Mutual intelligibility of Dutch-German cognates by children:The devil is in the detail

Several studies (e.g., Ház 2005) have found German to be easier to understand for Dutch listeners than Dutch for German listeners. This asymmetry has been attributed to the fact that German is an obligatory subject in Dutch secondary school and that many Dutch people watch German television. In contrast, it is much less common for German children to learn Dutch at school and for German people to watch Dutch television. It cannot be excluded, however, that in addition to the extralinguistic factor of language contact, linguistic factors also play a role in the asymmetric intelligibility between... Mehr ...