Danish vs Non-Native German Speakers | Can they understand it?

This time, in our language challange we're putting non-native German speakers to the test. Can people who have learned German as a second language understand the Danish language based solely on mutual intelligibility between Germanic languages?
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📝 Contact details for the guests of the show are:
🇩🇰💬🤓 Michael Rasmussen, an online Danish teacher → @Mic's Languages
📱Instagram: @micslanguages; 📝 micslanguages.com
🇨🇳 Runzhi Lou - a language enthusiast - @runzelig_lou
🇧🇷 Guilherme Abuchahla - a marine biologist and podcaster;
📱Instagram: @glhrmbchhl, @novelacast (podcast on soap operas), and @twofreeguys (travel tips)
🇷🇴 Nick from Romania
Timestamps:
0:00 - Intro
02:45 - 1. Satz
08:35 - 2. Satz
16:32 - 3. Satz
22:47 - 4. Satz
29:51 - Kommentar
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🤗 Big hug to everyone reading my video descriptions! You rock! 🤓💪🏻
#danish

[@Ecolinguist]

How Similar Are German and Danish? - Mic's made an entire video about it! Check it out! → kzbin.info/www/bejne/qpuWq6tpe8uMjbc

[@cerebrummaximus3762]

Can you do a video on whether Bulgarian - N. Macedonian - Serbian speakers would understand each other? I think that would be very interesting

[@DrWhom]

One of them speaks Swedish, I mean, come on!

[@kodekadkodekad4380]

A word on Runzhi for those who don't speak German. His German is amazingly good. Yes, technically he's a non-native speaker, but his German is basically as good as if he'd grown up in Germany.

[@shannimonet]

Ikr

[@MicsLanguages]

Additionally, his English sounds like that of a native speaker, too. At least when judging from the things I heard him say in English when we recorded the video with Norbert. Impressive!

[@charleslee1373]

Runzhi is goals all around

[@KasiaB]

He certainly has an ear for languages and is able to learn languages very quickly, partly by just listening to them (but on the other hand, eight years in Germany are enough to master German which, after all, is not that difficult compared to his native Chinese)😉

[@keanancupido]

Ja das stimmt👌🏻

[@adri2000]

Runzhi speaks German with almost no accent and could pass for a native speaker. Very impressive!

[@Yorgos2007]

Indeed!

[@mxMik]

It was a great idea to invite nonnative speakers.

[@mamymimma]

Yes!

[@michabach274]

Yes. It was particularly good to have non-native speakers, who did not have a Germanic language as a mother tongue.

[@hakanstorsater5090]

Most of them seemed to speak 'several' Germanic languages, though, which should be more of a benefit than a hindrance in this case. (Particularly Runzhi knowing Swedish, as per his own statement.)

[@hakanstorsater5090]

Seemed that Runzhi actually managed to interpret "kan lide" as its German cognate "kann leiden", although I believe the German means "can suffer" and the Danish "enjoy, like", so it would still be confusing...

[@MicsLanguages]

Vielen Dank, mange tak, big thanks to all of you. It was a pleasure to interact with you. Guilherme, I appreciate your enthusiasm regarding languages (and probably also other things in life). Nick, I appreciate your creative mind, your vivid imagination, that's a great trait to have. And Runzhi, you seem to be one of those language geniuses who can (easily?) learn foreign languages to a native-like degree. Impressive! Also, big thanks to Norbert for the opportunity and for the outstanding editing job!

[@Ecolinguist]

Thank you, Mic! For your commitment to the project and your excellent work! ❤️

[@wham_]

Great job, Mic (from a Swede) 🇸🇪

[@lorenzolou5855]

Thank you Mic!! Hope we could work together soon in the future!

[@xolang]

Bravo! Echt toll! ich bin selber kein deutscher Vatersprachler, habe aber in einer Stadt an der Ostsee über ein Jahrzehnt lang gewohnt, wo es im Sommer viele dänische Touristen gab, und im Ernst, es ist mir schon ein paar mal passiert, dass ich dachte es wären chinesische Touristen, bis ich mich umdrehe und sehe dass sie "weiss" sind. Dann hab ich erkannt, dass es Dänen sind. Irgendetwas an dem Klang der Sprache erinnert mich an Chinesisch, nicht unbedingt Mandarin, sondern eher Kantonesisch, oder Vietnamesisch. Ich weiss dass dieses nicht chinesisch ist, aber der Klang ist in meinen Ohren irgendwie ähnlich.

[@MicsLanguages]

@@wham_ Tack så mycket!

[@rainerm.8168]

A Polish friend living in Denmark said when I asked him about his Danish: This is no language, it's a phonetic experiment. And I failed.

