Maybe this should have been titled: Can the German understand Swedish, Dutch, and Norwegian without prior learning 😆

@IN0O5

2 жыл бұрын

As a German: - Dutch: easy, sounds like low german mixed with english, spanish and french - Norwegian: surprisingly easy - Swedish: depending on the dialect, some are hard to understand, including Freja's dialect

@michaelhawkins7389

2 жыл бұрын

@@IN0O5 Hallo mein freund :) ich komme aus Sachsen

@skipfuego6339

2 жыл бұрын

@@IN0O5 German and Yiddish are Higher Germanic languages... So, of course it would be easy for you.... duh!!! Also, Norwegian is like learning English all over again. Indonesian has Dutch loan words and it's easy for English speakers or anyone.

@brianlewis5692

2 жыл бұрын

@@IN0O5 I was surprised that I was able to understand Freja more than the host was - perhaps this is due to a false (?) assumption that Germans may have that Scandinavian languages are like German, therefore they expect it to be easy, therefore they do not anticipate words that are not German-like, like 'producera' "to produce" (even though German has 'produzieren', but it may not be expected in Swedish)...I don't know. I think a better assemblage would have been an English speaker, not 2 Scandinavian speakers matched with German and Dutch, but an English speaker from Britain. Americans do not seem to have any familiarity with any languages other than French and Spanish - so Schade :\

@hakanozaslan9571

2 жыл бұрын

As a native German speaker I have less trouble understanding Asmond than Freya XD She sounds Danish to me. Its like she's swalllowing entire consonants.

It’s so funny.. The Dutch guy translating Swedish to Dutch and the German can understand that

@b43xoit

8 күн бұрын

Nederlands ist der Brücke.

8:33min I love that moment! Dutch guy understood the question she asked in Swedish and since German and Dutch are more familiar he asks the question in Dutch to make the German understand. Isnt' that what life as a human is supposed to be ... in a nutshell? Helping each other and accumulating knowledge.

@mari97216

2 жыл бұрын

Yess, that was so great! This is all so interesting to watch😀

@spideyfanboy

2 жыл бұрын

Is there a cognate for stor in dutch?

@Diego.fromheaven

2 жыл бұрын

Bro, that Dutch guy's Swedish is fluent. His master is in Sweden! Ofc he does understand.

@Grofvolkoren

2 жыл бұрын

@@spideyfanboy Stoer, meaning tough. A tough person.

@glennhouben3385

2 жыл бұрын

@@spideyfanboy bad ass

louis simply understands everyone that's why he's so quiet and smiling all the times while the other 2 baffling to catch the words 😂

@stecher1995

Жыл бұрын

hahhaha ye man i swear netherlands people got the best language. they have a mix of german, they would understand almost EVERYTHING german, but in the same time they have a big vocabulary in new english and the influence from belgian/french. their language is actually fucking a mix of our languages HAHAHHA but we cant understand them.

@baronmeduse

Ай бұрын

@@stecher1995 No. Dutch is not just a 'mix of German' and other languages.

Norbert, I just want to say that I personally found this type of language-based conversations to be the most interesting thing throughout the whole web, so I'd like to thank you SO much not only for the knowledge such conversations give, but entertainment as well. It's really amazing.

@Ecolinguist

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you! :D

@aleksinatetka

2 жыл бұрын

I strongly second this.

@PeterFisk

2 жыл бұрын

I agree!

@user-lz6sz8nd2m

2 жыл бұрын

Absolutely agree!!!

@Logined85

2 жыл бұрын

I double your compliments and would like to see more of these in future.

lmao Florian's confusion when Freja continues to ask questions in Swedish. Cool challenge, really makes it a lot harder! :D

@Ecolinguist

2 жыл бұрын

@Ca11mero

2 жыл бұрын

@@Ecolinguist While you are here, would be interesting to have someone on that talks Scanian. It's the southernmost region of Sweden which was Danish until late 1600s. It's been debated for a long time if it's historically a east Danish dialect or a southern Swedish dialect. Cool channel though :) love it!

@joelmattsson9353

2 жыл бұрын

@@Ca11mero dividing a dialect continuum like what we historically had in scandinavia into discrete languages is always an arbitrary thing based on political borders rather than a scientific linguistic thing. Swedish is not a trunk from which branching dialects grew, nor is danish. There were just dialects of scandinavian that either state then claimed under the umbrella of "their" language. scanian was under the danish umbrella, it is now under the swedish umbrella. Because of a number of complex factors, the dialects within these languanges have in recent centuries become more and more homogenous, the dialect continuum is crystallizing around "standard" swedish and "standard" danish, and so even the broadest scanian speaker today is far far more intelligible to a "standard" swedish speaker than to a "standard" danish speaker.

@herrbonk3635

2 жыл бұрын

@@Ca11mero Not really a relevant question anymore, I belive. Skånska (Scanian) has been bombarded with Swedish writing (spelling, vocabulaty and grammar) since the 1600s, as well as swedish schooling for 180 years, and swedish radio broadcasting for a century.

@SionTJobbins

2 жыл бұрын

I'm glad the whole thing is not in English and people speak their own language.

Highly enjoyable. I have the impression that Åsmund made an effort to articulate and make himself understood, but Freja speaks like she would to any other swede.

@oskich

2 жыл бұрын

Yes, you can clearly notice how he changed his pronunciation of "Morgonen" to use a hard G, when his first attempt at Florian failed...

