American Reacts to Why German "Sounds So Aggressive" & (Why I Disagree)

[@Thorium_Th]

10:56 Well, can you read this? 😅 "Ian has a car. The car has carseats. He bought carseatcovers for the rear bench. He cleans them with carseatcoverdetergent. He left the carseatcoverdetergentspraycan in the car. The hot summer day ended in a carseatcoverdetergentspraycanexplosion. Now, Ian has no car." 💥

[@maozedong8370]

I read it easily.

[@hellogoodbye9598]

Ha! Excellent.

[@arnomrnym6329]

Great way to teach an easy way to english composita! 😂

[@Kira-sb8gk]

Before getting a bad reputation the language was known to be that of writers and poets like Goethe, Schiller and such :)

[@qobide]

It was also an important science language because of its properties to make precise statements with fewer words.

[@MegaBorusse1900]

It´s like with those memes, where everyone goes "butterfly" "papillon" "mariposa" and then the german screams SCHMETTERLING! Just say it normal and nicely. Being screamed and with rage in the voice, everything sounds ugly.

[@yannrousseau5437]

😂 J'ai retrouvé de quoi tu parlais 😜

[@AJCham]

It's so weird to me that of all the examples, that was the one they went for. Schmetterling is an adorable word.

[@hellogoodbye9598]

Exactly. It's all about stereotypes and unfortunately Hitler will always be connected to the sound of the German language. There is a fascinating video where researchers have found out that prejudices against a country or people from a certain country have a lot to do with whether you think a language is beautiful or 'ugly'. kzbin.info/www/bejne/np_EdH-KrNJ1eZI

[@_Yannex]

I also don't get the point why Schmetterling sounds so bad. Especially if I translate 'butterfly' german what is absolutely disgusting

[@Llortnerof]

@@_Yannex Butterfliege sounds like some kind of fat, oily fly.

[@zasou571]

German woman here... I actually find it extremely sad when our beautiful language is always put down like this and called aggressive everywhere! EVERY language is beautiful and interesting in itself and deserves to be appreciated or at least not devalued. And yes - I feel personally offended when I hear Americans, for example, shouting and screaming and screeching out the German language in a totally choppy way and with the wildest accent imaginable. Of course EVERY language sounds aggressive when misused in this way! What many people don't understand is that German is a very logical language, which is actually very easy to learn. Even our many compound words are logical and follow a simple principle: take 2 or more existing words, string them together and voilà, you have a fully functional word to describe something - but you don't have to "invent" a new word... So anyone can create new words whose meaning can be understood immediately. Absolutely simple... ^^ Btw: these mega long words that are often given as examples in such videos are not really used in everyday language! There is a separate word for this (of course 😆): "Beamtendeutsch" (words that are only used by civil servants in explanations, legal texts and the like). And as you can see, this is a great example of a compound word that EVERYONE intuitively understands: Beamten (civil servant) + Deutsch (German) = civil-servant-german. WE have ONE SINGLE word for this - in English it takes a whole sentence to describe this official gobbledygook... Which is easier to remember? And what is also annoying and sad about this stereotype: it is often not only said that the German LANGUAGE sounds aggressive, oh no - from an allegedly aggressive sounding language it is then also directly inferred to the general behavior of the normal German! Yes of course, we Germans are all aggressive... Grrr, how I hate that! I find it insulting. It would never occur to me personally to denigrate another language as "dirty" or "aggressive" just because it sounds different from my mother tongue! I have learned various languages (English, Italian, French, Croatian, Spanish, Dutch) and tried others, but unfortunately failed (Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Romanian, Greek). The main reason for my failure was that it was virtually impossible for me to form the sound sequences etc. - simply because they differ so much from my own language. Is that why I call these languages aggressive or hard or something else? No, I am not! They are simply different, nothing more... The bad thing is that most of these self-proclaimed language experts don't have the slightest idea what German REALLY sounds like! The Americans in particular only imitate the creepy pronunciation and intonation of Hitler (whose actual voice sounded completely different when he wasn't giving speeches... Besides, this way of speaking is a very old stage technique, which is still taught and used in theaters etc. today). Besides, Germans don't shout at each other all day long - such nonsense... I'm really tempted to make a video on the subject myself and show how aggressive OTHER languages sound when you "bark" them out in this way...

[@codefident4939]

True. Every language is gonna be ugly and aggressive if you scream with anger. I personally find German to be a pretty cool sounding language which is logical (as you said) and also, for me, easier to pronounce than English - English is so random when it comes to pronounciation, German on the other hand seems fairly consistent.

[@meinereiner1773]

Your reaction to the word „Scheiße“ was so funny! 😂 I guess you didn’t know the translation? If so, you can substitute the „ß“ with „ss“ when looking it up. And congratulations to learning your first German swear word 😂 Keep up your good work, always a pleasure to watch! 👍

[@RaoulKunz1]

The compounds are ( *mostly* ) harmless for us native speakers because we see the individual words they are made up of. Only when those have accidental homophones ("same sounding words") it gets funny - the classic is "Urinstinkt" ("basic instinct") because if read like this "ur-instinkt" it means just that but if one misreads (and pronounces this option) it becomes "urin-stinkt" ("urin stinks")- Not a legitimate compound but hey...😂 Especially comedians and musicians have a lot of fun with this quirk. Best regards Raoul G. Kunz

[@tsurutom]

So much fun to be had with homophones in general: Der Junge sieht dir ungeheuer ähnlich. Der Junge sieht dir Ungeheuer ähnlich. Vor dem Fenster sah sie den geliebten Rasen Vor dem Fenster sah sie den Geliebten rasen Er hat in Berlin liebe Genossen. Er hat in Berlin Liebe genossen.

