7 Things I LOVE & HATE About German

The German language is beautiful and complicated and amazing and frustrating!!! Here are 7 things I love and hate about the language.
So my question for you is: How do you feel about these thing, and what do you love & hate about English or German or any other language you've learned?
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[@Polisciandfries]

"die der das" sounded weird to me since in German we always list it as "der die das" ...actually such pointless note but it's always listed that way 😂

[@WhiteBlueBavaria]

Der die das, wieso weshalb warum, wer nicht fragt bleibt dumm. :D

[@couch9416]

Natalie Barnes Hab ich mir auch gedacht. Aber das ist auch bei anderen sachen so. z.B. Bei der Tastatur sag ich immer "W,S,A,D" und wenn dann das jemand anders sagt ist das auch komisch

[@sissidieauswanderin]

Natalie Barnes Ja! Stimmt total!

[@gk...]

"die der das" ist halt die feministische Variante. ;)

[@sissidieauswanderin]

Guido ​ Na dann sag ichs ab sofort auch so! 🤓

[@RoonMian]

When I was in the USA on student exchange I tried teaching my class counting in German: Me: "Eins" Class: "Eins" Me: "Zwei" Class: "Sssswei" Me: "Good enough, drei" Class: "Durrei" Me: "Good enough, vier" Class: "Fear?!? D:" Me: "Fünf" Class: "Funf" Me: "Fünf" Class: "Funf" Me: "FÜNF!!!!!" Class: "Fuuuuuuuunf" Me: "I can't deal with this..." :D

[@RoonMian]

Also, Donna... Does Mr. German-Man sometimes just screw with you by breaking into Kölsch? :D

[@UssiTheGrouch]

RoonMian - Dana's the name... 😉

[@RoonMian]

UssiTheGrouch Hoppla. Sorry.

[@austinsays501]

My class always pronounced 'vier' like the English word 'veer', it was so annoying

[@thegrayghost1786]

RoonMian I tried to get my brother to say fünfundzwanzig. foof un swansig. The only thing tricky for me is the German "z" sound. The way it is explained here is a "z" sounds like a "ts" which just can't come out of my mouth.

[@jasperzanovich2504]

As a native german speaker I don't even know most of the grammar rules, I just do them. Same for english actually. I just go with what "sounds" right.

[@spitymaeh]

What I really hate about the German language are the words "Sie" and " Du". It's way better to just use "you". Especially in work life it's always such a pain.

[@DJDoena]

Thou shalt not dumb down language whilst ignoring ye other language subtleties! First off, "you" is "sie", not "du". When you look into a King James bible, you'll find "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour" ("Du sollst nicht falsch Zeugnis reden wider deinen Nächsten"). And even with only the "you", the English language does makes distinctions in rank/familiarity between people. For example, some people are called "Mister" or "Miss" or "Mrs" while others are addressed by their firstname. Others address each other by their lastnames (just think of "Castle" and "Beckett" whose names actually are Richard Castle and Kate Beckett).

[@spitymaeh]

DJDoena Well "thou" is pretty archaic and not used in daily life. It's more simple to just use a single word instead of "Du" and "Sie". And by the way even in huge companies with more than 50k employees all over the world it's pretty common to use the first name with all colleagues even the CTO etc. That's what I experienced in my real work life. No clue about your tv show stuff tho.

[@LuGoddess]

Sie and du is not that complicated, if you want to be formal and respectful use Sie, otherwise use du

[@danielreick9904]

Sie for people you treat with respect. Du for your friends. easy solution....

[@MongolordD]

That is not so hard. "Sie" is always for persons you dont know good and you would not speak about private things. "Sie" is also always used in business emails and letters. "Du" is for friends, family and people you like.

[@bew7192]

one good tip for all learners: compounds always get the gender of the LAST word. der Nachbar + das Haus => DAS Nachbarhaus das Kaninchen + der Bau => DER Kaninchenbau das Auto + der Reifen => DER Autoreifen also when the compound has three words in it: der Wind + der Schutz (=> DER Windschutz) + die Scheibe => DIE Windschutzscheibe das Eis + die Kunst (=> DIE Eiskunst) + der Läufer => DER Eiskunstläufer das Auto + die Bahn (=> DIE Autobahn) + das Kreuz => DAS Autobahnkreuz and so on...

[@jessali_]

There's a simple trick to learning how to correctly pronounce Ü: Just say "eee" (English pronunciation) and while saying it, slowly form your lips as though you were kissing. That should make you say "ü" by default.

[@knotenknutarella301]

Wow, this is perfect! Hope she'll read this comment : )

[@WantedAdventure]

+PotterheadGeeK7 That's a really awesome tip!!! Thanks for sharing it :D

[@heinzk023]

You say numbers backwards in English as well: Namely the the number 13 to 19: You say "Fourteen" and not "Teenfour", so a little rest of this reverse rule is still present in English. But in German, we also do this only for the ten's and one's digit: We say "Einhundertundfünf", and not "Fünf und Hundert". So the same rule which is valid in English for 13 to 19 is applied in German for 13 to 99. Interesting.

[@ulrichlehnhardt4293]

very interesting - never thought of that.

[@Kate-dw7iy]

Yes, she most likely is referring to numbers such as 21 and higher and also more of the way you SPEAK numbers rather than write them. Below that yes, numbers are said in the same sequence as German. Fifteen or Fünfzehn are essentially the same but for both the 1 comes before the 5 when written. The opposite when spoken for every number above 12 until you get to 100.

[@heinzk023]

Yes, as I said: We use it for the one's and tens's digit, which also includes numbers with more than two digits. So we also say: "Eine Million Einundzwanzig", but we never say "EinundzwanzigHundert".

[@NEONightsBOY]

Heinz Kessler Bei Jahreszahlen und Geldbeträgen hört man aber oft "Im Jahr Achtzehnhundertvierzehn (1814)" bzw. "Elfhundert Euro". Vielleicht ist das mit dem Geld auch nur ein Phänomen im süddeutschen Sprachraum wenn man zB 100er-Scheine zählt...

[@chrisrudolf9839]

Bei Jahreszahlen bis 1999 ist das die offizielle Aussprache (abgesehen vom 11. Jahrhundert, das Jahr 1066 ist tausendsechsundsechzig, nicht zehn(hundert)sechsundsechzig). Bei Geld ist es an sich falsch bzw. Umgangssprache, aber in der Tat für Beträge zwischen 1100 und 1999 Euro weit verbreitet.