@stoutjudas9868

2 жыл бұрын

Makes sense that he did that since he's a teacher

@sirmounted8499

2 жыл бұрын

He did, if he normally spoke like that people would think that he's retarded or slow, Freja for sure spoke very fast like they all would understand her no problem

@Nekotaku_TV

2 жыл бұрын

Yeah, both have pros and cons. In this case I think it would be better for the others to do like Åsmund because, but it's more fun and interesting as a viewer to have it be natural.

@adnemuri7220

2 жыл бұрын

idk about the sweed, but the norwegian guy is not using his dialect

Florian DESERVES A MEDAL!! For moderating this panel and making it flow despite such low levels of mutual intelligibility. That was soo hard!

@tommyprotrampx

Жыл бұрын

Low level? I would say it was rather High!

@cannotfigureoutaname

11 ай бұрын

These languages are supposed to be kinda intelligible but most times they're really not, I am referring to the intelligibility between Norwegian or Swedish and German or Dutch.

Louis just chilling over there enjoying the struggles of everyone

It's so surprising, how I as a German speaker, can suddenly understand all other Germanic languages, as long as there are subtitles to go along with them! Like, sure, I can kind of understand Dutch and Yiddish, even by just hearing them. But usually, I'm terribly lost with Swedish or Norwegian. Funny how seeing the words written down, can actually help!

@BATO_BRX

2 жыл бұрын

With English subtitles of course

@JeFilm94

2 жыл бұрын

Same for me as a Norwegian listening to German, without having learned the language. I picked up on most of the words he was trying to describe. I don’t think I’d be able to without the subtitle to go with it.

@LucasBenderChannel

2 жыл бұрын

@@JeFilm94 Yeah exactly. Now I want to play this as a game. 😄 Idk if this already exists, but Ecolinguist should really consider making an official Discord Channel! People could try this exact game over there! :D Edit: NEVERMIND! I just found the Discord in the channel description! 😁

@Alexander_01

2 жыл бұрын

I was in Norway a couple of weeks ago. While the pronounciaiton is quiet different, the written form is more similar and in many cases you can understand what is written.

@SharkJ002

2 жыл бұрын

Ich bin Argentinier und ich spreche Deutsch (B1/B2), deshalb kann ich den deutschen Typ verstehen. Mir war es aber eine große Überraschung, wie gut ich Niederländisch verstehe, aber Schwedisch und Dänisch sind mir noch zu kompliziert. Grüße aus Argentinien! 🇦🇷♥️🇩🇪🇦🇹🇨🇭

"Konsonantenverschiebung" is one of these words why you have to love the German language ;-)

@alfonsmelenhorst9672

2 жыл бұрын

"Medeklinkerverschuiving" in Dutch / auf Niederländisch

@alexj9603

2 жыл бұрын

Or "Lautverschiebung" if it's not just about consonants.

@alfonsmelenhorst9672

2 жыл бұрын

@@alexj9603 Dann würden wir es "Klankverschuiving" nennen

@bladimirandersson9191

2 жыл бұрын

"Konsonantförskjutning" in swedish

@SolarLingua

2 жыл бұрын

Ach ja, Konsonantenverschiebung... 🤦🏼‍♂

As a Japanese native who speaks B2 English and has been learning German and Norwegian for a few months, I understood basically everything 😳 (except for the second question about castle). It was soooooo exciting to watch this video 😆 Thank you so much for uploading these contents, Norbert!

For me as a speaker of German, who dabbled in Dutch a bit, those Scandinavian languages are almost impossible to understand when spoken. Here I knew the context, so that made me able to pick up some single words here and there. But in writing it was much better, but still not enough to understand full sentences.

@smittoria

2 жыл бұрын

As a Dutch speaker I found Norwegian ten times easier to understand. I could pick out pretty much every word even if I don't know what they mean. Swedish on the other hand...

@johnnorthtribe

2 жыл бұрын

@@smittoria To be fair, Freja has a very typical accent which is spoken on the west cost of Sweden, around Gothenburg.

@amjan

2 жыл бұрын

@@smittoria Well, Asmund spoke much slower and cleared then Freja, which I'm sure was critical here.

@ChristianConrad

2 жыл бұрын

For me as a native German speaker (but rather weak; I was emigrated as a kid, so my primary language is Swedish), spoken Dutch is pretty much impossible, perhaps a word here and there, but in writing I can often get at least the broad gist.

@mikaeljansson4867

2 жыл бұрын

@@johnnorthtribe OTOH, the accent is very clear and easy to understand. I agree with amjan below that she spoke way too fast. :) (of course, it's a very normal pace for a Swede, but perhaps a bit too much when speaking with non-Swedes/Norwegians)

Not an easy task for poor Florian, especially with the Scandinavian questions rolling in … Freja also speaks quite fast. But he does an amazing job, and they all eventually understand each other. But you can see how relieved he is when Louis starts speaking, as it’s perhaps much easier for him to understand. Anyway, a really nice clip, and I think if they spent a few days together communicating in their own languages, they would start understanding each other so much better. It would even be interesting to see what kind of Neo-Germanic language would evolve form such a session … 😊

@mikaeljansson4867

2 жыл бұрын

That'd be awesome, Neo-Germanic, that we all could understand.

@martelkapo

2 жыл бұрын

Definitely check out the Folkspraak project(s) if you're unfamiliar, it's a pan-Germanic auxlang that's been in development since the 1990s. It never really gained much traction compared to other naturalistic auxlangs like Interslavic, but I remember sending an audio clip of some spoken Folkspraak to my Dutch/Frisian friend and he said he understood pretty much everything, even if it sounded strange to his ears.

