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"Why do all German words sound the same?" What is the correct word order to say that?

  1. なぜドイツ語の単語はすべて同じに聞こえるのか？ [Naze doitsugo no tango wa subete onaji ni kikoeru nodesu ka?]
  2. なぜすべてのドイツ語の単語は同じに聞こえるのか? [Naze subete no doitsugo no tango wa onaji ni kikoeru no ka?]

Or is there another way to say it?

Eddie Kal
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yotsugi ononoki
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2 Answers2

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Both sentences are okay and natural. In Sentence 1, すべて is used adverbially, and that's the primary way to express the number/amount of something in Japanese, especially in casual speech. This has been discussed several times:

So if I have to choose one, Sentence 1 sounds more common to me. In this case, however, the sentence ends with a literary question marker のか, making it look technical, like the title of an written article. In such a case, Sentence 2 does not sound unnatural at all to me.

naruto
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2

I think your first sentence sounds more natural. I would tweek it slightly though (in bold).

なぜドイツ語の単語がすべて同じように聞こえるのか？

Also, there isn't anything necessarily wrong with it, but I feel like it would be more natural to say 言葉 instead of 単語。That's probably just me though.

StandAlone2323
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  • なぜドイツ語の単語がすべて同じように聞こえるのか？ <- 「なぜドイツ語の単語はすべて同じに聞こえるのか？」でいいと思いますが・・・　 「なぜ空は青いのか？」「象の鼻はどうして長いの？」って言いますけど「なぜ空が青いのか？」「象の鼻がどうして長いの？」って、使い方がちょっと違いますよね（「なぜ空が青いのか、知っていますか？」のように使ったり。）「同じに聞こえる」「同じに見える」も普通に使いますし。 – chocolate Apr 28 '22 at 01:16