"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?
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2022-04-04T19:11:02.510
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question
grammar sentence word-order
Word order for "Why do all German words sound the same?"
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.
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2022-04-04T21:38:55.287
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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:

  * [How to list numbers of things](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/17816/5010)
  * [Questions about counters](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/36890/5010)
  * [たくさんの本を読んで versus 本をたくさん読んで](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/27483/5010)
  * [Counters and their placements with nouns](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/80368/5010)
  * [Positioning of quantities (using counters)](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/8136/5010)

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.
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2022-04-04T22:07:40.687
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