@murkotron

2 жыл бұрын

Be careful with neos and gernanics

@break1146

2 жыл бұрын

@@martelkapo I think if you're fluent in Frisian too, of which region you are very exposed to Frankish and Saxon dialects of Dutch, you are pretty much golden. I mean, you're right in the middle of everything. I'm Dutch and don't speak Frisian, but it's easy enough to follow that usually don't bother them switching to Dutch (only if I don't get something I'll ask). The name sounds very familiar to me, 'folk' would be 'volk' and spraak is a Dutch word. While I do think spraak is closer to the meaning of Sprache (language) in German and not spraak as in speech how we'd actually use it. If I'd make a Dutch name for the language I'd say Volkstaal. Although 'spraak' would be used like that in almost every other Germanic language like that, I suspect the Scandinavian languages would get the gist of 'taal' in this context. You could go in circles forever and ever and ever over one word... :).

@jubmelahtes

2 жыл бұрын

@@break1146 fun thing about "spraak" is that in Norwegian that would be "språk" however "aa" is an old way of spelling "å" and is therefore pronounced as such, in other words pronouncing "spraak" in Norwegian would be "språk". I found that quite amusing

I love how 'usually' in German is normalerweise -- 'normalwise'. Also, Swedish is cute. Great video

@isjaboi2363

2 жыл бұрын

We also have üblicherweise which comes from üblich, which is close to usual.

"Sonnenuntergang" does sound like an apocalypse now that I think about it lol.

@beckysam3913

Жыл бұрын

Thats why ppl back in the days were afraid that sun would not rise again after it went to the "underworld", sun was recognized that gave life to biological life. A lot of mythology, spiritualism is about sun, fire. History of mythology is interesting.

All four languages here are so beautiful to listen to. Thanks for yet another fantastic vid!

I absolutely love these videos. As a native English speaker who is currently studying Swedish (among other languages), I found it so easy to understand a good percent of all the other languages, or at least the gist of what they were saying. This is such good practice to train your ear and use logic when figuring out certain words.

@vekteren3549

2 жыл бұрын

Write to me in Swedish. Going to rate you

@Yes-Bean

Жыл бұрын

As a native german speaker I found it hard to understand all three of them especially freja

As a French who speak German fairly well I found this video very interesting. I love Germanic languages, that’s why I’m learning German, Norwegian and Dutch. I love your videos

@dirkbecker2961

2 жыл бұрын

Wow, I'm always surprised when french likes to learn German (it's nice and I'm happy about it) - but is it true that most do it because they are either fans of Rammstein or Tokio Hotel (depending on age and gender, haha!)?

@paulduprez7217

2 жыл бұрын

@@dirkbecker2961 I'm glad it makes you happy and I learn German because I find (contrary to what most French people think 😒) that German is such a beautiful language! 🤩🇩🇪

As a Kazakh speaker (let me start like this:)) who studied German by himself some 20 years ago and who also speaks English, I could better understand Dutch rather than Swedish and Norwegian :) But it was obvious that Frejia and Asmund could easily talk to each other like I could have easily chatted with a Kirgiz, a Nogay or a Karakalpak :) Well done guys and thank you very much @Norbert for your efforts and hard work 👏👏👏

@DougWinfield

2 жыл бұрын

Swedish and Norwegian are largely in a dialect continuum and mostly mutually intelligible (like Kazakh, Kirgiz, Nogay and a number of Turkic languages). Interestingly, Danish vocabulary and grammar is also quite similar to Norwegian and Swedish but its phonology is quite different. So it's easier for a Dane to understand Norwegians and Swedes than vise versa.

@aaronmarks9366

Жыл бұрын

You should ask Norbert if you can be a guest for a Turkic languages video

As someone who only speaks German but not Swedish, Norwegian or Dutch, it was very hard to understand the Swedish speaker in particular. The North Germanic languages are just too different from German for you to be able to understand more than a word here and there if you only speak German and English. Dutch, on the other hand, is quite understandable, especially if it's spoken slowly.

@Markle2k

2 жыл бұрын

She is from southern Sweden.

@herrbonk3635

2 жыл бұрын

I'm certainly no master of German, but i would still guess that your problem has just as much to do with her speed (and perhaps Göteborg accent) as with the language itself. Keeping in mind that Scandinavian and English are pretty close in many circumstances would probably also make it easier to guess. Same with the fact that we use a lot of French inspired words, on top of all the Low German or Dutch cognates. (Not always the same French as used in English though, which may be confusing at times.)

@fh9123

2 жыл бұрын

@@herrbonk3635 I think you can pick up a lot more words when you think about them more, so it's hard to understand much in a conversation but written down, interpreting, it gets easier. For example I looked up the word "Gerät" in Swedish and it is "enhet", in German we have a very similar word called "Einheit" which is not used in the same sense but you can sort of guess it. Stuff like this is very common, so with some research you can probably learn any Germanic language quickly when you already are a Germanic language speaker (maybe except English because of the heavy French influence).

@herrbonk3635

2 жыл бұрын

@@Markle2k Göteborg is not southern sweden in that sense. Although we clearly hear that she is from Göteborg, on the west coast, she still speaks very similarly to us in Stockholm, as compared to a person from Skåne, or even many parts of Norrland or Finland.

