English vs. German vs. Dutch vs. Afrikaans | West Germanic Language Comparison

Is Afrikaans similar to Dutch? How similar are German and English? Let's compare four of the most spoken Germanic languages - English vs. German vs. Dutch vs. Afrikaans. This Germanic language comparison will help you understand the difference in spelling, pronunciation, and grammar between English, German, Dutch, and Afrikaans. Can you name any other Germanic languages?
In this video from Language of Earth, you'll learn a variety of words in the four different languages, and then you'll see an example of a conversation in English, German, Dutch, and Afrikaans. Teachers, students, polyglots, and language enthusiasts will all find entertainment in this simple language study.
0:00 Numbers
1:08 Colors
2:13 Food
3:25 Animals
4:45 Transportation
5:37 Conversation
In the conversation section of this video, German, Dutch, and Afrikaans all use the casual forms of "you": du, je, and jy, respectively. English does not have casual and formal forms of "you".
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[@whitetv3589]

*Dutch and Afrikaans are twins, German is their biological brother and English was adopted lolll* 😂

[@randomguyhere6061]

Nah English could also be the rebellious one trying to be different.

[@maybenaught]

Afrikaans descends from Dutch, so yeah they would be similar.

[@highfivetimegames1772]

Yeah,who speaks afrikaans?!

[@jkmuwanguzi7534]

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

[@MultiKswift]

That kinda makes sense. English was born to the Germanic family but was adopted/raised by Romance family (a lot of Latin and French loan words).

[@RoelofColyn]

Sooooo satisfying to hear someone speak Afrikaans properly in one of these videos.

[@WayneKitching]

Ek stem saam met jou!

[@z-forcebg5849]

Ja

[@jean-louiscarstens5434]

Ek stem ook saam

[@splashafrica]

Al die boer oorlog videos wat sê boor war

[@larissaprinsloo7859]

Omwwww yes

[@minituttle1799]

It's interesting to see that the difference between Dutch and Afrikaans is similar to that between standard German and Austrian German

[@karlcatt]

True, but only when you limit it to vocabulary as in this wonderfull video. The grammar of Afrikaans has quite unexpected turns for speaker of Dutch, the double negative being only the most obvious.

[@bodoor8172]

Not exactly, as a native Dutch speaker I can understand Afrikaans very clearly but there are some sentence compositions in Afrikaans that are like English and not like Dutch.

[@CertainlyfromIraq]

We want a competition between Korean, Chinese and Japanese please 😭🖤 Who's with me?😭💜

[@the_real_hislordship]

Not really. German and Austrian are still more similar than Dutch and Afrikaans. I'd say more like German and Swiss German where the sounds change a lot too. Afrikaans is much easier/simpler with verb conjugations. They are all the same regardless of person. Like saying I is Thou is He/she is We is You is They is Old English thou was familiar like Jy in Afrikaans (du in German tu in French) and U would be formal You (Sie in German vous in French). Afrikaans is also more open sounding to me. Dutch sound more swallowed or muffled but almost with longer vowels at times. I speak English, Afrikaans and German by the way so I can understand Dutch pretty well.

[@MaoRatto]

Which is the hardest accent to understand then? For either of 'em?

[@mulinda3777]

Dutch 🤝 Afrikaans

[@two_motion]

Afrikaans: Hey Dutch, can I copy your homework? Dutch: Uhmm okay... just change it up a little. Afrikaans:

[@carlruppert7324]

😂😂😂

[@BoterKat]

KaMeELpErT

[@slovenianempire]

That is literally the History of Afrikaans. It literally is Dutch with other influences.

[@MrPillowStudios]

If there was a language to English as to Dutch is to Africans: Hoy tayr, jeg guantshte shau hjka doom paactuarre

[@justsomeguywithamask9530]

This is funny cause that's literally what happened

[@DailyDiscountNL]

Eng: giraffe Ger: Giraffe Dut: giraffe Afr: kamelperd! That one had me dying 😂 I loved this comparison!

[@stoflom]

One suspects "giraffe" is fairly recent introduction from Arabic. The Afrikaans "kameelperd" is related to the old Greek word "Camelopardalis". This also applies to Afrikaans "luiperd" from "Leopardus". I wonder if 17th century Dutch also used the Greek words?

