German vs Swedish vs Norwegian vs Dutch | Can they understand the German language? | #1
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- čas přidán 3. 05. 2024
- How similar are German, Swedish, Norwegian and Dutch? We designed an activity to help you figure it out on your own. What do you think?
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Luxembourgish vs German 😱 → czcams.com/video/CETkj1mAlyg/video.html
Jiddish vs German :D
@@Tiberian1986 👀
As soon as the Dutch guy started talking. I tried to avoid the subtitles but still understood the most compared to Swedish and Norwegian. As a German.
Low Saxon (native to northern Germany & northeastern Netherlands) vs something.
@@Tiberian1986 yes
Of course the Dutchie's got a bike in the background!
He really played into the stereotype didn’t he? 😂
I haven't seen the bike 🤣🤣
They honestly should put it on the flag together with a windmill and gouda cheese
And a wooden door behind the Norwegian
Got to represent
As a Swede, I can say that the Swedish girl spoke very fast in her (my) language, and if she would've talked slower and perhaps emphasized certain words it would've been easier to understand for German and Dutch speaking people.
Yes, I thought the same. Why is she doing it. It was very hard to follow. As I do not hear Swedish very often, I thought maybe it's normal, like Spanish people, who are always talking very fast. I am happy to hear, that this is not normal.
@@LaWendeltreppe It happens in a lot of languages, I had the same experience in Central Germany when I was there on a business related trip. It's probably something that happens locally.
@@LaWendeltreppe As a dutch person trying to learn swedish and currently living in Sweden too, I find her pretty easy to understand compared to people I meet here, who will often talk absurdly fast
@@azorazan Even faster? OMG. This must be hard for you.
@@LaWendeltreppe she's speaking like someone who wants to speak clearly to other native speakers, not fast like you would normal conversation. As for trying to speak slow and as clear as possible to non-native speakers while still sounding like "proper" swedish she isn't doing that.
We English speakers don't appreciate how lucky we are that most other people in the world learn our language to communicate with each other. All four of these people speak English completely fluently as they discuss their native languages.
but that also means that all benefit not just from the similarity of the different languages (German, Dutch, Swedish and Norwegian) but also from their knowledge of English at the same time = having the option to recognize cognates/patterns from the most similar existing words in one of the known languages
That doesn’t make u lucky 😭 that just means it’s harder to be bilingual
@@argent5196 maybe but also English is a good language to start learning other languages for the same reason and also to find language partners
@@bordedup546Yep and then you can use the language you learn from that to learn other languages. For instance i'm using Dutch to learn German, and English to learn French. When i learn French i could maybe use that to pivot to Spanish or Italian.
It all started with old german😂
The roots in the diffrent languages are interesting.
If you read some words second time you will perhaps remember some old word that wouldn't be spoken so often in your language
How well i understood them as a native German speaker:
Swedish - 40%
Dutch - 90%
Norwegian - 15%
Yes I think Swedish has more loan words from German than Norwegian has. We had a big german population in the swedish towns in the middle ages who thoutgt us how to run a town... ha ha. For instance the word for "window" is "fönster" like "fenster" in german, but "vindue" (or something like that) in norwegian, much like "window" in english. I suppuse it means "wind eye" as it sounds.
@@magnuspersson1433 The Hanseatic League had relations with Norway from the 14th to the 18th century, it's not like you were alone in trading with germans
@@noreng9333 Yes of course you are right there. But what I meant was that actuallay a lot of germans lived in middle age Sweden. In many towns, event though they all were very small at the time, as much as 50% were germans.
@@magnuspersson1433 Vindue (DK) and vindu (NO) comes from vindauga (wind eye) in Old Norse.
Less for an American that speaks some German. I do understand more Dutch than Swedish or Norwegian. Although My wife and I noticed the grisflaks meaning for being really lucky. We have never known where the statement “ That will only happen when pigs fly!” So gris = pigs and flaks = fly or luck, so it makes sense now but in English only in the negative. In other words “We would never be so lucky to have that happen.” Of course my wife has Scottish ancestry, so I think she pulled on old Viking heritage :)
The guy who speaks Dutch is definitely Dutch. There is a bicycle on the wall behind him...
Yep. Noticed that as well.
Exactly. A tall blonde guy with a bicycle)
They even have parking lots for their bicycles😅
Nice avatar
The Dutch guy doesn't know his own language. Schwein gehabt is in Dutch "heeft gezwijnd."
As a German native speaker, I was totally surprised how much I could understand even from languages like Norwegian and Swedish, but of course Dutch was the easiest to understand out of those three. I feel like if you come from certain regions in Germany and you do know some dialects like for me Swabian, Bavarian, Saxon, Platt I could understand surprisingly much of those foreign but related Germanic languages. Anyway, cool video and greetings to all speakers of germanic languages out there! ✌
As a swede who knows a little german im suprised how much of dutch i can understand. We are more smiliar than i thought.
I speak a Dutch dialect in which we just say heim. We also use ich just like the German ich for I. We just prenounce it very diferent.
I speak highgerman, but I could still understand almost everything the dutch guy said, but in contrast, I couldn't understand anything the Swedish and Norwegian people said
Ich konnte es nur durch das lesen verstehen :)
i speak Platt and Dutch is very more easy for me to understand than bavarian or swabian or saxon
I love that the Dutch fella, who studies in Sweden, pronounces every german word with a perfect Swedish accent :D
Haha, yeah
Hej jag kommer från tyskland. Talar litten svensk. I was often in ullared gekås and shoppa.
Both Norwegian and Swedish accents I often confuse for Dutch accents. For example when someone calls someone by her or his name with a typical Germanic(like Anika or Bjorn) name. I often thought to myself, wait is that person Dutch? This is less so with German speaking people. Meaning, this guy might just use his Dutch accent which sounds familiar to you.
I’m Dutch, but I have to say even his Dutch has a slight English twang to it lol. He has probably also spoken English a lot while living abroad.
He knows not the word "heimwee'
As a Brit learning German, it was definitely a confidence boost to be able to understand the spoken German. It was also really surprising how much Dutch I could read based on my German knowledge!
On another note, in British English the swimming aids are literally called armbands!
Here is another one for you which might sound funny to you. Handschoenen! It literately means Shoes for your hands. Also banden (or bandjes the tiny variant) also means tires. So you could also translate it to Swimming tires.
I believe that Handschuhe is the correct spelling in this case for the German word "gloves." Schoenen means pretty or happy depending on the context used.
As a romanian who hates german language, this was fun but f no, i wouls not learn german for 10 million dollars! It soubds disgusting for me somehow!lol
Armband is also bracelet in Dutch.
@tiagomota4734 Odd as I'm a Romanian and I absolutely adore the German language. I love everything from the pronunciation to the accent. It has many similarities to Romanian too. Next time when commenting, remember if you don't have anything positive to say, don't say it. Or at least phrase that in a nicer way. It comes off as incredibly ignorant and rude. Nu fa tara noastra de rusine frate cei cu tine!! Comportate cu maniere si fi si tu mai amabil pe internet.
As a Dane, I find we are the missing link, between these four languages.
As a Frisian i can say.....wist do dât wol seker?
If only we could hear what you're saying lmao
@@-RXB- We can hear, just not understand :)
And yet, no one understands what you are saying. 😉
"Kameloso". 🤡
Yup. You should have been there.
My dad is Frisian and he worked wiith Swedish people. When either of them couldn't think of how to say something in English, my dad would speak in Frisian and the Swede in Swedish obviously, and they would understand eachother.
Languages are so cool :)
I visited my then girlfriends family on the island Sylt and was very surprised when I understood large parts of their conversations in the local dialect...