[@adimikimkoydu]

I love German language so much Because it is so logical in its own way :)

[@MongolordD]

no German language is totally illogical and i say this as a native german. Also french is pretty bad in that regard, lots of exeptions in their grammar rules. Nearly more expetions than rules... English is relative easy to learn, italian even more...

[@danielreick9904]

then you were born in a part of germanic lands, where the logic was not developed? :O German is total logical... French is total logical... English is total simple. :D All 3 languages are just great.

[@adimikimkoydu]

Daniel Reick no my mothertongue does not even belong to indo european language family haha

[@adimikimkoydu]

MongolordD I am not native but i take it as a foreign language class. I like the compound words etc :)

[@LuGoddess]

you must be new to german then, there are so many exceptions to every rule it's almost as if it were completely random and you would have to memotize dozens of words that dont follow that one particular rule

[@99xara99]

Our way to say numbers might not be the easiest but French is definitely worse, I rly hate it 😂 99 = quatre-vingt-dix-neuf, which basically means: four-twenty-ten-nine. Because: 4 x 20 + 10 + 9 = 99 😂 80 is quatre-vingt, so 4x20. Every time I have to read out a number higher than 80, it takes me several seconds to find the right word. In fact it already gets complicated over 70 because there's no word for 70, but it is soixante-dix, so 60+10. You go further with 60+11, 60+12, 60+13 and so on until you reach... well, 4x20 :') Why didnt you just invent a word for 70, 80, 90 frenchies?? 😭😭

[@SimonS44]

DasPikachu in the French-speaking areas of Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg, they say septante (70) and nonante (90) and in Switzerland even huitante (80).

[@99xara99]

SimonHellinger I know :)

[@SimonS44]

Benedicte Hamilton mille neuf cent nonante neuf

[@shelster]

This made me smile. Thanks, DasPikachu! You just made me like German more.

[@99xara99]

Ah yep I know, had to read out my birth date often in school! :D And the ones who can say "deux mille" have such an easy life haha

[@kazemizu6284]

I'm a nativ German speaker, but the german way to say Numbers from 13-99 Drive me crazy. I prefer the English way, because my qay of thinking, the first digit that Pops into my mind is the first one I Read or heard, so it Can happen that I Tell you a number digit by digit because I often confuse the 20/30/.... with the 1/2/3/... part in Numbers when I can't See them

[@spitymaeh]

So what comes into your mind when saying nineteen? German language just doesn't stop it with numbers over 20

[@vigolovesyou]

Kaze Mizu but 10-19 are atually very similiar in German and English e.g.: "ten|zehn" "eleven|elf" "fifteen|fünfzehn"

[@TuxLetsPlay]

Yeah but the thing is that "neunzehn"/"nineteen" has a little different feeling because there is no "und"/"and" in there. It confuses me a lot of times too. Especially when switching between english and german and suddenly you have to switch your numbers around again and WHAAA WHYYY.

[@luisa9999]

Compared to other languages, the german number system is super easy. If you want to say 97 in french, you say "quatre vingt dix-sept" which translates to "four times twenty plus seventeen"

[@jasperzanovich2504]

So true. I hate that when someone calls out numbers for you to write down you have to turn them around first. So just tell me 2 4 6 5 instead of 24 65.

[@tonTeufel]

German is my native language but I hate numbers in German. It's awful, who thought that was a good idea?!

[@spitymaeh]

me

[@danielreick9904]

the saxons, it was their way to count. and as major germanic culture group and conquerors of England and parts of scottland, their way of counting has made it in the languages.

[@darkerarius]

I'm just glad it's irregular (That's something i thought i'd never say) Imagine 8125 was fünfundzwanzigundeinhundertundachttausend...

[@tonTeufel]

darkerarius its just the last two digits, which makes it even more ridiculous

[@danielreick9904]

darkerarius well the saxons never counted far. so the rest was build by writting logic to make it more efficient, I guess.

[@chriskarpetas]

About the numbers bit: English is a germanic language, so one can assume that in the past they shared grammar and structure.

[@danielreick9904]

yap and it makes all of this family easy to learn for us =)

[@HeresorLegacy]

You mean "part" of the English language is Germanic. Mix in Latin and Celtic and BOOM, you have the English Language. But yes, since most of the English population is Anglo-Saxon, which is derived from the Angles and the Saxons, which were Germanic tribes.

[@danielreick9904]

Heresor languages will be put into this scales. I hate it too... but it's how language scientists do it... the same is for french, but their they say its latin, but it has nearly the same structure than English... All that counts for me: *FRENCH, ENGLISH, GERMAN, DUTCH* are one big, happy and great family. I can read or listen and understand all of them without hard training. So I love *this family* :D

[@craigchristensen]

Don't forget to mix in French for modern English you wouldn't have the weird spellings without it.

[@imrehundertwasser7094]

Yes, the French influence in English produces some quite weird words, perhaps because it was a rather old kind of French. Try reading an official blazon (the description of a coat of arms): "Gules three lions passant guardant in pale Or armed and langued azure." That's the Royal Arms of England.

[@Nireigam]

I really like your Videos about the german Language. They show me sides of it, that I, as a German, never recognized, and make me love the Language even more. There is one word, that my sister and I ever gave the wrong gender noun to, when we were Kids. And that is "der Krake". We always said "die Krake". I think that happend, because most words, that end with an "e" are feminin. Even today "Der Krake" still sounds kind of strange to me, although I'll get 36 years old next week ^.^

[@pudo1312]

Nireigam ich glaube man kann beides sagen

[@pudo1312]

Nireigam www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Krake

[@sissidieauswanderin]

Nireigam Sag doch einfach "Tintenfisch"!!!😂

[@Nireigam]

the Pudo Hmm OK, mein Rechtschreibduden sagt nur "der". Aber auf der Seite steht ja, dass es sich bei "die Krake" um Umgangssprache handelt. Sprache verändert sich halt. Und wenn etwas oft auf eine bestimmte Weise falsch gesagt wird, wird das irgendwann auch offiziell übernommen... und somit wird es dann richtig :)

[@Nireigam]

***** Das könnte ich natürlich tun. Aber Kraken sind ja eine bestimmte Gattung der Tintenfische. Das wäre, als würde ich einen Orang-Utan einfach Menschenaffe nennen, oder eine Ratte Altweltmaus :)

[@k1ngjulien_]

Am I the only one who thinks Dana looks like the mom from Malcom in the Middle in this video?

[@ImmerIchGewesen]

No, you're not the only one thinking this :D

[@sneakyrabbit3465]

I think she looks like a mix of Bridget Moynihan, Kathryn Hahn, and Anne Hathaway. LOL

[@AvailableUsernameTed]

"Sing a song of six pence / a pocket full of rye / *four and twenty* blackbirds / baked in a pie."