[@noahroberts5601]

Well kamelperd is basically camel horse if you would translate it

[@Eternal_pain]

C a m e l

[@kke]

@@noahroberts5601 I find it funnier to think it's from camel leopard.

[@dennishendrikx3228]

@@stoflom lui perd is lazy horse in Dutch.

[@theonek_za]

As an Afrikaans speaking person, I found this so funny and good. 👌🏻

[@moritzkorsch9029]

Why funny? Can you elaborate? I love learning about languages

[@mattm6859]

So much South African hidden in that one een😂

[@gigachad3377]

Hey my fellow South Africa and I understand what you are saying.

[@1Kalvin_]

ek was net op die punt om dieselfde ding te sê

[@togiisuperheavytank]

Can confirm suid afrikan here jk nobody calls it that

[@koyas93]

It's interesting to know that in Afrikaans the word "banana" is "piesang", which is 100%ly similar with Indonesian (Bahasa) "pisang" 😉👍

[@bembs0256]

There are many Indonesian diaspora in South Africa (mostly centred in Cape Town). Their ancestors were brought by the Dutch from Indonesia (the East Indies at that moment) around 18-19th century. So no wonder if modern Afrikaans has a little bit of Indonesian/Malay influence.

[@mariusvandermerwe3262]

Malay/Indonesian words also make up of Afrikaans language, because of the Malay slaves that where brought to South Africa by the Dutch East Indian Copany during the 17th century

[@luckystriker7489]

Afrikaans contain a lot of Malay words, for example: baadjie, baar, baie, baklei, bamboes, ghong, kiaat, krabbetjie, nooi, piering, piesang, sarong, tjap, tramma kassie, etc.

[@luckystriker7489]

@@stoflom you sound like you're spouting long-debunked National Party propaganda. What even is HOIC? Do you mean VOC (or Dutch East India Company)?. As you probably know, the VOC was a proto-multinational which was headquartered in Batavia for tax reasons and later went bankrupt because of - amongst other things - severe corruption. Afrikaans is widely believed to have began as a kitchen language (kombuistaal) spoken by Khoisan and Malay slaves owned by Europeans, most notably of Dutch descent.

[@luckystriker7489]

I must also ad - admittedly off-topic - that the first Afrikaners (originally called "Afrikaanders") spoke Dutch and it was the ethnic group we call "coloured" today who were the original 'Afrikaans-sprekendes"

[@mbd501]

It's interesting how Afrikaans morphed into a separate language from Dutch. However, they began settling South Africa in the mid-late 1600s, which was after the English started settling in America, and yet American English is still English - it stayed the same language, albeit with a few vocab differences.

[@frenchfry9370]

I believe it has to do with how much sea traffic it got back then, before the Suez canal, SA was the midpoint between the East and west and with so many ships of so many different European Countries as well as "workers" from Malaysia, Indonesia and India not to mention the many native tribes all had an influence in shaping it into what it is today "Piesang" originating from Indonesia for example and you can see how many of our words are spelled and mean the exact same or similar as some English words Like how we got "Pynappel" from pineapple America on the other hand didn't get nearly as much traffic during it's formative years almost exclusively dealing with english speakers during the colonial days, and after Independence and only really getting influenced by the big 3 of the time (England, France, Spain) which share many similarities and by that point they really had no reason to change much

[@EuroWarsOrg]

Part of the reason is Afrikaans tried to keep itself unchanged, whereas Dutch allowed itself to be anglisized and to develop, so for instance a newspaper used to be "koerant", as it still is in Afrikaans, but in Dutch it has been shortened to K'rant.

[@MrCorky911]

I believe it's mainly because South Africa became a British colony whereafter influence/contact with the Netherlands reduced sharply.

[@Chelsey-leighJenecker-ub7cj]

The apartheid ended in 1914 some people believe that the apartheid ended in 1915

[@silverglovegaming5391]

​@@Chelsey-leighJenecker-ub7cj My friend, you are about eighty years too early on your dates

[@windhoekboer207]

I like the Afrikaans language Because my father grew up in South Africa and my aunt was born in Namibia. My grandparents spoke German and Afrikaans at home in Austria. My mother tongue Austrian-Bavarian language is a dialect of Austrian-German and Afrikaans.

[@roguesorcerer1145]

As an old SWA - speaking English, German and Afrikaans, now living in Swede, has really helped my with Swedish.