I was born and still live in the Dutch province of Friesland (Fryslân) and I had a similar experience in my youth, when I was on holiday in Denmark.
We were staying on a camping site and met a Danish boy my age who stayed across the field from us. We hung out together for the length of our stay, playing badminton and football (soccer). He only spoke Danish and a little German, I spoke Frisian and would switch to German whenever we struggled.
I understood at least 75% of what he said (alas, that percentage has gone down quite a bit since then... 😔) and he understood most of what I said.
The most fun part was seeing our parents shaking their heads in amazement at our ease in communicating. 😂
@@MasterSandman Yeah, that's awesome. I'm kind of biased though because I'm really into languages anyway :)
@@B-Meister Yeah, me as well! 😁
As a Dutchman it's quite easy to understand German because it's very similar and there's no changes in intonation whereas Swedish and Norwegian I can understand bits and pieces but it's mostly difficult to follow because of the different intonations.
For me I can understand dutch somehow if you speak it slower to me. Even news papers in dutch language. I get the most what it says but I cannot speak or write the language, shame on me 😂😂😂😂
The problem for me as an Afrikaans speaker is with "jij" word. We say "jy" (soos jij in Nederlandse taal) for "you". A bit confusing.
As a native English speaker, I studied German in high school and at university. The Dutch translations were the easiest for me to understand (I know little Dutch). The Swedish and Norwegian were difficult.
@@seanbrown207 same here.
@@seanbrown207 speak English native, took German, Dutch came easier.
When the Dutch guy started speaking in Dutch involuntarily, it was cute how the others understood what he was saying, and laughed about that. I could be overreacting, but it was a wholesome moment ☺️
Do you have a time stamp? :)
Yes, here it is 25:21
I found that cool too, but the word snelheidslimiet was very prominent in the sentence, that's probably what made everyone guess the meaning correctly.
ja, ik dacht hè?
@@DeEchteZeus I can only speak from the German perspective and it just makes a lot of sense to me, it sounds like Schnellheits limit which wouldn’t be grammatical correct in German but you can see what it means immediately
The best thing is when the panelists break down cognates and explore the sentences beyond just translating. And this video is exactly like that :)
Yes. I also enjoy these parts very much.
Its so educative and everyone is taking part. Thats the point of languages beyond borders, everyone can connect through good communication👍👍
It's so awesome to see so many lines between these languages and these cute "borrowed" words like anfang in Swedish as the initial fancy letter!
@@user-bv8jx7wo8m ok, you are right, but to know that kind of a detail one has to be a real language nerd (which we clearly both are).
Looking at this just from a Swedish perspective there is a tone more of it In those 4 short sentences
As an American that lived in Germany for a couple years and went to a Gymnasium (high school) during that time, I find Dutch SO fascinating. While traveling in Utrecht, Maastricht and Amsterdam, I found it so uncanny how much Dutch I was able to understand from people around me.
The Dutch accent sounds so much, to me, like an American accented person speaking German. Such a middle language between German and English. So cool! Love the Netherlands, such chill people haha.
To us Danes, Dutch is like a mix of Danish and German, probably via Frisian, as that region spans from the North of the Netherlands to the south of Denmark.
Ahhh and Frisian is the closest living language to English. Not mutually intelligible though.
@@mrpetebojangles21 actually Scots is probably closer, though there is some disagreement as to wether it's a sepaate language or a dialect of English
Watching some videos of this (and Mr. Roper's) channel, I learned that Old English is really close to Dutch. If it was not for the influence of the Vikings, English would be much more close to Dutch nowadays.
@@florianvdb7444 true i understood old english coz it looks for mee like Dutch
As a Russian, I learned Deutch in the past and many years after it helped me to learn Norwegian to A2 - B1 level within one month. I enjoy learning the languages 😊
I am Norwegian and very proficient in English. After I started learning German I find both Dutch and Afrikaans easier to understand as i can cross reference between the languages I know.
Nice avatara and nickname. Norska er min kjarasta.
and can you understand papiamentu? its a language spoken on Curacao, Aruba and Bonaire
@@michielvdvlies3315 If it is a Pidgin language, I would probably recognize most words and work out the meaning. Many languages adopt foreign words instead of inventing their own.
The word "Dutch" in English is derived from "Deutsch". Not a lot of people know that.
Given how high the standard of English as a second language is in most Nordic countries these days, it's pretty much redundant to say you're Norwegian and also very proficient in English...! :)
Dutch “dus” is related to English “thus”
And ‘aldus’ parallels ‘also’ in German
Pretty sure it‘s also related the german deshalb (to the first part)
@@Lerenwordtleuker yeah, al- meaning “all” use to be a pretty productive prefix in Germanic languages. For example, alone means “all one.”
@@braincytox7314 deshalb in Dutch would be "derhalve".
@@DutchDread Yes you're right
As a English Native speaker who has learned German, it’s interesting to see how much of the other languages somewhat make sense if not every word.
What I like most on this channel is the sympathetic way the participants act and discuss about the similarities between All the germanic languages - always with a great sense of humor and emphasizing what we have in common. I could spend the whole day just watching Norbert's videos. 😎
As a German loving the dutch language, I can say that if a dutch person wants me to understand him/her and speaks slowly, I can easily understand 90%. After recognizing how "Sch" (as in "school") and the "G" (as in "graag") is pronounced, it was relatively easy for me to understand Nederlands and Vlaams.
Anyway... When listening to dutch people talking to each other, I understand only 10% - due to fast speaking, colloquial terms and linking words.
Oh man, that's not even the worst part:
1) we use so many expressions in Dutch, even in daily conversation about the birds and the bees. As if the language itself wasn't hard enough, there's those to learn as well.
2) there are still SO many dialects extremely very close together... e.g. I live in Antwerp on the east bank of the river. There's a whole different accent on the west bank of the river where, if they speak their native dialect, I can barely understand them 😅
There is a "Common Dutch" language, which is usually used on TV, but even that differs in Flanders compared to The Netherlands. Even though the words are mostly the same, it's all about the pronunciation (soft g, hard g + difference in vowel sounds).
If you know one of those languages + english, you actually can fill out a lot of blanks for translations to your mother tongue. A lot of words are either used in the germanic or latin version. Especially Dutch feels like a German dialect witch is heavily influenced by English (which totally makes sense geopolitically)
English is like dutch influenced by french, scandinavian and latin.
I agree, that was definitely my experience as an English and (2nd-language) German speaker. Dutch in particular was extremely easy to understand; it basically felt as though someone had mashed up English and German together
Old Dutch and German made English. With some help of Latin and Norse. Not to forget the rape of the language by French^^
@@rickrandom6734 scandavian “sounds” like Old English which google will give you in Translate
Dutch is also particularly influenced by French, like English is (especially Flemish in Belgium). For example, they mentioned that Dutch uses "limiet" rather than a cognate of "Begrenzen". That's not because Dutch took it from English, as they suggested, but rather because both English and Dutch separately took it from Old French.
It's also worth noting that Frankish was a probably very similar dialect to Old Dutch, and some words were borrowed from Frankish into French, and these sometimes end up in English and probably Dutch and even German.
Being Norwegian, of course I understood the Swedish, but I was surprised how much Dutch made sense. German was more difficult, but also not incomprehensible. Could pick up some words. Very cool!
That's interesting, as someone from The Netherlands I really couldn't make heads or tails of either Norwegian or Swedish although some words do look ever so slightly similar. German however was generally okay to follow.
@@markjacobs1086 try reading Norwegian, that should be a lot easier! I certainly can understand a lot of written Dutch (though Afrikaans was easier the few times I have tried), but spoken Dutch has so many strange sounds.