[@antonmurtazaev5366]

Ja po proikolu na russkom jazyke latinskimi bukvami tebe nalishy, po pravilam angliiskoi transkriptsii. Ty ponimaesh (po polsky rozymesh, uznal eto iz video Norberta), chto ja dumaju pro polskii jazyk? Polskii jazyk innoplanetnyi dla russkogo cheloveka. V nem tak mnogo shipyashchikh. Kogda ja slyshu "Cheshchch" ja srazu je usnaju polsii jazyk. 3 shipyashchikh zvuka iz 4! Dla menya eto inoplanetno zvuchit! Ja dumaju, chto dla inostrantsev polskii jazyk ochen slozhnyi!

[@polyMATHY_Luke]

Super toll! Haha I can't follow the Danish at all. Wonderful experiment.

[@to_42O]

Prospera Pascha sit!

[@Romanophonie]

At least you can understand German hahaha

[@FuelFire]

Omg Luke what are you doing here 👀

[@MicsLanguages]

For the genius that you are, Luke, Danish would be an interesting language to take up!

[@justoliver77]

Oohhh mein gott! The one and only Luke!

[@botvinnie]

Thanks to everyone who participated in this, I had a lot of fun! Special thanks to Norbert, not only for putting this video together, but for all of the videos he's made. It's beautiful seeing how closely related different languages are, which at the same time shows how closely related different nations or cultures are. Truly inspirational.

[@SionTJobbins]

great idea! Would love to see more videos like this. I speak some German so can, sort of see if there are cognates and similarities, but it's much better and more interesting when it's done like this. Thanks for your time!

[@dan74695]

They would've understood more if they spoke Nederdüütsk(Low German).

[@thomastschetchkovic5726]

Danish has to be one of the phonetically unique languages I ever heard. When I play a "guess the language" game and danish comes up, it's always a free win although I don't understanda word of it.

[@MicsLanguages]

Haha, yeah I guess you're right, Danish stands out phonetically

[@rainerm.8168]

Besides perhaps Vietnamese and Xosa Danish to me seems impossible to pronounce. The stöd and all those swallowed down sounds.

[@DrWhom]

@@MicsLanguages It actually takes Danish toddlers up to half a year longer to become fully comfortable working out what their parents are saying to them then toddlers anywhere else on planet Earth. The reason is, ultimately, that they speak Danish in Norway (controversial! but true in a way) and the Danes would rather die then be mistaken for Norwegians.

[@Rahjhh5]

Mic is awesome at explaining. As a German who learns Norwegian, this is super fun.

[@willmurphy4073]

Jeg synes at Norbert burde lage nok flere videoer som lar språkelever å delta i videoer sånne.

[@FrozenMermaid666]

Does anyone know what does the word überhaupt really mean in English? I know its literal translation is overhead, but I just cannot grasp its true meaning from context... It can be very confusing because some say it means at all, but I don’t think it means at all, but more like definitely or absolutely, but I really don’t know, maybe it’s something else, so hopefully someone can explain its meaning with example sentences as well!

[@FrozenMermaid666]

By the way, I understood almost every Danish word after seeing the text because I am advanced level in Norwegian and upper intermediate level in Icelandic / Norse / German at the moment (very close to advanced level in Icelandic) and upper advanced level in Dutch and mid intermediate level in Swedish, so even though I am beginner level in Danish, I can actually understand most words because they are so close to the Norwegian and Icelandic word most of the times and other words are close to the Dutch or German word!

[@lorenzolou5855]

First thing first: thank you Norbert for organising and uploading this video :) I’m more than glad to have proposed and participated in the first non-native video in the whole Germanic languages series. It was super fun finally getting the opportunity to guess a language with all you guys (even though Danish is indeed a very demanding challenge 😅)I hope there would be more videos like this coming in the future. Thanks again! Best, Runzhi 🥰

[@lustig8312]

Kudos to Runzhi. He's Chinese, speaking perfect German, thinking in Swedish to understand your Danish sentences! I have learned a bit of Swedish, and I find that Danish has a lot of similarities, but the pronunciation makes it very difficult for me to understand. I actually tried to learn Danish for a week or two before I switched to Swedish. As someone who speaks English and some German, when I see a Swedish word, I can imagine how it might sound and it often turns out that the actual pronunciation is pretty close to what I imagined. When I imagine how a Danish word might sound, and then I hear someone pronounce it, it sometimes sounds nothing like what I imagined. Like the word "overhovedet". I think the equivalent in Swedish is "överhuvudtaget". If you listen to the difference in pronunciation between "overhovedet" and "överhuvudtaget", I think you will understand what I mean. Danish sounds really cool though. I love these videos, especially when they involve German, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Dutch etc.