[@Justforvisit]

Jaja, ein einziger Buchstabendreher kann einen ganzen Satz urinieren ^^ Well yeah, just one twist of letters can urin a whole sentence ^^

[@Llortnerof]

@@tsurutom Also why proper capitalisation matters in German. And it should be noted that with proper pronunciation, those sentences actually sound different.

[@devilbeastie]

Compound words or compound phrases exist in English, too: school yard, lunch box, information security operations and so on. The only difference is that you just put blanks between the parts.

[@la-go-xy]

Semi truck, station wagon...

[@SilverDragon67]

Many stereotypes about German come from those propaganda movies from the 30s and 40s. And many American movies nowadays use this way of speaking as base for their typical German. We use it in Germany as well in comedy or satire ;) But, a "normal" average German person does not sound like this, and we don't shout all the time 😁Thanks for this video 🤗

[@shanwyn]

I add to that with the fact no one seems to realize. Mister Moustache guy used theater german in his speeches. Something almost all politicians and public figures did back then. And Hollywood took that as a model to the german language in general. Hence why to this day you hear, especially american and english media (comedians, TV and movies..), use the same method, even though no one really talks like that in real life

[@la-go-xy]

German might be harder if you are learning standard German and enunciate very accuratly. But in day-to-day situations that is -- depending on the region -- rolled or slurred away

[@__-fm5qv]

It's a shame because German, spoken softly, can be a really pretty language. Imo, French sounds more grating, which is probably controversial.

[@malkontentniepoprawny6885]

Definitely controversial. ps . say butterfly in german

[@__-fm5qv]

@@malkontentniepoprawny6885 Schmetterling is one of my favourites! It's also the example I use when trying to demonstrate a German word thats not "authoritarian" or "miltary" or "harsh" sounding. Of course if you yell it like you're Hitler at a rally then it does sound harsh, but so does every word in any language.

[@bentucker2301]

Out of interest where are you from?

[@malkontentniepoprawny6885]

@@bentucker2301 Poland

[@malkontentniepoprawny6885]

@@__-fm5qv For me it sounds like messerschmitt.

[@klausM54]

In contrast to languages with many prominent vowels like Italian it´s harder to write poems and songs in German that sound pleasant, but it´s definitely possible. German literature includes pieces of language that are strikingly beautiful. Take the poem "Der Panther" by Rainer Maria Rilke for example.

[@SweIceMan]

Swedish (also a germanic language) also has a lot of compound words. I believe one of the longest ones has like 131 letters in it.

[@hallojasper4297]

Dutch also has a lot of compound words. Which means the longest dutch word doesn't exist, because it's always possible to just add one more word to the word.

[@cymortevaale2514]

Same in german. I guess this law is mentioned so often cause it's the longest "official" word being part of an official document.

[@CeetjeBeetje]

Yeah, even the word for compound words is a compound word. "Samenstellingswoorden" 😂

[@bastonor]

Hottentottentententerreinverhuurorganisatie . Just kinda thunk that one up.

[@Rakasch]

The Duden dictionary is often used as the basis for the longest german word.

[@dnocturn84]

@@Rakasch The longest German words are actually created by our dear lawmakers. They always enter the Duden through the backdoor. And it is also the reason, why these long compound words stop existing, once that law has been scrapped, like the mentioned "Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz" - which isn't a word anymore, but it was for a limited period of time, until it got scrapped. It is a result of their twisted version of legal German wording, to give you a very precise description, of what it is about. The only one that normal people actually use regularly is "Bundesausbildungsförderungsgesetz", which we usually all call by its lovely abbreviation "BAföG". When it comes to reading those monstrosities, we Germans have the advantage to know each individual word very well, so we take the word apart into its individual components - which may just take milliseconds in a human brain. But for non-Germans, they do look intimidating for sure.

[@Scenario8]

A language in itself cannot be aggressive, I don't even understand the point. The way we use language can be aggressive. I can speak the most melodious language (maybe Italian and Spanish) in a way that makes the person pee themselves and I can use the most abrasive language in a way that melts the ice.

[@SLeslie]

If something is abrasive it means it has high coefficient of friction which is ultimately great for converting kinetic energy to heat. That is what melts the ice LOL. 🧐

[@Scenario8]

@@SLeslieor the hair dryer… :)

[@albertbergquist2113]

A language with more hard consonants and such are considered harsch

[@JoinMax]

Your „Ach“ was really good at first! :D

[@JoinMax]

NOO, your äöü was great man!

[@tomtorres212]

If your brain is getting used to (and adjusts while learning german) the concept of compound words, it´d make it easier imo - anyway, compound words are great ;).....practice some Umlaute like in Österreich (Austria) - and yes, although we hate to admit it, we speak german in Austria, not austrian ;).......best wishes from Vienna.

[@la-go-xy]

German vowels -- monophtongs -- approx sound like: 🇩🇪 🇬🇧 Ä - man, cat, hair Ö - turn, sir, girl, work Ü - syllable, myth 🇩🇪 🇬🇧 A - bulk, mother | father, bar O - ball, haul | toe, mow | to U - boot, shoe 🇩🇪 🇬🇧 E - pen, the | [__long: between sad and seed, hair and here] I - tea | still

[@andreastietz8231]

@tomtorres212 I humbly thank you for the clarification regarding the language😉

[@BUKKAKEstego]

Hands down! I assume about 80% of the US haven't even heard the German language before and those who did, saw a Hitler speech someday on History Channel, right?

