|
 |
German or Spanish more phonetic? | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| jaliyah Newbie United States Joined 5126 days ago 20 posts - 22 votes | Message 1 of 4 08 January 2012 at 2:05am | IP Logged |
|
Does German or Spanish have more phonetic spelling (you pronounce a word as it's spelled, and spell it as it's pronounced)?
I'm guessing German, which I'm more familiar with, because there's usually just one way to spell something, whereas with Spanish, there are many ways to spell some sounds.. like Jolla, Hoya, Joya, Holla, etc. Am I right? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Kartof Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5067 days ago 391 posts - 550 votes  Speaks: English*, Bulgarian*, Spanish Studies: Danish | Message 2 of 4 08 January 2012 at 2:10am | IP Logged |
|
No, it really depends on the dialect which you're speaking. In some Spanish dialects, 'll' and 'y' are pronounced the
same (yeísmo) and in others they're pronounced differently. 'h' in Spanish is always silent and 'j' is pronounced like a breathy English 'h'. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Yeismo-en-America.png The lighter pink are dialects with the 'll' and 'y' pronounced differently and the darker pink are dialects with yeísmo. Edited by Kartof on 08 January 2012 at 2:12am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| nway Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/Vic Joined 5416 days ago 574 posts - 1707 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean | Message 3 of 4 08 January 2012 at 5:07am | IP Logged |
|
As far as I'm aware (someone please correct me if I'm mistaken), written German doesn't seem to indicate stressed syllables.
For example, "wiederholen" can mean either to fetch again or to repeat, depending on whether its first or last syllable is stressed. In this sense, it's quite like English, with its homographs that share identical spellings but differ based on their pronunciation (typically by altering which syllables are stressed). Spanish, of course, follows a very consistent system with respect to stressed syllables, with accents always being used when in defiance of the rules. I realize you were referring more to spelling, but I just thought I'd throw this out there... Edited by nway on 08 January 2012 at 5:11am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Lucky Charms Diglot Senior Member Japan lapacifica.net Joined 6950 days ago 752 posts - 1711 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: German, Spanish | Message 4 of 4 08 January 2012 at 5:57am | IP Logged |
|
I would say they're at a similar level. In both languages, it's immediately clear how each
letter should be pronounced, but it's not always clear how a word should be spelled because there's sometimes more than one letter representing the same sound (like s/c/z in Spanish or voiced/devoiced final consonants in German). However, if I had to choose the easier one, I guess I Spanish would barely win out because of the accent ambiguity described by nway (actually, in practice it's hardly ever ambiguous, but Spanish is just too easy in this regard), and because German imports a lot of words from French and English along with (something close to) their native pronunciations, so when I see these loanwords I'm never sure how they should be pronounced. I haven't run into this problem in Spanish yet. Edited by Lucky Charms on 08 January 2012 at 5:58am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
If you wish to post a reply to this topic you must first login. If you are not already registered you must first register
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