[@stylebreaks757]

Swedish has this thing where they pronounce a Word slower like “Hu-vet” and in danish its just in one go “hoved”

[@dan74695]

Däänsk is een heel wunnerlike Spraak.

[@hakanstorsater5090]

@@dan74695 Is that Low German? Early Low German had a massive impact on the Continental Scandinavian languages...

[@dan74695]

@@hakanstorsater5090 Yes.

[@tannhausergate7162]

The Danish word "altid" also has a German equivalent in "allzeit", though that isn't really used much in normal speech anymore. It's usually heard as part of the motto "allzeit bereit" (always prepared) and not much else.

[@MicsLanguages]

Of course! Why didn't I think of that? Allzeit bereit is something you hear fairly often. So there was no reason for me to speak about English there 🤔

[@baronmeduse]

And closer to Dutch 'altijd'.

[@SchmulKrieger]

weil man immer immer sagt, aber allzeit ist eher ewig.

[@tammo100]

"altid åben" is in dutch "altijd open"

[@SchmulKrieger]

@@tammo100 funny, in German we would say ”durchgehend geöffnet“ (going through opened literally, but permanently opened).

[@JFKon]

Mic is very sympathetic and the German of the candidates is super impressive! As a german mother tongue, i hardly understood any word in those danish sentences, they did better than i would've done.

[@hannofranz7973]

They did a very good job. I'm a native speaker of German and was struggling more than them.

[@coolmendotdot2]

Das Deutsch der Teilnehmer klingt echt sehr natürlich. Besonders beim Dänen hört man hin und wieder den wiesbadischen Hintergrund heraus.

[@chienbanane3168]

I was so entertained by how each time Nick came up with a romantic meaning for the sentence, and how Guillherme looked amazed at the sentence lol

[@hansbroekman4970]

In a way Danish should be easy for me, because it's so similar to Frisian, Dutch, Swedish, English and German. But the pronounciation without the text is unintelligible to me. I feel like Danish is similar to French to the Romance language speakers. Its phonology makes it so much harder.

[@RECAMPAIRE]

You said Danish is similar to French ?: also for the twenty system in counting !

[@hansbroekman4970]

@@RECAMPAIRE True, makes it even more complicated.

[@SchmulKrieger]

@@RECAMPAIRE in comparison to orthography and orally spoken.

[@stylebreaks757]

Danish is similar to norwegian, icelandic, swedish. Norwegian and danish grammar is the same with 98% of the same words. Most people Can read swedish and norwegian naturally in Denmark, and i would say everyone Can speak it if they just talk with people from the other country for more than a day

[@SchmulKrieger]

@@stylebreaks757 Danish, Swedish and Norwegian are considered dialects of the same language. Whereas Faroese, Icelandic, Elfdalian and others show they are more a dialects it Old Norse.

[@Gameboygenius]

As a Swede, I can understand maybe half of each spoken sentence, but I can understand them well when reading them. Although by sentence 3 I started noticing that a story was being told. I immediately understood sentence 4 when spoken and laughed out loud.

[@SnusKing]

Yeah, the first 2 sentences i struggeled with as a norwegian. They were very difficult, and i doubt danes actually speak like that. "I know a man, which is married and in no way can suffer/endure his wifes plates" is so wierd. Same with "han kan kun lide at spise af den skål" (he can only suffer/endure to eat from the bowl). I guess since its from a story or a book, it makes it more idk poetic? Or formal which makes it more difficult.

[@sheahusband2314]

Thank you for bringing in non-native speakers in languages beside English!! I think it's so important to recognize the validity of non-native speakers in the language learning space as valid speakers!!

[@peterfireflylund]

26:49 Runzhi/Guilherme: "ham" is a contraction of "hannem" (which hasn't been in used in Danish for centuries) which is almost the same as the modern Swedish "honom". 28:43 Guilherme: "ingensinde" is an old-fashioned word that means "never". Everybody: "tallerken" comes straight from Low German and is cognate with the modern German "tellerchen".

[@DrWhom]

-ken still exists as a now somewhat outdated diminutive suffix in Dutch and Flemish.

[@ronnybehncke2453]

That was great. As a German I have to say that all of you speak German very well. The two last sentences were hard to understand. But very interesting nonetheless. Danke. tak

[@charleslee1373]

I love the idea of non-native speakers of one common language guessing another! This was so cool.