As a Dutch speaker Norwegian makes much more sense to me compared to Swedish.
@@Judge_Magister Thats pretty interesting to hear since in my mind as a Swede who also knows some german, norwegian is like a weirder version of swedish and Dutch is like a weirder german.
Swedish and Danish, which is easier to Norwegian people, may I ask?
When Freja said "därhemma", it sounded so beautiful that I felt something really special about Swedish
You need to try this with Low German (Plattdeutsch). It would be very interesting to see if speakers of Dutch and other Germanic languages can understand it.
As a Dutch and German speaker who learned Norwegian when I studied in Norway, this is my nerdy happy place ❤️🤓 thank you for these 30 minutes
Du lebst förmlich meinen Traum :)
@@HeinzUlrich65 Folge deinen Träumen! 😊💭
@Elise There is a video somewhere on CZcams of a Norwegian girl living in Denmark, and she speaks Danish in the video, and although I neither speak nor understand Danish or Norwegian, I can tell that she has a Norwegian accent when speaking Danish. Her Danish pronunciation doesn't sound like that of a native speaker. If I find it, I will post it.
Ich auch/Jeg og!
Probably, The German speaker didn't think of it but using the word "swine" to strengthen Something is a thing in German too, or at least in some dialects. You can say, for example, that it is "sau kalt" which translates to "sow cold" and basically means "extremely cold". So the word for a female pig is also used to strengthen the meaning of another word.
Or even "ein Schweineglück gehabt" - been extremely lucky.
I wonder if something like this happened with the word "sehr". When I found out it was cognate with English "sore", it didn't make sense to me, since it just means "very" in German, though it apparently initially meant "sore", as a wound. The only English example I can think of where sore is used as an intensifier is the hymn "O Sacred Head Sore Wounded", but it makes sense next to the word wound, while in German it has no negative connotation at all. It probably extended out of a metaphor of "very painful" and was then used as an intensifier for anything.
Oh now I see, "Schwein haben" doesn't exist in Austria, but "sau" as a form of strengthening exists, especially since "sau" is the Austro-Bavarian word for "Schwein" this makes sense.
@@Leo-uu8du "Schweine-" as an intensifier is indeed more a central and northern German thing.
@@sameash3153 Wow - I didn't know that, but now I looked it up, and it makes sense. We still have the verb "versehren" which translates to "to injure" or "to damage", and from this: "versehrt" (injured, damaged) and "unversehrt" (intact).
And looking even further, the old Germanic root "*saira" apparently even made it into the Finnish language as "sairas" (meaning "sick").
This was a very interesting comparison!
I am from Sweden, and hearing about the work "flügel", I started thinking about the Swedish word "Flygel", which except for grand piano also is the word for a side building for buildings such as castles and hospitals. In English these would be called "castle wing" and in Swedish "slottsflygel", which means that at least to some extent, flygel also means wing in Swedish! 😃
Yes, Flügel is also a side building in German. How funny.
Wij hebben het zelfde hier, Vleugel kan twee dingen betekenen Piano of zijgebouw (Typed it in Dutch cause it might be fun to figure out but yeah it's the same here, Flügel = Vleugel = Wing But it also means Piano or sidebuilding. We also got Neusvleugel Which basically translates to Nose wing (nostril))
Флюгель флаг - fly - flag - flow
@@DantalionNL1 Nose wing would be Nasenflügel in German. And yes, we have this word. :)
Yes thats funny!
"Das Badezimmer ist im Ostflügel"
The bathroom is in the east wing
What a great idea, letting them all speak in their own language. I was happy to learn that I understood quite a lot of the Nordics, but knowing the context and reading the written text as they spoke was very important, if it had been a podcast I wouldn't understand anything,
yes, sometimes the written words gives you hints (when you read it like in your native pronounciation), sometimes the spoken word (because it sounds similar to your native word). So it's good to have both.
Dutch “dus” is related to English “thus” which is the same as “therefore”.
For me it’s interesting, I know Dutch well and could understand both Norwegian and Swedish when reading but spoken Swedish to me was farthest from being understandable (and the farthest from how I imagined the words to be pronounced).
Not exactly. It is similar to German too but the Germans add something to it. "Deswegen" means something like "Thus way" is you take the root of the words. "Des" is similar to "Dus" or "Thus" and "wegen" is "way". With "wegen" you nowadays mean a reasonal connection "way" between two things. A synonym is also "Deshalb" which also include the "Des". "Des" is also the Genetive of an article and most likely in the very past it was called similar to "Des Weges" (only assumption, last part).
A common mistake when comparing languages is that people do not understand that certain parts are just common from different dialects mixed together. So which synonym you use does not really care. In German there are tons of words for the exact same thing, which makes it so difficult but we used to say only specific words for certain situations. And "therefore" is "dafür" in German, which however is used in a different meaning, sometimes similar, sometimes different. Interestingly all those words essential say the same thing: "weil", "darum", "dafür", "deshalb", "deswegen", "daher", ... which are just used in different situations are but cannot be used to express a different meaning by using an alternative.
@`Abdul-Hādi at-Turāni I was talking about the roots of the words. You should read again. Nächstes mal klappts vielleicht. ;)
“Thus” is quite old-fashioned in English. “Therefore” is also a bit formal. “So” pretty much covers most situations!
hastig = hasty too
@@montazza08 Yeah, "thus" and "therefore" make me think of formal writing and proofs in math.
"Dus" sounds very similar to the English "thus" which is seldom written, and is spoken even less. It's cool that "dus" is seemingly everyday Dutch, but it's very formal in English. Thanks for this video - das war schweinlich interessant!
True I’m Dutch but I do my degree in English in the Netherlands like so many other Dutchies and I’m always apprehensive of writing “thus” in essays bc teacher will think I’m translating directly and will think my vocabulary is limited and/or bad
I agree it's interesting how the formality of the words are so different. The Dutch 'dus' is probably used as often as the German 'also'. Interestingly, we have a synonym of 'dus' that sounds a bit more like the German word: 'aldus'. Same thing really, but more formal. As Dutch does best we have plenty more (hardly used) synonyms with the same meaning, the most ridiculous one I just found being 'dientengevolge'.
@@heddevanheerde Do you mean the "Germanic word 'Aldus'" because it's not a German term, I'd say. I've never heard it; by the way, I'm not German, but speak it more or less fluently and have lived in Deutschland for over 20 years. I tried looking up "aldus" on various sites, and even the Duden doesn't recognize it. On the other hand, "dientevgevolge" sounds a lot like "demzufolge" in German, and it's high register; you'll read it much more often than hear it being said. Cheers.
@@Nardo025 Interesting how all of these different synonyms of the same words appear in multiple Germanic languages.
"Aldus" is Dutch, not German. But like I said, it's rarely used. However, I noticed another funny correlation between Dutch/English/German:
'dus' is 'so' in English. So if we take the Dutch word 'aldus', but instead of 'dus' we swap it for the English version, we get the German 'also'.
Old english comes from the Old Frisian language. Frisian is a dutch province. And in today english you can find lots and lots of words that are derived from the dutch language.
When I was following the written text, I couldn't believe how much of the Swedish was 'missing' in speech. Is that normal, or did she speak unusually quickly?
(I'm fluent in EN and NL, but I've had almost no exposure to the Scandinavian languages.)
She definitely speaks a lot more quickly than the actual written text (altough this is very normal for us since we do tend to speak very quick) swedish words tend to be a lot shorter which is why the speech get quicker and the written text needed to be on screen long enough for everyone to read (i think) Hopefully it was a decent explanation :)
I do believe the words would be easier for the others to understand if she spoke slower tho
She spoke normally quick. I'd say this is pretty everyday Swedish, not tempered for the ears of others. If she slowed it down a tad, it would have been much easier for foreigners to understand it. I'm Norwegian myself, so I basically understand all of it, while at the same time being kind of amused by some of her d's and intonations.