[@AleaumeAnders]

Yes, compund words are very useful. But there is a trick: if a compound word becomes really useful but also troublesome in length... just abreviate it. Stadtverordnetenversammlung (city council assembly) becomes ... StaVo. Yes, you can do that in english as well... but for me CCA sounds a tad less clear, after all it could also abbreviate competence center aerospace. Germans really got a serious case of AKüFi - Abkürzungsfimmel (acronymania).

[@nelliebly6616]

Freddy Breck " Rote Rosen", is a gut /good way to hear calm poetic German😊 Greetings here from Denmark

[@cymortevaale2514]

In my youth my brother and I used to have a game where one person starts with a noun and then you take turns adding an additional word to create a new elongated compound word that still has to make sense .

[@CodeNascher_]

"Kindergarten" being used in english doesnt make it "germanic" it's just a loan word. now, I'm not a linguist by any means, but I'm fairly certain he means the similarities between "book" and "Buch" for example. they have the same origin. or "price" and "Preis": spelt differently, pronounced basically the same. oh, and your attempt at "ä, ö, ü" was damn solid --- about those compound words: english does it as well to some extent, e.g. "skyscraper". that's a compound word already. german takes this (as many as you want) steps further. instead of saying "skyscraper cleaning company", we would say "skyscrapercleaningcompany" (Wolkenkratzerreinigungsfirma). this attaching of word segments can theoretically go on infinitely. english (and other languages) just doesnt do it to that extent that's why it looks so special/intimidating, I guess. as a learner, you dont need to memorize these long words (sometimes "made up" on the fly). you only need to know their segments which is a lot easier. also, the "base" word is always at the end and is responsible for the grammatical gender of the whole thing. all the words before it just describe it in more detail. compound words are no mystery (if you know where to split)

[@TheNismo777]

I started my life with finnish, learned swedish & english at school between 4th and 8th grade, after that I wanted to learn german. I can survive with my german just fine. In 2022 I took ukrainian as a challenge, I became friends with a one of the most amazing humans in the world, she has been teaching me so very much in these 3 years! I'm very stubborn if I want to learn something, I put all the effort behind it. :)

[@Kent.]

There are a lot of Germanic languages... German, English, Dutch, Swedish, Afrikaans, Danish, Norwegian, Yiddish, Scots, Frisian languages, Luxembourgish, Icelandic, Faroese.

[@nichderjeniche]

+ the only german creol language: Rabaul creole German

[@tonys1636]

Scots is a Celtic language, actually two different languages, Highland Gaellic or Gaelge and Lowland Celtic.

[@arnodobler1096]

Germany is the land of Poets and Thinkers, an the most sung in classical music after italian.

[@vonsauerkraut]

Nach Deutschland Hallo Händel Bach Beethoven.! After Italy hello Handel Bach Beethoven ther just a few of the great

[@LalaDepala_00]

I'm Dutch and I think Dutch sounds a lot more harsh than German. Especially to English speakers, probably.

[@shanwyn]

Weird, as a swiss, I think the same about the swiss language. Dutch to me and most swiss sounds soft though compared to standard german

[@emmy_the_nbnd]

That's so funny Germans think Dutch sounds absolutely adorable like you could say the worst thing ever and we'd go aaaawww 😅😅

[@LalaDepala_00]

​@@emmy_the_nbnd That's how the Dutch view Belgian 😅

[@bentucker2301]

Nope

[@MichaelCoIIins]

3:15 Born in Netherlands, have heard many times Dutch sounds harsh and rough. Especially the "g" and "sch" sounds.

[@MichaelCoIIins]

11:00 I dont think you have to worry much about compound words when learning German. When you have a understanding of the basics you will understand them when you just look at them as separate words and you can live very well by not using them and just use the individual words how you see fit in the sentence. This is not something you will get after your second class of german

[@fablb9006]

English speaking people like to make fun about germans while themselves they speak a germanic language too.

[@mateuszg9866]

3:07 it is also German, but with local specifics. Call is Austrian-german

[@101steel4]

Like American English.

[@thomasfranz6467]

@101steel4 not really. Sure, the different varieties of English have some minor differences, but most of them are just pronounciation. Dialects in other languages are much more diverse. Austrian German refers to the standard German taught in Austria, I think. The dialect group is just called Austrian, (still clearly German though). The dialects found in Austria are still very diverse though, so there is not the one thing you can call "Austrian".

[@halbsodoppelt1063]

@@thomasfranz6467 Whats your point? You know that there isn't one american english either with your definition of dialects. With your definition american english would be a dialect group too.

[@chrisclaim5112]

@@halbsodoppelt1063 Isn´t it???

[@halbsodoppelt1063]

@@chrisclaim5112 It is! But thomasfranz6467 seems to have a different opinion maybe. Thats what I'm trying to find out.

[@jjosz9565]

The key about compound words is seeing the individual words in it - something we are absolutely used to. So it could be helpful in learning German. The more words stuck together, the more precise the word becomes. And if you can identify the single words that got used, you get a good understand of what the compound word describes. As you saw (and know) are our compound words pretty direct in describing - like the example from the video: Haus (house) + Tier (animal) = Haustier (pet) Add a Käfig (cage) and you get Haustierkäfig (a pet's cage). As long as it still makes sense, you can continue to add more words. Note: the last individual word in the compound word is where the focus lays on. In my example of "Haustierkäfig" the focus is on the cage, the words in front specifying it to be for a pet.

[@GdzieJestNemo]

As Polish who speakes english and used to have german and swedish at school i would say english is the languge that has drifted far away from germanic languages. You can still see lot of similarities. If you want to hear nice sounding german look up ballad songs by Rammstein like "Ohne Dich", "Zeit", "Seemann" or "Mutter"

[@linusfotograf]

English has a lot of French influences.