@Markle2k

2 жыл бұрын

@@herrbonk3635 Typical Stockholmer attitude. Norrland is just a fairytale. The world ends above Gavle. Goteborg is not Malmø, but it also closer to Helsingør/Helsingborg than Stockholm. In the US we make fun of New Yorkers (and they, themselves) for being self-centered, but they've got nothing on Stockholm, the self-styled "capital of Scandinavia".

As someone who speaks all of these languages fluently (not bragging, I’m Dutch, had German at school, studied Scandinavian languages at uni) it’s really funny and also a bit weird to realise that there are people who don’t understand a word of some of these languages :) Once you know them, you can’t not understand them anymore, if that makes sense. Great channel! More please :)

@TheNehellenia

2 жыл бұрын

I know right! It felt so weird when Florian wouldn’t understand Freja’s questions. And then it occured to me that it wouldn’t be so clear to a non-Scandi speaker.

@sandrallancherosg

2 жыл бұрын

I think it's OK to brag 😄

@karelpeeters1994

2 жыл бұрын

Me for my part, I speak only Dutch, German and English and have the same feeling when the others in the video don't understand German so well .

@karelpeeters1994

2 жыл бұрын

I've always been interested in Norwegian, however I like the Swedish accent also very much. Could you recommend either of them if you don't want to learn both?

@TheNehellenia

2 жыл бұрын

@@karelpeeters1994 I'd say go for Norwegian. It is easier to learn despite having 3 grammatical genders (one is omittable). In contrast, I have always found Swedish plurals to be a bit difficult, whereas Norwegian is straight-forward in that department. Norwegian is also a good starting point if you want to understand both Swedish and Danish, since written Danish is very easy to read if you mastered Bokmål. And understanding (spoken) Swedish will be a no brainer at that point, especially if you've familiarized yourself with some additional words, you're good to go!

Please continue doing this series. I think it shows how people can still talk to each other, and connect, without knowing each other's language. Not all people, of course, but I think this can change people's perception of communication and who and how they can connect with, which I think is important we have more of.

Very interesting. I'm Swedish and have never studied German. By the fourth word I felt that I understood a lot more than when the video started. (As others have said: the transcription is a great help for understanding.)

Still holding out hope for an old English video with a German, Dutch and maybe Icelandic speaker.

@misterkami2

2 жыл бұрын

That would be amazing; they could have Simon Roper for the Old English. An interesting addition would be a Frisian speaker

@zoom5024

2 жыл бұрын

Why not Old norse and Old English and maybe some sort of older German

@DougWinfield

2 жыл бұрын

He did O̶l̶d̶ ̶E̶n̶g̶l̶i̶s̶h̶ Old Norse with Icelandic, Norwegian and Danish. Icelander had zero problems understanding. Dane could muddle out the meaning, and the Norwegian was completely lost. I think the average German won't make heads or tails of O̶l̶d̶ ̶E̶n̶g̶l̶i̶s̶h̶ ,Old Norse a Dutch speaker could get the gist and a Icelander could carry out a conversation.

@DougWinfield

2 жыл бұрын

@@misterkami2 Strangely enough, I've heard that most Dutch speakers can't really make much sense of Frisian.

@pelagiushipbone7968

2 жыл бұрын

@@DougWinfield I think you're thinking of the Old Norse video, which different from Old English, Also i imagine a Dutchman would have an easier time with Old English than a German since they haven't gone through the same Old High German consonant shift, leaving it similar to english and therefore Old English

As a dane, disabling subtitles and watching this was so fun hahah, relatively easy with 5 years of german experience from school and since everyone is trying to speak in a way that’s understood by the others though. My main experiment was understanding the Dutch, since I feel like my experience in English, Danish and German gives me a few ways to approach that. It worked pretty well! :o Super interesting video!

As a half dutch and half icelandic teenager this might be the most fun video i have watched in a long time.

Funny, when Florian picked the word "Burg", I was convinced Freja would mention that she lives in a place with this word in it, Göteborg!

@Holland1994D

2 жыл бұрын

Ah Göteborgstan, that is in Swedistan!

@zelda_lb

2 жыл бұрын

@@Holland1994D hilarious!

@simonevanmuiswinkel9464

Жыл бұрын

Indeed, I was surprised no one thought if that, and even Louis didnt thunk about the dutch word (burcht) until later, that some form of 'Burg' used to be the same, existed in all northern European languages, many places were named by it: think of Edinburgh (Scotland), Göteborg (Sweden), Duisburg (Germany), Middelburg (Netherlands), etc etc.

I speak German and Swedish, thanks Swedish i can understand also Norwegian, plus i also studied Dutch a bit. At the end this conversation it’s very easy and i can understand all😂😂 I’m Italian

This is such a lovely format :3

I love this so much. Being able to communicate despite not speaking the same language is so beautiful. This made my day!

Just realized when they were talking about sunrise and sunset, it sounded like if in English you were saying “sun-up-going” and “sun-under-going”

@Tinky1rs

Жыл бұрын

Yeah, that'd be a literal translation of the parts that make up the word construct.

Norbert, as usual, a great video. I agree with many comments that with the subtitles/captioning, it is soooo much easier for me as a German to understand the North Germanic languages (and Dutch also). Florian did a fantastic job trying to understand.

16:07 In Dutch we also say "zonsopgang". Personally I never use "zonsopkomst".