[@felipesuarezva]

Mange tak for videoen! Det hjalp mig meget med at forbedre min dansk og tysk samtidigt. Det var en måde at sammenligne begge sprog og at opdage nogle aspekter. Jeg glæder mig til at se flere ikke-modersmål videoer :) hilsen fra Peru!

[@theresa13]

wow, I'm amazed at how good they all speak german!

[@sofitocyn100]

Me just starting german and just realizing that I could understand nearly everything thanks to the text. Actually I hadn't even realized that I was reading german and not english. That's very motivating

[@Carloshache]

As a native Swedish speaker I understand all the spoken Danish except the word "forlader" ("leave") which sounds so similar to the Swedish word "förlåta" which means "to forgive". It makes it into a completely different sentence. Languages are complicated.

[@Martin..v]

It was very difficult for me in full speed Danish. But i understood almost everyting in the written form. And when i knew what he was saying, i could somewhat hear it as well But I thought the exact same thing about forlader. It's was either "förlåter" or "får lära" ("have to teach"). And I couldn't hear any other thing than " han går till stugan" ("he goes to the cottage") in the part "to many pieces" and the way he said "he only wants..." and wife (kona/fru) is very diffrent from swedish sorry for my bad english ✌

[@jossposs3400]

Det här gick så mycket sämre för mig än jag skulle vilja erkänna. Men jag håller med om "forlader". Fast innan jag såg det skrivet tyckte jag det lät som "förlora" vilket också skulle funka.

[@peterfireflylund]

"At forlade" also has the meaning "to forgive" in older Danish. You only run into it in things like older bible translations, the Apostles' Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and a few phrases like "alt forladt" and "om forladelse". ("Om forladelse" - "I beg your pardon". The "I beg"/"jeg beder om" is implied. "Alt forladt" is like "no worries".)

[@jaysimoes3705]

It is almost identical to Dutch though. "verlaten" and in this case I think the pronounciation is even closer. What is it in Swedish then?

[@Bjowolf2]

@@jaysimoes3705 förlåta [ fur-loa-tA] It even existed in Old English as well in the form "forlætan", where it also meant "leave", as it still does in its Danish & German equivalents. In modern Swedish its meaning has however completely shifted to the "forgive" sense. To express the "leave" sense Swedes now say "lämna", which doesn't exist in Danish or the closely related (Bokmål) Norwegian.

[@Caine61]

I like the idea of non-native speakers trying to understand a different language. i'd love to see something like can non-native Spanish speakers understand Portuguese

[@richardnedbalek1968]

The four sentences compiling one short story helped me to understand more of the content! Enjoyed! 😁

[@hegumax]

Friendly, smart and relatable guests and host, thank you very much. It's cool to see how everyone so naturally reacts in a supportive way to one another Also was a good idea using a short story. It became possible to sort of "catch it" and decipher the last (written) sentences using context from the story, repeated words and some earlier knowledge of neighboring languages, was great

[@wham_]

Very entertaining experiment. Cool and funny people. Nice chemistry between them. More of this type, please

[@magnusbe]

One of the absolute best videos on this channel!

[@16-BitGuy]

danish plus the dialects compared to the other germanic languages totally feels like french and its dialects to the other romance languages. and english to germanic languages feels like portugese to the other romance sister languages - just unique.

[@LaWendeltreppe]

Toll! Hat Spaß gemacht. Spisebord ist übrigens mein dänisches Lieblingswort. :) Alle 4 super sympathisch und die ganze Machart ist gut. Mir fällt beim Dänischen immer auf, man versteht NIX, aber wenn man es geschrieben sieht, die Wörter genau betrachtet, dreht, wendet und Englisch und ggf. auch Plattdütsch miteinbezieht, kann man sich den Inhalt ganz gut erschließen. Mich wundert es sehr, daß Runzhi mit Schwedischkenntnissen nicht besser war. Aber beeindruckend wie gut alle drei Deutsch sprachen, absolut bewundernswert.

[@susannakriz746]

👍

[@Julia-br5tq]

Wie gut die alle sprechen! Und so viel. Das sind schon echt interessante Leute! 😊 Tolles Video, und man kann sogar mitraten. 👍

[@mohamadmosa8116]

Very cool idea on inviting non-native speakers Norbert!! I started learning German before two years, but I really struggled in understanding Danish (in spoken form more than in written at least 😅). They all did so well, and I'm glad to see three former guests here and the first participant from Asia, keep it up with this awesome content 👏👏

[@16-BitGuy]

das war eine echt coole session!

[@whukriede]

That was great, excellent teacher and candidates. It seems to help a lot if you know han, hun, er, men, kun, ham, ikke, og and maybe a few others. A very big part of the Danish vocabulary is of German origin.