I started learning Dutch like 60 days ago with an app and I understood everything Louis said. I am German, so it is naturally quite similar but I am still very proud!
Louis talks very slow, clear and calm. Very nice for those who want to learn or understand.
Dualingo?
@@Toujeo duolingo, yes
Honestly outside the app I haven't heard much actual Dutch. But I wanna try some actual real spoken Dutch now, and it's def a bit hard to know exactly when a word starts and ends, but this guy kinda comforted me by confirming the pronounciations I was taught by Duolingo were very right. (fyi I'm danish and duolingo has some weird flaws with pronounciation of danish words... google translate has some too)
Thanks for having us! It was a lot of fun geeking out about Germanic languages. About "Schwein", there is actually a verb in Dutch "zwijnen" that can mean "to have luck", my friend just told me that today 😅
I was going to make a comment about that, but since you did yourself ahaha. I guess it is not a very commonly used verb anymore or very regional. You see the same with a word like subiet, which you may find in some parts of Brabant still.
It's a great video, it's definitely interesting to see the differences and similarities between the languages. I personally did better than expected at understanding the german sentences. Though I had german in high school, my grades weren't that good (mostly due to a lack of trying). I guess that speaks to how similar dutch and german really are.
For the record, I also didn't know that zwijnen had that definition, but I was curious so I looked it up before I sent it to you :p.
Edit: Also, props for having the bike in the background.
Wow learning my own language haha. Never heard of it here in Belgium. Only knew griseflaks from Norwegian (a language I know quite well) where it is definitely more common. Heem also exists but let's be honest here that one is really obsolete outside of compound words.
@@hydrocharis1 It seems odd to me that such a fundamental, basic word like _heem_ ("home") could somehow have become obsolete in Dutch and replaced with _thuis._ I wonder why that happened?
@@andreafalconiero9089 "hus" means "house" in swedish.
In Dutch there is a realy old word, "heem" for house, which isn't really used anymore except in some compound words like "inheems", "uitheems" and "ontheemd" which means "native","foreign" and "deprived of a home". None of those words aren't exactly used every day
Inomhus/ utomhus ( in Swedish)
Surely "heimwee" would count as a cognate
@@misterkami2 it does too. So are place names ending on -gem and -hem.
Why don’t you use it? It’s such a nice word.
Perhaps heimwee is also related
As a Swede, I was surprised to discover some years ago that I actually understood some Afrikaans. When I learned that it originates from Dutch immigrants in Africa, it made sense, since Dutch has many similarities with the Scandinavian languages. Some words are exactly the same, and others are very similar, but I could of course not speak or understand whole sentences.
And regarding this video, I understood German at roughly the same level as my fellow countrywoman. I don't think she was doing anyone any favors in the first minutes of the video, though, where she was speaking quite fast and somewhat unclear and with the heavy dialect. But she spoke much more clearly after the initial presentation.
Swedes and Norwegians, by the way, understand each other probably up to 95% of what is being said in a conversation. Some words are traps, though, with entirely different meanings even if they are spelled and pronounced more or less the same.
lol, I as a german was very surprised how well they did considering that its way better than I would do trying to understand the nordic languages. Dutch is simple because it sounds like a mix of german and english with a weird accept, but nordic languages use so many different roots especially for the most commonly used words. maybe because there is much more emphasis on languages as german is the only language of these 4 that has enough speakers for their own translantion of movies
In linguistics, there is a hypothesis that whenever peoples migrate far from their familial homeland, they preserve an archaic form of the language. I'd like to see what Icelandic and Færoese could understand of either Old English beowulf, or even modern appalachian American English speakers (sometimes referred to pejoratively as "yokels", which I believe means a mountain in Icelandic).
I think Mario Pei wrote that (paraphrased) while Swedes, Danes, and Norwegians can read each other's newspaper headlines; Italians often cannot read another dialect of Italian. The difference between the former is political, but the latter have been classified together as one language, also for political reasons.
As an American English speaker with some basic German that I learned in school, I also found this interesting. We also have a brand name of kids swimming aids called "water wings", and It is common for US English speakers to use a famous Brand name in place of its generic name, particularly on the West Coast. Many people in Southern California for example may ask for a "Coke" but really mean they want a soft drink...especially at a self service restaurant where you fill your own cup at the "soda machine". There is also an east/west divide between those who use the word "soda" and those who use "pop". This comes from another common American English habit to truncate words to a single syllable...because it sounds less formal than saying "sodapop" or "soft drink".
Florian is not only very gifted but his interest and curiosity about the other panelists languages (and they are polyglots too) makes this video ever so interesting. Thank you for this programme and please have Florian return whenever again possible.
Totally! He, and some other panelists as well, nailed pretty much all the questions that I had at specific moments - it was so satisfying to get the questions asked and getting the answers.
Agree! Florian is an excellent host, would love to hear more such presentations. Next time, include an Afrikaans-speaker too!😉
Yes please, he's a fabulous teacher
@@rockspyder3970 Yes, good idea!
Regarding the word "flügel": In Swedish, "flygel" is not only a grand piano, but is also used for the wings of a building.
Same in german
Same in Dutch
In Russian we use the word "флигель" (Fligel) for the building wings, borrowed from German. People who live in Saint Petersburg are well familiar with this word :)
And regarding the piano, it now makes sense to me why in Czech language they call grand piano "křidlo", which actually means "a wing". One more thing that Czech took from German :)
i just checked: the origin of „Flügel“ for a grand piano is „vlügel“, commonly used until 18th century. Back then i believe most of well-to-do middle and eastern europeans used similiar words in their speech. In french its „piano à queue“ meaning „piano with a tail“.
Regarding the meaning for wings of a building: its supposed to mean that two sides of a building are symmetric.
In dutch we only use the word heim in a combination heimwee which means homesick.
In dutch we also have the saying "ik heb gezwijnd" which means something like I was very lucky or i had a narrow escape.
The difference in dutch between limiet and begrenzing is that limit is used in the given context and begrenzing is used more as a technical solution for instance to prevent a moped to go faster than 45 km/h.
Thank you for this interesting and pleasing video
The actual Dutch version of "heim" is "heem", als in "Heemstede" of "inheems/uitheems".
@@YourCreepyUncle. you are right, the are both used.
Thank you so much💕This entire video was enlightening and fun!
It's funny when Åsmund said something in norwegian, Freja liked to jump in as well. Because their languages have a lot of similarities in their words and meanings, as well.
Yeah. Basically there are from what I understand two norwegian languages, but the one he was speaking here is very influenced by our common history.
@@anarchclown Norwegian has two _standard_ languages, there's more dialects
Swedish and Norwegian were basically two dialects of the same language for the longest time, and you could almost still make the case that they are two dialects of the same language.
The German cognate to the Norwegian "unnfange" would be "empfangen", but when used in the sense of "conceive", the substantive form "Empfängnis" is way more commonly used than the verb form.
In Dutch it is ontvangen. So all very similar.
In Swedish, there are the archaic cognates 'undfånga' and 'undfägna' - but unlike in Norwegian, neither of them carries the sense of 'to conceive' a child, but rather were used to mean 'to receive' a guest/visitor.
@@meadish
That's the common meaning of "empfangen" as well, it basically means "to welcome" or "to receive".
According to the official Norwegian dictionary "unnfange" comes from low-german, and has the same origin as "empfangen".