Ich finde das hier absolut faszinierend. Obwohl sich diese Sprachen ziemlich verschieden entwickelt haben, ist es trotzdem (wenn auch etwas holprig) möglich sich zu verständigen 🙂

One funny thing I noticed as a Norwegian when Florian was describing a television, is the word Schaue. In Norwegian, there are dialects that would pronounce the word for watching/looking the exact same way, while other(often eastern) dialects will say something that sounds more similar to the english word "see"(though with pronouncing the E as É). I have an eastern dialect, but I grew up with my parents often saying "let's see here" in a northern dialect way, which sounds more like "schaue". The word schaue also reminds me of the english word "to show".

@Mnnvint

Жыл бұрын

Yes, "Lat oss sjå!"

Nothing more typical than a bike hanging on the wall in a Dutch house

I wonder if danish would have different takes. I think Louis had an advantage, because German/Dutch are a lot closer than the Norse languages - but, Norwegian was a lot Rasier to understand than Swedish. Bring in the Danes!

@AndreaAvila78

2 жыл бұрын

I agree!

@Alexander_01

2 жыл бұрын

I also think that Danish would be pretty interesting. For me as a German, Danish sounds the most similiar of the scandinavian languages, but the pronounciation is very different.

@schusterlehrling

2 жыл бұрын

Also Louis speaks Swedish, so he is the one with the best prior knowledge.

@schusterlehrling

2 жыл бұрын

Yes, Danish or Yiddish would be great in Germanic, too. Maybe also Faroese would be nice. I think Icelandic would be the toughest challenge. Maybe we would see that Norwegians/Swedes/Danes understand German or Dutch better then Icelandic...

@Hardrock1911

2 жыл бұрын

For me as a german and danish speaker I totally agree

The German part was pretty easy for me as a Dutchy. Reading the Swedish and Norwegian makes sense to me knowing the context. Listening to Swedish and Norwegian is more difficult but especially because she(Swedish) talked to fast.

I thoroughly enjoy this format! Having the guests speak in their respective native languages adds interest to the challenge. 😁😃

Best episode ever, really enjoyed playing along and easy to get the idea 😁 please do this again

It's weird how English evolved the word moat to refer to a ditch built around a fortified structure. It comes from the old French word Mote, which comes via Gallo-Romance Mota, which comes from the ancient Gaulish Mutta, which all mean a fortification built on a hill. I guess by digging the ditch around the fortification it causes the same effect as building it on a hill and thus the meaning shifted due to that.

@767scarecrow

2 жыл бұрын

Wow, interesting. Thanks for sharing!

I just had a great time watching this, thanks! I love this channel!

This is just awesome as a Swede trying to better my German. Also interesting to see how much is actually very similar and that I can guess 50% of the sentences without much knowledge of German at all. Swedish has borrowed soooo many words from German over the centuries it's crazy. Probably 10 times more than any recent English words we have incorporated.

@marchauchler1622

5 ай бұрын

I guess Swedish has adopted words from Low German (which is a language in its own right from a linguistic perspective) so kind of yes. But keep in mind both Swedish and German share the same origin, i.e. Proto-Germanic which may helps you to recognize the connection / similarities here.

Your most fun video so far! Love it!

This was really interesting to follow. I could feel the cogs in my head turning, but in a pleasurable way.

Love these, thank you for doing them Norbert! Well done all of you 👍

I would love to see more of these videos. I feel like im learning 4 languages at once.

i startet learning norwegian on a daily basis one year ago and i am AMAZED about my progress like wow. also with swedish - even if there are definitely differences between swedish and norwegian, i could understand most of what Freja was saying, quite happy about that :))

@fragfen77

Жыл бұрын

Good, you will most likly understand some danish as well

These are always a pleasure to watch. btw. I really liked the discussion at the end. A shame Freja couldn't continue.

Awesome as usual! :-) You could see right away the bigger distance between German and Swedish. It took a while for the guessers to start helping each other out, but they got there in the end, which was satisfying.

Auch dieses Video hat mir viel Spass gemacht. Danke, und weiter so !

Over the course of the video it felt like getting used to hear the languages and it got easier to understand (I'm also a native German speaker). Germanic languages are way similarer than I already grasped. Love this format and seeing this in action 😁❤️

I come from Japan and speak a little bit of German. It's interesting to see the four having a conversation, each speaking their own language, without too much trouble. Even I, with no prior knowledge about Swedish or Norwegian, could understand some of the sentences (Swedish was harder than Norwegian though). A Japanese speaker and a Chinese speaker could probably understand each other to some extent in a written communication, but no chance in a verbal communication. Japanese and Korean are probably the closest to each other, but still a Japanese speaker and a Korean speaker would have a very difficult time understanding each other in a verbal communication.

@allesindwillkommen

2 жыл бұрын

The German guy is actually having a very hard time understanding the Swedish girl. Chinese and Japanese belong to different language families, but the Scandinavian languages are still Germanic languages, but not very mutually intelligible with German when spoken fluently, except for a few words here and there.

@primrosedahlia9466

2 жыл бұрын

Sounds like how Norwegians, Danish and Swedes communicate. I understand sweedish and Danish but the easiest way is definitely written words because some people's accent/dialect makes the pronunciation so vastly different. For instance some Danish people sound like they speak with a potato stuck in their throat. In Norway there are so many different dialects and they sound very different - often not like the same word at all. And the way the R is pronounced in Norway will affect how foreigners understand us. In the west we pronounce the R like the French do. In the south east it sounds Spanish. If I speak Norwegian to Danish people I have to change my dialect so much that it feels more natural to speak English to them.