[@Lena-cz6re]

I'm impressed by Runzhi! Well done guys

[@nickrobson4068]

As an English and Swedish speaker with a good deal of experience with both Danish and German (and Norwegian, which also helped with the Danish), it was really interesting to see how similar some of the words were between all the languages! For me it was more an exercise in guessing what some of the German meant, because most of the spoken Danish was understandable for me (and all the written Danish was) 😁 Also, thanks for having non-native speakers on, it's awesome to see!

[@michabach274]

2:47 Encryption mode activated. (Potato goes in the mouth.)

[@ecranfortessa]

XD

[@Julia-br5tq]

I love it. 😂 I’m going to subscribe to this channel now.

[@maijaz6228]

Spannend! Es ist immer fucking spannend hier.

[@justoliver77]

Very interesting concept, what a lovely surprise hehehe

[@darkknight8139]

This is a great video! I find Danish the hardest one of the Scandinavian languages, mostly because of the pronunciation but also the words. Pronunciation is easy, you just seem to skip half of the letters.... For me, the first sentence becomes something like "yeah kenner en menn, deh 'r gift, oh-ho-he ee kuh lee sin kones tallerkuh". Nothing like the written form, especially "overhovedet".... Which makes this a very interesting language, just because it is hard.

[@vomm]

Wie der eine einfach die ganze Zeit Sätze erfindet die nichts mit dem original zu tun haben aber total romantisch und tiefsinnig sind 😂😂

[@FrauWNiemand]

They did amazing but you could have made this with native German speakers at well with almost the same outcome. Next to the fact that the German of those four (!) non-native German speakers is amazing, I wouldn't be able to do it anby better even as a native German speaker.

[@black_platypus]

Nick is just feelin' the vibe 😎

[@black_platypus]

20:30 Oh nein, Runzhi! Du hast es ja fast, halte dich ruhig an diesen _stücken_ fest! 😊

[@jonathanlindqvist2608]

Runzhi! Awesome that you know some swedish! At 19:00, if you force it, it kinda sounds like swedish. "Den har gått i [flera] stycken många gånger, men hans "kone" [there's no similar swedish word for wife, "fru," although woman is "kvinna"] har alltid limmat den samman igen." That's not how you normally speak (which is why it would be extra hard for you to catch it), but you could! "Samman igen" is like "tillsammans," "together."

[@ankra12]

As a Norwegian this was easy to understand 😂

[@ozioskimo6596]

oh fajny eksperyment norbercie!

[@roaringviking5693]

I'm Swedish and I was actually surprised how much of the spoken Danish I actually understood, around 90 %, but it's probably because he spoke slowly. I understood 100 % of it once I saw it written, though.

[@tiagomota4734]

HOw much of Norwegian can you understand as Swedish?Im Romanian but I was always curious about these things, I thought you can almost understand everything between these 3 countries , Norway, Sweden and Danemark?!

[@Romanophonie]

It seems Raph Turrigiano has some competition… Runzhi would be a great contestant for the Guess The Language challenge. Great 👍 video, Norbert!

[@767scarecrow]

Perhaps that series of videos could be brought back, now with multiple contestants?

[@MicsLanguages]

@@767scarecrow oh yeah, that would be awesome!

[@CouchPolyglot]

Das war viel schwerer als gedacht, aber trotzdem sehr interessant :)

[@miriamb984]

Omg wie witzig war dieses Video bitteschön?!?!? Hab mich weggegröhlt. Tolle Truppe seid ihr! Also Deutsch hilft beim Dänischen ja mal gaaar nicht... Hoffentlich gibts bald weitere ähnliche Videos. Liebe Grüsse aus der Schweiz

[@peterfireflylund]

Low German should help quite a bit, though.

[@whukriede]

If you're beyond the very first beginnings, German actually helps a ton.

[@toddwebb7521]

I didn't do well with understanding Danish but I understood all 4 of your speakers' German perfectly.

[@MoLauer]

Danish is the only language I've learned, where I would say: I speak it fluently, but I still can't understand a word ^^

[@vanefreja86]

I feel it is the opposite for me with German. I understand 95 % German, but have trouble speaking it 😅

[@DrWhom]

French in the "familial" register is like that for me.

[@zeragito]

As a Swede I heard the first sentence as: 'I know a man who is married and can't stand his wife's talents at all'. And when the text appeared I was like what is tallerkenner?! 🤣. From the second sentence I heard: ''He only likes eating from the bowl he got from his maternal grandmother from Germany 21 years ago" and it was basically right 😊 The third sentence I heard: "it was ugly many times but his wife always sleeps (lies down) with it" 🤣🤣🤣 but when I saw it written I got: "it's broken (gone to pieces) many times but his wife always glues it back together again" 😊 The fourth sentence I heard: "if she ever forgives him, he can eat directly at the table" and even when I saw the text I didn't get it. Danish is so hard!

