Can they understand German without prior learning? German vs Swedish vs Norwegian vs Dutch | #2

We raised the level for the German vs Swedish vs Norwegian vs Dutch language challenge! This time the participants need to use only their native languages to communicate, without prior learning of each other's languages. Can they understand each other based purely on the mutual intelligibility phenomenon? Are those Germanic languages similar enough to hold a conversation?
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📝 Contact details for the guests of the show are:
Florian Sunnus - German Teacher and KZbinr @SolarLingua
Freja - Irish language Twitter @FrejaasGaeilge; a knitting project on Instagram @travellinghonsestrikk
Louis - Dutch video maker @barbarianblue on KZbin and Instagram
Åsmund Tveten - science teacher from Norway
🕰 Time Stamps:
0:00 - Introduction
1:11 - 1. word
06:30 - 2. word
12:32 - 3. word
16:38 - 4. word
20:10 - Commentary in English🎥
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🤗 Big hug to everyone reading my video descriptions! You rock! 🤓💪🏻#german

[@brianlewis5692]

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

[@IN0O5]

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

[@michaelhawkins7389]

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

[@skipfuego6339]

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

[@brianlewis5692]

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

[@hakanozaslan9571]

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

[@mats7492]

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

[@b43xoit]

Nederlands ist der Brücke.

[@hurtigheinz3790]

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

[@mari97216]

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

[@spideyfanboy]

Is there a cognate for stor in dutch?

[@Diego.fromheaven]

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

[@Grofvolkoren]

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

[@glennhouben3385]

@@spideyfanboy bad ass

[@aghastinagharta]

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

[@Ecolinguist]

Thank you! :D

[@aleksinatetka]

I strongly second this.

[@PeterFisk]

I agree!

[@user-lz6sz8nd2m]

Absolutely agree!!!

[@Logined85]

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

[@mambowumbo]

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

[@stecher1995]

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

[@baronmeduse]

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

[@Ca11mero]

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

[@Ecolinguist]

[@Ca11mero]

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

[@joelmattsson9353]

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

[@herrbonk3635]

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

[@SionTJobbins]

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

[@jfl1642]

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

[@oskich]

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

[@stoutjudas9868]

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

[@sirmounted8499]

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

[@Nekotaku_TV]

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

[@adnemuri7220]

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

[@amjan]

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

[@tommyprotrampx]

Low level? I would say it was rather High!

[@cannotfigureoutaname]

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

[@LucasBenderChannel]

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

[@BATO_BRX]

With English subtitles of course

[@JeFilm94]

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

[@LucasBenderChannel]

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

[@Alexander_01]

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

[@SharkJ002]

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

[@amjan]

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

[@smittoria]

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

[@johnnorthtribe]

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

[@amjan]

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

[@ChristianConrad]

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

[@mikaeljansson4867]

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

[@kodekadkodekad4380]

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

[@alfonsmelenhorst9672]

"Medeklinkerverschuiving" in Dutch / auf Niederländisch

[@alexj9603]

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

[@alfonsmelenhorst9672]

@@alexj9603 Dann würden wir es "Klankverschuiving" nennen

[@bladimirandersson9191]

"Konsonantförskjutning" in swedish

[@SolarLingua]

Ach ja, Konsonantenverschiebung... 🤦🏼‍♂

[@davidkasquare]

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

[@mikaeljansson4867]

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

[@martelkapo]

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

[@murkotron]

Be careful with neos and gernanics

[@break1146]

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

[@jubmelahtes]

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

[@spideyfanboy]

Louis just chilling over there enjoying the struggles of everyone

[@kkhariy48]

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

[@TomS-ce8hi]

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

[@isjaboi2363]

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

[@Ellary_Rosewood]

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

[@vekteren3549]

Write to me in Swedish. Going to rate you

[@Yes-Bean]

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

[@paulduprez7217]

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

[@dirkbecker2961]

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

[@paulduprez7217]

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

[@TheRavenir]

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

[@Markle2k]

She is from southern Sweden.

[@herrbonk3635]

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

[@fh9123]

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

[@herrbonk3635]

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

[@Markle2k]

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

[@muffinman5741]

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

[@beckysam3913]

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

[@OmegaTaishu]

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

[@nurbolatbeketov8181]

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

[@DougWinfield]

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

[@aaronmarks9366]

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

[@pelagiushipbone7968]

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

[@misterkami2]

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

[@zoom5024]

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

[@DougWinfield]

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

[@DougWinfield]

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

[@pelagiushipbone7968]

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

[@hansc8433]

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

[@TheNehellenia]

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

[@sandrallancherosg]

I think it's OK to brag 😄

[@karelpeeters1994]

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

[@karelpeeters1994]

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

[@TheNehellenia]

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

[@Chairay]

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

[@AndreaAvila78]

I agree!

