No amount of exceptions and quirks will prevent you from learning any language as long as you have lots and lots of exposure. After your reach a certain base level you just keep improving as you use the language, and even the exceptions start to feel natural.
English is the only language other than my mother tongue I have achieved this level with. I’d like to think at least in writing it’s indistinguishable from a native speaker. Theoretically tho German should be easier for me as I’m Dutch. But my German never reached the same level because of the difference in exposure
The Slavic languages are interesting but I don’t know a lot about them. It must be amusing to be aware of the various levels of mutual intelligibility. Do you know any jokes Eastern Europeans make about this among themselves?
I assure you that Ukrainian is going to be just as funny to you, because we did loan like a third of our vocabulary from Polish. And another third is homophones, so you can have two layers of the broken phone game
I’m German, born and raised, but in Saarland. One time when visiting a friend in Berlin, I was at a bar and got a compliment on how good my German is even tho I’m obviously a foreigner.
That is damn funny. I don’t think we have the same thing in the UK as while we have many accents, they are so unique they sound nothing like any foreigner. I guess German accents can sound similar to foreigners speaking German?
No amount of exceptions and quirks will prevent you from learning any language as long as you have lots and lots of exposure. After your reach a certain base level you just keep improving as you use the language, and even the exceptions start to feel natural.
English is the only language other than my mother tongue I have achieved this level with. I’d like to think at least in writing it’s indistinguishable from a native speaker. Theoretically tho German should be easier for me as I’m Dutch. But my German never reached the same level because of the difference in exposure
My native language is a Slavic one but I can’t fucking learn Polish because the language is just too fucking funny to me.
It’s like how English speakers think Dutch is funny but turned up to 11.
The Slavic languages are interesting but I don’t know a lot about them. It must be amusing to be aware of the various levels of mutual intelligibility. Do you know any jokes Eastern Europeans make about this among themselves?
The one reason that Polish is so funny to me is the amount of homophones between it and my native language with vastly different meanings.
One of the funniest being:
Szukać - To look for (Polish)
Šukať - To fuck (Slovak, improper/slang)
Both pronounced the same way.
They are not pronounced the same way, the Polish word always has the extra spit at the end
What?
THEY ARE NOT PRONOUNCED THE SAME WAY, THE POLISH WORD ALWAYS HAS THE EXTRA SPIT AT THE END
WHEN SOMEONE ASKS YOU WHAT YOU MEAN YOU SHOULD PROBABLY ELABORATE INSTEAD OF JUST REPEATING IT IN ALL CAPS.
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I assure you that Ukrainian is going to be just as funny to you, because we did loan like a third of our vocabulary from Polish. And another third is homophones, so you can have two layers of the broken phone game
For me personally, German is really easy as I have been born German. Have you tried that as well?
Actually no, but I’ll try as soon as I have the opportunity. Thanks for the advice!
I’m German, born and raised, but in Saarland. One time when visiting a friend in Berlin, I was at a bar and got a compliment on how good my German is even tho I’m obviously a foreigner.
That is damn funny. I don’t think we have the same thing in the UK as while we have many accents, they are so unique they sound nothing like any foreigner. I guess German accents can sound similar to foreigners speaking German?
Our accent is so thick that I can talk to my buddy and nobody around us can follow the conversation if they don’t speak it. It’s kinda neat lol