[@oskich]

"Tallerkenner" got me really puzzled. I didn't recognize it as the word for plates, but more like something like "Plate servant" in German when I first heard it spoken. The spelling was so different from Swedish "Tallrikar", so it was really hard to get the first one, but after hearing the other sentences I could figure it out. You really need to sharpen your hearing to 110% when listnening to Danish ;-)

[@Sebbir]

I feel like Runzhi almost sound more german than actual germans

[@tammo100]

For me as a Dutch Danish is a total mistery when spoken. But when written everything falls into place. For example in the 3rd sentence "Stykker" in Dutch is "Stuk" and "Limet" is "Gelijmd". And then its rather easy to make up the complete sentence.

[@jaysimoes3705]

Yes for me as a Dutch it is basically the same. In most comparisons I have seen it seems that we Dutch have an easier time with Scandinavian languages than Germans and certainly English. It seems like Dutch is much closer to these languages than the other two, but that is really just my take on this. Personally too I find I seem to have a lot less trouble than Germans with especially written Danish. Written most of the time I have no trouble at all basically and I never learned any Danish.

[@val91201]

'Danish is a bit difficult' - the understatement of the millenium

[@j.z.7337]

Könnt ihr mit den Vieren noch einmal ein Video machen? :)

[@Yorgos2007]

Runzhi was excellent, but his Swedish helped a lot. I used to read Danish texts so in writing some parts of the sentences (for example "he must eat directly from the table") were easier for me, but I must admit that spoken Danish is extremely (very, very, very extremely) difficult :)

[@Lena-cz6re]

19:50 there's a similar expression in Dutch - "stukgegaan" meaning went to pieces and is kaputt. And I could never understand why "überhaupt" can't just simply be "overhoofd" in Dutch 🤔😁

[@whukriede]

Because it's a relatively new import from (Standard) German, I'd guess.

[@ladypurple3851]

Sehr interessant. Grüße aus Deutschland

[@chinacetacean]

So sympathisch alle

[@Martin..v]

in my swedish i was like: "i can hear words i understand, but what are you saying?!"

[@Markle2k]

Practice listening to Danish: 1 I know a man who is married (something) does not like his wife’s plates…until the text came up. REALLY doesn’t like. 2 I thought you were saying “skole”, but then you eat cabbage, not school. So he only likes to eat cabbage like he got from his grandma in Germany 21 years ago. 3 it has broken in pieces many times, but his wife has glued it together again. 4 if she ever leaves him he must eat directly off the table How did I do, Danes?

[@haelidh]

Wow, I actually got the 3rd one right. I speak Dutch and a little German+Swedish

[@haeleth7218]

I am English speak English, German and a tiny bit of Norwegian but Danish is a killer to understand.

[@mauriciorv228]

Honestly their German is so damn good that i forgot that they weren’t native speakers. I doubt there’s a difference when u reach a level so high that one becomes “native speaker” in practical terms. Would it have changed a lot if u brought German native speaker?

[@peterfireflylund]

I think they would have spotted more of the obscure cognates.

[@mauriciorv228]

@@teacoffee42 ok but they have 5 years plus living in Germany. The C2 doesn’t necessarily mean u have zero foreign accent therefore I wouldn’t use that. Instead just listen to the speaker and how they communicate. U could do the an experiment on integrated native like speaker and “native speaker”. My guess is that it will be the same shit after x amount of years.

[@DrWhom]

Define "practical terms". It can be really annoying when your idiomatic and grammatical knowledge exceeds that of the normal native speaker, but you just can't shake the accent. Much better to have a convincing accent and just a minimal core vocabulary.

[@andresteren7480]

I'm Norwegian. Danish and Norwegian are basically the same in written language, but it's really hard to follow oral Danish if you aren't used to hearing regularly. I thought it was (in Norwegian spelling) Jeg kjenner en mann, der er gift, og overhodet ikke liker sin kones tallerkener.

[@DrWhom]

would you say Bokmål is closer to Danish than Nynorsk? I know this is so linguistically, but I am asking if this is what it feels like to a native speaker.

[@timgerber5563]

Okay, ich hab ja schon immer gesagt, dass Dänen klingen wie hart besoffene Schweden, aber wenn man sieht wie krass die Aussprache und die Schrift von einander abweichen, könnte da ja fast was dran sein…

[@vtr.Lisboa]

Em Alemão tem muito som de "schhhh", igual o sotaque carioca e o Português de Portugal.

