Dutch Language | Can English speakers understand it? | Part 1

[@Ecolinguist]

German vs Dutch vs Flemish!! → kzbin.info/www/bejne/a4S4qnxpmbJ0ibs

[@robloxcodeguy8632]

Cool

[@themodcreatorg4731]

ah yes me too

[@AmersfoortRoleplaypsn]

Fleming isn't a language they speqk dutch

[@MrGedisoft]

@@AmersfoortRoleplaypsn Flemish is a distinct version of Dutch, next to "Hollands" dutch (I abreviate this to Hollands), such as American versus British versus Australian English. A lot of words are only known either in Flemish or Hollands. Hollands has a lot of English loan words, while Flemish is influenced by French, secondly Flemish uses a lot of brands in stead of the more general word. (f.e. in Flemish you write with a Bic (every day use) or a Parker (which is more fancy & expensive) while in Hollands you write with a balpen or balpoint ), other words are the same, but have a different meaning : f.e. Flemish "poepen" (=making love), Hallands "poepen" (= to poop).

[@ThorWildBoar]

Adding Platdeutsch would be interesting!

[@edding8400]

As a native Dutch speaker, I could understand all sentences.

[@hesp248]

😯😯😯

[@misterkami2]

As a native of Noord Brabant, I was very thrown off by the harsh g-sound; I couldn't understand a word ;-)

[@janSimiman]

@@misterkami2 I assume the word patat must have confused you quite a bit as wel.

[@mmmmmmmmmmmmm]

Underrated comment, I'm dying

[@emmakerkhove3932]

As a native flemish speaker i was also thrown very off guard by the harsh g sound

[@Nostalgia_Realm]

In this video: Old English turns out to be a gateway drug into learning other Germanic languages

[@gijsbertdevries9445]

That isn't exactly strange, considering English is part-way founded from Dutch.Then again Dutch is from old German(Germanic), with many similar sounding words and verbs. So old English is based on the Dutch language. The Dutch people has invaded England in 1688-1991 or something. So all considered it isn't that strange.

[@Niosus]

I'd say that old English is actually closer to modern Dutch than English from my extremely limited experience. In the Dutch courses near the end of high school we went into the history of the languages a bit and had to "read" some old stories in their original language. I found it incredibly hard to read, but when someone else was reading out loud it sounded a bit like a very strange Dutch dialect and I could understand most of it after adjusting to it for a few minutes (like with any strong dialect, really). I guess the combination of being a native Dutch speaker who's also fluent in English gives your brain most of the information you need to just intuitively translate much of that language.

[@gijsbertdevries9445]

@@Niosus that would mean I can read it pretty easily. I'm quite fluent in English and I'm Dutch. I haven't read any old English, but hearing it from Simon it really sounded quite Dutch. I have a harder time understanding the dialects of Limburg and northern Brabant, than old English.

[@jonathanodude6660]

@@gijsbertdevries9445 english was already middle/modern by those times with the french influences on top of the germanic base.

[@evadoornewaard6559]

Well they all used to look/sound a lot like each other, but languages like for example Dutch and German were influenced by languages like Latin and Greek because of the Romans, but there are still similarities. So if you know those old Germanic languages, it makes it much easier to guess. (I'm not sure if everything I said is correct, this is what my German teacher told me😅)

[@ballinbadger8635]

Prediction: Simon, with his knowledge of old english, is going to knock this out of the park.

[@AndrewPeverells]

Aaaaaand you were absolutely right

[@jonathanemslander6896]

Ja ich habe das auch gedacht!

[@mynameisgiovannigiorgio1027]

and he was the only one with headphones :-)

[@mistakenmeme]

I know it

[@milosbulatovic2578]

Im learning German and I'm surprised i could understand almost all written Dutsch.

[@urphakeandgey6308]

I think this video really shows how much English is, in fact, a Germanic language no matter how much it tries to be a Romantic Language.

[@Arabzene]

Romance language

[@blazednlovinit]

It's Germanic, but it has words from loads of languages. English isn't trying to be a romance language, it's the most like Frisian than any other language.

[@MRAPEXPREDATOR1]

Mix of both

[@KibyNykraft]

​@@blazednlovinit I guess the point was supposed to be that english, norwegian etc have too much influence from Latin (which only icelandic avoided)

[@Astronomer_Christian]

Like germanic languages can't be romantic...😶

[@britt2351]

Me, watching as a dutch person: wow I'm really good at this

[@llun4z]

same- but i mostly speak english

[@SusanneTrijntje]

Me too! I have all the answers right

[@inehagens9581]

Me too

[@esthervanwaart4329]

Me too all correct Het is geweldig!

[@s.arnold2583]

As German it is also not too difficult3

[@Foodgeek]

As a Danish, German and English speaker. Reading Dutch almost always makes perfect sense :)

[@0799qwertzuiop]

As a German, Dutch and English speaker written Danish makes a lot of sense to me. It's probbably closest to Dutch. Altough when it's spoken I only understand very little ^^

[@fuckpolicestate]

Native Russian and German Speaker, almost native in English, with a slight accent. Almost all spot on, but the spoken language throws me off when spoken fast or heavily slurred. Written it's a breeze.

[@stephaniewilson7352]

@@0799qwertzuiop Same, written Dutch makes sense knowing German. Spoken Dutch is harder.

[@kassandraglueck2794]

I speak English and German, and I got 7 of 8 right! (I got the supermarket one half right). A lot of them sound so similar,and the spelling is sooo close too!

[@enju4013]

As a German, Swedish and English speaker Dutch is easier to listen to than Danish

[@potman4581]

"I think the Old English has helped me more than I realized it would." Absolute fucking King.

[@LogiForce86]

If he also knew the Lower Saxon language he'd be doing this with two fingers up the nose.

[@TheEvertw]

Olde English still has a lot of the original Anglo-Saxon languages in it, and as Dutch is a direct descendant of those languages, it figures that would help ;-)

[@potman4581]

@@TheEvertw Old English is Anglo-Saxon. Those are the same thing. Old English was a group of related dialects from the West Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family. Dutch is also a West Germanic language and hence shares many features with English. At the end of the Old English period, English underwent two major changes that made it distinctly different from other Germanic languages: 1. a massive simplification of its grammar; 2. Latinization (through Norman French) of most of its lexicon. This smudged away a lot of English's obvious similarities and parallels with its sister languages after the Old English period. Old English is hence the most similar among the stages of English to other Germanic languages, the rest of which did not undergo the same languages English did. Dutch is not, however, an "Anglo-Saxon" language. The Anglo-Saxons was the name used to refer, very roughly, to the Germanic tribes that migrated to the British Isles after the Romans left. The ancestors of Dutch speakers, however, never left mainland Europe, and hence are not Anglo-Saxon. English's closest relative on the mainland is Frisian, which, together with English, forms the Anglo-Frisian branch of the West Germanic languages. Dutch is more distantly related to English than Frisian is. Simon is a descendant of the Anglo-Saxons and speaks their language, giving him a better understanding of the Germanic languages of his distant cousins than the rest of us English speakers. Hope this clears things up.

[@BSWVI]

@@LogiForce86 Is that an expression meaning "easily"? Very colourful!

[@LogiForce86]

@@BSWVI Yup, if there is one thing odd about the Dutch language it's our proverbs and sayings. Also we like to swear or more like curse with horrible diseases. Like cancer, plague, cholera, tyfus, and more. When we curse we do it properly. 😅 I think once you dive into that part of our language you'll be amazed at how colorful it is.

[@sovanima]

impressive how Simon was able to understand everything by decoding the meanings with the solid knowledge of how language logic has developed trough time

[@bengrint84]

Old English is great fun. German > Dutch > English with the help of Old English to bridge some gaps.

[@MVXXll]

I'm going to take classes. I have always been interested in historical languages, latin as an example, but sadly, I have never had the chance to experiment with Old English. After watching this video and seeing how similar old english is to Dutch and other languages, I can see the usefulness of it! Wish me luck! 🫡

[@ryanfleming9158]

Easy. I eat fries with mayo

[@jjgg3963]

Simon's analytic skills are really impressive in the way he disconnects from his own linguistic background

[@mctbaggins2084]

The fact that he found "squirrel" from "eekhoorn" while everyone saw "acorn" was very impressive.

[@timoloef]

from Simon's videos I already noticed how close old English is to dutch, certainly if you understand local dutch dialects

[@j.s.c.4355]

Simon’s analytic skills are that good because he speaks old English, So he knows all the cognates and isn’t confused by non-cognate words like the others are. For example, he recognized DAG as day right away because it’s the same in old English. He also knew that dog is not an old English word and that HUND is the Germanic word.

[@knispler666]

@@mctbaggins2084 I am German and I fell for it. Even though we also say "Eichhörnchen" which means small eekhorn.