[@AlexandraVioletta]

Wow. Sounds very interesting. 👍🏻

[@heinrich8861]

​@@roguesorcerer1145 Jag hoppas att du har det trevligt.

[@Astrophysikus]

It is crazy how similar these languages really are. Interestingly, I have the feeling that the German word is often closer either to the English or the Dutch/Afrikaans one. However, it is not uncommon that there is an alternative word as well, similar to the other language. Two examples: we say "Käse" for cheese in standard German, but here in Austria in many local dialects, "Kaas" is used a lot. Similarly, "Traktor" is the more standard word (I guess), but "Trekker" is also used, mainly in the north of Germany.

[@bertrandvanleeuwen]

In Dutch we also say trekker.. tractor or trekker are both okay.

[@Garret141076]

In Dutch we have more words that would be more similar like English or German but is mostly depending on region or dialect or just uncommon to use in modern Dutch. I say trekker and käse. The English word body is Leib in German and 'lichaam' in dutch but we also have the word 'lijf' which sounds like german 'leib' I think Dutch has a little bit more similarities to English because isn't evolved much like the German language and old German is more close to Dutch. Secondly the Dutch had more contacts with the English in trade and wars.

[@the_real_hislordship]

Funny is how there are similar words with French or Spanish or many other languages too. Cinnamon Zimt Kaneel Canelle Canela Heute Hoy Nebel Nieblas Beer Bier Bier Bière Cerveza Birra (Italian) Öl (Swedish)

[@SoWhat89]

yep. "Work" also has a cognate in German, "werken" or the noun "Werk", which have slightly different meanings though. Also the dutch "Ziekenhuis" is interesting. So "ziek" appearently means "sick", similar to English. They form the word just like in German, "the house of the sick" with the same suffix on "ziek" to make it a compound word, the -en-ending, just like in German

[@ellidominusser1138]

an leberkaas semmel

[@MidnightsDeluxe]

I speak English & Spanish and what I got from the romance & germanic language comparisons is that Portuguese & Spanish = Afrikaans & Dutch (twins) Italian = German (very close) French = English (the one that's a bit off)

[@mythrin]

Yup, makes sense cause the French and English influenced each other most in history.

[@RichardHoogstad]

Nope, Dutch & German is a better comparison to Spanish & Portuguese. Afrikaans & Dutch are so close that I can nearly understand everything said in Afrikaans as Dutch person. It is almost like hearing farmer speak Dutch with a very strong accent.

[@TunahTak]

Italian=tuscan(twins) Spanish=navarro (twins) Portuguese=eonaviego(twins) German=Bavarian=Tirolese(twins) You're right french normand=english(twins) cos normands frenches created english.🫂🫂🫂💙💙💙💙🤙🥂💡🤙🤙🤙🤙🤙 Afrikaans=Dutch=Flemish= married and love❤️❤️❤️❤️ twins too 🥂🥂🥂🥂. You're right.

[@simjom02]

English vocabulary takes from many languages, with French being the biggest influence, and so is quite divergent from its roots in some ways though most of the core words remain Germanic. I think it still sounds more or less similar to its sibling languages in the way it is spoken more so than French does from its related languages.

[@shaunmckenzie5509]

English is the most "romancified" Germanic language and French is the most germanicised Romance language. The two languages are so close in many ways, and they're both the ones in their language families that feel 'off' from the others in the same family.

[@qgde3rty8uiojh90]

"Trekker" is also used in Dutch as an alternative for "tractor". Dutch "trekken" and Afrikaans "trek" both mean "to pull". So that makes a "trekker" a "puller" in both languages. 😋🇳🇱👍🇿🇦🥰

[@beadus3512]

Trecker ist also common in Germany.

[@KobusOlivier]

Yes, and the oxen pulled the wagons during the "Groot Trek" (Great Trek or Great "pull") in South Africa during the 1830's, and that is where the English "Trek" as in "we trekked across the desert" has its origin.

[@parisgermain523]

To complete your explanation and make it even easier to understand: ''tractor'' is an agent word in Latin (like ''walker'' ''puller'' ''seeker'') formed from the verb ''trahere'' which,.. you guessed it, means ''to pull''.

