Can Dutch and German speakers understand Danish?

In this video, we delve into the question: "Can Dutch and German speakers understand Danish?" Join us as we embark on a linguistic adventure, exploring the similarities and differences between these three Germanic languages.
Dutch, German, and Danish all belong to the West Germanic language family, but how well do they mutually understand each other? Through immersive language challenges and real-life conversations, we aim to shed light on the level of intelligibility between these linguistic cousins.
Mutual intelligibility refers to the extent to which speakers of related languages can comprehend each other without prior knowledge or extensive exposure. As Dutch and German share many similarities in vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation, it's expected that there will be a certain degree of understanding between these two languages. However, the inclusion of Danish adds an exciting twist, as it introduces unique linguistic features that might pose challenges to comprehension.
In this thought-provoking exploration, we'll witness Dutch and German speakers engaging in conversations with Danish speakers, testing their ability to decipher Danish words, phrases, and expressions. We'll uncover fascinating insights into the intricacies of these languages and gain a deeper appreciation for their shared heritage and distinctive characteristics. 🤓
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🤗 Big THANKS to the participants of the video!
Magnus: YT @Pracedru @Mother-Forger
Evelyne: IG: @_hateva_ YT: @hateva_on_bass
Tirza: YT @@nt2wandelingen
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🕰 Time Stamps:
0:00 - Introduction
1:07 - 1. Word
4:05 - 2. Word
8:25 - 3. Word
12:09 - 4. Word
15:12 - 5. Word
19:17 - Commentary in English
🤗 Big hug for everyone reading my video descriptions! You rock! 🤓💪🏻
#languagechallenge #Danish #Dutch #german

[@prodigy1979]

Asking a Swedish speaking Dutch woman whether or not the Dutch understand Danish seems a bit funny to me.

[@PeterBrookF1]

I can help but think that Tirza speaking Swedish does inform her ability to understand Danish

[@demi3115]

I'm dutch and also understand well enough to get at least a gist.. but i dont get why they picked her because she can use her swedish knowledge.. >->

[@claudioristagno6460]

I had the same feeling, it would have been more interesting to have a dutch speaker with zero knowledge of a scandinavian language

[@haelidh]

I think so too. I'm Dutch and speak basic Swedish and could understand most of what he said, but that's definitely because of my Swedish knowledge

[@jsb7975]

The lady from the Netherlands has a strong german-like accent.

[@Tobi-oi3uf]

@@jsb7975 That's wrong. In the southern part of Netherlands the accent sounds a bit softer, they have the throat "r" and the "g" sounds more like in Belgium or in Polish "ź" but not too much. I'd say this accent is more similar to Flemish so southern Netherlands

[@larsped.7388]

As a Danish person I can confirm - it is indeed Danish! 😉

[@rocykel]

Well, as a Swedish speaker, this was easy. Danish is pretty much the same as Swedish, so that part wasn't even a challenge. But I also understood all of the Dutch and German. They speak so slowly that you hear everything. In normal, faster speech, it's not as easy.

[@wyqtor]

You also need to filter for the "hot potato in mouth" phenomenon 😅 I think Swedish and Norwegian are easier Scandinavian languages to learn for foreigners, especially their pronunciation.

[@SaturnineXTS]

I think as a Swede the subs probably did most of the work for you, I hear it's much harder to make out spoken Danish than to read it.

[@rocykel]

@@SaturnineXTS I had the video scrolled up so I couldn't see the text. I do that for all these videos. Being able to see the text is cheating! (I would actually prefer it if the video came without text, so I didn't have to scroll it away - the relevant text could be added as proper subtitles instead, so people who want them can turn them on.) So no, it's just very, very easy.

[@herrbonk3635]

@@SaturnineXTS But the close relation (or texting) doesn't help against _utmaning_ sounding like _utfordring_ and similar false friends.

[@doctormixup5388]

Oh, I should have scrolled through the comments before, because I commented bascially exactly this. It was fun to understand the questions and reasoning of the "competitors" so easily as well, even the Dutch, which I don't speak at all really.

[@hateva_on_bass]

Thank you so much for having me on the video, it was great fun! 🙏😊

[@Ecolinguist]

Thank you! 🤗

[@peterfireflylund]

I think you understood more Dutch than Danish ;)

[@herdisweins943]

Being Danish with German as a second language, I find Dutch rather easy to understand.

[@oskich]

Same as a Swedish speaker. Having studied German definitely helps a lot, since you can recognize many words and sentence structure from there.

[@BobWitlox]

I'm Dutch and I could guess all of the words, but that's mainly because I could read the Danish text and Magnus spoke slow, clear Danish

[@jaysimoes3705]

@@BobWitlox Normally I need the Danish text but he was talking so slowly that in this case I did not need it.

[@annahart69]

I am english (both parents), but was born in Sweden. From there we moved to Germany where we lived for 6 years, then moved to Denmark in 1980. I really like both german and dutch, the latter I find sounds like a mix of the languages I speak🙂

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

As german who speaks neither danish nor dutch, I find dutch also much easier. But then, I can sort of read it, the hard parts are the words that are complete different.