[@Dwg256]

31

[@FeanaroNoldoran]

I'm a little disappointed Simon didn't introduce himself as: Speaker of Old English

[@Sebbir]

Yeah

[@glasit00]

Simon is, apparently, not a man of many words.

[@xMithras]

Also TIL Old English is pretty much just Dutch with a funny accent

[@KianSheik]

Yeah definitely, he's op not a standard speaker. Too humble

[@ajx2956]

He definitely had an upper hand.

[@bos3489]

I felt really smart during this test, then I remembered I am Dutch.

[@tatafelizardo8532]

Oh please! Hahaha

[@Mika-_.]

Same bro

[@MrTimurLP]

i felt really smart too, as a german speaker

[@applejuices]

@@MrTimurLP that’s more impressive than if you’re dutch

[@margjehagenauw8352]

Same

[@pilzz03]

As a native german that is almost fluent in dutch and currently at uni to become a Dutch teacher in the future, I actually got every sentence! No, I‘m actually so impressed by Simon. I knew that old English is quite similar to modern Dutch and German but to be able to put the sentences together like that is seriously impressive.

[@oOIIIMIIIOo]

Old englisch and dutch is more like german dialects spoken. As I know the dialects spoken near the border to belgium and the netherlands, I understand it pretty well.

[@AltIng9154]

@@oOIIIMIIIOo I think Low Lands German is not a German dialect. If it would be true... Old English and Dutch are German dialects. Shall ick di vertellen dat je Anglisk prat wer ick bün to Hus?😁

[@markdelange3638]

Funny how Simon was able to understand a lot of it through his command of Old English - when I studied English in university, I aced my Old English classes by reading everything as though it were Dutch.

[@oliveranderson7264]

As a native English speaker who had to learn Dutch in school, I had the same experience in reverse lol I was surprised at how much Old English I could understand without having ever studied it

[@einaradame8132]

In my case, as a native Spanish speaker, what helps me with the understanding of Portuguese or Italian is my knowledge of Old Spanish. :D

[@hemiolaguy]

It would have helped a lot if the guys knew some basic German. For example: ik = ich liggen = liegen dag = Tag Wij willen = Wir wollen kopen = kaufen brood = Brot

[@markdelange3638]

@@einaradame8132 what helps me with both Spanish and Italian, is my high school French and a rudimentary knowledge of Latin.

[@3334001]

@@hemiolaguy also the cheese was recognisable spelt but pronounced differently

[@raymondwhatley9954]

My knowledge of German seems to have given me an unfair advantage while I was playing along at home.

[@angycucumber4319]

If you know German and English, Dutch is easy

[@mr_heffy2576]

@@angycucumber4319 are you sure? Dutch is a hard language, I am dutch and I sometimes struggle with the language

[@angycucumber4319]

@@mr_heffy2576 No, I'm not saying it's easy to speak, I'm just saying that dutch is a mix of german and english, so it's really easy to understand.

[@mr_heffy2576]

@@angycucumber4319 some words from German are used yes, but that is almost none, and yes, we use a lot of English words, but that can't help you with the spelling (dutch words)

[@angycucumber4319]

@@mr_heffy2576 Oh ok

[@tonycasey3183]

I really like these "can X language speakers understand Y language speakers" videos. I also really like how laid back and quietly confident Simon Roper is.

[@headrush3794]

As a German with English knowledge I understand almost all. Especially if you hear the sentence and see the written from. Some sentences I understand immediately. Like "Mijn vriend doet kaas op zijn brood." Means in German "Mein Freund tut Käse auf sein Brot" Acutally "tut" is mostly interchanged with "macht"(makes) in case, but in some regions of Germany tut is also used.

[@Ruthlessleader]

The fact that Simon didn't flex on others for knowing old English is commendable.

[@martelkapo]

He is a very humble lad!

[@JanBruunAndersen]

But is it Old English, or is it actually Danish?

[@lourier3]

And also that gives him an advantage that I feel the viewers should be aware of. Definitely not an average British English speaker

[@peterfireflylund]

@@lourier3none of them is normal. Norbert knows some German + Hungarian and Spanish in addition to his Polish and English. The way Matt attacked the Japanese language is definitely also not normal. They all know a lot more about linguistics than normal people and they are all more intelligent than average.

[@basboerboom9328]

@JanBruunAndersen It's Old English derived from West Germanic languages, but it indeed has a lot of Old Norse (derived from North Germanic languages) influences. In the end they are both Proto-Germanic languages.

[@MrWennerstrom]

"will be representing a British English speaker" (who speaks Old English fluently)

[@axellfonz]

that is the interesting part of it

[@Ruthavecflute]

Yeah, not exactly a typical English speaker is he

[@russellbartholomew9996]

Honestly, a typical monolingual English speaker without knowledge of OE would kill a project like this. We just aren't used to listening to unfamiliar languages to try and make partial meaning out of them. Even in this video, they aren't solving riddles like the Romance languages videos do. Any videos for Germanic languages including English need either someone who is knowledgeable with OE or another Germanic language like Simon, Cefin from Leornende, and Dr. Jackson Crawford (specialist in ON), or maybe someone who is bi-dialectal and speaks a regional variation of English or Scots.

[@YukiTheOkami]

old englsich was verry close to old german and dutsch and danisch so he kinda cheated

[@nunya5136]

😂😂😂

[@Tvngsten]

As someone who learnt a bit of german and swedish, i can understand dutch fairly well actually

[@tytanowykarol]

Yeah swedish seems so similar.

[@Turbo_Tina]

As a native Dutch speaker, we can understand German pretty well (and vice versa) but Swedish, except from some words, is hard to understand.

[@Hun_Uinaq]

I studied German and learned a little bit of old English. It helped a lot.

[@bogdanjasovic9930]

Same, I know English and I'm learning German at the moment.

[@jonathanpetruska7726]

Same with me. Only “naar” threw me off. Heard it as Svenska “när”, so I just went with English “near”. I studied Swedish much more than German, though.

[@tobyetc]

As an English speaker (age 80) who lived one year in Groningen when I was 11, I was happily surprised to understand all the sentences! Shows the power of early learning.

[@teresasijpkens859]

That’s amazing!

[@autumnphillips151]

I’m 23 and afraid that I’ve missed out on my chance to take advantage of that “early learning power”. Unfortunately, I didn’t become passionate about languages until this past year. My grandmother wanted me to learn Spanish when I was a young child, and I tried to learn Latin when I was a teenager, but I couldn’t stick with either of them because I had no passion for them. What’s attracted me to linguistics now is the concept of language families-specifically, learning about which languages are most closely related to English. It gives me this really pleasant rush of a feeling of connection when I discover cognates and other things that English has in common with the other Germanic languages, and I wish that I’d been introduced to them when I was a child, instead of the Italic languages. I’ve been learning Swedish for two months now, because it’s the one that really attracted me, and my knowledge of Swedish helped me with guessing some things in this video that my knowledge of English didn’t help with, but I’m still afraid that it’s too late for me to develop the skills to really be fluent in other languages.

[@AltIng9154]

If you lived in Emden... you know the city mentioned by Shakespeare... you would be happily surprised also. 😊

[@AltIng9154]

@@autumnphillips151 I am 63... and still interested,... although missed early learning also.😄

[@KibyNykraft]

​@@teresasijpkens859 The first sentence is too easy for everyone from Norway / Sweden / Denmark / Germany + the englishspeaking countries. But I guess a soft start :) Today we say "bord" in norwegian for table, but in classic norwegian "tafl". We also have "tavle" meaning the blackboard the teacher writes on ("tavla"= "the" blackboard). We ofc anyway know the english "table".

[@flyingfoxes4630]

"My friend makes cash with his blood." - Norbert, 2021

[@InfiniteGreninja]

19:51

[@PhilippeLarcher]

outside the supermarket with a dog

[@EmilPetrov42]

Norbert rules 😄😆😎

[@thehighwayman78]

Yeah that was hilarious 😂😂😂

[@jamesrogers5277]

If Norbert were Transylvanian this translation would seem perfectly reasonable.

[@18booma]

As an Afrikaans person I felt like i was almost cheating. The patat got me though.

[@marktegrotenhuis]

Afrikaans lijkt heel veel op Nederlands. So I see why it would feel like cheating. 😉

[@V3loCiTy123]

Patat is a sweet potato in Afrikaans

[@jasonmuller1199]

Yeah the patat got me as well, i thought it would be weird eating sweet potato with mayonaise but hey you never know what Europeans get up to

[@gabzie1668]

Afrikaans is my 2nd language... and I haven't needed to use it since leaving school but I understood about 80% of what she was saying. 😎

[@Isochest]

@@jasonmuller1199 Chips with Mayonnaise. I only see that in Great Yarmouth in the UK. But then again that is close to Den Helder in the Netherands where you see fish and chip shops like in the UK

[@JYHRO0]

It proves the proximity of old Germanic languages. Simon had the advantage with old English

[@JamesJones-zt2yx]

Yes! I bet he'd recognize the Dutch past participle prefix from words like "yclept" (called). Did earlier English have that "I have Uncle Jan a pen bought" word order?