Yeah, old fashioned word in German in said context. Pretty much exclusively used in christian context like the holiday "Mariä Empfängnis" ... as in [unnfange] of Maria (aka Jesus' mom) - This word always confused me as a kid. I didn't know if it meant that god boned Maria on said date ... but then again the 9 months counting didn't check out? I don't know, the bible is rubbish, hail Satan.
I was smiling throughout this video! I love language comparisons and analysis. This was so good!
Fun to listen to these converstations. Here are some observations I made, from a Dutch perspective.
1) Heim or heem also means settlement, area or town and remnants can be found in Dutch place names, ending on -um, -em, -hem. Heim is not used for "G: zuhause" "D: thuis" anymore. There are a few words with heim/heem in it: inheems, heemraad and heimwee (I think an loanword from German).
2) Dutch also knows "hij heeft gezwijnd" in the meaning of "he was very lucky".
3) "hard rijden" is (a.f.a.i.k.) more common than "snel rijden" but both are correct. "Snelheidsbegrenzing" is a physical speed restriction a car has. "Snelheidsbeperking" has the meaning of speed limit on roads.
4) 34:34 I guess "unnfange" is similar to Dutch "ontvangenis" which means conception, but is uncommon and more of a biblical term. "ontvangen" means to receive.
“Dus” is very similar to “Thus” in English in the way it sounds and is used, so I assume they are cognates
As someone from Germany this video was really interesting to watch and nice to see you're uploading new videos again, dear Norbert❣Missed your videos and wish you a great weekend❣💖
Thank you very much! Have a great weekend too! :D
Although I don't live in Germany, I enjoy the video immensely.
Ich lerne Deutsch, ich finde die Sprache ziemlich schwierig, trotzdem verstehe ich Florian ganz gut.
@@Ecolinguist Norbert, I love the idea of matching different native speakers so they try to understand each other with no using any help 🤩
@@Ecolinguist is there any chance you'd do a similar style of video but with indian or iranian languages
It's funny that everyone had a problem with finding an English word for the floaty things you use to help you swim. I'm a native speaker from the UK and I had to think about it before remembering that I've always just called them "armbands" which is very vague but absolutely fine if you only talk about them when you're at a pool lol. When you said the German word, I remembered hearing that many people call them "water-wings" which makes a lot of sense. Thanks for the awesome videos as always - you're a treasure, Norbert :D
Whatever people call them, we always understand when you have kids and need them in a swimmingpool where ever you are. Its funny, in Dutch they go by several names, I know them as vleugeltjes (small wings) but people also understand when I call them floaties for kids. I made it up myself and it may mean something horrible but hey... as long as the kids dont drown because no one can explain them?
armband in Dutch, or as Louis said, armbandjes (diminutive)
Interesting, as someone who’s learning standart swedish I had more trouble understanding the swedish girl with her dialect than the norwegian guy.
Very nice linguistic selection of the three “panelists”
I love calling them panelists! Awesome!
@@amjan somehow it feels appropriate, right?
@@caseyrogers573 it is appropriate, I believe.
@@caseyrogers573 Not just appropriate, it's 100% accurate with the definition :)
"a panel - a small group of people brought together to investigate or decide on a particular matter."
"a panelist - a member of a panel, especially in a broadcast game or discussion."
As a native German who grew up in East Frisia (Northwest Germany) I was a bit shocked how much Dutch I could understand. That's probably because the low German language is pretty similar to the Dutch! 😂
Dutch 90%
Swedish 5%
Norwegian 5%
why do u have an icelandic pfp
I love the questions and the genuine curiosity from everyone! It’s great to learn about the similarities and differences.
This is so interesting and funny!!! Thx for sharing. Could we have more in the future?!!
Ofcourse the Dutch guy has a bike in the background
Een fiets!
Ja natuurlijk
Nou breekt mijn klomp.
@@Harregarre Een echte Nederlander! Klompen! Ha!
Where does everyone sound like their dragonborns 😂
Das war super interessant, da ich vor einem Monat angefangen habe Schwedisch zu lernen. Voll cool auch Sätze in Norwegisch und Niederländisch zu hören und lesen! 😁 Weiter so 👏👏👏
Ja ich habe dieses Video auch interessant gefunden. Ich lerne Deutsch und Norwegisch und weil ich weiss dass Norwegisch aus Franzoesisch, Deutsch, Russisch, und Slovakisch kommt, bin ich noch ueberrascht wie aehnlich zum Deutsch Norwegisch ist. Ich war auch ueberrascht mit denen unterschiedlichen Woerter zwischen Schwedisch und Norwegisch (aber ich glaube, mindestens auf Schreibungen, Norwegisch aehnlicher zum Daenisch als Schwedisch ist).
@@peterjungmann6057 das schwerere Dinge mit deutsch ist die Deklination zwischen den N/M Oder bloß nichts. Mit einen französischen Ansicht ( als Muttersprache)
@@peterjungmann6057 Oh vielen Dank fuer den positiven Kommentar! Ja dieses Computer ist zu billig, Tastaturen fuer andere Sprachen zu bieten ( 😂 ). Deshalb, kann ich nur auf Deutsch und Norwegisch, zum Beispiel, mit einem Englischen Tastatur schreiben. Und ja, leider, wenn ich Deutsch in der Schule und an der Uni gelernt habe, habe ich kaum schwere Satzbildungen gelernt. Deswegen, kann ich oft Dinge im richtigen Wege nicht sagen. Aber ich merke noch dass obwohl mein Deutsch nicht zu schrecklich klingt ( 😂 ), habe ich noch Viel auf der Sprache zu lernen und zu verbessern.
@@peterjungmann6057 Oh danke. Du bist zu nett. (Es ist aber noch moeglich zu erreichen! Man braucht nur fuenf oder mehr Jahren eine ganze (oder fast ganze) Fremdsprache zu lernen 😂 . Deshalb, gibst du auf nicht!)
@@peterjungmann6057 "Sogar viele Deutsche hätten in diesem Text mehr Rechtschreib- und Grammatikfehler gemacht." Horma, mach mir doch keine Fissematenten...mach kein Killefitt. Ist doch pille-palle
That was fantastic. Loved it and learned a few things. Thank you! :D
this was one of the most interesting videos I ever saw on youtube, no joke. thank you very much 💙
"Dus" in Dutch is obviously not a cognate with "so" in English, "also" in German and "så" in Swedish/Norwegian. But it's not a totally random word that doesn't show up in other Germanic languages - it's a cognate with "thus" in English, which has pretty much the same meaning, The main difference is that in English, "so" is most commonly used in regular speech while "thus" is usually reserved for more formal or written contexts.
Yeah, I remember that Nietzsche's book "Also sprach Zarathustra" is often translated as "Thus spoke Zarathustra".
Yes. There're probably hundreds if not thousands of these cognates among the germanic languages. The difference being that what's a contemporary/common/informal in one is an older/less common/more formal in another. So the more you know the history of words in your own language, the more likely you are to see words in other Germanic languages as 'the same' as your own.
I know when I took a course in Old English and I was advised to think of it as 'funky German', Old English text immediately became much easier to understand.
tbirdparis I'm so glad someone else noticed, I was surprised none of them knew - to be fair, it's not very useful for speaking contemporary english to real speakers!
@@caramelldansen2204 I wouldn't say so. The word "thus" is still very common in modern English speech and no native speaker would be confused or surprised to hear it. It is true that "so" is probably more commonly used. The word "thus" is just a bit more formal or maybe _emphatic,_ that's all -- it is by no means archaic.
Dutch had alzoo
Being from Southern Germany myself: at least hear, you can put "sau-" as a prefix in front of words like the Swedish girl and Norwegian guy explained to have the same emphasis. "Sau" being "sow"(femals pig) in German
EDIT: Norwegian "unnfange" could be cognate to German "empfangen"? Which means to receive or conceive a child
There is also a possibility to relate "unnfange" with "einfangen" and "empfangen". Etymology is weird, sometimes.