[@WormyMaster]

It's really interesting to see what kind of problems people have with their own language. Some americans seem to have problems with your and you're, while a LOT of germans have problems with das and dass.

[@asdewrt]

WormyMasterTV It actually makes me furious when I see people writing 'denn' instead of 'den'.

[@jasperzanovich2504]

Ferry and fairy.

[@danielreick9904]

seid and seit is way more funny issue. :D

[@Finkelfunk]

I personally don't really think "das" and "dass" are the biggest problems. I think "seit" and "seid" is the way bigger epidemic in German.

[@danielreick9904]

Finkel - Funk hey! thats what I said :D

[@coal_91]

The way we germans say numbers is annoying. Most of the times if you're telling a Friends à telephone number for example, you Tell them 21 (Einundzwanzig), they will dial/Type the 1 first. Thats why we always tell larger numbers like telephone numbers digit by digit.

[@starblomma]

That's exactly what I was thinking. Also writing down numbers by hand is annoying, because you either have to wait until the complete number was said or leave some free space in front of the first number you write down

[@DJDoena]

What we call arabic ciphers 0..9 actually comes from India. But we learned it from the arabic world on its cultural height (~1200 AD). And arabic is written from right to left. So for them it makes sense to say 9+80 because they write the 9 first and then to the left the 8 = 89.

[@SuppenDfg]

In some cases it makes sense to start with the least significant digits. If you write numbers in fields on forms or tables it is common to write them right aligned so that digits with the same significance are written right under each other. In these cases it makes sense to write from right to left. Of course there is the question why the scheme is changed for numbers greater than 99.

[@KatherineGreyhunter]

when it comes to phone numbers they usually just say separate digits

[@kittycat1064]

I have definitely heard numbers said like that in period dramas and books/movies set in about 1800s England. For example, in Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth says she is "not more than one and twenty" years of age (or something like that), saying she is not yet twenty-one years old.

[@DJDoena]

Here's a fact about numbers: Many languages have individual words for numbers up to 12. And even English uses the 5-and-10 system up to nine-teen. Why 12 you ask if we have 10 fingers and nowadays we use the decimal system? Because 12 is what is called an anti-prime. A prime, if you remember your school days, is a number that can only be divided by itself and 1, for example 19 or 47. An anti-prime has loads of divisors. 12 has 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 12. 10 has only 1, 2, 5 and 10. 12 items in German is a "Dutzend", in English a "dozen". A dozen dozen in German is a "Gros", in Enlish a "gross". 144 has the following divisors: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 12, 16, 18, 24, 36, 48, 72 and 144. The reason for this is because it easy to use these numbers in trade. You can order a dozen, half a dozen, a quarter dozen and so forth. To this day most cakes get cut into 12 (or 16, but not 10) pieces. That's why our clock has 24 hours to the day (1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12 and 24) and 60 minutes to the hour (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, 30 and 60). And that's why in most languages all numbers up to 12 (and not 10) have individual words for them.

[@maryonnaise5333]

This was SO interesting! Thank you.

[@megicappel]

DJDoena Wow, I never noticed that before. Thanks very much!

[@Markus_Abrach]

Never used and heared of 1/4 dozen, but 1/2 dozen often, for eggs f.e.

[@merk389]

"Anti-Prime"? Did I just find another Numberphile viewer? :D

[@xscaped]

I applaud everyone who goes through studying German. Many Germans do not even know their own language perfectly.

[@AndDiracisHisProphet]

About the "word constructing". I often watch american TV shows (but dubbed 'cause I'm lazy), and sometimes people have an argument in which someone says something and the other side replies "That isn't even a word", or so. And I always think, what does that even mean? Not a word? He said it, so he constructed it, so it obviously is!

[@seandrewlog]

Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen ect. are a holdover from the time when we in English said the smaller unit before the bigger one. Teen is a bastardisation of ten. hope that helps!

[@WantedAdventure]

+Sean Logan Good point!! I hadn't thought of that, but yeah, it makes sense.

[@4618Justine8164]

Playing Scrabble in german can be tricky because you can make up your own words. You always have to discuss if you allow specific combinations...

[@WantedAdventure]

+Justine könig oooh good point!! Hadn't thought of that. But yeah, that's definitely a game changer.

[@profsimon-gm6qd]

oooh your hairstyle looks so cute! you're looking so much different but in agood way. love your channel! have a nice pre-christmas time! greetings prof.

[@Andeavor]

Germans don't speak so fast? Come to Switzerland and you'll know just how fast they speak. Also, for the ü-sound just say the English "e" or German "i" and make a duck face.

[@SnorriSnibble]

Andeavor yeah, I actually thought that german was a pretty fast language (not as fast as spanish though 😅). When I was an exchange student in england I spoke german with one of my classmates and the english students just looked at us and said "wow, you're speaking really fast!" because they tried to understand what we were saying but they couldn't.

[@buciallstar]

Andeavor Swiss aren't Germans. Heck, Swiss people are offended if you call them German.

[@danielreick9904]

in fact all "Germans" are offended if you call them German. because there is no German culture. there is only a germanic culturegroup a family of cultures. this family also includes dutch, swiss and austrian. Therefor you are right Swiss aren't German, but they are Germanic, which might have been what Andeavor ment. =)

[@danielreick9904]

i won't work... if somebody say "iber" for "über" I'm not sure if I can prevent my laughting. Better tipp would be to just split the umlaut off again... and make it an ue. if she tries spelling it like a german u and add the e sound in the end, she nearly have it... thats the origin how the umlauts (ä, ö, ü) were created and will work well. =)

[@GVRCLaTeX]

Still no comparison to the spanish spoken in cuba or chile.' But you have a point - the nicer endings of the words in swiss german (partly in austrian german too) allows to speak faster.

[@dcseain]

Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie.

[@markmeiermeiersen1120]

What you do...I love it. You really get the idea of enrichment by different cultures and the beauty within. Let's all be one big team:D Please keep it up:)

[@dirksommer4896]

Hi Dana! Thank you, your videos are, as always, a pleasure to watch! About the numbers... I am pretty sure that the numbers are written "three-and-twenty" and so on in the novel "Rob Roy" by Sir Walter Scott. So it might have shifted between then and now... That's really quite fascinating, and if you get any definite info about it, I'd love to hear about it!