[@jan237]

@@JamesJones-zt2yx Maybe, but German definitely has it

[@JYHRO0]

@@JamesJones-zt2yx no need for sarcasm. I do not know Dutch and I know that it is its own language that developed its own quirks. I also know that at the time of old English all Germanic languages were still very close to one another having barely split apart for only a few centuries.

[@usayeed727]

I’m native level in speaking English and never studied Dutch before. I understood almost all the sentences once they were transcribed because like Simon I love studying the history of English and that allows an easier comprehension. Seeing the roots of languages is so interesting and helpful!

[@Jollofmuncher2000]

Alot of these sentences will be a bit similar in English because in modern English they use 100 % germanic words as the sentences

[@Syarikat]

No, Simon was the only one to get the first sentence right, becoause it was “boeken” (plural), Matt made it singular.

[@Oldoldold2023]

My thoughts exactly lol

[@angycucumber4319]

Yea because I just assumed that boeken was plural because I think german and dutch grammar are similar

[@GamingCat580]

@@angycucumber4319 yeah they are

[@kasane1337]

I like how I, as a German, immediately read "Begreift ihr, was hier steht?" And yes, yes, ich begreife das, bzw. verstehe ich das.

[@kebman]

Norwegian: Begriper, forstår, fatter. :)

[@NakulGanapathy]

The direct English translation would be “do you grip what stands here” 😂

[@herr_k69]

@@NakulGanapathy Almost! "Greifen" without "Be-" means to grasp/grip, like in English we say "Did you grasp what he said". They're closely related :)

[@Lissanuddin]

Except that 'begreifen' in German signifies an understanding of the thought (if any...) expressed in an utterance, not merely linguistic understanding. The Dutch 'begrijpen' means the latter, though.

[@NakulGanapathy]

@@herr_k69 yeah the direct translation would be do you grasp what I’m saying but I feel like that’s a very posh way to say do you understand what I’m saying which in German would be “verstehst du, was ich sage”

[@CrashExhibition]

"We have the word aardappel" Simon immediately: Like earth-apple, ground-apple. The lad would have Dutch down in days :D

[@al424242]

Like the French Pomme de Terre "apple of the ground"

[@DieFlabbergast]

That's a pretty obvious one, really. If you're even half-educated, you should know that Aardvaark is Dutch for "earth-pig."

[@PetraStaal]

@@DieFlabbergast aardvark is an Afrikaans word.

[@RedDevil2557]

@@PetraStaal Afrikaans is a Germanic language derived from Dutch. So it kinda makes sense that it has similarities.

[@csreiter]

I knew what this meant too, but I couldn’t remember why I knew that “aard” was earth.

[@Bartkonig]

Maybe I'm just a linguistic geek, but I love watching these videos. And It's very interesting to see how much these people do or do not understand Dutch. Keep it up😉 (Dutchie here!)

Genuinely enjoyed this video, was a lot of fun to guess along with you guys

[@mmcharchuta]

Same!

[@potman4581]

yoooooo it's my man Tom, how you doing!

[@Iledomair]

This man is why I learned Italian. Thank you Tom

[@Ecolinguist]

Thank you, Tom!

[@argamnex]

same too!

[@lukasdinkel384]

As a native German and as an english speaker, I could understand nearly everything.

[@l0lhiliviahere681]

same lol. Also as a native german and as an english speaker

[@peppy5121]

Dutch an german are very alike, im a native dutch speaker and i can understand german without having learnt it.

[@thfc7492]

Goed dat je een beetje Nederlands kan dat is toch een veel leukere taal dan Duits

[@tommi7554]

As a non-germanic language speaker, i still understood pretty much everything. Many of those words are somewhat close to english, just have to think for a while.

[@l1l14n8]

same, but for many only with the transcript

[@cheeveka3]

There needs to be a video of Old English, German, and Dutch.😌

[@jonathanemslander6896]

💯

[@eli_7295]

Absolutely!

[@haroldgodwinson3410]

and frisian

[@cheeveka3]

@@haroldgodwinson3410 That would amazing as well but I have feeling Norbet won’t do it 🥲 I wish he more open to doing more Germanic languages

[@oidualclaudi0]

That’s what we’ve been asking for

[@stefaniac2095]

I am Italian, I speak only basic German and I understood every sentence right away. So proud of myself

[@AltIng9154]

Great, you are talented. 😊 I guess you speak almost perfect German but you are "bescheiden", right?😊

[@stefaniac2095]

@@AltIng9154 not at all, I speak German like a 4 year old at best , I can just guess the etymology of Germanic words from my English

[@AltIng9154]

@@stefaniac2095 .... some 4 years old kids are quite good, don't worry!🤗

[@nichderjeniche]

I doubt that you understood every single word correctly

[@MaartjeTosca]

Bravissimo!!!

[@EASYTIGER10]

I'm a Brit who speaks a little German and understood each sentence. Speaking that combination really helps with Dutch. Wherever English has adopted a Norman/French word that stops you understanding its Dutch version, knowing its Germanic equivalent fills in the gaps.

[@mrtech2259]

Except for quite a few words like "slim" for "smart" or "Er" for "there".

[@kremepye3613]

As an english speaker with a reasonable level of norwegian i understood everything (once i saw it written at least)

[@guangvandenbosch1402]

I would kind of agree with you, but the languages: German and Dutch are different from my opinion. For example: I'm speaking Dutch because I'm from Holland (the Netherlands), but I almost can't understand anything from German people

[@vsabadazh]

@@guangvandenbosch1402 even in written form?

[@rdeloges7957]

That is really interesting to hear. I know as an English/Spanish speaker, I see so many cognates and similarities between Spanish and French (obviously) but also with English...especially if you know what letters typically replace each other. E.g. caballero, chevalier, cavalry(man) (i.e. cavalier, the original "gentleman" horseman, landed "gentry"). The "V" is often pronounced like a "B" in Spanish, not only in written form, but even with native Spanish speakers, who pronounce Veronica "Beronica" etc. You can see the Norman influence on English for sure and thus the related Spanish word back to the root Latin, at least relating to words that are not Germanic.

[@just_callme_bee]

Me as a Dutch person watching this, impressed by Simon’s impressive translations. Like for real, he did good!

[@94FBN]

Armyyyyy 🤭

[@Corony]

Yes indeed he did. Amazing how the antique Englisch has simularities with modern Dutch.

[@meganoob12]

well, that is because he id fluent in old english. old english is the original anglo-saxon origin of english, which means it is purely germanic with influences from Northern Germany/the Netherlands and Scandinavia. This was English before the vowel shift and before the Normans and French influenced the language to create modern English. Old-English is a pure germanic language and thus he knows alot of cognates and is used to the grammar. He also knoes some German.

[@TronFnknBlow]

Check out some of the videos featuring Simon speaking old english, and you'll find that goes both ways.

[@abeedhal6519]

@@meganoob12 Right it clearly doesn't really show wether an english speaker would understand dutch. He has knowledge of a dead langugae and knows all those details about sound shifts ect. Also if he knows German then he should be able to read most of the dutch sentences anyways.

[@decekfrokfr3mdx]

English speaker here: Dutch is the ONLY language where if I can hear people speaking 10-20 metres away, I think it's English, but 10 seconds later when they're closer to me, I realise it's not.

[@DieFlabbergast]

You are ONLY the five millionth person to make that observation :)

[@RockSolitude]

I would add Flemish to that as well.

[@decekfrokfr3mdx]

@@RockSolitude Flemish is basically Dutch. I've never heard Frisian but I believe it's also close to English in that way.

[@decekfrokfr3mdx]

@TwinTurbo Ray Yes, I agree. I said Flemish is basically the same, not Frisian.

[@xXTheoLinuxXx]

@@decekfrokfr3mdx Frisian and Old-English are indeed close related.

[@salah-eldingad7567]

Simon is the definition of a true linguist who can dismantle any language in a short time 😂😂😂 I am really impressed with his talent

[@JulianGuba]

Simon knowing basically everything was so satisfying, as me as a German speaker I could understand every sentence and was just hoping they would catch on 😂

[@brittakriep2938]

In swabian Baum is also Boom.

[@Jaworr96]

Simon is Germanic equivalent of Vit and his knowledge about Slavic languages 😜

[@dj1rst]

Whenever someone is fluent in old English than its Simon. I like him very much. He is such a nerd in what he is doing but that made him even more likeable.