[@Alexander_01]

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

[@schusterlehrling]

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

[@schusterlehrling]

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

[@Hardrock1911]

For me as a german and danish speaker I totally agree

[@galgrunfeld9954]

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

[@Separator_zoi]

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

[@kodekadkodekad4380]

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

[@Holland1994D]

Ah Göteborgstan, that is in Swedistan!

[@zelda_lb]

@@Holland1994D hilarious!

[@simonevanmuiswinkel9464]

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

[@Flavio-yv7zo]

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

[@ttomboii5407]

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

[@Smulpaap123]

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

[@Oradon01]

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

[@boi-o-boi4624]

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

[@allesindwillkommen]

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

[@primrosedahlia9466]

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

[@boi-o-boi4624]

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

[@boi-o-boi4624]

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

[@primrosedahlia9466]

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

[@kounterfit]

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

[@NobbiMD]

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

[@richardmeisel2345]

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

[@cindiewatn8094]

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

[@richardnedbalek1968]

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

[@ArishiWeLikePlays]

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

[@TheOddOne2]

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

[@northbreeze0198]

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

[@marchauchler1622]

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

[@Rdlpi]

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

[@Tinky1rs]

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

[@Riroraruro]

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

[@mikael5743]

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

[@nickwysoczanskyj785]

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

[@break1146]

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

[@nickwysoczanskyj785]

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

[@egbront1506]

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

[@nickwysoczanskyj785]

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

[@arne8158]

good job bro

[@LucasBenderChannel]

This is such a lovely format :3

[@hoathanatos6179]

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

[@767scarecrow]

Wow, interesting. Thanks for sharing!

[@Nostalgia-pc6hb]

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

[@beasley1232]

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

[@molly702]

@@beasley1232 but you are writing in a germanic languge

[@b43xoit]

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

[@user-pr6zj9du9t]

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

[@Mnnvint]

Yes, "Lat oss sjå!"

[@Neashadia]

Your most fun video so far! Love it!

[@pes6628]

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

[@HiAdrian]

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

[@1010Lone]

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

[@fredi9130]

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

[@fragfen77]

Good, you will most likly understand some danish as well

[@pittkyon]

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

[@theuser810]

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

[@lelinguechepassione4698]

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

[@Nabium]

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

[@Serenoj69]

Low German is far more Dutch than current german is.

[@Nabium]

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

[@haraldbuseth1995]

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

[@Nabium]

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

[@susannakriz746]

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

[@igorkhavkine]

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

[@mrtech2259]

Omg I really enjoyed watching this. 😊

[@in.s.3538]

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

[@Bilabius]

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

[@guickdotto4552]

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

[@zargan_yt8860]

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

[@marcelsmiley858]

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

[@mo-hammadabunaser1367]

Dieses Video hat mir viel Spaß gemacht, vielen Dank!

[@lottidy]

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

[@vadimkokielov2173]

Thanks again for keeping the commentary

[@kendalchen]

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

[@quixoticcarrot3998]

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

[@tinash4216]

Ihr seid megaaa cool, danke!!!

[@girljustDIYit]

I liked the conversation at the end!

[@yogummler]

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

[@smittoria]

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

[@paradoxmo]

Dutch would also be good in this one

[@Teutonius88]

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

[@Crytica.]

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

[@C00kieShop]

As a native English speaker from Scotland my answers are below. I was most surprised no-one got question 3 correct, as it seemed the easiest. Perhaps it is closer to English than any of the other languages. 1. It is a __, with it you can __, Reports and documentation. You can film, series with this. My guess: Something with a screen - Mobile phone/TV/laptop 2. This word is a structure - a _ and is not normally _. _ _ live in this _ or in this structure. You live here, you _ _, you _, you _. (Hints about hundreds of years old, having towers, fortifications.) My guess: Castle or church 3. It is _, you see it in the morning. This _, seen in the mornings. _ _: It is nights and _ _ _, and _ _ 5 hour _ 6 hour mornings can you see this! This is this _, _ _. My guess: Sunrise 4. This is an object. It is a thing. This thing _ _, when a book _. You lay in a book and you _ _ the lesson. You _ the book beside. After you _ at night _. _ not at end! You must _ mark, otherwise you will _ _ _ have. And _ exists this object. My guess: Bookmark

[@marioluigi9599]

Lol it's funny how you figured it out despite misunderstanding it. Like, Du liest ein Buch means you read a book, not you lay in a book... Du legst das Buch beiseite - you lay the book aside (put it away) Du musst dir merken lool. Doesn't mean "mark". Merken means remember. "You have to remember" up to what page you been reading So you understood a lot of it wrong, yet you still got all the answers right. Loooll

[@meinnase]

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

[@radiscalisation6194]

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

[@dutchdykefinger]

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

[@ryanshaun9600]

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

[@thesunforest5178]

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

[@lonleybeer]

Can {insert Germanic languages} understand old English?