[@geert1583]

I'm Dutch and learned English and German. I love the false friends but also words that are all the same in these closely related languages: English: German: Dutch sea Meer zee lake See meer shop Geschäft winkel corner Winkel hoek train Zug trein German Deutsch Duits Dutch Niederlandisch Nederlands English Englisch Engels tree Baum boom The Der de

[@WantedAdventure]

+Geert Omta Yeah, that is really interesting! And I learned a new German word there -- Winkel for corner. I only knew of "Ecke" for that. Thanks :D

[@lights3589]

Wanted Adventure I am german and I have actually never heard of the word 'Winkel' as translation for 'corner'. I thought the word 'angle' was the correct translation for 'Winkel'...

[@LETMino85]

Lara CherryBerry yepp, Winkel is angle ;)

[@geert1583]

Wanted Adventure +Lara CherryBerry You're totally right. I made a mistake. It's confusing but also again interesting: The word corner (German: Ecke) and Angle (German: Winkel) are two different words in both English and German, but in Dutch there's only one word for it: Hoek.

[@LETMino85]

Geert Omta thats so interesting! also that "Meer" is lake in Dutch and "Zee" is sea. What happened there? :D One would assume that it is the other way round, due to it's closeness to German.

[@Nabend1402]

There is definitely a connection between English and German numbers. You still say the numbers between 13 and 19 backwards, just like we do.

[@JoeGomez1]

I liked your Video a lot and also all the comments it has generated !!! Maybe more videos on Language ?

[@sarahroth4476]

I Love you so much!! You make my day Better!!! 💗💖

[@DidrickNamtvedt]

When I studied German in high school here in Norway, I always got "die", "der" and "das" mixed up and to this day I'm still not sure when to use which one. Seeing as we don't have gendered nouns in Norwegian or English, it's not something I tend to remember very well, so if I were to have a conversation with another German in their language, I'd hope they would correct my mistake of mixing up the gendered nouns lol. What I do like about German that you also mention is the pace at which it is spoken, it is easy to follow for the most part and it's spoken fast enough for me to understand it. Spanish and most other Romance languages are spoken insanely fast, making them nearly impossible to follow but German and the other Germanic languages are all being spoken at a good pace that makes them understandable for learners on most levels.

[@jessali_]

As a German who's been studying Danish for 3 years now, I wouldn't necessarily agree with you on the pace of Germanic languages. Danish is virtually impossible for me to understand if spoken at its "regular" pace. Idk what it's like in Norwegian though, but since Norwegian is derived from Danish, I imagine it's similar. ;)

[@DidrickNamtvedt]

I see what you mean. I should've said that most Germanic languages are spoken at an understandable pace but of course, some accents and dialects can vary. I can see how Danish can seem too fast to understand. We had many friends from Denmark in my household when I grew up so it almost became a second mother tongue for me in a way and I did speak it fluently for a few years as a kid but it's a bit more rusty nowadays although I can still speak it well for the most part. Norwegian and Swedish both sound "clearer" than Danish and both of these languages are spoken in a very comfortable pace when it comes to most dialects but there are exceptions of course where you really have to pay close attention to what people are saying.

[@peterfireflylund]

But you *do* have gendered nouns in Norwegian! You have two or three of them, depending on the dialect. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_language#Nouns

[@DidrickNamtvedt]

That's true, we have "en" and "ei" (countables) and the suffixes "en" and "a" (masculine and feminine pronouns) but in my dialect we always say "en" (countable) and "en" (masculine for definite form) so that's why I forgot about the gendered nouns in the other dialects in our language. It's still very confusing with "die", "der" and "das" in German for learners from Norway as it seems a bit more extreme for us.

[@fimbul1088]

So which dialects do omit the feminine form? Been learning norsk for much of a year now and I love that you can tell where the author of norwegian scripture comes from, not just the speaker. Like with the æ instead of jeg for trøndersk. Germans tend to write high german, even if they speak in their local dialect.

[@freyjasvansdottir9904]

Why is your name not pronounced Day-na but rather Dah-na? By the way I am Icelandic and Icelandic and German grammar is very similar so german comes relatively easy to me.

[@DakotaAbroad]

She mentioned that in a video before and I'm not 100% positive I'm correct but I BELIEVE she said it was the Czech pronunciation which is what her ancestry is?

[@WantedAdventure]

Yep! That's the reason. I mentioned it in my Q&A video kzbin.info/www/bejne/b3yvaZt6jbZ6Z8k :) Interesting to hear Icelandic and German grammar are similar! I didn't realize that.

[@jesusgonzalez6715]

Freyja Svansdóttir I think most Germanic languages started with a similar grammar but they changed a lot. Most notably English which got rid of most cases, grammatical gender and other features. German and Icelandic are I think both much more conservative. Perhaps due to their relative isolation

[@freyjasvansdottir9904]

Jesus Gonzalez I can agree with you about Iceland being relatively isolated but Germany? It's literally in the middle of Europe, it borders Denmark, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, France, the Czech Republic, Lichtenstein and Poland if I am not mistaken, maybe Belgium too...

[@jesusgonzalez6715]

Yes, but Germany has been a political backwater for most of the last 2000 years. Unlike England where tons of invaders brought French and stuff

[@karinka5658]

Hi, I'm coming from germany and I recently came across your videos. Love them! 💛 About the numbers thing : A short while ago I read the Jane Austen books in english and there also she says five and twenty. I wondered the same thing...

[@MUtley-rf8vg]

I created the most awesome sentence today in German to practice my R's: *_"Die geförderten Lehrerinnen registrieren die Terroristen"_* Good luck getting that one out ;)

[@MUtley-rf8vg]

yuffi81 Ohh, there are layers there. Are the students the terrorists? What exactly are they being registered for? And who is supporting the teachers? ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

[@MUtley-rf8vg]

Do they teach terrorism? I hadn't even considered that. Mind blown.

[@SheratanLP]

Ehrlich gesagt verstehe ich den Satz nicht. Geförderten ? Von wen gefördert ? Und was hat das mit den Terroristen zu tun ? Stände da, "die geforderten Lehrerinnnen", dann würde es noch Sinn machen, denn man ist schon ganz schön gefordert, wenn plötzlich Terroristen ist der Schule rumlaufen. Aber "geförderten" macht hier im Satz eigentlich keinen Sinn.

[@MUtley-rf8vg]

yuffi81 _Es ist ein Satz zum Üben für jemanden, der Deutsch lernt. Und ö ist da schwieriger als o_ Genau. Der Umlaut macht das Wort viel schwieriger. Naja, für einen Amerikaner wie mich.