[@audrey9561]

German is my 3rd language so it was pretty easy to make out most of what she said

[@szinga]

as a person who also comes from poland as norbert, I thought he would catch on much more than he did! german is often offered as a second foreign language in polish middle/high schools, so most people I know had some contact with that language, as small it might've been. I learnt german for 3 years in middle school, and even though I remember nothing of it (lol), the basic understanding of how it works helped me immensely with dutch.

[@johnnorthtribe]

For me as a Swede, this was surprisingly easy to understand when reading it.

[@criwall]

Yeah, a bit of German also helps.

[@maximilianoadl]

1rst: boeken (böker), op (på) 2nd: "dag" (dag), ga (gå) 3rd: "Wij" (Vi), willen (vill), kopen (köpa) Learning svenska here

[@angycucumber4319]

It was easy for me too, being someone in the UK doing German at school

[@maartenbondt9600]

I am Dutch I studied Swedish for a short time I think it goes both ways

[@alwinuding8926]

Yeah, alot of Scandinavian footbal players who come play in the Dutch league learn Dutch really quickly.

[@hankwilliams150]

I have watched several of Simon's linguistic videos and he is a true linguist whether he knows it or not. Very impressive!

[@MonteSlider]

Where can you find Simons videos, please?

[@justames5979]

@@MonteSlider on his channel, just look up Simon Roper on KZbin

[@spacecase4984]

@@MonteSlider I hope you looked up his videos. They’re such a treat!

[@Smitology]

@@MonteSlider Just search "Simon Roper"

[@RooibaardBoerseun]

As an Afrikaner who speaks Afrikaans I too could understand and make out the meaning of all of the sentences. Very interesting video. Thanks. Greetings from South Africa 🇿🇦

[@teqfreak]

Cool, I am always curious how easy it is for Afrikaans speakers. I myself as a dutch person can usually read 99% of Afrikaans without problems, understanding it when I hear it depends a lot on the speaker and the amount of slang, but is usually 70% and up (with some exceptions). I would love to learn to speak it at some point. It’s a beautiful language.

[@learndutchwithkim]

Thanks everyone for the nice comments. I see a lot of questions about where I am from. I am from Alphen aan den Rijn, which is a city in Zuid-Holland in the Netherlands. I was born and raised here and then moved around, so I picked up a bit from different parts of the Netherlands and maybe also a bit of English in my accent 😍

[@by_gomel]

Sub + Ring. I liked you, someday I'm gonna learn Dutch... using your channel =) Best luck 2U

[@hapkido1695]

Linguistically speaking, non-native speakers of a language speak with accents while native speakers of a language speak dialects. For instance, N. America, England, and Africa are all dialects of English while someone learning English will speak English with an accent. A small part of dialects is accents but native speakers speak dialects.

[@Njx063]

Heyy daar wonen ook vrienden van me! K ga dr elk nieuw jaar heen :)

[@chevysolofpv]

So glad to see you here since I’ve been following your Dutch lesson the beginning of this year and also attending Dutch lesson in Belgium (level 2.2 completed). Thoroughly enjoyed the video and of course, I got everything right! Bedankt 🙏

[@miaow262]

hey daar woon ik ook

[@braaierman]

I'm Afrikaans and could follow with ease. I'm surprised by the similarities between Old English and Dutch. Super cool! In Afrikaans: 1) Die boeke lê op die tafel. 2) Ek gaan elke dag supermark toe. 3) Ons wil 'n nuwe kar koop. (some people might use "motor" instead of "kar") 4) Ek eet aartappelskyfies met mayonaise. 5) Norbert is baie slim. 6) My vriend sit kaas op sy brood. 7) Daar sit 'n eekhoring in die boom. 8) Ons maak 'n video / Ons is besig om 'n video te maak.

[@ashwinnmyburgh9364]

ek was net besig om die selfde ding te dink.

[@AndreaAvila78]

@@nilsvn2052 I find it so cool that I can understand some Dutch by knowing some English ! I love it! But Spanish is my mother tongue. Afrikaans sounds so cool !

[@AndreaAvila78]

@@nilsvn2052 Yes indeed! Leaning languages make me happy!

[@bazooka93]

I wonder if I could understand almost everything from the fact that I learned some German back in the days, or from Afrikaans I've heard playing Metal Gear Solid 5 way too much.

[@lisaniemand5593]

"Norbert is heel slim" would be a correct Afrikaans sentence as well although a bit archaic.

[@eljuano28]

The "false friends" words are strong with this language.

[@makkiewakkie9267]

What’s false friends?

[@nicko9046]

@@makkiewakkie9267 When a word sounds like something in your language so you assume it's the same meaning, but is often totally or amusingly different.

[@eli_7295]

Yeah, as German native speaker I fell into a few traps^^ But aardappel (or so) is the same Word as the Austrian german word Erdapfel which means potato, it was funny to see that this word turns up in both the northern and southern "border regions" of the german language.

[@Ψυχήμίασμα]

@@eli_7295 Same thing in English. Potatoes used to be called earth apples. And in French they're pommes de terre. Apples of Earth. In Chinese they are earth bean "土豆 (tudou)." Basically they are all called earth + some type of crop in most languages.

[@OntarioTrafficMan]

The neat thing about Dutch false friends is that the correct translation is usually close by as well. Dutch "door" has nothing to do with the English word 'door' despite being pronounced and spelt exactly the same, but the correct translation "deur" still looks and sounds pretty similar to the English one. Some more examples: Dutch "beer" does not mean 'beer'. Beer in Dutch is "bier", pronounced exactly the same as in English. "Beer" is pronounced like 'bear' (the animal) and that's what it means. Dutch "heel" (16:30) has nothing to do with the English word 'heel'. The Dutch for a heel is 'hiel' which is pronounced exactly the same as in English. Dutch "wil" means 'want', not 'will'. However, it historically meant that in English too, and you still see that meaning in expressions like 'if you will', or in old literature ('You may speak as you will'). To say that you are going to do something in Dutch, you can say "Ik zal __" (literally 'I shall __') or "Ik ga __" (literally 'I go ___'). Dutch "fijn" sounds like English 'fine', but it actually means very nice, not just okay. It used to mean that in English too, which is why we have things like 'fine wine', which actually means 'very nice wine', not just 'okay wine'.

[@butterflyguy65]

I’d love to take part. I understood most of the sentences but was really impressed with the old English words , I thought acorn but squirrel ! Come on 😂! Loved this.

[@camrendavis6650]

Finally!!! More Germanic languages!!!

[@AtomicShrimp]

This was such an interesting video - having traveled to NL and worked with people there a few times (for a week or so at a time), I definitely kept getting the impression that the language is on the periphery of understanding for an English speaker - I think people have used the metaphor of Dutch seeming (to English speakers) 'like trying to hear someone speaking English in the next room'. I find that pretty apt.

[@zeldadinosaur]

OMG Is it you?

[@TheOddVideoChannel]

Nice to find you here Mr. Shrimp! I have heard similar comments, also from people in Germany. They have called it a more English sounding version of German. Which, geographically at least, makes sense.

[@AtomicShrimp]

@@TheOddVideoChannel yeah. The other thing, which is kind of hard to say without it sounding like an insult (I mean no such thing of course) is that to the native English ear, some of the intonation of Dutch can sound sort of comical (like English spoken in some sort of comedy-silly accent). I'm sure it's entirely accidental. I actually like it.

[@TheOddVideoChannel]

@@AtomicShrimp Haha, no offense taken. I can imagine that. Some of the sounds are quite different (especially the 'hard G' I guess), but at the same time certain words and grammar are on the border of understandable. What can make me cringe is Dutch people speaking English with a very heavy accent, I hope I'm not doing that myself :)

[@AtomicShrimp]

@@TheOddVideoChannel Your accent is great! - it's sufficiently present to make an interesting difference, without interfering at all with comprehensibility.

[@blzb1219]

For someone, who's a russian native speaker, who can also speak English and German, I was pretty proud of myself, that I could understand Dutch and also translate into all of the languages I speak. Thanks for raising my self-esteem, I guess :3

[@CrippleX89]

That's pretty awesome! I'm trying to learn a little Russian myself but in my experience it's quite difficult to learn a language that's not really in the same family of your native language (or distant at best). It helps that some words are similar but it's reaaally hard to read a Russian sentence (and the Cyrillic alphabet doesn't help either :D), I try to pick out the words that I recognize and interpret the rest from there. It only makes me respect people who learn English more, I always thought that at least basic English was pretty easy but I’m just lucky that my native language is closely related…

[@boston_octopus]

Молодец!

[@atriyakoller136]

Same!

[@antoniousai1989]

Knowledge of common German words helped me too, even though the only Germanic language I know is English. It was interesting.

[@blzb1219]

@@CrippleX89 it will only get easier, don't worry) Although that will take quite some time (I used to learn Japanese before, so I know how it feels to basically start learning to read anew), you will succeed, I'm sure of it! Good luck on your journey, luv! Удачи и всего наилучшего!