[@wheresmyeyebrow1608]

This! ! !

[@91rumpnisse]

Absolutely this.

[@suzannedevries6393]

Somewhat (Dutchie here)

[@olvidado.]

Good idea 😉

[@wyqtor]

Get Simon.

[@PM-oq6ku]

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

[@MissJMaslow]

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

[@martelkapo]

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

[@Putyhu]

The Norwegian and the swede vibing

[@JeehongLee]

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

[@jandeusvult2920]

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

[@Ecolinguist]

Welcome aboard! 🤓

[@16-BitGuy]

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

[@eliseivanica]

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

[@user-lt8vw4fe4w]

Swedish is a very beautiful musical language.

[@peronkop]

It's the accent.

[@user-lt8vw4fe4w]

@@peronkop It's ABBA.

[@b43xoit]

So is Norsk.

[@lucam9806]

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

[@bringiton5282]

I love this group so much 😍😍😍

[@mohamadmosa8116]

Yeah I really enjoyed every second of it 🥰!!

[@dob0]

Interestingly, as a Flemish Dutch speaker, I always use 'zonsopgang' instead of 'zonsopkomst' for sunrise. And I've never even heard of the word 'boekenlegger' for bookmark! We would say "bladwijzer" (literally 'page pointer')

[@AmedeeVanGasse]

I came here to comment this.

[@alo5301]

Blattweiser...

[@Serenoj69]

I am Dutch and I also say: Zonsopgang en zonsondergang. But I also say: een boeklegger. We do not say "bladwijzer" and I would not understand you if you would asked me for one haha!

[@prankster1590]

Hij zij al een beetje in de war te zijn door al het germaans. Hij wist het gewoon ff niet. En om eerlijk te zijn moest ik ook even nadenken. Wat was het ook weer.

[@prankster1590]

@@Serenoj69 Boekelegger. Geen boeklegger. Boekeboekeboeke. Teminste waar ik vandaan kom. Noord- Holland. Moet wel bekennen dat ik een taalbarbaar ben.

[@DerJames87]

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

[@donjorge8329]

Superinteressant! Danke!

[@homerpoikafani1336]

Sköna språk. Roligt att titta!

[@agnesslittlelife]

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

[@h1e2n3d4r5i6k7]

I must say, i spoke and understood German perfectly from a really young age, way before we got German in school. Just because back in the day my parents always watched German television, so i did too. Writing correctly in German i had to learn in school, but speaking and understanding i learned from television. Btw i`m from the Netherlands.

[@bones343]

As someone who only speaks English, I was pleased that I was able to get castle and sunrise correctly, guessed projector then camera for the first one when she was asking if it could produce, but the last one I figured out it was something to do with books but had no clue what. It's interesting how much you can put together from hearing different languages. I wouldn't have been close to any without the questions in Swedish and Dutch to help pick up on words. Very neat.

[@samuelkovanko7198]

As a Finn-Swede, this is very interesting to watch and nice to know the languages are not too different after all!

[@ilya.petersen]

As a Dutchman with a good understanding of German I had the same problem as Florian, that especially the Swedish was very hard to understand. The subtitles helped a lot, and I have learned some Norwegian for a short time, so that made both Swedish and Norwegian somewhat understandable in the end.

[@loskillo]

As a native Swedish speaker I feel I, as many others already have done, should point out that she has quite a bit of a Swedish west coast accent, which probably makes it harder for you to understand.

[@ilya.petersen]

@@loskillo Thank you for clarifying!

[@oskich]

@@loskillo And she also speaks very fast, a bit too exited. I felt that the Norwegian guy was trying to speak slow and clear to be better understood, or it could just be their personality ;-)

[@loskillo]

@@oskich Indeed, she seems to like the concept a lot. And Florian's confusion level increased every time she asked a question. Poor guy! 🤣

[@rolandjohansson7428]

@@loskillo It's strange how differently we can perceive things. To my ears she hardly has a west coast accent. (I am from Gothenburg.)