[@walkir2662]

Huh, that goes into way more detail thanI expected (which boiled down to 'only seen in WW2 movies and similar exaggerated stuff") 7:10 I tried Mandarin in school. Gave up after a semester (fortunately, it was a voluntary extracurricular thing - but that course meaning my mondays went from 7AM to 7PM absolutely didn't help) because of the four tones that *completely* change a word's meaning. Just couldn't wrap my head around it. if I had been born in China, that would have been an absolute nobrainer. 9:22 It was a law. How often do English law names come up in daily conversation? ;) This particular one, though, came up a lot more often than usual, because it was so extreme. The "normal" way such words come up if not natural (where teh actualyl long ones are mostly bureaucracy-related), is a game of forming the longest word.

[@Tiax776]

Every English speaker can say Ä and Ö. They're using them all the time. Cat, mat, that, hat. Just say the A (middle) part. Bird, word, you're already saying Ö when you say the vowel.

[@AHVENAN]

German and finnish have the thing with compound words in common even though they're not related at all

[@Alias_Anybody]

1. Compound words longer than 3 segments are very rare, especially in spoken language. Words with more than 5 segements effectively only exist in law and poetry. 2. In terms of efficiency, they mostly save clunky prepositions and articles, as in "the captain OF THE steam ship ON THE river" - Flussdampfschiffskapitän. Though it's common to use abbreviations for those words that are still too long for casual conversations. The "Landesbeamtengesetz" might just become the LBG for example. English often uses (Latin) loanwords for a similar purpose. Considering layman will neither understand the loanword nor what the abbreviation is for there isn't really a superior method. 2. They are somewhat managable because article and the "core" meaning of the word always depend on the LAST word of the combination. For example, it doesn't matter how many specifics about the ship, rank or body of water you put in there, if it ends with captain, it will always stay some type of captain.

[@Sciss0rman]

Usually, you don't have those extreme long compound words in a conversation. Sure... there are shorter ones like Haustier (house animal) or Kindergarten (children's garden), but those are pretty self-explanatory. The long ones like Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgetetz (beef labeling monitoring task transfer law) are very specific.

[@HittesMittes]

To your question: I think it would make it a little harder but there is not nearly as much magic behind it as you would think because americans do it too, they just dont write it together or they even do but long forgot about it (hairdryer). So once you are comfortable with spotting the single words the struggle is pretty much over. Bonus info (Bonusinfo): Because of th, I get nervous when I see 3xxx because I know im about to say THreeTHousand.

[@markschattefor6997]

The reason why many non-German speaking people have the idea that German sounds aggressive is because they know it only from war movies. Listen to Japanese soldiers, or whatever you never heard before, unknown sounds aggressive because it is strange to the ears.

[@matt47110815]

3:49 Old English actually is VERY similar to German. ;-) It just also got latin influences (as England was conquered by the Romans), and in 1066 the Normans (from Normandy, northern France) introduced french-ish words, like instead of eating cow, you now eat beef, and instead of eating pig, you eat pork.

[@ibrahim_2898]

I'm Flemish, which is one of the 3 official languages of Belgium (Dutch/French/German). Our Dutch is generally quite a bit different than people from the Netherlands. Sounds and pronunciations are generally different than the Dutch (Dutch people will know). Anways, Flemish has more of the gutterals from German so for me it's pretty easy to pronounce German words, since I have the "tongue" and I live close to the German region which is called the Deutschsprachige Gemeinschaft.

[@maeneandy5343]

I'm also Flemish and we have almost no gutteral g's. We pronounce almost all those as ’h’. Guess from where I am 😉

[@ibrahim_2898]

@maeneandy5343 West-Vlaanderen! It wouldn't be Belgium if it weren't for our beautiful accents, right? As our motto goes: "Eendracht maakt macht!", "L'union fait la force!", "Einigkeit macht stark!" 🫡

[@maeneandy5343]

Jup. I'm actually bilingual. My mom is from wallonia and my dad is from Bruges. I just love how rich our country is.

[@ibrahim_2898]

@@maeneandy5343 I'm bilingual too. Originally from Brussels.

[@cobrakai4761]

The South Park ones are always funny cause they not even saying anything just angry noises 😂

[@Roberternst72]

11:01 good question… it depends… if you get the hang of „disassembling“ the compound words into the components easily, you might progress quicker with learning the „higher levels“ of the language… however, this requires solid knowledge of basic vocabulary… then again, there are imho really easy compund words like Autobahn, Landstraße (Country Road), Hauptbahnhof (Main or Central Train Station) or Rathaus (City/Council Hall) that aren‘t that tricky to remember, because they are multiple words in English, just with additional Space between the words when in German there isn‘t one.

[@MrOpacor]

Kindergarten is a loanword that entered the English language fairly recently. But there are many old words that are the same or very closely related- Some are very direct: house - Haus mouse - Maus ball - Ball wind - Wind to see - sehen sea - die See fruit - Frucht to hang - hängen Some are not that obvious, but once you know, it can be seen fairly easily anyways: town - Zaun (OK, here there is a weird shift in meaning with “Zaun” meaning fence, but both originated from the same word, which meant “fenced of settlement”. The English speakers kept the “settlement” part, the German speakers kept the “fence” part) kitchen - Küche window - Windauge (literally “wind eye”, not in use in German any more, because it was replaced by Latin derived “Fenster”)

[@Tyrann7]

As a German it's obviously hard to tell how it would be to learn the language later on, but I feel the compound words are super convenient. You can figure out a lot by knowing some basic words. Flugzeug (fly thing) - is a plane Feuerzeug (fire thing) - is a lighter Schlagzeug (beat thing) - is drums Spielzeug (play thing) - toys Bettzeug (bed thing) - sheets, blanked and pillows Verbandszeug (bandaging things) - bandages Homonyms are way more confusing I think. "bank" can be the bank or bench for example

[@walkir2662]

Opposite example - I know I took ages to understand English "rugrat" - I thought it was "ru-grat", when it's "rug-rat". So I imagine figuring out where one word ends and the other begins is a bigger difficulty in German.