[@lukezenon]

Im not a linguist, but i know english and also remember a bit of german from school, so it helped me to guess almost all sentences. This is great channel and great idea! Pozdrowienia z Polski😊

[@yannschonfeld5847]

I lived in Brittany for 35 years. Once, 20 years ago, a friend asked me to interpret with three Friesian farmers and a Breton farmer to negotiate their manure spreading quotas. I don't speak Dutch or Friesian. The farmers understood my English and I understood their Friesian.. Another time in 1988 in the Netherlands, in a campground, a young man asked me " Is het water koud?" (Which it was) so I simply answered in English. There are enough dialects in England to steer a person to a fairly close understanding of either Nederlands or Friesian or even Plat Dütch which has amongst the older generation a close sounding language to certain dialects in England or more precisely in Kent or Essex.

[@amjan]

Intetesting, thanks!

[@katarinawikholm5873]

I’m Swedish and spent some time in and around Hamburg/Lübeck as a kid. At the time I got along just adapting my ear to the local dialect and moulding what I said, so I could buy icecream or ask simple questions like directions. Sadly it all went away when studying formal German in school bc High German pronounciation is so different.

[@dj1rst]

You know there is Essex, Sussex, Wessex and Northex where you ken(t) speak some Saxon.

[@igotissues1386]

Having a modicum of German language in me I got a lot of these. Kim was a fantastic presenter, so vibrant and full of energy! These are my favorite videos!

[@kimmiejautze]

Thank you so much Tiarnán!

[@ANTSEMUT1]

@@kimmiejautze you were totally adorable and bubbly the whole way

[@drottercat]

Simon is impressive and instructive with his examples of intelligibility with Old English.

[@brbapappa]

He earned my subscription

[@thinkpolish]

I think it really helps to speak at least some German on top of English. My German is really basic, but almost all the correct answers I got were with the help of German. As an English teacher, I also have some knowledge of Old English but I never thought of it, just my elementary German. And by the way, I'm Polish, so cześć Norbert! (and hi guys 😊)

[@georgthesecond]

I know English quite well, but I feel like my basic knowledge of German helped me a lot more here.

[@lukezenon]

I have the same observations. Też jako Polak👍

[@Whiskey11Gaming]

Made the same observation. I had the basic structure and verbs down but the nouns required me to dig deep into my limited German vocabulary. I think I did OK with a real basic German understanding and my native English. I imagine the Dutch and Germans would be better on soaking to each other than trying to read each other's words due to how similar everything sounds but how differently it looks.

[@AltIng9154]

I always admire the language skills of slavic people. You learn Germanic language with almost no problems and we are still the "

[@AltIng9154]

who are the tribes incable to speak at all,... as you call us... name us... "Nemek"... right? 😁

[@degeneriert]

As a German who had 3 years of exposure to belgian flemish in his childhood, I understood everything perfectly and was pretty amused by some guesses, especially by Norbert ;)

[@wkostowski]

As a Pole who also knows German, I could understand much more than Norbert and Matt. But anyway, I think both of them could have performed better in this test. If you see a written 'brood', how can you even think about 'blood'? Simon's performance and analytical thinking was simply great. And Norbert's ideas for videos are great as well!!

[@gaborodriguez1346]

@@wkostowski Well, I thought in Swedish "Bröd", and Danish/Norwegian "Brød"

[@gaborodriguez1346]

@ exactly

[@enidan_]

As a native german speaker, I always find Dutch sounds kinda cute, and a bit like a mixture of German and English. I'm also happy, that I understood quite a lot of it :)

[@thenonexistinghero]

The Dutch in this video is a bit different from usual though. The pacing's a lot slower since otherwise it sounds like a single word to people who can't speak it. And the pronunciation is slightly different as well for many of the words to what you'd hear in the language for real... I'm assuming that's done to make it easier for non-Dutch speakers to understand.

[@annacluckers1698]

I understand why you're saying Dutch sounds like English a bit but maybe only so in the Netherlands.. In Flanders the 'r' is spoken more like the french one, from the throat (okay weird explanation) and in the Netherlands it sounds more like 'are', like in English. We in Belgium also think German is cute :) or me at least

[@empyrionin]

@@annacluckers1698 this question will sound ignorant... So then tap/trill "r" is not used in dutch? If i want to pick up at least a mildly dutch accent I will have to use basically the English "r"? I'm Romanian, but I can do all three "r"s (and a few others like the Czech one), just want to know which sounds more authentic.

[@FatiFleur-jn7ky]

@@annacluckers1698 The r sound really depends on what part of the country someone is from. We're a small country but there are strong regional differences. An Achterhoeker sounds very different from a Hollander and also sounds very different from a Limburger.

[@generalgrafx]

Very impressed by Simon and how Old English helps him to understand Dutch.

[@Amghannam]

Yeah, as a Dutch speaker, I also noticed I understand Old English better than native English speakers who only speak English.

[@bernarddelafontaine4825]

Your being impressed could be avoided by the most basic knowledge of the languages spoken in your own tiny backyard.

[@generalgrafx]

@@bernarddelafontaine4825 ¿Que?

[@bernarddelafontaine4825]

@@generalgrafx That's what I was afraid of.

[@tomellingsen]

As a native Norwegian, and having learned German in school a lifetime ago, most of these were surprisingly easy. Some threw me off, but in general I understood the meaning of all the sentenced. Fascinating stuff.

[@AzIgaziMakk]

Well Dutch is really similar to german so it helps a lot.

[@DidrickNamtvedt]

Same here, Norwegian native with a very basic German knowledge but I felt it came in handy when trying to understand the Dutch phrases. In some cases, I was spot on and I was way off in others. But I did find it really enjoyable and interesting to see how closely related our languages are.

[@Serenoj69]

@@AzIgaziMakk It is partially a help. In fact on quite a few occasions Dutch and NOrwegian are more similar than either is to German. So simply knowing Norwegian helps a lot.

[@Nabium]

Yes as a Norwegian I sometimes got help from the basic German I had back in school, some from English, and some from the influence Low German has had on Norwegian. As far as I know Low German is closer to Dutch than other German dialects are close to Dutch, so might be why many Danes and Norwegians find they can read some Dutch.

[@BattleGhul]

As a german, I have always had trouble understanding dutch when hearing it, but quite often having a pretty good idea when i see it written. Still holds true ^^. Also love that Simon with his old english is seeing some of the same connections that i as a german do. It's so fascinating how related they all are ^^

[@sascharosinski1309]

What do you think about the 'false friends'? It always makes me mad meeting Germans claiming to understand a lot of Dutch. For example 'noodweer', 'oorlog' or 'uitvaart'. Why don't they admit that they simply can't understand the language? 🤔

[@BattleGhul]

@@sascharosinski1309 I never said I had a perfect understanding, I can often get a pretty good idea from identifying several words, then I can get the point of the sentence from context. For your examples of false friends, yes, I didn't get them right on first viewing, but now that I have looked it up "noodweer" is kinda like "Not-Wetter" (emergency/distress - weather) so getting from there to "storm" isn't to big a leap. With the others I don't see a connection yet, so yea, you got me there xD. I freely admit that I don't understand dutch as a whole, what I am saying is that if you look for cognates, you will find quite a few. This isn't a bad thing. I would never claim that german and dutch are the same thing, but they are closely related, at least/especially in written language. For the examples given in this video, I got 4 out of 7 spot on. 2 more I still felt pretty good about my guess, though it wasn't 100% correct.

[@sascharosinski1309]

@@BattleGhul My comment did not necessarily have to do with you! It is the Germans in general that are bothering me. They hear 'noodweer' and think that people are talking about a raping and feel so good and believe they understand it so well.... 😖

[@BattleGhul]

@@sascharosinski1309 I see. Well, I understand, because it looks/sounds very similar to "Notwehr" (self-defense). That's kinda the point of false friends though. You think you know, but you're wrong. I do understand that it would be frustrating, especially if they are being smug about it, or don't accept correction from someone who would obviously know better. Though that is not something exclusive to germans, that can come from anyone. It's just a thing that happens when 2 languages are related.

[@hildeschmid8400]

I have always thought that Dutch was a step between German and English.

[@Piratenbraut]

As a native German and also a fluid English speaker this was surprisingly easy

[@arianam9977]

I'm Spanish but started learning German some months ago and I also found it pretty easy thanks to knowing the basics of German!

[@catblues8645]

Same here! Native German, fluent English - - I feel like if it's slow and I can read along, I understand 90% of Dutch. If it's in a normal spoken context, i.e. watching a film in Dutch, it's a bit more difficult but I'd say I understand enough to get the idea most of the time

[@MoonieLovegood]

@@catblues8645 same with german. I just have difficulties with the grammar. -your dutch neighbor

[@scottlarson1548]

I'm the opposite with the two languages, and I made the mistake of leaning to a German possible translation instead of an English one. For example I never thought "elke" could be "every" since I was expecting something similar to "jeder".