Wie "diese Wurst ist saugut!" 😂
Maybe he was too focused on the word Schwein (pig in general) and forgot Sau (female pig)
saukalt, sauschnell, sauteuer, saubillig, saugut, sauschlecht, saumässig and more ^^
In Norwegian «sau» means sheep. I wonder if it’s related.
@@norgnt In Swedish a female pig is a "so" or "sugga". In some dialects sheep is called "sö" (my grandfather says that) but normally it is "får".
Actually it was interesting to find out that in both Norwegian and Swedish there's an old fashioned way to say "to go" as "fare" as so does English with "to fare" which is an archaic term for traveling (Hence the phrase Farewell or Farvel in Norwegian/Danish) but in German "fahren" is still a word used in common day speech.
I wouldn't say it's old fashioned at all in Swedish though. At least in my dialect it's the normal way of saying "travel".
Vaarwel in Dutch = goodbye.
I love how it went into detail this episode! Florian did a great job asking lots of inquisitive questions :)
As Freja said; "snäll" means kind in modern Swedish, but "snäll" actually meant fast before, also in Swedish. That is why we say "snälltåg". Fast train. We also had a morning paper called "Snällposten" because it was delivered so fast that it arrived before people woke up.
Snällposten was called that way because they had the news before it had even happened 😜
Hey Norbert, thanks a lot for having us! This challenge was great fun and I really enjoyed it!
A few little corrections for anyone who is interested: 0:14 Of course, that should have been "Fremdsprache" (foreign language). 0:18 And here it would have been better to say "schwedische, norwegische und niederländische Muttersprachler", but my brain was thinking in English, so I messed up. ;) Anyway, have a great day and stay safe!
Danke für die Aufklärung. Habe mich beim Wort "Muttersprache" schon ein bisschen gewundert.
Und übrigens: Willkommen in Bayern! Noch ein Rheinländer mehr hier 🙂
Let’s have more fun! Let’s try to make the translation that is using Swedish/ Norwegian words but those words could be a bit strange or obsolete :)
Since probably no one is reading this second level comments anyway I hope it’s ok that I add a bit. The form “geblieben” in Swedish is “bliva” which was used in Swedish at least until 1950’s. Also there is half a word in Swedish even closer “bliven” which in Swedish sounds very close to “bliben”.
Ger: Bliben / Bliven Swe.
It is for instance used in words like ”efterbliven”.
Which consists of 2 parts
”efter + bliven”
Word „kuhl „ one can exactly “float” with this word. Kult from Norwegian being the middle word. Like “Kuhl-kult-kallt”
The word “meist” is almost exactly “mest” in Swedish.
this is so fascinating, more!
Brilliant to see all the direct and indirect connections between the languages. Love it!
I've waited really long for this. But it was totally worth it 😁😁.
Love from Germany 🇩🇪 to all countries and languages☺️👌🏻
I'm a native English (American) speaker. I deeply enjoy these linguistic family comparisons as they test my ability to find common roots and figure out meaning from context. Have often had the fun of doing so when trying to get along in various European countries. My studied languages are Latin and the Romance tongues, but I do recognize some Teutonic words. Not surprisingly, some of the words in this one have a lot of commonality with English. It's easier for me with the written sentence first, then the spoken word. Please continue these wonderful exercises! And I have to say that Freya has the most animated expressive face.
A thing that I've noticed is how similar many words for body parts are in Norwegian and English. Bryst/breast, arm/arm, finger/finger, tå/toe, hode/head, øre/ear, the list goes on and on.
Same. Though I don't speak a word of any language outside conversational French and English I could understand the gist of what people were saying through pure context and mutual understanding of certain words.
It was very weird for me that you called it "Teutonic" instead of "Germanic" but I learnt something new today.
The reason for the weirdness is that I love history and the Teutonic Order was a collection of peoples - not really Slav but - quite different to R1B and I1 haplogroups at least after the middle ages.
But yeah they did speak Germanic, until the Commonwealth destroyed them and the subsequent Livonian Order and other Baltic peoples.
@@Muchoyo It's true and I also find that interesting, but I find it even more interesting to go further back in time sometimes and look at English place names, cities or landmarks like rivers. It really does display a common heritage.
Even the Norman/Saxon was in turn influenced by Norse before the final conquest.
Then before that it was Gaelic influenced by Latin. Gee no wonder English is a mess of a language, and somehow this is what ended up as the most widespread language in the world, lucky all us humans 😂😂
Yeah there's a good depth to the English language but it's a literal nightmare.
@@Muchoyo not too different from the Dutch borst, arm, vinger, teen, hoofd, oor.
I am always surprised how relatively easy it is for me, who speaks German, Low German and English, to at least understand the meaning in simple Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish sentences, by being able to refer to certain words that are very similar in German.
By the way, you have a great channel. I discovered it by accident today and have been doing nothing but watching your videos for hours. Keep up the good work!
I could understand a lot of the German spoken and then written phrases by remembering my “O-Level” German exam I took (in England) at 16 in 1981!
I'm german, learning Norwegian and I can understand Dutch mostly. And even the transcription of what Freja said I can read and understand, but she was talking so fast I didn't understand a word what she said. Åsmund was easy to understand for me.
Great Work @Ecolinguist I really love this channel.
Same here , i couldn't understand a damn thing she said 🤣🤣🤣
As a German native with some Norwegian knowledge: What Åsmund actually missed in regards to "kühl" is that Norwegian has the very similar "kjøl", like "kjøleskap" ("Kühlschrank" or simply "fridge" in English). "Unnfange" is closely connected to a similar German word, but not quite "anfangen" - it's "empfangen" ("to receive"), which can also be used as "to conceive" (a child) but for this purpose it is very old fashioned.
Same in swedish.. the noun is 'Kyla'. To be cold = Kylig. To cool something down = Kyla. Something is cooled = Kyld... and so on.
Ah, one more "to catch a cold" = bli förkyld.
I agree that "kühl" SHOULD be picked up as "kjøl", but as a fellow norweigan, I have to defend Åsmund here and say I didnt pick up on it either as its more close to "kul" or a bump in english because of the way kühl is pronounced in german.
@@chris86simon I wasn't trying to hate on Åsmund, he did a great job, certainly as good as could be expected for someone dealing with a completely foreign language. I was just trying to fill in the gaps for people who may not speak both of them :)
@@Stahlwollvieh Yeah no, I didnt take it as such either, dont worry:) Just trying to make the point from a norwegians side. But I would have kicked myself, in hindsight, had I not made the kühl reference myself.
@@erik.... In Southern parts of Germany, like Bavaria, you might hear the equivalent of "bli förkyld": "sich verkühlen", which in Standard German would be "sich erkälten" (= to catch a cold).
In the US I've always heard schwimmflügel referred to as "water wings". It's funny that no one could think of the exact translation but we call it almost the literal translation 😄
I also was quite surprised by the similarity there. From US. I have also heard of a piano wing, referring to the open top of a grand piano, it looks like a wing.
Actually, the inflatable armbands are called floaties and floats in English, so floaty things was quite similar, plus there are also floaters that are bigger and not for the arms!
I know them as floaties
That was utterly fascinating! Woah.
I'm fluent in German and I've tried several times to learn Icelandic. I kind of understood the Swedish, Norwegian and Dutch sentences, at least in their written form.
Pronunciation is quite a different matter but I loved the way Asmund spoke both in English and in his native Norwegian. There was a sing-song element to it.