[@nt2wandelingen]

Thanks Norbert for this video, it was fun to be a part of it. I'm going to Denmark next week and hope that all danes talk as good as Magnus.

[@Ecolinguist]

Thank you Tirza!! Have fun in Denmark! 🤗

[@Stroopwafe1]

If you ask them to talk "langsom" (langzaam) haha. Living in Denmark as a Dutch woman for nearly 10 months I'm able to understand fast spoken Danish 80-90% of the time. The Danish Magnus spoke was definitely fully comprehensible though. Hope you enjoy your time here

[@Pracedru]

Thanks @Ecolinguist for being in this show. I fumbled it a bit trying to improvise. I hope i can try it again sometime and see if i can do the show better. :) Thanks Tirza and Evelyn also. I was so surprised how much you got, that i forgot to do the texts for most of the words XD.

[@Ecolinguist]

You were a great host! Thanks! 🤗

[@martelkapo]

You did a great job, Magnus! Your speaking voice in Danish is very charming, and I think your improvisation was stellar

[@piotrwalkowski2601]

Im from Poland. I speak german on daily basis but I used to learn both danish and dutch in the past. What a crazy experience to listen all this (as not native) 😂😂

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

Close to the border with lots of german economic tourism I guess?

[@piotrwalkowski2601]

@@HappyBeezerStudios yeah xxactly right. Hit the nail on the head ;)

[@chantsmantrasandrelaxation5079]

Native language English, close to fluent in German - I found it fascinating that with watching and listening to the Danish I was able to figure out the answers - sometimes in German, sometimes in English. I certainly found listening to the Dutch useful, when Tirza asked questions for clarification she used many words intelligible to my English ears. Thank you. Danke. Tak. Dank je.

[@FeedsNoSliesMusic]

Same for me but I speak English natively and Dutch fluently. I think knowing English actually filled in more gaps than knowing Dutch for me, but the supporting questions clarified a lot too. I also understood the German despite claiming that I don't speak it. I think it's really funny how we hear one language being similar to another and just assume that we understand it, and funnier still that it's often exactly the case.

[@kodekadkodekad4380]

I don't quite understand the logic of including a Dutch participant who also speaks Swedish. It's rather a "can Swedish and German speakers understand Danish" challenge than Dutch and German.

[@rafox66]

I'm Dutch, from the northern parts, judging from the Dutch woman's accent she is from the south. I can't speak any Swedish, just Dutch, English and a little German. I could pretty easily translate it with the added help of the text on screen. Dutch and Danish are quite similar, they share a lot of the same roots.

[@martinbulke9588]

Me and my girlfriend are taking online classes in Danish, so this is great to watch and to learn something.

[@alexj9603]

I'm a German speaker, and I tried to understand the Danish parts with my eyes closed. It was quite a challenge. In some sentences I couldn't understand a word, although Magnus spoke very slowly. In other sentences I could catch one or two keywords and thus figure out what it was about. And sometimes I even got entire sentences. As Tirza said: Normal spoken Danish is way harder to understand. On the other hand, I have very few problems with written Danish. Tirza's Dutch was crystal clear to me. But again, she has a very clear pronunciation. I guess that's her "language teaching mode".

[@fabiolimadasilva3398]

I am Brazilian. This sensation is like French or Romanian to me. The written forms are more or less similar, in different degrees, to Portuguese. Phonetics is the most complex part of any language.

[@rtlgrmpf]

His slow speech makes it evident how many sounds have just disappeared from spoken Danish. That makes most of the words unrecognizable.

[@Morderkaj]

Most clear Dutch I have heard spoken, was amazed how easy it was to understand, as a Dane.

[@sandybeach95]

I'm a native Norwegian who's fluent in English and German, and this was a lot of fun to listen to. Dutch is very intelligible to me

[@warislekhpt2-thBNK48fans]

Ich komme aus Thailand. Dieser Video ist Spaß und anspruchsvoll. Ich habe ein paar Schwedische Wörter in Duolingo und 2 Jahren Deutsch Sprache gelernt. Dieser video ist hilfreich für mich wie Dänisch Sprache ähnlich mit Deutsch, deswegen wurde ich gern Dänisch Sprache lernen für meiner Zukunft.

[@SaturnineXTS]

Swedish "glass" is a borrowing from French "glace", but funnily enough they use it only for ice cream specifically. The native Nordic word for ice is "is" of course, so "ice cream" can be called "iskrem" or just "is" like Magnus said

[@davidkasquare]

I’m a Swedish speaker, and usually, it’s quite hard for me to understand Danish, but because Magnus spoke so slowly I got almost 100% of what he said. I believe if I listened to “slow Danish” a lot, I would start understanding the normal tempo Danish as well.

[@ikbintom]

Maybe you'll enjoy listening to the podcast Norsken, Svensken og Dansken then! The Dane there also talks clearly like this, so I bet if you listen to it for a while, your ears will tune in to Danish very well

[@peterfireflylund]

@@ikbintom never heard of it so I just gave it a listen. I loooove the Norwegian lady’s Bergen dialect! I am also grateful that the Swedish lady speaks more or less Stockholm Swedish. I would have understood very little if she had spoken Scanian (skånska), which is sad because it is actually closer to Danish.