@boi-o-boi4624

2 жыл бұрын

@@allesindwillkommen Right. He was probably more guessing than understanding. Still impressive though. And yes, Japanese and Chinese belong to different language families, and they are grammatically and phonetically quite different from each other, although you can find some lingering of Chinese pronunciation in Japanese. Yet, they share fair amount of characters - kanji or hanzi - each of which conveys meaning. And that's how the two could possibly communicate in writing, while it's virtually impossible verbally. Korean, on the other hand, has a completely different writing system, while it's grammatically and phonetically somewhat similar to Japanese. Yet, it would be virtually impossible even to guess what each other is saying. I just find it fascinating to see in action that, speakers of seemingly very different languages with shared ancestry can somehow converse😊

@boi-o-boi4624

2 жыл бұрын

@@primrosedahlia9466 Fascinating. After watching the video and reading your comment I'm tempted to learn at least one of the Scandinavian Germanic languages, but I should probably master German first 😅 > some Danish people sound like they speak with a potato stuck in their throat 😂

@primrosedahlia9466

2 жыл бұрын

@@boi-o-boi4624 My goal is to learn how to speak Japanese. Well, enough to communicate a little when traveling. I was supposed to go to Japan in 2020... I think Scandinavian languages are much easier grammatically than German, French, Spanish etc. In Scandinavia most people learn to speak at least 3 foreign languages in school. English is the first, and then German, French, Spanish - and some schools have classes in mandarin, Russian, etc. My son's are in Waldorf school so they have had German and English since 2nd grade.

I‘m a German learning Swedish and having learned a bit Norwegian. This video was a lot of fun because I could exaclty tell which Swedish/Norwegian words Florian was going to understand and which not. And vice versa :D But I really loved how they all played together and with some team work made themselves understood. Really great work from all of you!😄

Omg I really enjoyed watching this. 😊

I’m a native English speaker, and don’t really know any of the languages used here - though I’ve heard them a lot through, travel and films/TV and picked up a tiny bits, mostly of German. I actually consider myself a bit of a monoglot, though, I have some level of Ukrainian, and consequently, I understand a little Russian, and a little when I hear West Slavic languages. So, it was very surprising to me, that between the four of them - with the (massively helpful) benefit of being able to read their words - I was actually able to follow the gist. I got all the words from the clues and their questions. I even followed their discussions on the distinction between a “schloss” and a “burg”. I think that process of becoming comfortable at not understanding everything, has just made me good at guessing the meaning, even when I have a very limited amount of comprehensible information. Very interesting.

@break1146

2 жыл бұрын

Your ears also gets trained for possible similarities and differences that are constant throughout these languages. Don't forget, English is a west Germanic language too and has probably way more (close) similarities to Dutch than you might think (example: heart vs hart)! So for example, Antwerp dialect was completely unintelligible to me few years ago, I found an artist I liked from there and just started listening and now I can understand most of it just fine. West Flemish? No clue whatsoever, but most dialects in the Netherlands are no problem and that extends into low German dialects. Urk dialect? Since I started working there I even use a lot of it unintentionally. Most of what was spoken of Norwegian and Swedish was pretty hard for me though, German was no problem.

@nickwysoczanskyj785

2 жыл бұрын

@@break1146 You’re totally right. I have found that standard Dutch can be surprisingly intelligible, when the speaker is speaking slowly. Grammatically, it seems quite similar to English, when compared to German. And I’ve found that I’ve become better at hearing the cognates, in both Dutch and German. Especially, when I can read the word, too. I also think that Ukrainian has given me more awareness of German cognates - as Western Ukraine has loan words from German, both its time as part of Austro-Hungary, and via Polish. Ukrainian is grammatically complicated, and it’s highly inflected - which, I think, has helped my ability to follow the flexibility of word forms in languages that are much more inflected than English. And to not always expect a simple SVO string of words. I definitely found the Scandinavian languages harder than Dutch and German, but I’ve been surprised by the cognates with English, either from the proto-Germanic, or later contact during the Viking period/ Danelaw period. Mainly just nouns, and some adjectives that are recognisable - though, some may seem archaic in Modern English. Some are still common in Scots - which I’m familiar with from TV, film and people I’ve worked with over the years. The same can be said with German words, like “flott” - “fleet”, seems a little old fashioned, being an uncommonly used on its own as an adjective. Though it is commonly heard as a group noun for ships/boats, which links to the Nordic usage. As I begin to recognise more of the similarities, it really drives home the Germanic origins of English.

@egbront1506

2 жыл бұрын

@@nickwysoczanskyj785 I only know of fleet being used in set expressions such as "fleet of foot" or a "fleeting glance" in the sense of quick. It doesn't seem to have a secondary meaning of chic or opulent as flot/flott does in the other languages.

@nickwysoczanskyj785

2 жыл бұрын

@@egbront1506 In English it also has a meaning as a collective noun - originally for fast military ships. A country could have a powerful naval fleet. But these days it can be used more generally to describe any collection of vehicles: a company may own a fleet of vans, an airline runs a fleet of planes, or a person may own a fleet of cars, etc. As an adjective, it can also be found in the word “unfleeting” - meaning “long and consistent”. For example, “she looked at him with a harsh, unfleeting gaze.” I’m also curious to know if it’s related to the word “flotsam” - which is shipping debris found at sea.

@arne8158

2 жыл бұрын

good job bro

Norbert, this was both entertaining and instructive. I have yet to watch one of your videos that I've not enjoyed immensely.