The three guests were very nice, in any case.
Icelandic doesnt sound like Swedish, Norwegian or Danish at all. Scandinavians cant understand Icelandic too well. Written Icelandic goes better but spoken Icelandic is a unique language only slightly comparable to Faroese. Ironically those who understand Icelandic best, are the Dutch and thats what basicly all my Icelandic teachers also said and it might have to do with the relationship between Old Dutch and Old English which are tied to Old Norse as well and all of them rooted the Icelandic language. The only culprit is the declensions, which are anything but a benefit to German people because they are so used to their own system which is of course not 100% the same as Icelandic but has many similarities to Old Dutch gramatically which was also as declension riddled like todays Icelandic is (we still do have a lot of it in Dutch language but arent aware of it and we dont really learn this in school). Icelandics however go German basicly flawless. Languages can be odd.
As a Chinese who learned English and German as 2nd and 3rd language I found this extremely entertaining xD. I’m surprised by how much I can Dutch and Norwegian I can sorta figure out by listening to the pronunciation. Also kinda made me wanna see if there’s such a similar comparison video between Japanese Chinese and Korean 🤣
When you find a Video, pls send me the link :D
You got no chance of understanding any Japanese or Korean I would guess. totally different language families.
If I'm wrong and you can understand a spoken word every now and then, I would like to hear it, ok?
Korean is a language isolate like Basque, so there's no other languages related to it but maybe there are a small amount of Chinese/Japaness loan words.
@@fukpoeslaw3613 It would be rather difficult for Chinese native speakers to understand Japanese spoken language, though the written language would be easier.
@@mariagabbott That make sense, I 've also heard that the grammar of Korean is quite similar to that of Japanese though, and the proportion of Chinese loan words in Japanese and Korean seem to be higher, about 30 to 50 percent.
Auch wieder sehr spannend, Danke für das Video! 🙂
I speak norwegian (I'm self taught) and it was very interesting listening to the swedish speaker because I had always heard you could understand swedish as a norwegian speaker, but I never understood that
but when you have the subtitles there, that really helped me pick up context clues ans I could tell what was being said :)
Fun fact, in Danish we have the expression "svine held", meaning lucky as a pig, it's sorta the same.
As a German who lived and studied in Norway for a while and having a boyfriend who's currently learning swedish this is so entertaining 😂☺️
#4 In English we use "Water Wings" - so certainly very similar to Swim Wings. Great video - quite fascinating
VERY VERY GOOD german host. you can tell he is a teacher. He has a very methodic approach which was very nice to watch. Thank You Florian!
The Swedish girl is a little confused during the second sentence. The meaning of "svin" is "pig", not "boar". We have the word "vildsvin" for "boar" (literally "wild pig"). A "svin" is a somewhat older word for a tame pig. Nowadays we mostly use the word "gris" for any pig, but originally a "svin" was an adult pig and a "gris" was a baby pig.
Also, "svintur" is a pretty common expression for "very lucky" in Swedish, so I'm surprised she didn't think of that.
Same thing in German for the former, Schwein is pig, and Wildschwein ist Wild pig/Boar
I'm a Dutch living since 20 years in France and having learned a few years of German in school. I think for Dutch, German is really easy to pick up. It happens to me that in musea with lots of old stuff where things are explained in English, French and German, I read the German text because it is closest to Dutch and for old stuff the Dutch and German words are often mainly a tonality change. Ancient French and English words are then more remote for me.
Hi, I'm from Northeast Germany. Once I worked 10 month in Enschede and Hengelo. Took me just 3 month to work with the guys from Netherland not just to follow, but even to take part deeply in all conversation, even specified technical conversation - as I'm an Engineer. But it helped, that the guys from Enschede lived near the german boarder - so they were quiet familiar with German. I really believe Dutch and German can understand each other quickly pretty well with a little patience and training. Greetings to the Netherlands and also to France!
@@ratatosk8935 I live in that area as well. It is quite similar indeed. What also helped in the past [pre-cable tv] is that we got raised while watching German TV broadcasting. That aside, if you speak dialect, you'll be able to manage language wise at both sides of the border.
Because they basically were in one destabalised country -> the Holy Roman Empire. Pretty much all countrys that were in the HRE share parts of language and culture .
@@Kloashut That's right, my dialect helped a lot.
I'm from southern Germany and Dutch is by far the easiest to understand, especially when written. :)
French on the other hand I had for years at school and only remember how to say that I don't speak french. ;)
Danke vielmals!
I lived and worked in Germany in the 1980s, and visited Sweden for only 2 weeks. I became able to understand Ein bissen Sverige Sprache while there.
I enjoy your program very much.
The second scentence was quite funny, "zwijnen" is not very commonly used in dutch, in fact so little that the dutch guy didn'nt even know it either. But it also means to get lucky or to get through something with a lot of luck. For instance you didnt study for a test and somehow still made it: "daar heb je gezwijnd."/ "you lucked out there."
Unbelievable he missed that.
Came here to say that. Maybe it's a regional thing? It's commonly used in Amsterdam, but mostly by older people.
I was shouting "snälltåg" and "anfang", and then when Freja said them I was calm again. Thank you Freja (and all of you who made my Friday evening a great evening!)
PS We still use "fara" for travel up in the north of Sweden. "Fara till stan/Fara till Tyskland". DS
Same in Ostrobothnia (Finland Swedish), I would say "fara" instead of åka/köra.
Ja, där ser man vad som händer om man släpper Norrlänningar in i resten av Sverige
- de blir ju massa med ”fara” överallt ;)
And in English, fara exists as fare, both in the concept of money for transport, and for things to happen or progress.
Åka also exists as aik, but I've never heard it used personally, not once. It's apparently rarely used in northern England and Scotland, and means to drive in Scots (not just in the narrow concept of cars, but to drive a horse or whatever).
Northern English and Scots have many loanwords from Old Norse.
I live in the south of Sweden and can use 'fara' that way to.
"Snelheidsbegrenzing" is a good word in Dutch but it has a slightly different meaning from "Snelheidslimiet," while it expresses to have a restriction on your potential speed For example if your car's engine is capped on its speed capacity. So in a way limited, but "begrenzing" modifies "capacity" while "limiet" modifies or refers to a legislation / an imperative.
oh thats cool
A synonym for _limiet_ would be _beperking._
@@slashtiger1 It is in certain meanings of the word although in combination with "snelheid" it would be a little unusual. Perhaps some people might use "snelheidsbeperking" colloquially, but to me it sounds morre unusual and towards a more forceful restriction. Perhaps it sounds unusual to me because the word "beperking" is an official term used in Dutch criminal law (might be translated into "restriction" in English), which stands I think a bit in contrast with terminology used in traffic law.
@@tojchapin9447 It's not unusual at all. It's just not used in the formal sense. Police won't refer to this phenomenon as a 'beperking', but even the news does at times... The word 'Beperking' as a stand-alone word, in the context of criminal law, is quite a bit more forceful than the _suffix_ "-beperking". It gets used interchangeably with the "-limiet" suffix, at least outside of any judicial context. Because, yes, in legislative contexts, usually people prefer to use the slightly more formal "limiet".
In case you may not have guessed, I think I'd better enlighten you: I live in the Netherlands and work in linguistics. Moreover, this stuff is a specialism of mine. So I'd say I have quite a feeling of what is and isn't accepted as normal 😉
@@slashtiger1 I think the use of ethos on such an anonymous platform as youtube is not very helpful to discusions, neither is entering a discourse on who's more or less right on the commonality of the colloquial use of a word. I think I made an effort of expressing how it seems to me (also a native Dutch speaker with a background in linguistics, but I still don't see the value of ethos in this debate. I think it distracts). Lacking better research on such a specific topic, what strikes me when looking at google hits, is that "snelheidsbeperking" seems more commonly used on Belgian / Flemish pages than on Dutch ones. So a hypothesis could be that preference and prevalence to a degree is regionally connected.
