• Jumi@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    8 months ago

    I’m a German native and understanding bad German is sometimes damn near impossible. It’s easier for me to understand bad English.

    • didnt_readit@lemm.eeEnglish
      0·
      8 months ago

      Yeah in my experience trying to learn some German if it’s not pronounced 100% perfectly Germans straight up don’t understand a word you’re saying. And of course as a native English speaker it’s literally impossible for me to make those sounds 100% perfectly. Gave up pretty quickly and just continued speaking English with all my German friends lol.

      I wonder what’s different with German that makes it so hard to understand when not spoken perfectly… I feel like I could absolutely butcher Spanish pronunciation when I was first learning and everyone understood me fine. And I can understand butchered English just fine as well. But mess up one vowel in German and it’s like you spoke Chinese or something haha.

      • Jumi@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        8 months ago

        I hope you can understand what I’m trying to say but for me it feels like in German I’m not so much listening to each word but to the sounds someone makes and when grammar, pronunciation and/or accentuation are off it gets difficult. Kind of like linguistical muscle memory maybe?