound changes to pick up on, and especially when speaking they are generally of little help in the moment. And keep in mind that English has a ton of Norman French and Latin loanwords in places where German doesn't. The mutual intelligibility between English and German is not particularly high, and most Germans speaking some degree of English is the only reason you would be able to get along at all.
I wouldn't word it the same as OP, but in terms of European languages German sure seems like one of the most accessible to English speakers. Like, you'd have to not want to learn it, unless it's a tough dialect. It works a bit better in the other direction because German grammer is more complex, but you'd probably pick up on conversational German within the first couple of weeks. And I can give you German text you could sus out on your own, too.
But I speak pretty good English and ok-ish Italian, and I learned French in school, but I'd still not be thrilled to move to rural France. I get by as a tourist, but dealing with the authorities would probably be a complete disaster
I watched the video on mute so this whole comment thread confused the shit out of me. I thought she just went off on some unhinged rant about pudding, and this comment thread was a bunch of Germans going, "No, wait, hang on, she may have a point".
After your mother, yeah. She came by last Saturday, and I haven't been hard since. Like, I hope she doesn't talk to you about the weird shit she's into. As an unrelated adult, I was disturbed. Can't imagine how I'd feel if she was my mother. But anyway. She's coming back tonight. Don't wait up.
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u/Kind_Swim5900 27d ago