Sentence 2: In American English: "He had luck and won the lottery." or "He had great luck and won the lottery."
Sentence 4: In American English, "water wings", "arm floats", or "inflatable armbands". To translate from "schwimmflügel directly to "swim wings" would be understood by many.
Let's clarify the confusion over swine and pig in English.
Pig refers to juvenile or smaller swine, and while the largest adults are called hogs. Swine a more general term that refers to any pork producing or related animals wild or domestic. The swine cognate survives in modern English, although the term is more common in farming and ranching. Swine has a second meaning in English as a derogatory term that meant "contemptible, unpleasant, disgusting, or crude person is not worthy of one's time ", but that has become old fashioned over the last 30-years in favor of "pig".
There is no such phrase "swine luck" in American English as no such cultural connection exists, but if we had in the past, it would have been translated as "he had swine luck" assuming the derogatory second definition would not have confused things.
Observation, dutch speakers have accents closer to native English speakers than Germans when they speak English. This makes sense because English is more closely related to Dutch than German and the sounds are more similar.
How delightful to watch😊❤
I found it interesting that, being a native German speaker, the languages felt ever more foreign. I'd personally rank them from Dutch as feeling most "at home" (I somehow get the urge to phrase it that way because the likeness just kind of feels comfortable when listening? Odd.) while Swedish felt the most foreign to me.
I really hope getting around to learning a little more Dutch and Norwegian.
I agree German feels most at home to my Dutch ears, then Norwegian and then Swedish. I was so surprised that Swedish dropped the w/v in swim!
Since learning Dutch, I can understand some German videos where they're speaking slowly and clearly. And when I was in Austria recently I usually responded in Dutch when people spoke to me in German, and they mostly understood what I was saying.
@@OntarioTrafficMan speaking Swedish with a lot of German words but Swedish grammar works well in north Germany ( Lubeck etc.)
Melody in modern day “high Swedish”/“Swedish spoken in the Kingdom” ( Rikssvenska ) is very much “broken”. To go back to what it was like just a century ago one would have to listen to a dialect called ”Finlandssvenska” . Which is much easier to understand for most foreigners especially Scandinavians and Germans.
Swedish are both a Germanic language and we also had a lot of German influence during the Hansa era. In my home area we also have some Dutch words in the old farmers language.
Whenever Freja speaks Swedish it seems the video is on 2x speed😅 Another excellent video. Thank you, Norbert!
I always suspected they drink a lot of coffee in Gothenburg. They're always in that rise n shine state.
@@beorlingo Fun fact: Gothenburg was constructed by the Dutch, was under Dutch political power and laws and Dutch was even proposed as the official language in the town.
Same when she speaks English, she is just a fast talker.
XD
glad others feel the same way, i'm learning swedish rn and got slightly discouraged because i couldn't understand much lol
What a WONDERFUL experiment to see! Learning languages is the MOST IMPORTANT thing to learn, when you are young.
It will bring people together, not only depending on any language you learn, train or study!
Keep in mind an old saying:
1. Learn the Language
2. Visit the Country
3. THEN judge
4. If you have to
5. Not the other way 'round
What a lot of people do, all over the world.
I am a German Guy, 60 years and Languages helped me A LOT in my professional life.
I will DEFINITELY follow your Channel!
Thank you very much for your IMPORTANT WORK!
👍🏆
Very interesting to watch!
Love this! Afrikaans is my first language, so by default, Dutch is easy to understand, and relatively easy to speak with some minor changes. Fluent in English (we all have to be, haha). Had German at school, fairly fluent in Hochdeutsch, but not in all dialects. Learnt Norwegian on my own, which makes Swedish easy to understand also.
True germanic right here! Kul att höra!
Curious to know why you learned Norwegian. Bor du eller studerar du i Norge?
@@stoutjudas9868 Hei! Nei, jeg bor eller studerer ikke der. Det begynte med en snøskutertur til Finnmark, og jeg ville vite litt mer om språket. Jeg syntes det var veldig interessant, med mye til felles med morsmålet mitt, Afrikaans. Jeg ble selvfølgelig umiddelbart dypt forelsket i Arktis. Da jeg så nordlyset for første gang, endret livet mitt seg, og jeg ble aldri den samme igjen! Siden vår første turen har vi besøkt Nord-Norge mange ganger, inkludert en tur med Hurtigruten. Det er det vakreste landet med vakreste kystlinje i verden, uten tvil.
@@rockspyder3970 Tack för svaret. Utmärkt Norska!
I wonder how good you would understand danish, ever tried to listen to it?
The Dutch also have a saying for being as lucky as a swine... "gezwijnd hebben".
Also, all four sentences were quite easy to follow as our languages are so similar, and German is often mandatory in the Dutch school system. The Germans seem to all know this, as we're still almost always approached by them in German.
zwijnen = Boffen
the meaning is a bit different. Gezwijnd hebben means you came out of a harmful situation without any harm. You were lucky nothing happende to you.
Dat is een nieuw woord voor mij. Hier in België gebruikt niemand dat.
In Deutschland sagt man Schwein gehabt
This one was very interesting for me. I'm a German working in a Norwegian company alongside Swedish and Dutch colleagues.
I've been learning Norwegian for some time and I understood all the Norwegian parts and about half the Swedish parts. What I found fascinating is that I also got 99% of the Dutch parts, spoken. Didn't expect that.
Swedish pronunciation is fascinating though. What did they do to the i 😅
Worth watching even if the only Germanic language you know is English. My granny was from Trondheim region. I never learned Norwegian, except some songs. But she and My mother spoke it a lot when she visited in my childhood.
So, for me, the Norwegian fellow was very comfortable to listen to.
The Swedish girl spoke much too fast and was enunciating some words badly in her intro. Much better once she relaxed.
Am On my 5th day of Dutch lessons, and amazed at already recognizing a few words.
Bravo! Great series. My learned languages are French & Spanish, so I have enjoyed following the Latin based version of this series. Now, as I test the water with another Germanic language, it's a delight to find this online. Really makes the sometimes hard study fun& worth the effort.
Also exists in Dutch (Flemish) too as the word "alzo" but is very formal and is a bit outdated but can still be seen in the context of: "Alzo zal het geschieden" or in English "And so it will be done /thus it shall be"
Really no one ever uses the word alzo.. I've never even heard of it. In Holland we say "en zo" for that particular example you gave.
Actually, the usage of pig/Schwein in German as an adjective to emphasise something also works! Or maybe you could also write it as one new word.
Es ist schweinekalt (it's pig cold) so basically a more family-friendly version of
Es ist arschkalt (it's arse cold)
Oder auch: Es ist Sauheiß :)
Also the word Sau which means sow (female pig) is used as an adjective- at least in Austria as in:
sauteuer, saukalt,…
It's basically the same in colloquial Italian: fa un freddo porco (it's pig cold).
We don't use 'arse' the same way, but it's interesting that the equivalent of 'Schwein haben' in the sense of 'getting lucky' is 'avere culo' (to have arse).
We here use "Schweinerei" informally to point out that something is a mess. I'm not sure if it's a trend among German immigrants in Brazil, though.
In Norwegian :svinekalt
I‘m a native German speaker, but I’m actually trying to learn a bit of Norwegian and Dutch through Duolingo, so this is a perfect video for me! I was very impressed at how much I could already kind ob understand with my limited knowledge :D
This is great entertainment for those who like languages. Keep it up. Thanks!!