[@Malentor]

​@@peterfireflylundScanian isn't easy for danes to understand, in my opinion. Despite Swedes thinking it sounds closer to danish, I find that Stockholm swedish is much easier to understand, especially if you have a vocabulary of many older danish words.

[@SaturnineXTS]

@@peterfireflylund I wonder why they never do someone speaking standard east Norwegian alongside a standard Swedish speaker and always bring someone who speaks Bergensk instead. Would that have been too easy and not varied enough?

[@jaysimoes3705]

Same for me as a Dutch.

[@hin_hale]

I'm swedish and understand danish pretty well so for me, it was interesting to understand what the ladies were saying and to listen to the questions and conversations. Bra jobbat, allesamman!

[@dan74695]

Eg er norsk og fatar ogso det mesta av det dei segjer.

[@lamaglama6231]

I'm german and listening to danish i understood barely anything. Written was a bit easier - i could at least get a general feel about what it is about. The dutch conversation I could understand quite well though. This video was very interesting!

[@010arschloch]

Yes Dutch is easier to understand as it is more related to German. Written Danish is by far easier to get a clue of than spoken one

[@annalaehdesmaeki6533]

I´m lucky: got all words right: I was born in Finland, but in an area, where we also talk Swedish) and now living in Germany. Easy-peasy. Thanks a lot!

[@superstructure23]

I dont think this is a fair comparison with someone who speaks Swedish. It doesn't say much about intelligibility between Dutch and Danish when someone speaks one of the closest languages to Danish there is already

[@JoaoVitor-bc7pd]

As a native Portuguese speaker who knows English, I understand the subtitles well but it's good to say that Tirza seems like a joyful and pleasant madam to chat with over a few beers.

[@michaelcannon7640]

Thank you Ecolinguist for the very interesting video. I'm a native English speaker, but I speak German at a high level, and I know some Dutch, too. I have some familiarity with Danish, but I've never studied it. To my surprise I was able to guess each word. I didn't understand everything that was said, and honestly, being able to read the text probably helped quite a bit. I understood all of the Dutch, too. I think it helped that everyone spoke clearly and slowly. I think if the Danish and Dutch speakers were speaking at a normal conversation pace I would not have understood so well.

[@Westermann15]

Fun fact: Danish people are the best students of Dutch in the world, probably the only ones capable of fully mastering the language. Players like Christian Eriksen and Lasse Schöne speak Dutch like a native speaker.

[@jaysimoes3705]

I know a couple of Danes living here in NL and NO ONE can tell they are not Dutch. They become accentless in weeks to months. It happened more than once to me. The also have the same appearance, the same humor, are pretty direct too so it is very difficult to recognise them as being not Dutch.

[@claimhsolais3466]

Well done, I voted for this comparison some years ago, thank you!

[@Elendrria]

As a danish learner I can tell you that Magnus has been very nice to speak super slow dansk ;). I liked this episode a lot. Will there be more content for germanic languages like this one? Would be awesome!

[@DaisyG33]

I studied German many decades ago, so I could follow much of the German. But the funny thing is, with glancing at the supertitles and listening I not so much understood words or sentences, but got pictures in my head. Never experienced anything like it before. What a treat! Incidentally, I guessed 2, 3 & 4 pretty quickly. All I got out of 1 was a plant (naturally) of some kind, and early on I thought maybe 5 was a rainforest. Thank you all! Someone commented finding out how an English speaker fares with Afrikaans (intriguing); I would suggest also exposing English speaker to Flemish. Love this channel! ❤

[@jaysimoes3705]

For me as a Dutch it was supereasy because you talked langzaam!

[@orthoplanar]

Tirza being able to speak Swedish makes it irrelevant that her mother tongue is Dutch. At least for the purpose of this experiment. You would get the same results with English or Swahili speakers. Can they understand Danish? Yes, if they happen to speak Swedish as well.

[@robbk1]

Yes, Tirza being able to speak Swedish is a good headstart, but just knowing Dutch and some English and some Hochdeutsh is also a very big headstart. As a Dutch speaker, (knowing Frisian fairly well, and English too, I was shocked to see that I could read the headlines on the Danish newspapers, on my first visit to Danmark. I had no training in Scandinavian languages. But, of course, understanding Danish speech is something very different. At normal talking speed I could understand almost nothing. After residing 3-5 months in Danmark for 25 years, I still have trouble understanding people who speak very fast or have thick regional accents. For my first 3-4 years there, after being able to read the printed Danish fairly well, I still understood spoken Norwegian and Swedish better at normal speed, and listened to the news from those countries radio and TV. But, yes, anyone who speaks two or more other Germanic languages can understand much of Danish. For example, when the unknown language one tries to understand uses one main word for a noun or concept, and you know two or three other languages from the language group, you are more likely to have one of your other languages have a version of that word as a cognate. My speaking Dutch, English, and knowing Frisian and Plattdeutsch (Low German) helped me to read Danish almost fluently, before I even knew a word of that language. With the slow clear manner in which Magnus spoke, I would have understood some of the words, even before I had learned Danish. But it was, much, much easier to understand the printed words.