[@jenson1896]

Same in Germany :D

[@TunahTak]

This relationship between German, Dutch, Afrikaans and Limburgish is very beautiful and cute, possibly the people who founded Afrikaans are from Limburg, this linguistic and cultural region that takes parts of Germany, Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg, Afrikaans has a lot of connection with Dutch and English ,Flemish and German and of course with Limburgers too. It is a wonderful language that unites cultures. ☺️☺️☺️☺️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿❤️🇳🇱❤️🇱🇺❤️🇩🇪❤️🇧🇪❤️🇿🇦

[@Lea-lk4cr]

So I am German. Do I get this right? The Afrikaans word for "Giraffe" is Camel-Horse (Kameelperd = Kamelpferd)? Because I love it.

[@Lea-lk4cr]

@@slipintothediamondlife_82 Love it!

[@Positiveaffirmationsforyou]

Direct translation , yes 😂😂😂

[@RicoLee27]

@@slipintothediamondlife_82 why did they pick words with specific meaning but means somethinf different. It is like calling a "Cat" a "Rabbit"

[@Sander_van_de_Reep]

@@slipintothediamondlife_82 in Dutch we use Tuinslang to

[@BobWitlox]

That's right. It's funny that we (Dutch & German) don't have such a word for giraffe because do that for other animals like nijlpaard/Nilpferd, schildpad/Schildkröte, etc

[@mrpandabites]

I would love to see the same video, but with Old English included. Then you would really see the similarities between English and the other languages.

[@captnduck]

Add Frisian to because thats pretty close to that to.

[@Tendo8002]

Old Swedish and German are really close related so I'd guess that we have spread further apart in our languages in the last ~200 years

[@henco8716]

I'm not sure if America English was the the best option, I somehow feel British English would have been a better option

[@CertainlyfromIraq]

We want a competition between Korean, Chinese and Japanese please 😭🖤 Who's with me?😭💜

[@deutschmitpurple2918]

💕💕🥰🥰❤❤

[@HYDROCARBON_XD]

So basically Afrikaans is the son of Dutch,German a close uncle and english a very far away aunt

[@zeitgeist7788]

For all of those people who are complaining about English being different, there's a version of the language called *Anglish* . It basically got rid of all the Latin and French words and replaced them with Germanic ones.

[@skyrrmish6207]

Anglish because it’s more Anglo I’m guessing. Clever

[@DameOfDiamonds]

Anglish: English but cool

[@chaundalejourngeille2302]

English was the sibling in the Germanic household who migrated to Paris and followed their customs. 🤣

[@TunahTak]

Right, English today is Neolatine and Celtic, never germanic yesterday, today and tomorrow🤭🤭🤭🤭🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿✈️✈️✈️✈️✈️

[@enyeleangels6571]

As a Malay speaker. I'm quite impressed how banana in Afrikaans is piesang, and the Malay word for banana is pisang. Same pronunciation

[@fredswanepoel2425]

We use 10 Malay words in Afrikaans.

[@haelidh]

In Dutch we use both tractor and trekker. I would say 'trekker' is more common, at least among people that drive them.

[@xaverlustig3581]

Low German has "Trecker" as well.

[@Beaumont6]

Only city people say tractor. In the rural areas everyone says trekker

[@nutzungsbedingungen1980]

Same in German, but we use "Trecker" more often (in Eastern Germany)

[@jessicahijarunguru1961]

As an Afrikaans speaking Namibian, Now I see why it's so easy to learn and understand German,

[@V77710]

Thanks for making this. For those who didn't know Afrikaans also has a tiny amount of malaysian mixed into it. So a select few words wont sound like german/dutch. I believe the "piesang" for banana is a perfect example

[@boyden1987]

I think Piesang is more because of the Netherlands-Indonesia connection

[@Elwingish]

Dutch people also use pisang sometimes, usually refering to a popular dish made with deep fried bananas (pisang goreng), a bright green banana flavoured alcoholic drink (pisang Ambon)and there is also a very negative expression ("being the pisang": this basically means being f***ed) The word (and quite a few other ones)is definitely there because of the Dutch being the colonisers of Indonesia. It seems to have spread into Afrikaans.

[@JosephKChen]

Ok but WTF happened to giraffe?