[@ThePrinceofParthia]

@@scottlarson1548 to be fair, there's no real way to connect "each" and "elke" without going through the Old English like Simon did. Elke just seems to be something you have to know (or have a great command of Old English) to know.

[@germaniapreungesheim6758]

I agree that Simon did extremely well on the translations. Interresting how there are so many similarities between "old English" German as well. (as a nativ German speaker with English as my second language I found it not too difficult to translate your sentences) Nice Video - Thank you

[@lozdubya]

As an English person who did a German gcse about 30 years ago, this was quite easy. The Germanic languages are quite similar it seems!

[@BlackAdder665]

Yupp. As a German this was comparatively easy. But there are pitfalls. Like in the last sentence "er zit" I was quite sure it meant "he sees" because "er sieht" = "he sees" in German and the pronounciation is similar.

[@PaulRees]

I agree. I am a native English speaker (Australian) with a limited knowlege of German. I found both the written and spoken Dutch had German "hints".

[@alisg1]

I do agree. As a German from the northern lowlands, 90% didn't even need a translation. It is still possible to communicate with ppl speaking Dutch, lowland German, Flamish and southafrican Afrikaans both in spoken or written words.

[@NightKnightJoR]

Hi, I'm from South Africa and in schools students learn a language called Afrikaans. I found certain aspects quite similar to Afrikaans as well, I got thrown off here and there but most of it was pretty easy😂 (my years of Afrikaans finally came in handy😂)

[@AK-lx1cr]

@@NightKnightJoR Yeah, I'm a native Dutch and English speaker and occasionally ask my friends who are South African to talk in Afrikaans and I can understand about 90% of the words, manage to piece together the remainder through conversational context.

[@AKuTepion]

At the "blood" and "eyebrows" translations, I laughed so hard there were tears in my eyes :D This format is pure genius, basically a sitcom where you also learn something.

[@brittakriep2938]

The sentence would have been in swabian dialect: Mai Freind duat Käs of sei Brod.

[@queky93]

@@brittakriep2938 what’s ‘duat’ in Hochdeutsch?

[@brittakriep2938]

@@queky93 : to do in english is dua in swabian, so the sentence in Standart German would be: Mein Freund tut Käse aufs Brot.

[@johnr9763]

Considering how well Simon Roper was helped by Old English, I wanted to share this with you. In the summer of 2019, I was teaching at a summer school in Cambridge. This was for foreign students learning English. There were many Dutch students in my advanced class. In one lesson, I added an activity about the history of English. What I read out to them (I later found out), was the start of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. I pronounced the words more like Old English and the Dutch kids thought it was Dutch. This generated a very lively discussion on the history of the language and the meaning of words, and the diffference between denotation and connotation. The book this activity came from was Discussions A to Z (advanced level).

[@annebashida]

Many years ago my mother and I went on a trip to Amsterdam and we were really surprised to be easily able to understand written Dutch (not the spoken word, though) with knowledge of the german, english and (our native) danish languages. As Simon explains the similarities between Dutch and old English, it dawned on me that as there are strong similarities between old danish old English as well and that the connections between these Northern European languages are even stronger than we think 🤔 Thank you for this video, it was very interesting. My favorite sentence was the one with the squirrel in a/the tree. In danish, that would be: “Der sidder et EGERN i et træ/træet” Eekhoorn = Egern and notice the verb ‘sidder’ is the same ‘placement verb’ as used in the dutch language 😊

[@bospin]

A couple of months ago I saw a video where Old English was spoken. Being a flemish (= belgian dutch) speaker, I understood it almost completely and thought it was actually medieval Dutch. When time passes, languages clearly start to differ more and more.

[@grendel_nz]

Hope you didn't read Beowulf to them... it comes from 'over there' ;) English is the new sponge language after all :) Dutch watch so much english tv as they grow up. BBC would leak over the channel back in analogue broadcast times.

[@hdj81Vlimited]

the old englisch where people from europe continent. Galliers....

[@picobello99]

Have you ever heard or read Frisian? It's often described as the closest language to both English and Dutch.

[@rhalme]

I'm a native speaker of Swedish. I'm proficient, though not quite at a native level in English, and I have rudimentary knowledge of German. I got all the sentences by ear, with the exception that I mistakenly thought slim meant slender or thin. My native language and my my rudimentary knowledge of German helped me more than my English proficiency.

[@jacoolckers6465]

As an Afrikaans speaker I enjoyed this. Learned something new.

[@2eme_voltigeur652]

As a Dutch native speaker I find Afrikaans a very beautiful and poetic language. Greeting from the Netherlands to our Afrikaans language brothers in South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe!

[@jacoolckers6465]

@@2eme_voltigeur652 Yes Afrikaans is a poetic language, Just like Dutch. I love singers like Stef Bos that sings not only in Dutch but also in Afrikaans. You must listen to singers like Jo Black and Juanita Du Plessis.

[@thegoodlydragon7452]

Sorry you have to live in South Africa. Stay safe, my dude.

[@ashsol2657]

@@thegoodlydragon7452 what's wrong with living in south Africa ? I live here, life's good here.

[@ashsol2657]

@@jacoolckers6465 Ek het afrikaans en engels grootgeword. Praat altwee.

[@468sed3]

As a South African ( with Afrikaans as a 2nd language) I could understand most of the Dutch. I also tried to anglicize the Dutch which helped a lot. Also, Reading the transcriptions helped immensely. (To be honest, I did not understand anything by listening to the spoken Dutch. It’s the reading of the transcriptions which clarified most of the ideas.)

[@toade1583]

It makes sense since Afrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch, albeit 17th century Dutch and one with a ton of Malay, English and some indigenous Southern African influences.

[@bex1351]

Me too!

[@calebpillai4774]

@@toade1583 glad to see someone knowledgeable on the topic

[@dvz6275]

I speak Afrikaans as my home language so I didn't really have any trouble translating the Dutch because of the reasons you mentioned

[@johntaplin3126]

As a pom who has spent a long time in SA, this was pretty easy, especially with the transcript. The pronunciation with the Dutch accent requires some customisation.

[@Harold7308]

As a Belgian I was taught Flemish very early at school, and learned English and German later. Seeing the video about old English I found that Dutch really helped me to guess the meaning of the sentences, and now it seems to work the other way around! That’s very satisfying to see! Wouldn’t it be relevant to make a video about Frisian? Since it seems to be strongly connected with old English, modern English and Dutch

[@valhoundmom]

These videos are so much fun. Thank you for them.

[@KenNakajima07]

Dutch was one of the first "foreign" languages studied by the japanese, this was such a cool video.

[@Random-sq2cy]

Thats right, the Dutch were actually one of the first to trade with the Japanese during the era in which they traded with countries all around the world. This era is called the "Gouden Eeuw' or "Golden Century"

[@scarletdragon1019]

I didn't know that 😮 I'm studying Japanese, and I've been feeling more and more interested about Dutch as well

[@ChuckD99]

@@David-um8tb "It’s Europe. No, they’re not here to take over, they just wanna sell some shit, like clocks, and guns, and JESUS" -Bill Wurtz

[@Random-sq2cy]

@@David-um8tb lol true

[@Jiivaatmaa]

It's a lot easier to understand either oral or written Dutch when one knows at least basic German or Norwegian / Danish. It's easy to find out references like "au" (kaufen) "o" (kopen) "ø" (kjøpe) etc. That's why Simon is a little bit privileged here. 😅

[@hawks__]

Swedish also apples to this equation

[@megwyn1611]

I find as an English native speaker and a mid level German speaker I can understand the gist of Dutch when I see it. The pronunciation kills me though

[@hrotha]

English is enough in this case, you just need to know about the palatalization of k before front vowels and about the evolution of *au to ea and apply that to "cheap" and ok no this is pretty complicated

[@simplyshama]

I understood these because I used to watch the Norwegian show Skam. I know zero Dutch and French is my only foreign language so it was definitely the native English/very basic Norweigan

[@styrbjornulfhamr9404]

I think Scandinavians have an advantage with Dutch due to the influence of Old Norse on the language. English speakers have some Old Norse & Anglo-Saxon influences that help also. I’d like to see more videos that explore the common ancestry between English, German & Scandinavian languages with an emphasis upon words that are essentially unchanged, …like ‘egg’.

[@BingChilling914]

As a native Swedish speaker, I’m amazed by the fact that I understood most of what she said!