[@ikbintom]

You know both Frisian and Plattdeutsch?! That's cool, where are you from?

[@orthoplanar]

@robbk1 I agree that knowing more germanic languages increases the chance of finding cognates. But the fact remains that Swedish is so much closer to Danish than any west germanic language that it invalidates the premise of this video. I was interested in seeing how much a fellow Dutch person could understand from spoken and written Danish based on their own language. Btw, as a native Low Saxon (achterhoeks) and Dutch speaker I agree that written Scandinavian languages are partly understandable but the spoken versions are a whole other challenge.

[@robbk1]

@@ikbintom Den Haag. But I resided in Huchting, a village between Bremen and Delmenhorst for 6 years, and a few months a year in a village in West Friesland for a few years, and also in a town in southwest Jylland (Jutland) where people spoke Jysk (a dialect of Danish which contains more Plattdeustsch loan words than standard Danish).

[@ikbintom]

@@robbk1 That is super cool!! 🤩

[@andurk]

Magnus, if all danes spoke as clear as you we would have zero lingual barriers here in Scandinavia. Dette er den tydeligste formen for dansk jeg har hørt i mitt liv. Og jeg har hørt mye dansk😂😂 greetings from Norway

[@Pracedru]

Mange Tak Andurk. Jeg talte også langsomt og tydeligt med vilje.

[@oskich]

@@Pracedru Mycket lättförståelig danska, i klass med drottning Margrethe ;-)

[@d.v.t]

Oh you're the Norwegian speaker on a similar video right? I think I recognize you

[@andurk]

@@d.v.t that would be right 😊

[@bamereg]

I am Dutch and I speak Norwegian quite well. I would've LOVED to be in this video! Glass in Swedish is actually a loan from French.

[@oskich]

It even used to be spelled "Glace" in older Swedish.

[@peterfireflylund]

The official theory is that the French word comes from Latin but given the many(!) similar Germanic words that are derived from proto-Germanic, I doubt that is the whole story. It seems too random that proto-Germanic --> modern Germanic and Latin --> French should end up with the same word (just spelled differently).

[@bamereg]

@@peterfireflylund are you aware of the role of French in Europe in the past few centuries?

[@peterfireflylund]

@@bamereg errr… yes? Did anything I wrote imply that I am not?

[@tari_runa]

I'm from switzerland, i just understood the half of the danish, but i understood almost Everything she say'd in dutch (and everythin of the german of course) and even if i didn't got the perfect answer out of the danish, the time she asked questions in dutch, i got the hint to the right answer.

[@Floorman7285]

This is really interesting!!! I can understand a lot mostly from German and Dutch. Still working on understanding Danish

[@JD-kf3bw]

Native English speaker who has dabbled with German and Swedish. My comprehension of the spoken language is severely lacking, however reading the text along with the oral pronunciation is fairly easy, with only a few words that were not moderately familiar. I live for this stuff. My focus is more in line with Ibero-romance languages.

[@NurIchSelbst.]

With some practice in Duolingo quite easy. Written Danish is more understandable. Spoken Danish is a task, but also fun to learn.

[@lestry7878]

I live in Heerlen, The Netherlands and I noticed that Tirza's accent sounds really Limburgish. I wonder if she's from Limburg as well. Her accent is amazing to listen to.

[@peterfireflylund]

Oh, that’s what’s going on? I noticed that her pronunciation was a bit different. She was easy to understand, though.

[@lestry7878]

@@peterfireflylund I checked out her YT channel and she indeed records videos from Heerlen - the city where I live! That's a cool coincidence. But yeah. She speaks very clearly but her accent is Limburgish. I love it though because I try to speak with a Limburgish accent as well but my only reference are my coworkers. It's nice to have a YT channel where I can listen to some slow pronounced Dutch with a Limburgish accent :D

[@Ama94947]

Yes she sounds limburgish for sure

[@LotoTheHero]

Interesting! As an American that doesn't speak Dutch, I thought her pronunciation on some words sounded a bit different from what I've heard from a more standard dutch. Like, some of the sound inventory used almost reminded me a bit of the French sound inventory. I thought it must just be my imagination. Interesting to know that my brain picked up on the accent sounding somehow a bit different even not knowing the language.

[@BobWitlox]

She sounds extremely Limburgish :) She spoke slow, over-articulated Dutch too. That makes it easier to understand

[@Nekotaku_TV]

Since she speaks Swedish the Dutch test in this is ruined because of how similar Danish and Swedish is... I really want Afrikaans and Dutch people to try understand Swedish, I wanna find out which is closer to Swedish.

[@Pracedru]

This could be very interesting indeed.

[@haeleth7218]

Fascinating how two west germanics can still generally understand a north germanic speaker.

[@omenoid]

This was very easy as I read the written Danish. Without the subtitles I'd probably wouldn't have had much success. :D

[@SideWalkAstronomyNetherlands]

I speak low-Saxon Dutch, that is making it very easy to understand Scandinavian and German.