[@MUtley-rf8vg]

yuffi81 _Dein Deutsch ist schon sehr gut, jedenfalls das geschriebene :-D._ Haha... Danke, ich versuche.

[@Isarnwolf]

Just blame Luther. I do it all the time.

[@kristoffkiefer3791]

Hey Dana, you can find an english occurrence of reading the numbers like this in the Lord of the Rings. And the reason the numbers are read backwards is probably because they are arabic and thus read from the right. I think that we germans stop at the hundreds' place is probably just that we have already gotten rid of that anomaly half way. Now that I think about it I remember that in true classical arabic numbers were in fact read completely from right to left. (five and twenty and hundred) but for ease of use they have forgone that and/or adapted to western use.

[@HIMzone666returns]

what about the rolling r? can you use it? i can't :D. it is not used in the region where I live and I never learned to say the rolling R xD

[@metallicbonsai7981]

Hey, Dana! Can you post where you got that chart please? :)

[@Madrinass]

As a native speaker i still mix up 78 and 87 no idea why

[@TJGermany]

In Arabic it's the same way to say the numbers. I find it annoying. Especially if someone tells you a phone number. Which phone accepts the numbers backwards???

[@tomatensalat7420]

Yes, phone numbers are the worst. I always get confused if someone doesn't just spell them out in order.

[@TJGermany]

oggi mog Sometimes I do it though, to get back at those people ^^

[@dominicschmidt8275]

I love German because we love to make very long words.

[@dominicschmidt8275]

Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz

[@bjoern_niklas]

Its the law to delegate the duty of supervising the labeling of beef. So its the Cow-meat-labeling-supervising-duty-delegating-act (hope I got that right :D)

[@dominicschmidt8275]

Niklas B that's correct!

[@aka99]

and then we make Abkürzungen ;D THW; TÜV; and many many more. In germany during nazi reign there was an award, the knights cross of the iron cros with golden oakleves, swords and brilliants. not on word, but offical term of the award :D

[@bjoern_niklas]

RflEttÜAÜG and RkReÜAÜG were the official abbreviations of the (Rinderkennzeichnungs- und) Rindfleisch­etikettierungs­überwachungs­aufgaben­übertragungs­gesetz :D

[@shannonyoung1416]

I loved learning Spanish at school because it's pretty simple actually but once we started with different tenses it got really tricky xD thank you for your videos! I enjoy your positive character. You always make me smile :)

[@Doughnut52]

An old English nursery rhyme, Dana. Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye, four and twenty blackbirds, baked in a pie, when the pie was opened, the birds began to sing, oh what a dainty dish to set before the king. All school kids used to learn this but I don't know if they still do.

[@kwaobenti]

+StumbleUK I remember that nursery rhyme from my childhood in England in the 60s too! Wikepedia says it originates in the 18th century so it kinda suggests that the "four and twenty" may have been the way that numbers were spoken at that time in England. And at some point it got switched around! PS Blackbird pie? I can't see how blackbirds would start singing if they were baked in a pie! Isn't it weird the stuff we used to sing about in nursery rhymes as kids! LOL!

[@jurgenderubergangster8681]

not only the numbers, but the whole English language is connected to German. both are west germanic language, like 1000 years ago both languages sounded roughly the same :)

[@imrehundertwasser7094]

One-and-twenty is like the way 21 is said and written in several other Germanic languages, German, Danish and so on. Twenty-one, twenty-two etc. is like French (vingt-et-un, vingt-deux), only the French have an additional "et" in 21. So I guess English adopted the current way of saying these numerals from French, just like a lot of the modern English vocabulary comes from (medieval) French because the Normans who conquered England in 1066 spoke French.

[@WantedAdventure]

+Imre Hundertwasser Thanks for your take on it and the feedback! I've never studied French, but I saw a few other comments mentioning that in French there is also a pretty interesting way of constructing some numbers. "Quatre-vingt-dix-neuf" & "quatre-veint-dix sept" for example. Glad English didn't go for that construction!! :D

[@iwhitted]

Imre Hundertwasser it could also be from the Scandinavian languages (from times when Vikings occupied England). In Swedish and Norwegian, you just build your numbers like tjugoett (21) or sjuttiosju (77). And notice in sjuttio that seventy is just seven and ten put together. These rules aren't the same in Danish because they do the same thing Germans do: femoghalvtreds (five and fifty). I also only gave Swedish numbers because I don't actually know the numbers in Norwegian, I've just seen them before in passing, but I speak Swedish.

[@mariem8106]

Hey Dana. Love your Videos. Makes me think about my own languages. I believe you've Heard the order of the numbers in Addition to the roman language 2000 years ago. X was ten, IV is 4 i believe.

[@MeneerHeydrich]

Your new hairdress is soo cute! Beautiful, Dana!

[@nerdbot4446]

der/die/das for sure. For so many words it doesn't make sense at all. I can't even construct a case where the gender of german words helps in a sentence to understand/differentiate something But as someone that grew up with german as motherlanguage if there is only a single of these randomly associated genders in a sentence not used correctly, it sounds sooo wrong... Hm, I guess such a error detection has everyone for their native language in the head

[@blade4240]

- old joke - during the day: das Korn, der Weizen in the evening: der Korn, das Weizen

[@masterandii]

Hi Dana, There are lots of linguistic phenomena that appear in English as well as in German. For example: in Shakespeare, it was still very common to ask the question: "Would you speak with me?" which actually does not correspond to modern English "Would you like to talk to me?" but rather to "Did you want to talk to me?". This is still the Germanic form and can be compared to modern German as in "Wolltest du mit mir sprechen?" . Even the word order of subject and verb was completely the same in German and English back in the days. And if you go back even further, there is even much more to notice about the things that both languages have in common. I really love those parallels, which is why I decided to study English and its history. Until next time! Auf Wiedersehen :-)

[@danielreick9904]

then be happy for the years 462 and 1066 these explain you why all this paralells ;)

[@pummysworld369]

The English language has germanic roots, of course. One of those is the old Saxon, and so the leftovers of this language in The Netherlands and Northern Germany, usually called Platt", are still similar to English dialects. I met a lot of guys in Eastern Frisia, that told me, the only needed about 6 or 8 weeks, to understand and speak Platt. (Which is only helpful in the Platt spoken areas, because the "Germans" have their difficulties with it. Locals called me a "Duitsen" in Emden, which means "German" - they regard themselves as Frisian)

[@glorifyenjoy]

The cases have always been the most difficult for me, and how all the words with their proper cases go together. Such a pain when so many other aspects of the language which you mentioned are easy and fun! I love the numbers too, and if I count to 100, I can sound fluent, so I love that! LOL The pronunciation isn't so much a problem for me because I had an aunt teach me some German she learned from my Oma. Thank you for your videos, Dana. You are so sweet and fun!

