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I've actually mistook Vietnamese for Cantonese myself, so I can see how someone not that familiar with either language might confuse them. And I spent three weeks in Vietnam and several days in Hong Kong, although I don't know more than a few words in each. I would say Cantonese doesn't sound like Mandarin at all: Mandarin has a strong 'shh' sound, while Cantonese is a little more nasal.
I would disagree that Cantonese and Vietnamese are as unrelated as English and Cantonese. They share many words, and Vietnamese borrows 60%+ of it's vocabulary from Chinese. Prior to the 1930s Vietnamese was often written using Chinese characters. While Vietnamese is no longer considered part of the Sino-Tibetan family by most scholars (it used to be) it's definitely far more related than any Indo-European language.
Italian and Romanian, Swedish and Norwegian, Arabic and Hebrew, Indonesian and Malay, Spanish and Catalan, Polish and Czech are some examples I can think of.
Mandarin is my 3rd language (after Cantonese, then English), so I have a Cantonese accent in Mandarin. However, by experience, Mandarin is more nasal while Cantonese is more guttural, much like German.
Some Slavic languages sound similar to non-native speakers.
Agree with that, especially Ukranian and Russian, not sure what the difference is.
Also agree that Spanish and Portuguese pronunciation are miles apart, on the other hand, and I don't understand how anyone can confuse them.
I live in a state where there are both Brazilian and Russian/Ukranian immigrants. Believe it or not, from a distance from which syllables and words are audible but not intelligible, I confuse Brazilian Portuguese and Russian/Ukranian, but moving closer the difference is obviously clear, and I can understand some of the Brazilian Portuguese and of course none of the Russian/Ukranian.
To my ears, the difference between European Portuguese, which I understand more or less fluently, and Brazilian Portuguese, which I understand in patches, is analogous to the difference between UK English and Texan (closed-mouthed vs. twanged, more or less).
Sometimes I have trouble distinguishing northern European babble, like Frisian, Flemish, Dutch, maybe some northern German, and up into the Nordic countries (Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden).
^ Beat me to Russian and Ukrainian. Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish are all mutually intelligible, but Danish is easier to differentiate. There are some that fall within a spectrum, such as Dutch/Flemish and French/Walloon. The French-Occitan-Italian spectrum could throw off those unfamiliar with the differences between the three, but anyone who knows at least one can separate them apart. To be honest, differentiating Standard Italian and local dialects can be incredibly confusing, although the differences between dialects are pretty obvious.
^ Beat me to Russian and Ukrainian. Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish are all mutually intelligible, but Danish is easier to differentiate. There are some that fall within a spectrum, such as Dutch/Flemish and French/Walloon. The French-Occitan-Italian spectrum could throw off those unfamiliar with the differences between the three, but anyone who knows at least one can separate them apart. To be honest, differentiating Standard Italian and local dialects can be incredibly confusing, although the differences between dialects are pretty obvious.
Flemish and Dutch are the same language. Flemish is just Dutch with a certain accent and a few different words. It's exactly analogous to the difference between British English and American English. Same with Walloon and French. I lived in Namur and had no problems communicating and understanding people even though I only speak standardized French.
Every time I've spoken Polish with my mother, some people tend to think I speak Russian...
Other than that, I've heard Swedish, German and Dutch are three languages non-speakers find very hard to differ from each other.
I'm a native Slovak speaker and I can't really distinguish any non-western slavic languages from each other, so in my opinion Slavic languages are definitely the most easily confused. Interestingly, I have no problem distinguishing almost any east asian languages from each other. I live close to the Dutch-German border and I have trouble distinguishing between local dialects on each side, but thats common almost anywhere in Europe I guess.
Oh and a little trick how to distinguish some Slavic languages is to listen for the "h" sound. This can be used to distinguish between Ukrainian and Russian (russian has no h sound), Polish and Czech/Slovak, and possibly in the southern countries as well (does Slovene have h?).
I'm a native Slovak speaker and I can't really distinguish any non-western slavic languages from each other, so in my opinion Slavic languages are definitely the most easily confused.
Speaking of which, I don't think I remember what Slovak language sounds like...
So I went and listened to Bratislava news on Youtube. I wouldn't confuse it with Polish, because it doesn't have few sounds that are prominent in Polish language; some words sound plain Russian and very recognizable, but pronunciation is different in general, more like Ukrainian kind...
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Oh and a little trick how to distinguish some Slavic languages is to listen for the "h" sound. This can be used to distinguish between Ukrainian and Russian (russian has no h sound), Polish and Czech/Slovak, and possibly in the southern countries as well (does Slovene have h?).
Had to listen to Slovenian too, because - again, no clue, so I would easily confuse it for Slovak)))
To a non-Slavic speaker, I can see how it can be easily confused with Serbian and Ukrainian, probably, ( lol throw Chech language in there too))). When you don't listen all these languages on a daily basis, you wouldn't know the difference right away by the sound of it.
Russian doesn't have the "singing" quality to it, like say Ukrainian or Slovak, that's why it doesn't have the "h" sound, it uses the firm "g" (г) instead of it. (In fact that's how you can easily distinguish people born in Ukraine, who still speak Russian; they use that soft "h" when they speak, along with other couple of sounds typical for Ukrainian language.
Agree with that, especially Ukranian and Russian, not sure what the difference is.
Also agree that Spanish and Portuguese pronunciation are miles apart, on the other hand, and I don't understand how anyone can confuse them.
I live in a state where there are both Brazilian and Russian/Ukranian immigrants. Believe it or not, from a distance from which syllables and words are audible but not intelligible, I confuse Brazilian Portuguese and Russian/Ukranian, but moving closer the difference is obviously clear, and I can understand some of the Brazilian Portuguese and of course none of the Russian/Ukranian.
To my ears, the difference between European Portuguese, which I understand more or less fluently, and Brazilian Portuguese, which I understand in patches, is analogous to the difference between UK English and Texan (closed-mouthed vs. twanged, more or less).
Sometimes I have trouble distinguishing northern European babble, like Frisian, Flemish, Dutch, maybe some northern German, and up into the Nordic countries (Iceland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden).
For the longest time I couldn't tell the difference between Russian and Ukrainian. However, Russian has more stops and sounds less melodic. Ukrainian is more melodic and doesn't have as many hard stops. Most people who don't know either language or haven't heard it enough will think that Russian and Ukrainian are mutually intelligible. They're two totally different languages.
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When you don't listen all these languages on a daily basis, you wouldn't know the difference right away by the sound of it.