[@citroen143]

Dear Magnus the way you spoke Danish ( very slowly) changed the perception of your language. Seen as a sort of Martian dialect 🙂you did justice to it. It is really very nice!!!!! On the other hand the country that invented Lego and Danish pastries super stereo racks and super cars, was bound to have a very nice and intriguing language. Thanks for your videos. Very interesting indeed. Cheers 😀🙂😊

[@juno3254]

Personally I've always found the Dutch language to be the coolest sounding Germanic language and I find it beautiful. I think specifically it's because a combination of it pronouncing 'r' sounds similar to American English ----- having the alveolar approximant and also pronouncing 'r' sounds out loud; pronouncing voiceless consonants as unaspirated ones(k, p, t); pronouncing the letter 'g' as a hard 'x' sound; and also the way that Germanic cognate words have been inherited into Dutch have become so elegantly short and has a cool and direct kind of mannerism to it --- for example in the video the cognate Dutch word for "white" is "wit" --- I just find Dutch words to be so brisk and cool, making a Dutch speaking person feels like a hybrid of an American, English, and German. The reasons I've provided might've been random and very subjective, but it's some of the reasons why I find Dutch to be my favourite Germanic language and people who speak it sound very appealing to me!

[@d.v.t]

I think Dutch is a funny language. I can understand more written Dutch than German 😂 maybe Dutch should be a intergermanic language

[@dan74695]

Many North Germanic tongues sound cool, like Dalecarlian, Bothnian and Jutish.

[@dreistein]

This is my favourite "waste of time". Loved to hear you talk your own language and understanding each other. Like in a pub.

[@eefaaf]

A 'bos' can also be called 'woud' that is closer to German Wald. Same sound change as kalt and koud.

[@melsmith5833]

I am a English speaker, learning Dutch so I was able to get a good amount of that, but German and Danish seemed to have some easy words to pick up. I really appreciate the slower pronunciation as it aids in working to understand what is being said.

[@Lillith.]

I found it surprising how much I understood as a Dutchie. Reading Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian is very doable, but I got a lot of the sentences just by ear.

[@brietje2621]

Dutch people use also Der wald (Dutch: het woud) for Forrest.

[@L-mo]

As an English native with medium Romance languages but no knowledge of Danish, German or Dutch, I followed this pretty well!

[@palantir135]

If I’m right, Tirza comes from the province of Limburg. I’m Dutch but I also speak English and German. When only hearing it, I can’t understand much but when reading it combined with you speaking I can understand more or less an idea what you mean. Speaking dialects from Limburg helps a lot. I thought a plant for the first. I got snow, pencil, bridge, forest.

[@jameskirton3168]

I speak a dialect of English with alpt of Danish and got 5/5. I'd say I understood 25-30% of the words he said.

[@carlinberg]

If Danes spoke like this Scandinavia would be one country 😂

[@Pracedru]

Det er ret. Men vi skal egentlig bare lytte en smule til hinandens TV og radio, så går det .

[@carlinberg]

@@Pracedru ja helt klart, jag skojar bara 😊

[@danielmeier7256]

I honestly have no idea how that landed in my recommended videos, I’m however not at all disappointed! Plus the Danish guy is cute! 😍😂

[@ehmzed]

Danish spoken by Magnus sounds so lovely and soothing, as opposed to other instances where I've heard the language. And I know it's notoriously made fun of for not sounding exactly pretty 🥔💀, so it's nice to hear the wide scale that a language can be spoken in. I love Magnus, he's always so soft spoken and seems like such a genuine and curious person, and his smile is the cutest, with those bright eyes 😫❤

[@dutchdykefinger]

so i'm not weird for thinking danish usually sounds WAY faster spoken, and danish speakers tend to swallow consonants all the time which makes it a bit challenging? because that was the idea i had about danish, and it being completely impossible because of that (as a ductchman) this guy was surprisingly strongly articulated from what i thought was danish, and the lower tempo makes it barely managable for even me to start working with. it sounds closer to say common german to me the way he speaks compared to my idea of how danish sounded then again, my spoken dutch is far faster and harsher than the dutch spoken by the speaker in this video too, where i'm from the tempo is fast, and the consonants way, way harsher to make the faster tempo still distinguished, also, saying the same word with a different letter/syllable stress to infer a stricter definition of that word is very common in dutch especially with the dutch word "er", which is a rabbit hole in and by itself for how much application it has and how we use it 3 times every sentecne without even realising it, the best english equivalent would be "it" . when you read back this paragraph to see how often i had to use the word "it" to convey that in english, you get a good idea of how "er" functions in dutch. in use cases than its default standalone translation "there", it is a reference to whatever mentioned before, so can mean virtually anything, similar to "it". but used in and by itself and every literal conrtext it means "there" rather than the english it which would be more like "that", but that's the way we use "there" as a glue, very similar really when you see it for it rather than strictly there... it all makes sense real quick.

[@Pracedru]

Thanks @ehmzed.

[@JD-kf3bw]

I've always found the Scandanavian languages a pleasure to listen to, including Danish. I also quite enjoy listening to Dutch; it has a very English feeling to it even though I can rarely understand most of what is being spoken without the written sentence in front of me.