[@Alias_Anybody]

That's a bit misleading, because even though "Zeug" mostly means "thing" in modern German, emythologically, it was more like "gear", "equipment" or "tool". You can still see that in words like "Rüstzeug" - protection equipment/armor. "Flytool", "drumgear" or "sleep equipment" honestly sound more like how it is supposed to. Same thing with "Schnabeltier". No, "beaked animal" is super unspecific, but "beaked mammal" on the other hand kind of tells you what it is, a platypus.

[@RustyDust101]

For the hard version of the "ch" as in fauchen/to growl or to hiss there's a fairly simple lesson. Try to clear your throat, as if you had something stuck in the back of it. Or as if you hucked up a gob of spit. Now that's a _very_ harsh version and not even German uses it that way. Once you've gotten used to the feeling in the back of your throat, try to make it softer, less harsh. You can almost whisper it, and still the vibration in the back of your throat. For the softer version of the "ch" such as in mich/me, leuchten/to shine (or in majuscule case, "die Leuchte"/the lamplight), again start with the harshest version, then mellow it. In this case imagine a cat hissing, almost spitting, when it is afraid or angry. Now get that sound out, and feel the air flow at the compressed back of your throat. And then make it soft, softer, mellow it down. It can be such a subtle, quiet sound that it barely is audible. With this especially you want it to sound as soft as possible. I've heard it explained that way once. Edit: the letter Eszett ß was created when the letter s in old printing was still styled like a minuscule L(l) with two short curves at each end. However a minuscule f looked very similar. In old printing presses the problem was the placement of tall, narrow letters next to each other in the printing frame. They often required undercuts. This made the movable lead printing negatives very fragile and wear out quickly. In these cases there were often specific letter combinations cut into slightly larger lead blocks that still preserved the spacing. When two ss were placed next to each other they were easy to mistake for an s next to an f. So the printers decided to create an undercut version of two ss, with one being slightly larger. Like ls next to each other. This slowly evolved into ß. And that's the history of the letter Eszett ß. It's basically just two ss indicating a very sharp, sibilant S sound.

[@e.s.7272]

I think German can sound aggressive, but it can also be soft. That’s true for every language - it just depends on the pronunciation. Feli from Germany has made a great video about it.

[@micha_el_]

7:52 Wow I'm impressed! That pronunciation of ä, ö and ü was spot on! Not many English-speaking people get that right 👍🏻

[@Xnhl]

Fun side note: One of the lines you can draw through Germany is the "Appel/Apfel" Linie.. In Dialects, for example in southern Hesse where I live, the 2nd p in Appel did not transform, it is very much alive😂

[@la-go-xy]

Äppelwoi!

[@DerTypAusDemREICH]

Das ist etzala absichtliche Provokation, tatsächlich sogar. 🤣😂

[@matskustikee]

Fun Fact my name is Ülo , as an Estonian we have same Ä,Ö,,Ü-s in our Language but Mine language is not part indo- european language group but instead Finno- Ugric

[@uncle_matula]

Á, É, Í, Ó, Ö, Ő, Ü, Ű 😁, and cs, dz, dzs, gy, sz, hungarian here 🙃 44 letters

[@sniglom]

Been following you for quite some time, I really enjoy the variety of content and your positive and curious vibe!

[@kustanhardelus6919]

the rinderkennzeichnungsfleischettiketierungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz is real, it was made during the BSE (Mad Cow) crisis when infected beef from britain (if i remember right) was threatening to conterminate the whole european market. in slang we used the word "umgebohren" (re[destinational]-born) for beef that was coming from the uk but than got relabled with an netherland lable for example.

[@ileana8360]

I´ve grown up with German and Croatian as my native languages. Both languages sound harscher to foreigners than other languages from the same family of languages. Both languages (when spoken proper) pronounce every single letter and both have harsch letters in itself in their respective alphabet. Both languages might miss the melody or sweet sound of languages like Italien or French, but both are poetic and have a rich vocabulary on heartfelt and emotional words. They have their own beautiful melody when spoken or sung in a soft and gentle voice. The difference for me is, that German is much better when it comes to business terminology, which leads to compound words: there are many compound words (consisting of 2-3 compounds) I would need a loooong sentence in Croatian to say the same in be understood. On the othe hand Croatian has a big upside: there are soooo many creative ways to swear and curse 😂 although I have to say, that the Dalmatian´s are overshooting it with their special way of cursing people 😉.

[@Roberternst72]

9:21 Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetzdurchführungsverordnung - or whatever it was… - has not exactly come up in daily convo for anyone, ever - unless you happen to have worked at the Bundesanstalt für Landwirtschaft und Ernährung (Federal Institution for Agriculture and Nutrition, a.k.a „Das Kartoffelamt“ „The Potato Office“) in the… I think… late 1970s…

[@thorstenkettler-thiel1198]

2:07 yes American TV shows and non native speakers that where supposed to overdo the German language by shouting it.and Austrians speak German (dialect).