This is an amazing idea, thank you guys, had a lot of fun watching you and trying to understand anything. With B1/B2 German, I can understand only some of the words and only whilst reading subtitles of what other guys were saying in their native languages. And what amazed me the most, was that it was actually easier to understand Norwegian, and I learned Swedish 6 years ago via Duolingo for a few months. Love such riddles.

This is close to my dream video from this channel. Which would just be with low German/Plattdütsch instead. Low German was a major influencer of the Scandinavian languages, with over 40% of words being derived from this German language/dialect. It was the mark of when we stopped speaking Norse and started speaking modern Scandinavian, the stop of when we could easily understand Faroese, Norn and Icelandic, and so it would super interesting to see what mark it has made hundreds of years later. If you can ever find a Low German speaker, Norbert. It would be awesome. (and if you find a low German speaker, then you could make one video with three Scandinavians, and then another video with a Dutch, German and Swiss. Maybe the Dutch would understand it easier than a German because as a Scandinavian I often feel like Dutch is a bit easier than German and wonder if that makes low German more Dutch than German)

@Serenoj69

Жыл бұрын

Low German is far more Dutch than current german is.

@Nabium

Жыл бұрын

@@Serenoj69 Yeah for sure, Scandinavians with no prior knowledge of German or Dutch can understand Dutch a little better than German.

@haraldbuseth1995

Жыл бұрын

@@Nabium Dutch is the closest language to Scandiavian but we understand Dutch better in written form because of their sounds. I had a problem with the Dutch speaker here. The Dutch however are masters in learning Norwegians pretty fast. Norwegian and Swedish sound quite similar but have many different words and manuals/instructions in Swedish is hardly intelligible in Norwegian. Norwegian and Danish however is practicly the same language but Danes speak with a peculiar sound that can make them difficult to understand. I Norway all the different dialects is the challenge for new speakers.

@Nabium

Жыл бұрын

​@@haraldbuseth1995 The reason the Scandinavian languages is so similar to Dutch is because of low German. Low German is closer to Dutch than standard German. In fact, most of the Low German speakers today live in the Netherlands. I understand that since you haven't ever heard Low German, met anyone who speaks it, or have any knowledge of the history of the Scandinavian languages and the impact of the Hanseatic trade, you probably think Dutch is the closest. But Low German is even closer, I suggest you check out the language, it's a real treat for a Scandinavian. Tro meg.

@susannakriz746

Жыл бұрын

German here who also speaks Swedish and has relatives and friends who speak Low German. You are absolutely right!

My instinct is to comment in German, but I know the title and the comments are in English. As a German major who *accidentally* started reading The Little Prince in Dutch during my time in Germany before realizing "this is not German," I really like Dutch, but I always think it's hard to understand what I'm hearing. This video tells me maybe I have better listening comprehension than I thought. The Swedish and the Norwegian, though, are really hard for my ears-and-brain. Great content; I just stumbled onto this kind of video yesterday and it's just my favorite thing. :-o

That was so fun. :) Thanks for the video!

Ihr seid megaaa cool, danke!!!

Toller Beitrag! Unheimlich interessant, das ihr relativ gut kommunizieren könnt, ohne die jeweilige Sprache je gelernt zu haben. Niederländisch finde ich sehr einfach zu verstehen. Wenn man sich an den Norwegischen und Schwedischen Akzent geöhnt hat, ist es einfacher auch diese Sprachen zu verstehen. Auch die Kulturen sind äusserst ähnlich.

Hei Åsmund. Jeg er tysk og har lært meg litt norsk for noen år siden og du snakker så jammen tydelig, det er bare gøy å lytte på deg. Du burde være med på språkkurs lydopptak! Så fint å ha kikka inn her. Godt nyttår!

Cooles Video =) Schön, dass ihr so viel Geduld miteinander habt. Schwedisch ist eeeecht hart zu deuten. ^^ Aber alle vier sehr sympathisch =)

Dieses Video hat mir viel Spaß gemacht, vielen Dank!

Great video! I've been studying swedish and dont speak a word of german, dutch, or norwegian, but I still managed to get all 4 words and generally follow what was going on. (I guess it helped that the swede did most of the talking :D)

watching this as an english speaker who has been learning swedish for 6 months and has just started learning german is hilarious 😭 i can understand a decent amount (mainly through the subtitles, reading is way easier than hearing right now) of what swedish is being said and a smaller amount of norwegian and almost no german, hopefully one day i’ll be able to understand more, only speaking one language is boring man.

As a North German who speaks a tiny bit of Swedish I understood almost everything. I was so surprised 😅

I loved how Louis was basically understanding everyone pretty much with the second question.

Could you please please do a challenge like this with Frisian? With, say, native speakers of English, German, and Norwegian?

@paradoxmo

2 жыл бұрын

Dutch would also be good in this one

@Teutonius88

Жыл бұрын

Or something like: "Can Dutch, Afrikaans and English understand Frysian?"

It was interesting to find that I've learnt Swedish like 10 months now and I can now understand Norwegian naturally and pretty much of German! But still I think I may need to learn more germanic languages to cover others enough like Dutch 🥲

Thanks again for keeping the commentary

So cool how the Dutch brother helped the German at 8:27 with saying groot, acting as a bridge between the Scandinavians and the German.

the Schloss/Burg discussion was quite interesting, awesome video ! quite surprised even though i had Schloss in mind and knew Burg, i forgot about Burg since in my native language we mostly use one word for both definitions (and the equivalent of Burg is now rare-ish and with a different - though semantically related - meaning).