[@majcj6157]

Pprt.

[@Weissenschenkel]

That was HARD and I supposed it would be a headache if I knew less than what I know. The only thing I'm sure is Mic's swimming recently because he got a particular tan due to his diving goggles.

[@BobbyBermuda1986]

If you can get Hilbert from History with Hilbert, would be pretty cool to see: Frisian, can Old English and Low Saxon speakers understand?

[@nanolfo_]

I can only understand the Danes who speak with a "clean" dialect/pronunciation... A.k.a. the (South-)Eastern Norwegians :p

[@michabach274]

1st sentence after hearing it: I know a man who... 1st sentence after reading it: I know a man who gets married and generally (German: "überhaupt") cannot stand his (something). 2nd sentence after hearing it: She (something) for that reason. She got them from her grandmother in Germany (not sure about the rest, but maybe) one year ago(?). 2nd sentence after reading it: He can barely(?) stand to eat from a bowl(? or some container resembling a skull) that he got from his grandmother in Germany some years ago. 3rd sentence after hearing it: This (adjective and adjective) man went, but his wife has... (maybe his wife remained with the collection [of plates]?). 3rd sentence after reading it: It [the bowl] has gone to pieces many times, but his wife has always glued it back together. 4th sentence after hearing it: If she has learned anything, may his food... (something about a window, "ruite"?). 4th sentence after reading it: If she has sometime (lit. any time) forgotten(?) [to glue the bowl back together], he may (or has to) eat directly off the table. That's what I got as a Finnish guy who can speak Swedish and German. I had to rely on Swedish a lot more, but even Finnish helped a little bit when I didn't remember the word "glue" in the other languages. The Finnish word for "glue" is "liima", so it's very similar to the Swedish word "lim" and the German word "Leim".

[@typhoon2minerva]

Im still waiting for the Celtic comparison like irish, scottish gaelic, manx, welsch and cornish or comparison of old english, with scotch lief, german, dutch, frisian or scandinavian

[@BobWitlox]

In theory, Danish should be understandable for native speakers of Germanic languages. In practice it is gibberish.

[@simontollin2004]

Only when they get to numbers I get really confused, everything else is easy to understand

[@luciangabrielpopescu]

It is intelligible to North Germanic speakers, but almost COMPLETELY unintelligible to West Germanic speakers in both spoken and written forms (written forms are a bit more intelligible). It's like Chinese "dialects"... Dutch is like standard German compared to this

[@BobWitlox]

In written form I can understand quite a bit, like 50%. This is reduced to 1% in spoken form. (I'm a native Dutch speaker)

[@DrWhom]

@@peterl0815 North Germanic means Scandi, not German as spoken in the North of Germany.

[@pipkin5287]

It is understandable for native speakers of Germanic languages. Those Germanic languages being Swedish and Norwegian with a particular emphasis on western dialects of Norwegian and southern dialects of Swedish in terms of natural mutual intelligibility.

[@gregory5749]

Hey, Norbert! Is it possible to do this video but with Celtic languages? (Irish, Scottish, Cornish, Manx, Welsh). I'm very interested and i wanna see how similar they are from each other.

[@RusNad]

I speak Dutch and got the third sentence completely when I saw it written down. But I would never ever be able to deduce that from spoken Danish.

[@RusNad]

Het is vaak (vele malen) stukgegaan, maar zijn vrouw heeft het altijd weer samengelijmd.

[@Urlocallordandsavior]

Please do one with English-Frisian mutual intelligibility!

[@Carewolf]

With North Frisian if possible, since that is quite different from West Frisian, but much closer to English.

[@akrinord]

Lmao! Understanding spoken Danish is difficult enough for us Scandinavians, no wonder the poor German speakers in this video are struggling 😆 As a Swede I can understand written Danish no problem, but when a Dane opens his mouth I have to focus quite hard lolol. Great effort made from the participants though and super interesting stuff over all. Love your videos!

[@ottosaxo]

I'm a native speaker of German and I'm learning Danish since many years, though not very intensely. I could only understand all of the phrases when they were spoken slowly. I guess it's impossible to people who haven't heard and read a lot of Danish before.

[@wulfgreyhame6857]

Das war viel Spass! Jetz lerne ich Danisch (bei Duolingo) aber bin noch nur Anfanger. Deutsch spreche und verstehe ich siemlich besser, aber bin auch noch nicht fliessend.

[@iwantum]

Viel Spaß !

[@DrGlynnWix]

I'd like to see this with Dutch or Swedish, i.e. one of the Germanic languages that isn't notorious for having difficult pronunciation. I read about how Danish babies take almost a year longer to master the vowels of Danish because it's even hard for Danish speakers to know what they're saying.