[@boyden1987]

@@JosephKChen 'camelhorse'

[@heinehunter7892]

Blatjang

[@Stylah3001]

This is an awesome channel, I wondering if you guys can do one with the Celtic languages, like Irish, Scots Gaelic, Welsh and so forth it would be very interesting to see, but any rates you guys are super and, please keep up the good work 👏 ❤️

[@ludekevt]

for all the people complaining about the afrikaans theres nothing wrong with it you can here the afrikaans accent even in his voice im from south africa and can confirm thats how most people actually sound it depends on what location/province you are

[@kasper7203]

Also South African.. I concur.

[@fullmetaltheorist]

I can confirm that as well. His Afrikaans is how a lot of people here sound.

[@AaAa-on4mx]

Yes. I'm from Cape Town, and we always joke about how northerners pronounce some words, one that comes to mind is the word '"ek" = '"I" in English. We always mimic the pronunciation and call it Pretoria Afrikaans. So yes, although he's pronunciation is spot on, there are subtle differences in the pronunciation of vowels, depending on your region.

[@mavii918]

@@AaAa-on4mx do the northerners say “ik” like the dutch?

[@AaAa-on4mx]

@@mavii918 Not quite..... they pronounce the 'e', more like the America 'a', so it sound more like 'ack'(as in back). Where we pronoun the 'e' more like 'e' in the word 'sect', so it sound more like 'eck' (as in peck).

[@reaselepe8146]

No one: Afrikaans: ✨camel horse✨🦒🤩

[@wynandwinterbach455]

😀 As cute as "camel horse" sounds, the word actually comes from Latin "camelopardus" which translates to "camel panther". English also has "camelopard", though no-one uses it anymore.

[@reaselepe8146]

@@wynandwinterbach455 oh that's super cool. I like camelopard

[@reynardnel6502]

As an Afrikaans person I was dissapointed with the Dutch translation for cat. There is another..

[@ostaroryan4719]

Lol. I know what u mean

[@gevoel8293]

They have stopped using that P word for CAT since the Afrikaans speakers started making fun of them....lol

[@reynardnel6502]

@@gevoel8293 what a pity. But we still have the Shrek cat to enjoy

[@mazeftube]

Yes the word P... instead of Kat is disappearing because here in Nederland this word has a double meaning.

[@j.vandeven]

The word kat or kater in Dutch is always used as well as poes, although poes is used more specifically when it is about a female cat. We, like south africans, also use the word poes for vagina in a colloquiall way. We dont go all giggly about it though. 😜

[@blumoogle2901]

I'm fluent in English and Afrikaans, with a tourists' level of German and slightly more Dutch than that, so especially on the news or documentaries Dutch is often easy to understand, especially if people aren't speaking fast. Despite the occasional difficulties when listening, I can almost always read anything non-technical written in German or Dutch with no problems and I absolute cannot speak at more than a toddler level despite being able to understand. A large number of people who speak any germanic language is automatically quarter fluent in all the others.

[@frozenice1715]

I'm Dutch, and I have zero experience with Afrikaans, but I can comprehend entire sentences.

[@fairify7286]

I just had a conversation as a dutchman with someone speaking Afrikaans

[@abcccdd1211]

@@frozenice1715 is English similar to Dutch as well? If so, im finna learn Dutch and Afrikaans lol

[@frozenice1715]

@@abcccdd1211 Yeah, English is very close to Dutch. Some words are the same, and others are very close. If you're a decent English speaker, you'll be able to guess the meaning of a few Dutch phrases. Well, I you don't really need to be decent at English to understand a few phrases. You can easily guess what "Wat is dat?" means, right? But, Dutch grammar is not that simple. You might struggle with that.

[@Zebness990]

@@abcccdd1211 you're *_finna_* have to learn to write English properly first. It's just a joke. Sorry in advance

[@araclara_]

Waww interesting, Afrikaans: banana "Piesang" Meanwhile Indonesia : banana "Pisang" The accent is same only different in writing

[@ruedigerthiede4893]

Well spotted! This is because the early Afrikaans-speaking community contained many Indonesian slaves imported by the Dutch, so we inherited several words that way. A common one is baie, meaning many, from banyak. Others include amok, pondok, sambok, rottang, kierang, blatjang. I'm not sure how many of these are recognizable though. Another thing which Afrikaans apparently inherited this way is to modify the meaning of a word by doubling it. So for example, koes means to wince or dodge, but koes-koes means to dodge back and forth, such as when zig-zagging while running away. Kierang means to cheat, but kierang-kierang means to mislead over a period of time. And so on.