[@AnvilOfDoom]

@@dutchdykefinger as a Dane, I am as sure as I can be without actually knowing Magnus, that he was being super nice. He spoke very slowly, enunciated very carefully in a way very few Danes would do in normal speech. And I also suspect he was careful about using some sentence structures that might be more familiar to German/Dutch speakers, actually. That last part is definitely speculation on my part. But I did think some of it sounded a little... maybe formal? Or just slightly awkward? Not wrong, but also not like the most common way to phrase things? Not that it was completely "unnatural" Danish by any means. Not at all.

[@Malentor]

Yes, you can speak danish like this, but it would take an eternity to get a point across. It's only done in instances like this, where you're speaking slowly for non-native speakers to have an easier time. It's also strange that danish is often taught in the way that it's spoken slowly, when no native speaker speaks in this way.

[@gumachad]

I'm intermediate in Swedish and German and beginner in Dutch, but somehow I could handle. I got the keywords for each challenge.

[@user-eb5fq8ur6g]

Thank you! it could also be great to see Elsasserditsch or Alsatian German in one of the videos of the Germanic series...

[@dutchdykefinger]

as a dutchman i can pick up quite a thing or two, i paused the intro a couple of times to decypher every word, but taht's a bit too daunting to me, but i'm pretty sure i can pick up 60% if you slow it down or repeat it often enough haha, and i still need to infer a lot from the next of previous sentecne todo educated guesses on the meaning of certain words. so it's leagues more daunting if you just get a short sentecne, but both reading and hearing it, as a sequence of sentences that are extremely relevant to one another, if not outright rephrasings of a prior one, makes a world of difference of course. he danish speaker is exceptionally easy to pick up pronunciation on though, in my mind danish felt like more consonants being swallowed and they speak very fast, this kind of danish i feel is barely managble. :D then again.... as a "randstad" dutch speaker, we don't speak slowly ourselves at all either, and the speed is supported with very hard consonants like the guttural G/CH and hard K sound and strong rhoticity, to make clear distinguishing markers in what would otherwise be striaght up slurring , randstad sounds far more akin to the scottish tongue if i had to compare it to a flavor of anglo, no singing on the end, the word is done when it is done, as is the sentence lol, and it's hard to even hear periods or commas in spoken randstad at all. as a result, my spoken english always sounds rushed :D so i would be hard to understand for a non-native dutch speaker speaking in my regular speaking mannerisms too because of the speed that conditioning also makes me more sensitive to those marker, and when they are i still think norwegian is a bit easier to me when getting both spoken and written, because its spoken slower and the stange ilgatures that are there don't throw me off, because i can hear someone pronounce it can infer more potential meaning from common germanic vowel shifts instead using some ohter dialects native to my language as stepping stones :D or well, in the case of this language, i can tap from some common knowlegde of frisian mannerisms too, which isn't a dialect, but an offcial language lol

[@Labroidas]

I'm an Austrian also. I think a northern german or someone who knows northern dialects well will have a MUCH easier time with Danish. But there are many typically Scandinavian things (like "ikke" meaning "not") that no German speaker would understand I think, but which would in turn be very easy for Swedish or Norwegians to understand.

[@user-jy1hz4gg5c]

Как русскоговорящая, могу только сказать, что все красавчики!)

[@brtcone]

As a Serb speaking German it's way easier to understand Dutch. But Danish? hell no, maybe just a few words but they are also written in another way. Very interessting video ❤

[@darkknight8139]

I am a native Dutch speaker, and I can also understand and speak German. I returned from a vacation in Denmark just the other day, and realised that I can hardly understand spoken Danish. When I read the text above the video: no problem, I understand about 80% of it. Reading the ingredients list on some product in Danish: also no problem. It actually has quite some similarities with German. The problem is the pronunciation, it is very different from what I would expect. For example, the a becomes e in the word "Dansk", an e becomes an a in "du havde rat". And there are incredibly many silent or almost silent letters. Magnus speaks Danish here at half tempo as Danes do in practice. That, combined with the different pronunciation makes it really hard to understand.

[@JohanMynhardt]

Very interesting! With Afrikaans as native language, English 2nd and some interest in German, I could make out something here and there, or rather, make out words but not sentences. Very cool! ❤

[@Arries00]

Ja ek ook. Het maar gesukkel lol

[@aaronmarks9366]

I want to see a video on German, Dutch, and Nordic speakers listening to very broad Scots. Like, a Scots variety that is as un-English-like as possible.

[@katarinawikholm5873]

I never understood why Danish & Dutch were supposed to be intelligable … but I’m approaching this from being Swedish

[@RobertJankowski-zq3di]

A danish trold me once, that swedish is a throat desease and I was like "wth? have you ever heard your language?" Hälsningar fran en tysk med svensk familje

[@mimimimek3488]

​@@RobertJankowski-zq3di i agree with the dane, swedish has an unpleasant sound

[@superstructure23]

As a Dutch speaker, I don't understand this either. I can't understand a word of spoken Danish

[@katarinawikholm5873]

@@mimimimek3488 Just out of curiosity, what are the unpleasant sounds of Swedish?

[@mimimimek3488]

@@katarinawikholm5873 the flow is really annoying

[@wingedhussar1117]

German native speaker here... I need to say: Danish is superhard to understand for Germans, but not so hard to read if you know some basics. I have some basic knowledge of Swedish (below A1) and I understood almost everything of the written text, but almost nothing of the spoken text.