[@kampfgelse1978]

Those compound words give everyone the opportunity to invent new words. And that happens all the time. Und unlike in other languages, those invented words actually also make sense to people that hear them the first time.

[@Insorteduplo]

German here :) Compound words for me would make it easier to learn german in my opinion. Think about it, you can learn so many simple and short words in german and when you put them together to describe something were all of those things come together (Haus + Tier/ Home + Animal = Haustier / Pet) it makes perfect sense. So see it from this perspective, using the same example of the Word Pet/ Haustier. In english there is a new word to learn for something when you already have two perfect words for that. If you combine it both makes a new perfectly fitting word, and you dont need to learn a new word, just put both words together and everybody knows what you talking about :) Of course this is not true in every situation of compound words but in a A LOT they are.

[@baskoning9896]

Rinderkennzeichnungsfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsafgabenübertragingsgesetz is a compound word (the Dutch language, my native tongue, also have them) where you just stick words to other words to create new words. Rinder kennzeichnungs fleisch etikettierungs überwachungs afgaben übertragings gesetz directly translates as 'cattle identification meat labeling supervision duties delegation law', which means the law for the delegation of duties for the supervision of cattle identification and meat labeling.

[@ankhayratv]

We can do very long compound words in Dutch, but the really long ones are mostly for comedic purposes. But we could say "rundsidentificatielabelcontroletaakdoorgeefwet" but would probably say "wet op het doorgeven van de rundsidentificatielabeltaak" or something like that. I don't know German very good, so this is me guessing what the word exactly means.

[@geraldtalbot6400]

I learned Russian and German at school.and found that learning one language actually makes learning other languages easier. I by no means speak either language fluently but retained more of the German because it's used more widely than Russian plus my ancestry on my mothers side is German. I also know a little Spanish,French and Italian and plan on learning Greek as my girlfriend is Greek

[@KjellEson]

9:30 Maybe a little unique but we have a lot of compound words in the Scandinavian languages. The world's longest compound word is in Wales UK. As a Scandinavian, I can read almost everything in the German compound words.

[@PlanetBerlin1991]

Old English and German have a lot in common. The Germanic tribes "Angeln" und "Sachsen" settled in England in the 5th century. Compound words are great. You can describe things very accurate by combining main words.

[@Zaephrax]

The often overlooked fact is that English has compound words too ("overlooked" being an example of this), additionally many of the more intimidating compound words in German are ones that are either completely made up; or ones that are technically correct, but not how anyone would actually speak in a day-to-day conversation - the infamous beef-labelling legislation was abbreviated whenever it was used in conversation up until it got renamed to something shorter (Rinderkennzeichnungs)

[@hopperpl]

Compound words are actually easy. You just identify the list of nouns and then mentally draw a picture. Like house and animal... you visualize it and you know what it is... a pet. The word pet is on the other hand something you have to learn. English has a different feature: It can take any noun and convert it into a verb or adjective.. to google something, to greenify a house... made up words that everyone understands, and sometimes they become official words... with compound words, you can just make them up and everyone will understand, and you dont have to learn it... call a pet a house-animal, all you need to get used to is find where one noun ends and the next starts

[@suomenpresidentti]

Austrian is not a language😂... They speak GERMAN. Greetings from Finland ❤

[@101steel4]

In the same way American isn't a language 😂

[@AleaumeAnders]

Many austrians speak german as well as many finns speak swedish. ;)

[@Kira-sb8gk]

@@AleaumeAndersGerman is the only official language for all of Austria, though :)

[@themanwhowouldbeking3455]

@@Kira-sb8gk We do have four official languages, though three of them (Croatian, Slovenian, Hungarian) are only for specific areas and not all of Austria!

[@Kira-sb8gk]

@@themanwhowouldbeking3455 yes sorry, that’s what I meant by ‚for all of Austria‘ it is only German and there’s not such thing as a Austrian language that’s separated from German. But of course you’re right, thanks for clarifying:)

[@jenshoffmann2881]

usually compound words are not as long as the example of the beef labeling thing. it is a joke even here in germany but words from the length of the examples at 11:00 are quite common. i think it has its pros and cons as many things. On the one hand you can communicate a complex issue or object without constructing a whole sentence, on the other hand i see that it can be intimidating, especially in spoken language (as in written form you have the time to understand it and disect it in its parts for better understanding).

[@fryke]

The compound word thing really shouldn't be that strange as a concept. It's mainly the fact that we German speakers write them together. But in English, you have that just as well, sometimes you write them together, sometimes apart. You have a house cat, and would, at least in your head, understand that the two words form a term for you, that others can easily understand the meaning of. But you, for example, write houseplant together. This word has the same kind of history, my guess is that houseplant was invented earlier in time, and that it became one word over time, or it was just normal usus to build compound words like that back then, whereas at the time house cats became a thing, it wasn't anymore, or it'll get there over time, if people start writing housecat as one word more over time. The ultralong words that are cited mainly for comedic effect, do exist, but they're mainly in official structures, like in laws or guidelines. You wouldn't just invent a very long one in casual parlance on the spot, unless to make it a point. But we do sometimes build two or three part compound words in daily life. It's helpful. If you want to tell someone to hand them a "thing" to "hold up" another "thing", you can simply ask them for a "thingholder" (which you'd write as "thing holder" in English, of course).

[@petebeatminister]

As a German you have no problem identifying the components of a compound word. Because you know all the words its made of, you instantly see them and understand the meaning of the compound word. However, it requires to know all those component words first - and that is quite a task for someone who is learning German. But I know Brritish people who have lived here in Germany for a long time and learned German very well, and they can handle the compound words nicely.