[@kermoots9261]

Agreed! I read the thumbnail and in my head i immediately thought "of course i understand what you're saying"

[@stijnhoogeveen3835]

As a native Dutch speaker learning Swedish I’m surprised on how easy it is to understand

[@lindsyhautekeete1410]

my boyfriend is from sweden, i'm from belgium so I speak dutch, and he understands most of my conversations I have with friends in dutch

[@shanrafnezden7958]

Swedes learn good Dutch in a year in the Netherlands. I've seen it!

[@lindsyhautekeete1410]

@@shanrafnezden7958 yea someone told me once it's because it's a similair sentence build. some words are the same aswell wich helps i guess

[@richardjackson7624]

I like the video. I am a native American English speaker and I am a German-American that has studied and used German for over 50 years.

[@ukishnzer]

I feel like Simon is the smart kid sitting quietly in the back of the class.

[@AltIng9154]

As it is already mentioned, Simon is not an ordinary English guy. His hobby is Old English... that means no wonder he understands Dutch and Low Lands German. 😊

[@linda3060]

I understood quite a lot as a native German speaker. Simon rocked it though.

[@lesROKnoobz]

Don't y'all have it easy talking to Scandinavians and shit? Basically same languages

[@mobaray8784]

@@lesROKnoobz the languages are really different when spoken. Most of the similarities become visible when you write the words/sentences. Although once you learn the pronounciation it is pretty easy to learn the language. Pardon my spelling, I hope you understand what I am trying to say

[@ninchan3]

@@lesROKnoobz I'm German and I could understand these easy sentences. Dutch is very close German, Low German, and Frisian. So we can communicate ;) I can also read recipes in Danish and cook the dish, but hearing Danish spoken sounds totally different to my ears XD (could also be Chinese) Never tried with Swedish and Norwegian.

[@basila33]

as a native russian speaker i know that 'kopen' is 'to buy'. this is an old borrowing from the Gothic language and exist in most of slavic languages :)

[@borzmir9326]

in polish we have another word with the same meaning with kupywać= nabywać and the person "nabywca"

[@basila33]

@@borzmir9326 and the same word exist in byelorussian - "набываць". and i suppose any slav will understand what it means without translation :)

[@by_gomel]

@@basila33 atrymau moy "like" za belaruskuyu movu =)

[@cheaplife2320]

не для готического языка. вы помните, что царь Пётр I импортировал более 2000 голландских слов ? Русский использует много голландских заимствованных слов из-за царь Пётр

[@basila33]

@@cheaplife2320 я то помню, а вы забыли, что подавляющее большинство этих слов осталось в прошлом вместе с парусными кораблями, это во-первых. во-вторых, не готический, а готский язык - за подробностями в википедию. а в-третьих, конкретно это слово пришло в праславянский язык из готского. вместе с такими словами как хлеб, стекло, полк, лихва, лесть, ужас, котёл и даже осёл с верблюдом.

[@herrickinman9303]

I'm a native English speaker. I don't know Dutch, but I studied German. What I know of German (and modern English) helped me get 100% right.

[@thememe986]

Dutch is like a strange combination of English and German, I an a native English speaker and I can understand basic to intermediate German so I understand a lot of this actually lol

[@capusvacans]

You are partly right. But it's the other way around, to say it in simpler terms : English is what happens when french and germanic love eachother very very much and they give eachother a special hug. Which is one of the reasons why english is so easy to learn for speakers of either romance or germanic languages, as they basicaly already know half the vocabulary before even starting. That and english grammar is significantly simpler than in any of those languages, and borrows heavily from germanic, ergo, it's easier for speakers then it is for speakers of romance languages. Dutch and German are very similar but english is often closer to dutch then it is to german (and even closer to danish), eg: German: Ich drinke Milch. Dutch: Ik drink melk. English: I drink milk. As someone who was raised in both french and dutch, english is the easiest language for me to learn, most of the vocabulary I already knew, the words that I don't know I can mostly just guess, and the grammar, well... To make it clear, in high school, we had a 400 page french grammar book, something similar for dutch, whereas for english, we received the grammar on about 50 flashcards. The hardest thing for me when it comes to english is knowing when to use "then" or "than". The rest is very similar to basic dutch, dutch is however much more complicated. Want to learn a few 100 french words in 10 seconds? Virtualy every word in english ending with -tion was borrowed entirely from french, eg direction, detection, frustration, annihilation... and they are still the same words in french to this day (although for some the meaning has shifted).

[@oneirodynia8863]

@capusvacans “and give eachother a special hug” i giggled haha

[@Azuuroo]

@@capusvacans *trinke

[@connorparker6461]

Look up the Great Vowel Shift, English had the same throaty sound as Dutch and sounded very closes to it until the shift around 500 years ago, that's why we have the weird "gh" spellings in English, it's a left over from the old spelling of the Dutch "G"

[@Smitty19966]

Dutch and English were once very close. But the Norman french influence changed most of its original grammar and words. That and the vowel shift.

[@fishfingersandlauren]

"Dutch use patat and the Flemish use friet" half of the Netherlands just became honorary Belgians I guess lol

[@nurailidepaepe2783]

well in flanders you'd say "frieten" or "frietjes" not "friet"

[@daanmani409]

patat is literally wrong it is literally friet

[@matthijsoudkerk8859]

@@daanmani409 patat is gewoon goed. Patat verwijst naar de aardappel terwijl friet verwijst naar het feit dat het gefrituurd is. We zouden eigenlijk zoals de Duitser aardappel frieten moeten zeggen.

[@LycanthropiesSpell]

@@matthijsoudkerk8859 De Duitsers hebben het van de Fransen, vandaar dat ze ' Pommes ' zeggen...wat dan weer appel betekend...dus ' gefrituurde appels '.

[@matthijsoudkerk8859]

@@LycanthropiesSpell ik weet het. Misschien moeten we gewoon gefrituurde aardappel zeggen

[@Robin-rq9wx]

As a german speaker I can understand all sentences pretty well.

[@nebucamv5524]

Ich hatte Schwierigkeiten mit dem elke dag.

[@nebucamv5524]

Und Er zit habe ich falsch verstanden - dachte erst, es bedeutet "er sieht". 🤣

[@Robin-rq9wx]

@@nebucamv5524 Das waren auch meine beiden Knackpunkte, wobei man "elke" aus dem Kontext erraten konnte und "zit" ja dem englischen Wort "sit" ähnelt. 😄😅

[@nebucamv5524]

@@Robin-rq9wx Ja, stimmt, elke war im Kontext fast klar, weil dag ganz eindeutig Tag bedeutet. Beim niederländischen Wort für sitzen hätte ich eher ein stimmloses s am Anfang erwartet. Das stimmhafte hat mich auf die falsche Fährte gesetzt. 😅

[@SocialMaster762]

Ja, aber nur wenn sie langsam und deutlich spricht. Normal gesprochenes Niederländisch verstehe ich nicht

[@artdewerk2192]

This is a fun and entertaining way to learn Dutch! Thanks!

[@AdamFaruqi]

Great to see Simon making a reappearance. Bright young man. Hope to see more of him!

[@clymtc]

fascinating that "liggen" is the verb for to lie/to lay; my uncle was a farmer, in Yorkshire, and if he wanted his dog to lie down he would say "lig thi dahn"

[@Smitology]

I good rule of thumb is that g in a continental germanic language = y or i in English. Eg dag->day, lig->liy~lay, etc

[@TheEvertw]

Makes you wonder where the "dahn" comes from. Lig and Thi are pure Dutch, though thi is archaic (Dij, Dijn compare with mij, mijn).

[@clymtc]

@@TheEvertw I would like to think that there is more to it but perhaps it is nothing more complicated than simply being the Yorkshire pronunciation of 'down'?

[@DieFlabbergast]

@@clymtc That's exactly what it is.

[@Solinvictus5]

He said this: "ligt ie dan" "dan/dahn" means does. "ie" is short for hij / he (like you / ya') It is like a question without asking it, more affirmative? I think the best English translation is There he lies/lays. In the question form, it would be Does he lie?

[@Lauren-hinrichsen]

Me, an English teacher who speaks Dutch: *my time has come*

[@Ruthavecflute]

How well did you do?

[@alindaniel1385]

*Seen by Lauren*

[@frequentfrenzied]

I'm a native English speaker and I studied German in high school. The first time I saw something written out in Dutch text I was blown away because I could read and understand it pretty easily even though I had no idea what language I was looking at. It just looked half German and Half English to me.

[@timmeyer4595]

Simon is lucky to know Old English))))) it allows him to understand other germanic languages more easily))

[@roceb5009]

I mean, luck has very little to do with it. He's worked hard studying it for years.

[@СергейСергеевич-д6с5е]

I thought that it will be too easy for Simon when I saw him in the start of video.

[@glottalstop2080]

по скобкам вижу, что русский))

[@mauritsponnette]

He also just has a very strong 'talenknobbel' (Dutch word for describing someone who has a talent for learning and understanding languages) 😊

[@timmeyer4595]

@@mauritsponnette , I don't think one needs a talent) everyone can learn new languages.