[@Mosern1977]

As a Norwegian, fast talking Danish without knowing the context is super hard. Because all the words just flow into a long guttural sound. When he speaks slower, it is much easier to pick up the words. Of course, reading it is super easy, barely an inconvenience.

[@indonesianbassbooster5167]

I never thought I'd see those flags in the same Ecolinguist video, until I see the title

[@mihanich]

Macht ein Video Niederdeutsch vs Deutsch, wäre sehr interessant

[@lelinguechepassione4698]

This was a very hard challenge, my friends ! A my first confrontation with Danish I must say, that this is a very difficult language, also for people, who already know German and Swedish !

[@habicht6]

keine Chance.... meine Güte... er hat das sehr schwierig gemacht...

[@magnusengeseth5060]

Every time he speaks a new sentence with normal Danish speed everyone leans forward with a confused look on their face. Tbh I do the same, even though I'm 50/50 Swedish/Norwegian and can understand everything once he just slows down a little bit. Denmark has to be one of the most spy-proof countries in the world, I can't even imagine how long a Russian or something would have to practice to be able to go "Hello fellow Danes."

[@pipkin5287]

Tbh, the Germans tried that stunt during WWII, and were immediately exposed. If you come here, you've undoubtedly noticed that people here like making foreigners say stuff like "Rødgrød med fløde". Today, it's just for fun, but 70 years ago, sentences like these became code words. So, when you were invited to an underground meeting and wanted to avoid German, or other, spies, you simply threw out anyone who couldn't perfectly pronounce the tongue twister. Our language literally worked as a deterrent for spies, because, while they may have learned to speak it, they could never attain a Danish accent on top of the dialect they were taught, which made them extremely easy to spot.

[@magnusengeseth5060]

@@pipkin5287 Just like I suspected, a spy-proof country just because of how y'all pronounce your language. Another question, does the word "shibboleth" even make sense in Danish when just about any sentence spoken aloud fulfills the same function? :v

[@pipkin5287]

@@magnusengeseth5060 "Shibboleth" is an English word, and while I know that it means something like an "outdated habit/tradition" I'm not sure we have a specific word for it in Danish. Not sure what you mean when you say that just about any sentence spoken aloud fulfills the same function though, can you elaborate? We have three distinct dialects in Danish, with sub categories for those three, making up a total of ~35-38 dialects, which doesn't account for accents on top of that, so "how we pronounce our language" can be quite different! 🙂 Most people hear the insular dialect and think that that's how everyone speaks, but that's only because most never go outside of Copenhagen or the greater Copenhagen area, where that dialect is the most prevalent. Go to Fyn, and they start to throw the silent letters or the window. Go to the mid-eastern region of Jylland, and they sound more like the queen, with a much clearer articulation. Go to the southern and western parts of Jylland, and you'll see the word - yes, the word - "æ" being used as a placeholder for many others and "moin" being a catch-all greeting.

[@magnusengeseth5060]

@@pipkin5287 Shibboleth in this context comes from a story from The Old Testament or some other old text where friends and foes alike were crossing a river. The dudes on the other side of the river only wanted to save their countrymen, so they asked everybody to pronounce the word "shibboleth" - something only a true local could do without years of practice. The fleeing enemies trying to pass as friends swiftly got their throats cut on the river bank, presumably along with a few unfortunate locals with speech impediments. So the word shibboleth has come to mean just about any word or phrase that is very difficult to mimic for someone not in the in-group. It can refer to anything from how to say certain words to how you use slang terms without sounding like a narc.

[@magnusengeseth5060]

If you've ever had a police officer come by your school to warn you about the dangers of drug use and then start reading a list of slang terms for various drugs that were already outdated when your parents went to school, you have encountered one field where shibboleths are still very relevant and where there seems to be some universal law that dictates that no uniformed policeman can ever get within a decade of using the correct lingo for the current street name of any drug.

[@plerpplerp5599]

Danish sounds like Swedish after a stroke. 😂

[@thestrategos4710]

Pretty obscure sentences! Even where I got a few through German/Swedish/Dutch, it seemed to make little or no sense!! Lol.

[@pipkin5287]

Mic explained that he largely created these sentences from words that sounded close to other languages, such as German, Swedish, and English to help the participants, so that's why they were a little weird-sounding

[@hitzgiwittker8655]

Jeg elsker dansk og jeg synes det den språg er lige nær till mit språg: Sweiztysk. :)

[@rickymac54321]

Congrats on getting Peter Capaldi on your channel 😂

[@JoCaTen]

This is interesting