[@NiePacze]

Fun fact: For more that 1400years in Poland (that is more that 300 years before the baptism of the Poland) , Germans are called “Niemcy” that means “niemy = voiceless” someone that don’t speak normal, mumbles, can't speak in words. Often first Slavs says about Germans “someone who only mumbles and points with his hand”

[@la-go-xy]

Danish and Swedish sound more funny to me (north/west German), Dutch and Swiss seem somehow cute. But there are really very many dialects and Germanic languages... To get a feel if they really are harsh or how varied they are, you could listen to songs or movies, documentaries...

[@la-go-xy]

@IWrocker , if you look at where English and Scottish place names come from: there's an intersting mix of geography, history and languages ;-)

[@Adwaenyth]

German and English are actually very similar. You can even notice the gradual shift from one language to another if you go from Northern Germany through the Netherlands to England and talk with people in each region. If you listen closely you can even notice how the language gradually shifts from one to another for a lot of words.

[@barriehull7076]

Wikipedia: Pneumono­ultra­micro­scopic­silico­volcano­coniosis is the longest word in the English language.

[@jhdix6731]

I would assume that compound words actually make it easier to learn the language, as it makes for a smaller vocabulary you would need to learn. The key in making sense of longer compound words is recognizing their components, so on a basic level all you need to know is those building blocks to understand what's meant.

[@dschoas]

With these compound words you need to know, that the last word is the actual basis for the meaning, all previous words are detailing descriptors. E.G. the word Backpfeifengesicht: The last word is Gesicht (face), the previous word Backpfeifen (face slaps) is describing the face -> a face that looks like to be slapped :-)

[@geeemm135]

according to research, the average german word contains 5.8 letters. so those intimidating compound words with 20, 30 or even more letters are quite rare in the day-to-day basis. surely there are probably certain situations or occupations where you're gettin confronted more often with those "longer" words than others, but those lego-type-built words are not as common as many might think

[@Jothaka]

One word you might like/find interesting is 'Reißverschlussverfahren'. It literally translates to 'Zipper process' and describes the merging of two lanes of cars: Left lane joins, then right lane joins and so on.

[@mairywo]

I'm Swiss so Standard German does not come natural to me, but compound words are definitely easy. When it comes to articles to compound words of two words, it's almost always the article that refers to the second word, for example "Hausfrau", is "die Hausfrau" because it's "die Frau".

[@Justforvisit]

Your german pronounciation is pretty good, keep it up! Also, as probably mentioned in the video, german is one of the very few languages that allows to "keychain" words in infinite length (called "compound words) and that leads to beautiful insanities like "Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz"

[@JanHurych]

Words are not the issue to learn in German. I gave up on it because it requires memory of gender (3 genders) for each adjective. And they are different than in my native czech. For example.... a chair is female in Czech, but it's male in German. And you really need to know that if you want to use inflections. And you really have to do that, because without them you sound like a moron. Of course a german learning Czech would face the same problem. But honestly... who would bother.

[@jamrockrc9979]

I'm have been living in Germany for almost 5 years and learning Deutsch is the hardest thing i have ever had to learn, and I am still at the beginners level.😂

[@arnodobler1096]

How many languages and which ones before?

[@jamrockrc9979]

@arnodobler1096 back home, when I was in school. I was learning French for a year and Spanish for 3 years. French was no picnic. The pronunciations I had no talent for. Spanish was noticeably the easies. But as an English speaker, Deutsch proves to be more difficult because i often times have to wrestle within myself on which way to structure the sentences as most of them aren't structured the way I would believed they should be. I spoke to my teacher once in German. I used the right words, but the construction was all wrong. She made me know, in no uncertain terms. "Das ist nicht Deutsch."

[@jamrockrc9979]

@arnodobler1096 and while in Deutsch kurs, i learnt that the way we were being taught is not necessarily the way the general public speaks. And then recently, i also learnt that different parts of Germany have slightly different ways of speaking German. This was told to me by a native German, who related that he himself couldn't understand everything said by other Germans from some rejoins.

[@KeesBoons]

@@jamrockrc9979 Surprised that you find German so difficult. I'm a native Dutch speaker, same family of Germanic languages as German and English, and I've always had a much harder time with the Romance languages. French was the first one, I already had to learn in school, and although becoming more rusty over time, still am reasonably proficient in, but I had the same problem with Italian and Spanish (still no good ;o)).

[@Phiyedough]

You should try Hungarian! I lived in Hungary and found hardly anyone speaks English but quite a few people speak German. At one stage I started learning German because it is so much easier than Hungarian.

[@marzok9632]

11:01 none of these extreme examples of compound words are important ones or are used in daily speaking, because they are mostly bureaucracy terms and only existing on paper. Technically you can compound many words together and create new words. Even if this words aren't officially existing (in dictionary) everybody will understand there meaning of it. At least if the combination is useful. So the concept itself should be very graceful for non-native-speakers but technically there is also no need for writing them together instead of simply line them up so it is more of curse *and* blessing

[@piffpuffpeng]

I honestly don't understand why native English speakers have problems with compound words? There are plenty of those in the English language as well, like highway or firefighter or coffeemaker or handbook. And it is not limited to combining 2 words, either. Firestationsiren. Trafficlightfailure. Highwaypolice. Newspaperheadline (that's actually 4 put together words) (I wrote these together to make a point - I know its spelled incorrectly). Granted, you actually write a SPACE in-between those, if there are more than 2 (newspaper headline, Highway Police) but the concept is there and you say them as a single word. So - what gives?