@dutchdykefinger

2 жыл бұрын

in case anyone is wondering, the dutch word for "burg" would be "burcht", and as far as i know, they are for all intents and purposes synonymous... but yeah, we do also have both words :D although looking very similar, they are not to be confused with the scottish "burgh" or the english "borough"/"bury" either, those are city districts, not a type of castle. i have little doubt all those words do lead back to some type of castle/fortification that served as a headquarters for the territory when you run back the etymology, but they probably just started using the name for the entire territory, and in turn changed its use in the UK.

The Norwegian and the swede vibing

I like how there are no English subtitles in the video, but you can add them optionally. This channel pays a lot of attention to detail!

ik spreek maar een beetje nederlands, dus ik verstond niet veel...maar de gasten zien raden was erg leuk. dankuwel, Norbert!

I love this group so much 😍😍😍

@mohamadmosa8116

2 жыл бұрын

Yeah I really enjoyed every second of it 🥰!!

This was so good, educating and funny episode 😂. I love how you can see a connection between German (and West Germanic in general) with the North Germanic, but still sometimes it's hard to see it. For me as a German intermediate I understood: German: 80% (I guessed all of them except the first - I thought of "Cinema") Swedish: 30% (I really liked her reactions lol) Dutch: 60% (I found it the perfect mix between German and English) Norwegian: 40% (Would be the same as Swedish if he didn't speak slowly) Super video and hoping to see more of this format for other Germanic and Romance Languages 😁, thanks a lot to Norbert and all the participants!!!

I am a Portuguese speaker and studied English, French, Italian, Spanish and Romanian. Now I am studying hard German and light Swedish. I adore the Germanic languages. They're hard for me to understand, but they have something that reminds magic for me.

@beasley1232

Жыл бұрын

I can't understand anything in germanic languages. I can read and speak Spanish and French at a basic level but I cannot for the life of me understand germanic languages.

@molly702

Жыл бұрын

@@beasley1232 but you are writing in a germanic languge

@b43xoit

8 күн бұрын

Yes, we Germanic speakers have our magic elves and dwarves, but you Romance speakers inherit everything from the stolid and definitely not-magic Roman soldier.

I really enjoyed this video! Especially because it shows that one year of casually learning Swedish already bears fruit. I found it super easy to understand Freja. It's good motiviation to keep at it

can we please see more of those people?? it was great!

Ist irgendwie super, dass niederländisch (speziell der Teilnehmer hier) die Brückensprache bildet, da er meist der Mittler ist. Ich muss zugeben, wenn ich die Sprachen nicht hätte lesen können, hätte ich auch Probleme gehabt, aber vieles ließ sich dann aus dem Kontext schließen, weil es ja ein gemeinsamer Sprachstamm ist.

I liked the conversation at the end!

I’ve been subscribed to your channel for a year now. As someone who loves languages, I’m grateful to have found this channel. I hope you do an Asian languages mutual intelligibility soon.

Really enjoyed the video. The guests kinda have the same vibes. I don't know how to describe it, perhaps laid-back is the word?

"Konsonantenverschiebung" heißt das.

More people should see this series. It both celebrates our differences and demonstrates how close we all are. Bravo!

Superinteressant! Danke!

I am swedish and i am fluent in swedish and i was so shocked that i understood all four languages having no other prior knowledge in dutch or german (Norwegian is a very close language to swedish so that was easier to understand)

First of all, great video and thanks! The moment I first heard the German speaker, I was certain that he was a teacher (and most likely a very good one too) because he was simply just a joy to listen to! He articulates so clearly! I speak English as a second language and German as a third language and I must say that I understood the Dutch speaker quite well, especially with the help of the subtitles. To my surprise, I found the Norwegian speaker more intelligible than the Swedish speaker, again, also with the help of the subtitles, but the fact that he spoke slowly also helped. I had this bias that Norwegian was supposed to be a bit harder compared to Swedish for non-Germanic language (native) speakers, but now I'm starting to think that it may be more accessible to me personally than Swedish (or less intimidating at least). Maybe I'm an outlier on this though. I'm also curious how well native English speakers would be able to follow this, especially the German speaker. Anyway, great work everybody! :)

@andreafalconiero9089

2 жыл бұрын

I think it is just that Freja speaks very quickly. If anything, I would expect that Swedish should generally be a bit easier to understand for Germans than Norwegian, though it is probably quite close. Swedish likely had greater contact with Low German dialects and more trade with the southern Baltic generally than did Norway. On the other hand Danish was probably even more heavily influenced by West Germanic dialects, and Norway was under the control of Denmark for a long time, and one of the writing systems (Bokmal?) is very similar to written Danish, so that may balance things out.

This is very interesting!

Interessant kanal. Interesting channel, got to watch more of this!

@Ecolinguist

2 жыл бұрын

Welcome aboard! 🤓

Dutch is very easy to understand as a german but that didnt suprise me, what suprised me was how easy i found it to understand the norwegian guy or how difficult (really more like impossible) it was to understand the swedish girl 😅

Zweite Lautverschiebung (second sound shift -- pound: Pfund; ship: Schiff; two: zwei; shoot: schiessen; ik make: ich mache; ik do: ich tue; three: drei).

Doe dit vaker (Do this more often) Maar wel met deze mensen (But only with these people)

Ooh I'd love to take part in a challenge like this

was ist das bitte für ein geiles Format??