[@dirksommer4896]

Hi Dana! Thank you, your videos are, as always, a pleasure to watch! About the numbers... I am pretty sure that the numbers are written "three-and-twenty" and so on in the novel "Rob Roy" by Sir Walter Scott. So it might have shifted between then and now... That's really quite fascinating, and if you get any definite info about it, I'd love to hear about it! I just looked it up. For example, Scott uses the words: "...a young man of two-and-twenty was likely to be severely critical on a beautiful girl of eighteen..." in chapter 6.

[@MrsPunkella]

Oh and btw. I always try to explain the ü to foreigners with the example of "lyrics". The "y" sound in there is so similar to ü

[@sissidieauswanderin]

Whatsername Amerikaner denken dass jedes deutsche "u" ein "ü" ist! LOL!!!

[@MrsPunkella]

Haha wirklich? :D Dann müssen sie wohl noch viel lernen ^^

[@sissidieauswanderin]

Whatsername Ich glaub nicht, dass sie es lernen wollen LOL!

[@xxhp6xx]

LOOOOOOL ROOOFFFLLLL

[@InsideIsVoid]

Whatsername Nun, das stimmt aber nicht. Im deutschen klingt das Y in Lyrik zwar wie ein ü, im englischen aber nicht. Das englische y in lyric ist eher wie ein kurzes deutsches i. Es gibt den ü laut in der englischen Sprache überhaupt nicht, sie müssen ihn ganz neu lernen. Genau wie Deutsche mit dem th.

[@DanJan09]

About Numbers: It's the stupidest thing ever! We should reform it asap. In Norway they did in 1951. So why not today?! Basically, for the Germanic people it made sense. Because they wrote the one digits with "I's" and the two digits with "X's" (IXX=21). But then the Arabic numbers where introduced and now two systems are mixed. We are speaking the Germanic way and writing the Arabic way. a good article about it: blog.zeit.de/mathe/allgemein/zahlen-sprechweise-deutsch-englisch/ PS. Imho the French should also reform there system. And the American should finally switch to metric!

[@hgzmatt]

zwanzig eins.. zwanzig zwei.. zwanzig drei.. not very elegant

[@DanJan09]

only because yo are always hearing the other version. I also think the better way would be 'zwanzig und eins' because we already always use the 'and'. That's the think we could keep. And it would go away with time, naturally :)

[@pudo1312]

DanJan09 Bitte NICHT !

[@pummysworld369]

No fuzzing with numbers! It's so confusing! We just number out any numbers beside Count Numbers and b happy with that.

[@torreyinwi]

DanJan09 Definitely no to switching to metric system. I'll keep using the standard system. If it's not broken, why fix it, as the saying goes.

[@ninamaric9730]

es bereitet mir freude deine videos zu schauen :) hahah ich liebe die umlaute ;-) sie machen die sprache erst würzig, findest du nicht?

[@amygiess8906]

I sometimes say 5 and 20 to 5 etc when referring to the time, my grandparents use to say it like that.

[@kelalumeria6022]

I hate the number thing and I am german🙈

[@couch9416]

Julia Kela Französich ist schlimmer 😰

[@slash_me]

Four-Twenty-Ten-Eight. yes, of course that's 98.

[@vlryzc]

Julia Kela Better than quatre-vingt-dix-neuf, it's french and means ninty-nine. (I'm German too xD)

[@FoxMcLoud1984]

I really like american english. It is way more understandable than british english.

[@sylverscale]

FoxMcLoud1984 I think that totally depends on the region. Some British accents are hard to understand, as are some US ones. But most of the time we get BE presented as being more clear while AE is supposed to be more mumbled which is something I found not to be true. Generally I think that the AE that is supposed to be understood by everyone (e.g. news) is easier to understand than the BE version.

[@seeadler3233]

Speaking of British accents , Darling Dana drops her " tt " when pronouncing " written " at 6:06 , 6:15 ,6:30 , 6:32 ,6:36 . Eigentlich ganz charmant ! Would that be a regional Brit. accent ?

[@elliotsmith9623]

Adler H Nein, sie ist Amerikanerin. Das machen die meisten Amerikaneren / Amerikanerinnen.

[@Sharkmillian91]

I have problems to pronounce "thr" in English, so I can't really say "through" "threw" and "throw" or "throughout"

[@ciaw2933]

I recently noticed the reverse number thing in english in one of the Sherlock Holmes stories...appears to be used only occasionally...how funny you're talking about this right now!

[@Julia-vc1lc]

I actually hate the number thing 😐 once a week I help kids with there homework and they have such a big problem with it they 47 is the 74 to them and the 69 is the 96. it's so unlogical to say the last number first and they don't really understand it for a long time.

[@danielreick9904]

well they must go through it. because the logic was back in ancient times. when they put down a stick to remember 10 and counted with fingers. Then they first saw their fingeres named the number and looked down on the sticks to add these. Back then this procedure was logical. but in fact the numbers didnt get very high. But to continue the logic the highnumbers were created up to 100. after it the 100 and 1000 were added in front to make it more logical.... Maybe if you explain them how it was created they can understand it faster, don't know I'm just a crazy student at highschool which loves such stuff. but you are the teacher. :D

[@Vortagh]

I absolutely HATE the pronunciation "rules" of English. You change the first letter of a word and suddenly you have two words, that are the absolute same - except the first letter - and suddenly it's something completely different - AAAARGH! And stuff like "superfluous"! It's CLEARLY *super* *fluous*. NOT, however, suPERfluOUS. GAH"! Just ask Mr German Man, how it should be pronounced. He will agree, I bet. :p

[@Koenig_Luiz]

Vortagh well German isn't any better, sure your English example is correct but the German words Laden and Baden share similar problems. They are pronounced similarly only one consonant is changed and yet when u write them in a sentence Mein Handy lädt. Mein Mann ist am baden oder badet gerade. It's not Bädt or the other way around ladet. So that's hard to remember as well and that's just one of the many examples.

[@DJDoena]

On the other hand you have six cases in Russian. Ja nje ponemaju! ;-)

[@imrehundertwasser7094]

One thing I found interesting about Russian is that adjectives based on persons seem to be used a lot. E. g. "Pushkinskij dom", IIRC that would be the Pushkin House in English or Puschkin-Haus in German. "Pushkinskij" is an adjective however, so the literal translation into German would be Puschkinsches Haus. These adjectives based on persons exist in German too (or you can easily make them up), but they are rarely used. I guess you could make up an adjective like "Pushkinian" in English.