[@minecraftprovie]

Really enjoy your channel!

[@michaelherrmann3423]

You can speak German using short words. Just try to get a feeling.

[@matthiasbaumbach5393]

Compound words aren't unique in any way. They aren't even just common but rather a method of precise expression. It is absolutely natural to build new compounds on the fly and the recipients will fathom them effortlessly. There is a hierarchy which word to put where in a complex compound but I really don't know how to explain this in a short sentence. It would need like 20 pages of scientific text with diagrams to explain the building of compounds. But just imagine it in an equal way as English adjectives and attributes work. Like in the green big house or the big green house. The first is a green house amongst the big houses, the second is a big house amongst the green.

[@thorstenkettler-thiel1198]

11:16 actually I think it makes the language easier if you know the concept behind the compound words and are able to break it down to its components.

[@Jan-i-tor]

Compound words are superior to everything else. You can create new compound words on the fly during a talk and everybody will get it.

[@fredrichenning1367]

I think Dutch often sounds more "guttural" and "harsh" than its cousin German.... but that is only my opinion. Case in point: In the Reeperbahn in Hamburg, one of the "ladies" leaning provocatively against a doorpost, said to me: "Guten Abend Liebling." Sounded pretty soft and sexy to me. LOL [Ein typisches Beispiel: Auf der Reeperbahn in Hamburg sagte eine der „Damen“, die provokant an einem Türpfosten lehnte, zu mir: „Guten Abend Liebling.“ Klingt für mich ziemlich sanft und sexy. ;-) ]

[@komischerkerl8120]

Very good video - and comments/reaction :-) Thanks for that, always aprechiated how much respect and thoughts you put in your videos! One side note that gets often unnoticed: You are always referring to "German", but in essence that what we now all call German is a rather artificial thing, the country now called Germany is made up from many regional ethnicity's that needed literally 1000 years to "come" together. That included very distinct dialects and actual languages that where not "compatible". German as we have it today was artificially designed to give all those different "tribes" and groups and nations a common language to be able to speak to each other (called "Hochdeutsch"- "High-German" .. yes we love compound words...). Even today many regions still have a decently distinctive local dialect which does very much sound different, most notably all dialects are more soft and melodic, from north to south, from west to east especially older people still keep that local tongue. Even I grew up with a local dialect, that sounds like a mix of dutch, french and a drunken sailor 🙂 Not many "hard" words there...

[@xXMorbidAngelXx]

German is a very cool language. Compound words r Gold, because everybody can create so many New words that everybody will understand.

[@EuroEchoes]

A word with 79 letters compounded by lawmakers governing the country is the official evidence for the existence of german humor. To your question if he is trolling - no, this Rindfleischettikierungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz law existed in germany.

[@jassidoe]

I think compound words will make it harder in the beginning as you have to know all the individual words to understand the whole thing. Later on it will make the language fun because you can just come up with words on the spot and people will usually understand what you are trying to convey. It's like playing with Lego's. 😄

[@matt47110815]

Can't mention it often enough: During my time in the USA (as German), few Americans were able to guess my accent. They guessed me being Irish quite often. 🤷‍♂😄 Clearly, Americans expect the harsh German accent they know from American movies, or comedians, who babble a ridiculous version of another language, and then laugh about how that language supposedly sounds.

[@i_am_m3384]

A ( not so) fun fact: At some time in the past the Japanese language was also perceived as 'aggressive' in the perception of the US public. Maybe the 'softening' approach towards Japan after WWII is related to Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

[@DanielPaast]

The more words these compound words are made up of, the more specific their meaning becomes and the less reason there is to use them. In other words, if you don't have to attend "Stadtverordnetenversammlung" all the time, you'll never use it. I understand it because I know the meaning of the individual words, but I have never used it in my life and probably never will.

[@nadinemoosmann7562]

German can sound so beautiful in poems and songs I think. If you would like to hear soft German I would recommend the band Faun, if you're at all interested! Thank you for the reaction!

[@la-go-xy]

English is approx half Germanic (from Frisian, Angels, Saxon, Jutes, Norse) regarding vocabluary. Check e.g. with RobWords or LetThemTalkTV

[@Grey2k8]

Even as a german i struggle to read the monstrosities of words XD But hey we will crush every other language in scrabble that way :D And every Language can sound harsh when spoken in a harsch way.

[@louisl2829]

3:50 Should take a look to the languages family tree and/or the History of English (or any language you want) very interesting subject 🔥 (Nah nah come on, even if you're not a nerd they have a cool story no ? Oh come on)

[@hugodragno7569]

Dude, your "Scheiße" is perfect ;-) Keep going!

[@DenUitvreter]

If I try to speak German neatly with the littlest accent I can do as a Dutchman, it gets physically uncomfortable after a while, I get fatigue in different parts of the mouth and throat. When I switch to a heavy Dutch accent that discomfort is over. Dutch has more guttorals but and might actually be harsher, but we are not famous for shouting orders. Maybe if you get cursed at for walking in the bicycle lane people experience Dutch as harsh. Compound words are easy if you recognize the seperate words, and they are very useful. With every word added to the compound the meaing becomes more defined, narrowed down in meaning more precisely. If you can't put that precision in one word, for example in a legal profession, describing exactly what you mean precisely gets in the way of structuring the sentence, with compound words it doesn't so can have complex and precise definitions in complex sentences which can be very useful. In English you just can't do that and that limits expression. Compound words are therefore famous from the civil servants language.

[@af2807]

The YT Channal Robs Words has some very interesting videos about languages. Old english sounds alot more like a germanic language. Later the french came and had a huge influance on english.