[@010arschloch]

Yea the pronounciation and stød makes it harder to understand

[@demi3115]

Why pick a dutch person who also understands Swedish..... ..........

[@Nekotaku_TV]

Yeah that ruins it and makes it so unfair to the Austrian.

[@RobbeSeolh]

Danish is not understandable as a native German speaker , neither spoken nor written. Tirza has an interesting accent, it isn't the typical Hollandic accent all the other Dutch people had on this channel. I guess she is from the southern Netherlands? Sounds a bit like a German accent sometimes.

[@gertstraatenvander4684]

In het Nederlands dialect waar ik mee opgroeide (Oost Brabant), was er verschil tussen ies waar je op schaatste en ijs wat je at.

[@Playstation354]

What about low German/ low Saxon?

[@fabiolimadasilva3398]

I am a native speaker of Portuguese (Brazilian). By context related to Ecolinguist channel, I can understand some words: "Ord nummer to" (word number two) and so on.

[@kosmicheskiprah]

As a Bulgarian and language lover and huge fan of this channel, just came to randomly see the video and reactions. Danish sounds so soft and cool 🤗 Still, similar to Slavic languages you can see the closeness of Germanic languages. Enjoyable video! 😎

[@user-mi1wk9ng5l]

Но немало слов как русские: манге (много), сне (снег), колер, холд (холод). Удивило, что совсем непохоже "зерно" или "семя" (хотя эти слова у нас схожи с романскими). Интересно: часть славянских слов похожа на германские, а часть - на романские. Ну, сталь, бетон, это понятно, это заимствования. Как и экосистемы и климат (но надо вслушаться в произношение). Но первые три слова я угадал, хоть германских и не знаю (правда, знаю слово "Винтер", по-м., из "Трёх мушкетёров"))

[@Waldesd]

Ich lerne deutsch schon fast 2 Jahre. Ich verstehe auch niederländisch, aber dänisch…. Gar nicht😅 aber das ist eine sehr interessante und schöne Sprache

[@Pracedru]

Danke

[@Waldesd]

@@Pracedru 🔥

[@aaronmarks9366]

My first language is English, and I can speak/understand German and Dutch fairly well. But without the text to help, all I could get from the Danish in this video was approximants and glottal stops.

[@jameskirton3168]

Alot got to taje into account mental ability, intuitives will grasp it.

[@Peacefrogg]

I am dutch i don’t speak danish or swedish but i got all of them correct. I love hearing that soft danish d that’s kind of not an l and not a d but something in between. I don’t think i will ever be able to pronounce it right, but somehow it sounds really festive to my ears. This is the language i would imagine havfruer would speak, if they existed.

[@SpiderSplash_]

As a Norwegian, this is insanely clear and easy to understand, he's basically speaking norwegian at this point

[@TheAlkochef]

I would at least expect some kind of backup for this type of stuff (for the participants)... as a dane im impressed of how much he actually understood in general, but when the contestants have questions about stuff, and the host cant make out a certain word, it can just make it all a whole lot more cringe. xDDDD If its just 3 ppl, from 3 different countries speaking their native tounge, without help when its needed to just understand wtf we're talking about, then it ruins it a bit... Ive been a sub for a while, i got hyped when i saw something about Denmark D: Im not saying u should spoil anything, it would probably just make the vids a bit shorter in general, and also u wouldnt clench your toes when people dont understand each other lol. Either supervise it or be like a backup in an earbud or something, or make the conversations between each phrase in english, so everyone understands better (it also levels the plainfield a bit) ... u know what i mean. Still a good vid tho, just some constructive critisism. :)

[@Ama94947]

As a Dutch, I did not understood a word of Danish LOL

[@robbk1]

At least you could understand the printing.

[@WolfgangSourdeau]

I am surprised Tirza used the word "bos" (wood) for the 5th word. It seemed to be that "forest" would translate to "woud", which I believe is cognate with "wald" (and probably with "wood" as well).

[@peterfireflylund]

Isn’t “woud” = wood (the material), “bos” = forest, and “bom” = tree (the big plant)? (Danish: træ, skov, træ - yes, we use the same word for the whole plant and for the material.)

[@Arcopole]

@@peterfireflylund No, "hout" = wood and both "woud" and "bos" can mean forest, and "boom" = tree

[@WolfgangSourdeau]

@@Arcopole so a "bos" is not a small "woud"?

[@Stroopwafe1]

@@WolfgangSourdeau Not really, "bos" is the more used term by far, maybe flemish speakers would use "woud" idk. "Bos" is cognate to the English "bush". Whereas "bush" in English means "struik" in Dutch, which doesn't seem to have cognates.

[@felixschneidenbach2422]

@@Stroopwafe1 Busch and Strauch in German (they can be used interchangeably for shrub) . There's also "Forst" which is a commercially used forest.

[@_kukaracha_]

Дякую за відео! 💙💛 Вдачі та всього найкращого!