[@sarahsaharasarah2015]

Has someone else problems to pronounce the difference between w and v or the 'soft' g at the end of a word ?

[@lenieule2933]

Dana, du siehst in diesem Video besonders hinreißend aus 🙂

[@faantasticas]

"my die Lehrerin is better than my der Lehrherr" 😅😅😅

[@hihp]

Hey Dana... did you ever have troubles with "false friends", i.e. words that are spelled similar in both German and English, but mean something different? E.g. Direktor vs. director, Mode vs. mode or Probe vs. probe?

[@mickffm]

love your vids a lot. and you dropped the t again in saying wi´´tin :-)

[@Saki_Yukawa]

aaaah no one says die der das xD it's der die das xD i mean it's not wrong but it's just so.... aaaaaargh i don't know. but nice that you like so much :D

[@danielreick9904]

it's so, because of tradition: you name masculine, then feminime, then genderless (childish)... der Vater, die Mutter, das Kind. ---> der, die, das.

[@_vany_unicorn_k4319]

I'm a german but my Parents are polish and I sometimes have the der die das Problem 😂

[@FranzSdoutz]

There is a simple solution to this dilemma: Just pronounce the first letter "D". Talk fast and almost no one will notice. d' Bus d' Frau d' Haus

[@soundofeighthooves]

if your parents are polish you are polish too my friend

[@jasperzanovich2504]

+soundofeighthooves Nope, by german law you are a german citizen when you are born and raised in germany. Since 2014 you can also keep both citizenships, that might change again soon though and you'll have to make a choice when you turn 23.

[@InsertTruthHere]

_vany_unicorn _k I'm sure someone patented polish before you. ;)

[@InsertTruthHere]

Jasper Zanovich It didn't used to be this easy.

[@GNU_Linux_for_good]

03:39 but.. how about an example? *Schifffahrtsaktiengesellschaft* ;-P

[@ktgs6723]

One thing (that has probably been mentioned already in the comments): declension is for adjectives and conjugation is for verbs.

[@LuriTV]

too bad the composites seems to become extinct especially in KZbin-commentaries. Too many People don't bother anymore to write words together that belongs together. In Germany we have a word for it: "idiots blank" or "Deppenleerzeichen" in german

[@jesusgonzalez6715]

LuriTV only topped in idiocy by the Deppenapostroph...

[@IchOdaNich]

Try to pronounce my last name

[@dianeth73]

Hi Dana, What did you find the most helpful in learning the language? Courses, or just conversation or online? I was considering taking a course, but I would be starting from scratch.

[@cedros_]

+Diane Healy, Hello, I'm German and have the following advice for you (based on my experience with foreign languages): If you haven't had any experience with learning a language yet, I'd say courses are essential to get you started, mainly because you have to "learn how to learn a language" first. Basically, you need to learn, what to do, when you encounter something you find "odd" or "unusual" during your studies and how to spot such things in the first place. For me, this was the hardest thing, when I started learning English, because you are simply not used to pay attention to certain aspects of grammar, if they don't exist in your mother tongue. If you already have some experience with foreign languages, you can also teach the basics to yourself with books and/or online couses like Duolingo. Keep in mind though, that Duolingo can't make your pronunciation correct, you need the help of a fluent speaker for that. Also, I wouldn't recommend Duolingo, if you have never learned a foreign language before, because even though the explanation on grammar are usually pretty good, you will probably have difficulties understanding grammatical concepts, that don't exist in your own language. After those basics, the only thing you really need is practice. I is impotant, that you have someone to correct your mistakes though (e.g. a teacher, a native speaker, or someone who also learn the same language). Personally, the three most helpful things for me were: 1. Watching TV shows and movies in the foreign language and trying to follow the plot as well as possible. For that I paused every few minutes and tried to summarize everything that happend since the last pause. If I couldn't, I watched it again and again with subtitles turned on, until I could do it. 2. Translating text for a Wikia wiki. This helped me immensely; I always read a paragraph, tried to write the a paragraph with the same content in my own mother language and then compared the two again in order to potentially understand differences in sentence structure and grammar better. (Be careful with that though, there might be copyright issues! If you are not sure, ask before you do this!) 3. It may sound strange, but: Start talking to yourself, when you are at home. (You may also talk to yourself on the subway, but strangers might think you are crazy then ;) ) Since most of the time, you won't have someone around, who speaks or learns the language you learn, just talk to yourself about any random stuff you do, want to do or plan to do. Try to say everything you usually think in English out loud in the language you want to learn. (Things like: "Ok, my plans for today are: Going to my doctors appointment at 9am and then [...]"). This one was probably the most important one. And the best thing about it: You can start with that pretty early on. Just look everything up everytime you are not sure, how to say something. And don't be frustrated, if this happens; it doesn't mean, you are still bad, but rather, that you are making progress every time, you have to look something up ;) Also, ask people to correct you as often as possible, both in written and in spoken language. Many people won't do this, because it might be considered impolite, which only makes makes you repeat those mistakes over and over again. Personally, I have learned English (quite fluent, but I still have trouble saying "squirrel" xD ), Latin (quite good), Spanish (able to have conversation on a basic level), Esperanto (almost fluent; it's a really beautiful language, very easy to learn, and can actually help you a lot, if you want to learn another language afterwards) and some Russian (not much yet; I just started a few weeks ago). Of course, everybody learns languages differently, those are just some of my own experiences and techniques I found particularly useful. I hope I could help at least a little, good luck and have a pleasant day! :)

[@dianeth73]

Wow Cedros thanks so so much for all of this advice! Very very helpful and much appreciated! :)

[@Germanskills]

Great video, just shared it and curious to see what my group has to add on the love/hate relationship with German :) Btw. +Wanted Adventure, I think you are right about the history behind the numbers. Since, we all use the Arabic numeric system, I think historically some languages also tend to read them "backwards" (just like the Arabic language is written from right to left) :)

[@googlebewerter8951]

So Funny for germans 😂😂

[@danielreick9904]