[@shellgecko]

matt and simon what a crossover.

[@rozemarijnm4594]

Simon's translation of the word "heel" was correct. "Heel" also means whole in Dutch.

[@profrca]

tja, dat klopt

[@margerywallace119]

Also hale in English.

[@kippsguitar6539]

Heel = wholely in English

[@miloud1241]

In belgium the "very" is often translated with "vrij" (the j = y) : vrij goed = very good, vrij slim= very smart... Heel and zeer are more academic

[@hultonclint]

You are hella smart... is what they say in Northern California

[@janaemad9734]

Knowing German definitely helped tons with this! I'm a non-native English speaker, and I found myself using more of my German knowledge than my English one for this. I'll say that the one sentence with 'slim' in it definitely tripped me up!!

[@HenkLangeveld]

Watching with my two sons. We all said Simon would be at an advantage. Old English is closer to Dutch than to English

[@timeup2549]

Which goes to show that there is no such thing as "Old English", only Anglo-Saxon that mixed with Old French during the Norman invasions to make what we call today "Middle English".

[@NH-ge4vz]

@@timeup2549 old Anglish.

[@timeup2549]

@@OntarioTrafficMan I know, that is obvious, and it is besides the point I made. In fact the point builds on the information you wrote.

[@OntarioTrafficMan]

@@timeup2549 Oh, I misread your original post.

[@Singgen]

@@timeup2549 I'm pretty sure that English still keeps it's basic root words and grammar.

[@JimInYamaguchi]

I'm a native English speaker but also speak German (as spoken in the north), so I understood almost everything, including the squirrel. I found it interesting how much Simon could understand because of his linguistics background and familiarity with Old English.

[@alisonadams5555]

I got the ´squirrel’ too because of my knowledge of German. So much fun ❤

[@Epohhtgnerst]

I did‘nt know, German was spoken in the north! Could you tell me, where exactly in the north it is spoken?

[@TheRealChrisVessey]

Although I have some German education, I didn't get the "squirrel" and thought it was "acorn". I did fairly well with everything else. I'm an anglophone Canadian, but have both French and German training.

[@TheRealChrisVessey]

@@Epohhtgnerst I think he means in the north of Germany, which would generally mean it's probably high German (i.e. standard German) - not a dialect, such as would be spoken in Bayern (Bavaria).

[@Epohhtgnerst]

@@TheRealChrisVessey aaaah that makes sense, thank you!

[@samuelli-a-sam]

Simon was fantastic in this one. Old English is definitely quite similar to Dutch as we have a lot of influences from the English. Fun fact: Frisian is very similar to Old English

[@tpower1912]

Would love to see Simon try talking with a Frisian speaker

[@samuelli-a-sam]

@@tpower1912 Samee

[@onecupofconsciousnessplease]

There's probably some influence, but I think it's just that old English simply used to be more similar to the other Germanic languages, but then diverged (it lost some words we Dutch-speakers still use in some form)

[@christophercolumbus8944]

sounds like dutch has hardly evolved lol

[@Ashitaka255]

Frisian is closer to old English than it is to Dutch IIRC. Dutch seems to be influenced by High German whereas English and Frisian stick to their ingevonic roots. Dutch pronounciations are an absolute killer for English speakers, I can only understand it when it's written.

[@matthewhatch6273]

Interesting. I'm a native English speaker with a good command of German. When listening to spoken Dutch, I often have some idea of what's going on, but once it's written down and I hear it again, I get like 85-95%.

[@kunjaloLFT]

I enjoyed this ! My home language is Afrikaans and I was amazed at how similar the 2 languages are, like even before they showed the transcripts of the sentences I already knew what’s being said😄

[@EagleOneM1953]

Not surprisingly since Dutch settlers pretty much established South Africa.....Transvaal is a Dutch word and a city in South Africa. Bloemfontein is another such word..... Bloem is Dutch for flower and fontein is Dutch for fountain...so it could be translated as flower fountain.....

[@monk3yboy69]

You would only be amazed if you don’t know the history of your beautiful language. I can only surmise that you have been taught your history in the right way…..which would not surprise me.

[@monk3yboy69]

Sorry, I mean in the wrong way

[@BrianJ.]

Yes, Afrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch :) It is very similar to the old dutch they spoke here a few hundred years ago. Whenever see a comment in Afrikaans on youtube I immediately smile :) I can tell what the person is saying. For instance, look at the comment below from Simeon Barnard. It is really wonderful.

[@EagleOneM1953]

I worked at a Dutch company in Belgium in the 1970s that was established in Alkmaar in Holland (Bosal) but had a large sister operation in Pretoria before they moved their operation to Belgium completely. At one time one of the managers there was transferred to the Belgium location and he was Afrikaans, Kobus van Zijl. At first I thought he had a speech impediment until I was told he spoke Afrikaans... that was my first introduction to Afrikaans.

[@Grizzly_2776]

As a South African with Afrikaans as a weak second language, I couldn't understand every word she said but I had no problem comprehending it all. It's crazy how different the pronunciation between Dutch and Afrikaans, when it's practically the same language. This video, to me, is a key representation of the power of dialect regarding interpretation versus translation. Great vid!

[@cheaplife2320]

correct Afrikaans isn’t a separate language just a Dutch Dialect

[@maasro]

As a (southern) Dutch guy, the pronunciation threw me off every now and then as well. If she'd speak quicker, it would be really hard for me to understand her (northwestern) accent at all. On the other hand, her accent is probably easier to understand for English native speakers.

[@cheaplife2320]

@@maasro her pronunciation sounds unnatural to me

[@hirsch4155]

@@maasro You mean Flemish?

[@maasro]

@@hirsch4155 Not Flemish, just from south of the English/Dutch r and hard/soft g border (and obviously south of the patat/friet(en) border).

[@keighlancoe5933]

I'm from England, and I've always found Dutch fascinating. When I'm reading it, I can seem to pick out enough words that are similar to English in a sentence and I'm able to more or less understand it. I can't translate it 100% accurately word for word, but I can decipher enough to understand what is written more or less.

[@loggrad9842]

As a German and English speaker it's crazy how much of the Dutch I can just understand.

[@liberator235]

Next: Old English vs modern German, Dutch, maybe a northern Germanic language like Norwegian! That’ll be lit!

[@herrbonk3635]

Which Norwegian? Bokmål (Danish) or one of the (more or less) Nynorsk dialects?

[@gaborodriguez1346]

@@herrbonk3635 Maybe Bokmaal

[@Rhangaun]

Throw in Frisian, if you can find a speaker :)

[@keegansmetanko3755]

American English speaker here, here' s my results (I speak a bit of spanish in case that matters) 1. The books are lying on the table 2. I saw a dog near the supermarket 3. I want a new car (so close) 4. I eat fries with mayonnaise (it took friet but I got it) 5. Norbert is very slim (I got smart just before she explained it but too late for my guess) 6. My friend does something on a boat (I definitely thought blood, but I switched because it didn't sound morbid) 7. There is an acorn in the tree (I thought bone but that didn't make sense) 8. We're making a video (from hearing it only!)

[@c.norbertneumann4986]

As a German, I can understand written Dutch very well. It is almost like a German dialect. Spoken Dutch is more difficult to understand since it differs from the written language.

[@tiarkrezar]

I know some German, but it feels kind of the other way around for me. Spoken Dutch sounds almost like a dialect of German, but written down, many of the sounds are spelled out in completely different ways. That said, when it comes to understanding what's been said, seeing it in written form helps a lot.

[@speerboom]

Dutch is actually fairly well spelled/pronounced so the spelling is pretty much according to the pronunciation. It’s not a 100% match but it’s not the horrible massacre that French and English are. What throws off German speakers is that we spell sounds differently from German. OE in Dutch is never pronounced like German Ö, but always like German U. Dutch U/UU corresponds to German Ü. EU = German Ö etc etc.

[@Lissanuddin]

"written Dutch ... It is almost like a German dialect. " Oh come on. Dialects of a literary language do not have 'false friends' going into thousands, as do German and Dutch. Neither do they have completely different words for the same thing. E.g. literary German: versuchen, deftig, Zeitung, Gesellschaft, Swiss German (dialect of G.): versueche, deftig, Zytig, Gsellschaft, Dutch: proberen, trachten, pogen; krachtig, voedzaam, krant, maatschappij; and such examples are countless. You might well be seeming to understand Dutch but chances are that you'll be MISunderstanding it.

[@miguelluissousadias1371]

because dutch is modern franconian language, german is a bit different as it has a different but very related ancestor.

[@cony.ceroni]

Loved your video. I am from chile but interested in dutch language, i know that teacher so the video got my eye and i watched... So cool!!! Thanks for making it and sharing.