It's indeed the closest thing I can find in Indo-European
languages. However, it is more palatal, one has to bulge the tongue more upwards
and forwards. It took me quite some time to learn it. (I've begun to learn
Chinese IIRC 3 years ago, but I had to stop it after a year due to extreme lack
of time.)
I'd say it's a bit softer
I'd say that's largely limited to English alone.
English lessons in German-speaking countries involve teaching the proper
aspiration of p and t, which takes quite long to learn for most pupils. (K is
indeed the same in German and English, but Chinese k much more aspirated, it has
a Gaelic/German/Czech... ch after it [like in some southwestern German
dialects]).
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