Wait, you are interessted in Languages, but you don't know that English is a Germanic language? How is that possible?? English was created by an Anglo-Saxon expedition. (They were warriors and freed England from the "highlanders" in 460 AC. They got not payed so they conquered England, their tongue was the germanic Anglish. In 1066 the normans (a germanic frankish tribe from Normandy, France conquered England and brought some latin influence) this made English like it is today. replacing anglish words through norman words, like rainshade (Anglish) was replaced by umbrella (latin: ombrella)) So you see there is a reason why you might have seen german numberstyle in english documents :) Fun Fact: As native English: Germanic languages as German, Dutch, Africans and French are easy to learn. Except for German they are all listed as cathegory 1 languages by the US embassady school. If you want a challenge: Try arabic, chineese, or japaneese... they are listed as cathegory 4 and 5 languages for native English-speakers. :) Disclaimer: I list French as Germanic, because it was way more influenced by Germanic cultures than latin ones, and has in fact only 30 % of pure latin in it. But language historians are even more inaccurate than historians, so ya keep telling people French is a latin language with that construct: 60% Germanic Frankish, 10 % Celtic Breton, 30 % latin french. ;)

[@aka99]

www.hs-augsburg.de/~harsch/germanica/Chronologie/d_chrono.html and www.hs-augsburg.de/~harsch/anglica/Chronology/e_chrono.html

[@danielreick9904]

aka99 was soll das spamen? als ob die augsburger iwas wissen würden xD

[@aka99]

spamen?? hast du mal reingeklickt? da gibt es deutsche texte und englische teyte vom 8 bis29 jahrhundert :)

[@constantingro7638]

Having studied Spanish has helped me a lot in being able to read and understand French, while being a German native speaker hadn't... Also, comparing grammatical structures and word roots, I would still go with the majority of linguists and say that French is clearly a Romanic language.

[@danielreick9904]

aka99 die sind aber uninteressant, weil du dass schon an anderer Stelle gepostet hattest. Mehrmals das gleiche posten nennt man spammen. Also pechgehabt... Und jetzt her mit meinem Dosenfleisch... :D

[@robertleivonen6116]

Dana, do you speak Czech or any other languages? (I recall you said you had Czech heritage)

[@teeds88]

since you have a Czech heritage, you'd be interested to know that numbers in Czech can be constructed both ways, forwards and backwards ;) (like twenty-one and one-and-twenty) and both are correct and sound good.

[@caityboo7829]

You hate it😰 du Bockwurst!!!😂

[@sigutjo]

You're right numbers have been said the same way in english once. I notice that every time i watch a Jane Austen movie or read one of the books. You can find it in "Pride and Prejudice" and in "Emma".

[@hugomf]

It was complicated for me first the numbers because when you have i.e. 321 you have to say: '300 1 & 20', and I guess it is still hard when someone tells me a number and I have to write it down.

[@christianhorauf9958]

i like in English that you can turn any noun into a verb by adding "ing" after it. e.g. hovercrafting computering etc

[@hayhay603]

I believe at some point in english we did say numbers backwards! In choir we did a spanish carol translated into english. Instead of singing "on december twenty-fifth" we sang "on december five and twenty"! So in a alot of translation cases we do say them backwards

[@kathyh8047]

if you have trouble with the uvular "R", consider trying the alveolar trill (or front-rolled) "R"? they're mutually replaceable, even if the rolled version is slightly more marked for region

[@Obigrobi666]

I was thinking about the thing with the numbers lately and I was asking myself why it is thirteen, fourteen and fifteen in english but then also twentythree, twentyfour and twentyfive.

[@Kittyxandra19]

I feel your frustration! Die, der, and das plus all the conjugations is super hard! I've been learning German for over 5 years now and I still feel like I have so much more to work on. I have the vocabulary of a 7 year old and I'm still stuck on grammar. And I totally get you with the R pronunciation. I love German but it is so complicated.

[@christianvanenckevort4209]

On the topic of long German words: I just saw this article www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/austrias-word-year-has-52-letters-180961375/ on the word of the year in Austria which has 52 letters...

[@keepXonXrockin]

I find that immersion helps the memorising of irregular grammatical phenomena - because you're not actively memorising, but things just stick when you hear them every day. I never studied for vocabulary tests because I don't like systematic learning. Accordingly, my scores on those tests varied, depending on whether I had encountered the world in the wild ;) Just let the words come to you. They accumulate over time ^^

[@niklasf449]

I love your Ü and R! Too cute!

[@TrixityMcLight]

Regarding the numbers like you would say them in German was indeed used in English in past centuries but has pretty much been replaced. So when reading old books e.g. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, you come across those wordings.

[@feuerderveranderung6056]

It gets even better with der die das it gives words with different meanings and this different meanings have different artikels for example: Der Schild (the shield of a knight/medieval soldier), Das Schild (a sign)

[@veranicus6696]

I really like the clocks in the background. Especially Mos Eisley :-) So you got 2 Cities wich are actually no real places on earth , right? (Bielefeld and Mos Eisley)

[@LynXify]

Dana, I love your videos. And living in Germany and struggling with the language, it's a breath of fresh air to hear someone from Germany speak something(English) that is easily understandable. -embarrassed smile- Anyways! Since you've had a lot of experience with the language, I need to know how do we express the past continuous in German. I know German doesn't have the continuous tense like we have in English with the -ing. I tackle it in the present but I wanna know how to do it in the past. For example, how do I say, "I was studying the whole afternoon."? Or "I was running." I've read articles that tell me to just use the perfect or prataritum. But, I want a better know how.

[@nelif3413]

Did anyone else recognise that Danas table was in the wrong order? It's Nominativ, Genitiv, Dativ, Akkusativ - 1. Fall, 2.Fall, 3. Fall, 4. Fall

[@marsdaguerre4883]

I hate the can/can't part. I often dont hear what is meant.

[@Svenja.G]

Great video, Dana! It's so funny to have a different point of view on the language than I have as a german! And for the most part, I agree with you opinions. But there's one thing we dont: the numbers! I really don't like how we germans say the numbers, because it confuses me and I always get it wrong! Even as a german :DDD

[@ninap9581]

I really like that you are soo enthusiastic about languages😊. I wish I could learn german from this side, but well, I am actually From germany

[@anne9387]

I´m from Germany and for me it´s really difficult to use the right tense. I learn english since 12 years, but I´m still not sure. In geman it´s like a timeline. If you talk about an event which already happend, you use Präteritum and if you talk about something what happend before this event you use Perfekt and so on. And I´m really confused about the präpositions, when you use which one. Every time we have an exercise where we have to set in the right präpostition I have all wrong. I have one question for the english speaking people: Is it hard for you to know in which cases you have to write a word big or where to set a comma? Cause for many german students it´s sometime difficult too

[@DasSchnattchen]

i'm not able to pronounce the R in the back of my throat . instead of that I pronounce it at the same spot where you usually pronounce D.