[@Martin..v]

Magnus speaks very clear "tydligt" and slow in this. So I understood almost everyting except for some compleatly different words from Swedish. Normaly I would hardly understand anything at all, very difficult for me at least

[@peterfireflylund]

Funny how the Dane got confused by Dutch words - words that Tirana didn’t seem to expect to be confusing! “Kleur” = colour, for example. I don’t think the Dutch get how confusing it is when random unstressed vowels get dropped. “Klante” = client, costumer, guest is another word of that type.

[@lindavangestel6707]

Kleur actually comes from French "couleur". The Germanic word is different (Farbe in German, farve in Danish).

[@oskich]

"Klant" or "Klantskalle" means Clumsy/Clumsy head in Swedish. Always funny to see signs in Dutch which reads "Klanten service" 😂

[@Pracedru]

Yeah, I wasn't really on my feet there. "Kleur" (Color) should be easy enough to get since i speak french and english.. but green and yellow threw me off, and so i thought we where talking about shapes and usage of snow. I got it when she mentioned orange. :D

[@peterfireflylund]

@@Pracedru I am not blaming you at all! The fun thing (for me) is that she clearly didn’t expect those words to be confusing - and yet I think they are, not just for other Germanic speakers but for practically everybody.

[@RobbeSeolh]

Duwt was the only word I didn't understand. the only word she used which doesn't have a cognate in English nor German.

[@norbertohess4477]

Ich spreche auch deutsch, neben Portugiesisch, und bin erfreut wie viel ich verstanden habe. Viele Grüße aus Brasilien 🇧🇷

[@doctormixup5388]

This one is easy mode for a Swede with some German. It's not even a guessing game. I just understand what they're saying. EDIT: of course they are making an effort to speak slowly and clearly, I can fail to understand all of these languages when spoken at the normal pace

[@patrickhenniger9861]

Someone has already written that if all Danes would speak as slowly and clearly as he does, then there would be no difficulties in communication with Norwegians and Swedes. I as a German native speaker can continue this thought. If all Danes would speak as slowly and clearly as he does, then the transition from the North Germanic to the West Germanic languages would be less harsh. Of course, I also have a much better idea: All Scandinavian native speakers (North Germanic) in the future please pronounce the words as they are written as they are spelled, and stop using the majority of certain consonants and endings.😂 I think this would help Germans and Dutch people.

[@manometras]

I didn’t expect that, but I guessed all of the things right.

[@woesmaro]

As a Dutch person, I think I can confirm that Tirza has a huge advantage speaking both German and Swedish too. To think that a Dutch person could understand all that on just Dutch and English alone would be a lie.

[@jaysimoes3705]

I don't see how the German is actually a lot of help. To me it seems further off than our own Dutch language is. Swedish of course is an advantage. All words that made little sense in Dutch did make a lot of sense in Swedish from what I gathered. But then again I do not speak Swedish either. But big (groot in Dutch, stor in Danish is also Stor in Swedish). Otot: we have a consonant with the word "stoer" (pronounced as the Swedish stor I think?). That means impressive, someone who is stoer makes him/herslef look bigger, more impressive so I think it is surely not the same but has something in common.

[@areloTET]

How about comparing as many Swedish accents/dialects as possible (including at least one of the Finland-Swedish ones)

[@herrbonk3635]

0:46 What's the difference between "Nederlands" and "Duits"?

[@whukriede]

Nederlands is wat ze in Holland spreken en Duits is de taal van Duitsland. Het engelse woord "Dutch" betekend nederlands.

[@herrbonk3635]

@@whukriede So Duits is the word for the German language in Holland? Ok.

[@VeryClearLanguages]

Excellent challenge! The Danish language derives from Old Norse, the language of the Vikings. German and Dutch belong to the West Germanic branch.

[@lommedeboeck]

Forest can also be 'woud' in Dutch which is close to German 'Wald'

[@ryanbotha9775]

Woud is also forest in Afrikaans.

[@ronhoover5490]

Magnus has a nice Danish style.

[@Pracedru]

Thanks

[@maximiliano8540]

For Tirza it was easy as she is a native Dutch speaker and knows Swedish :)

[@PetraStaal]

I couldnt understand a thing of the Danish being spoken. Or as we say in Dutch: " I couldn't make chocolate out of it"

[@plutonianpepe]

Jeg elskede bare at kigge på hans ansigt...hehe

[@BobWitlox]

Another word for forest in Dutch is "woud". That's closer to Wald in German.

[@geminijune2878]

Malayo-Polynesian languages next Nobert please. I want see Tagalog, Indonesian, and the various dialects trying to understand one another.

[@montanus777]

as a 'mid-west german' i could guess most of the words looking at the _written_ explanations (but thought the last word is a 'nature park'). _spoken_ danish on the other hand is almost completely unintelligible for me. understanding the dutch lady was quite easy ... and the austrian lady as well. ;P

[@hannofranz7973]

As a German I definitely confirm that I almost understand nothing when it comes to Danish. A few words.

[@jorgeharrisonn8325]

It's funny that i speak a bit of swedish and i managed to undestand most of the danish subtitles but not the danish speaking

[@annahart69]

Jeg tænker at Tirza har en klar fordel idét hun taler/forstår svensk😉