[@ruedigerthiede4893]

I should add: thanks to the fact that the early Afrikaans-speakers were mostly Muslim, the first text written in Afrikaans was a theological tract in the Arabic script. So Afrikaans was written in Arabic before being written in Latin, despite being a Germanic language!

[@mazeftube]

And " Piering " = plate. ( Malay: Piring ) " Amper " = almost ( Malay: Hampir )

[@maryocecilyo3372]

Malay

[@splashafrica]

@@maryocecilyo3372 they spoke Malay but the island the most of them came from is actually part of modern day Indonesia

[@steakat]

I love how they got an absolute Victoria's secret model for the English part

[@BrunoGomes-ne9eo]

Ikr xD

[@SethLT]

She looks like AI

[@abog4174]

LOL its because we need someone extremely pretty to compensate for the fact that our language sounds simplistic and unattractive.

[@eljuano28]

Is Victoria's Secret hiring AIs now?

[@Showwieh]

@@eljuano28 she looks like a sims character lol

[@intreoo]

6:34 This segment amazed me because of how similar all the languages were. Of course, the word for color is different, but the fact that all the other words can basically be understood is insane.

[@carlconstantdeflon2373]

Great video! Would have been fun to see it with one of the Nordic languages, like Swedish, added!

[@danielstruwig3078]

Afrikaans starts to diverge from Dutch from 20th century vocab and on. Also the pronunciation differs more with more complex sentances. But basic vocab and spelling is very similar

[@michelleken.]

Pure linguistically, it's actually still a Dutch dialect//Dutch and Afrikaans are still the same language. Afrikaans is more considered to be a separate language because of political reasons.

[@the_real_hislordship]

@@michelleken. again, they are not the same language.

[@appleloaf]

@@michelleken. they're definately not the same language

[@MisterDutch93]

@@michelleken. No, it definitely isn't a dialect. Afrikaans and Dutch speakers can be mutually unintelligible sometimes, especially if they start using a lot of colloqiual expressions. English, German and Dutch are linguistically speaking sister languages, while Afrikaans is a daughter language of Dutch, and very much its own thing. It's a creole with a Dutch root and many other influences, such as Malay, English and Native South-African.

[@wynandwinterbach455]

​@@michelleken. The way in which you speak the languages is very different. When I started to learn Dutch, I directly translated sentences from Afrikaans into Dutch and people didn't understand what I wanted to say. That said, there are languages that are called Dutch dialects (hello West Flemish & Limburgish!) that aren't derivatives of Standard Dutch (e.g. West Flemings were speaking West Flemish long before Standard Dutch was, er, standardized) and that are arguably more different from Dutch than Afrikaans is. So politics do play a role but arguably more to prevent recognition of separate Low Franconian languages.

[@benztheprotogen3502]

as an english speaker, afrikaans was really easy to learn on my own but my german is still at the beginner stage after 3 years of classes. I've not really touched on dutch but it seems like a more complex afrikaans.

[@heyjuanfra]

Dutch is hell…😓

[@heyjuanfra]

I’ve been living in the Netherlands like three years and still can’t pronounce their G

[@benztheprotogen3502]

@@heyjuanfra the G wasn't a problem for me, it's the same as in afrikaans. It's just the time and effort required to learn yhe vocab

[@alessbritish228]

@@benztheprotogen3502 pls man tell me why Dutch seems harder than Afrikaans, why

[@benztheprotogen3502]

@@alessbritish228 Afrikaans sorta came from colloquial dutch that evolved in south africa. (I'm no professional but) colloquial and simplified languages tend to be easier to learn, plus afrikaans has more simple grammar and pronunciation. Though, a lot of things do have to be learnt through experience (Eg. Lots of afrikaaners mix in english into their speech i.e. instead of aansluit they say "gejoin", and pronounce things differently such as "je" instead of "jy", "rerig" instead of "regtig", "baaijie" instead of "baadjie"

[@veronique6005]

Imagine wanting a beer 🍻 and getting a bear 🐻

[@caeruleusvm7621]

I'm sure it would happen all the time here in South Africa - if we had any bears.

[@carlruppert7324]

@@caeruleusvm7621 Hahaha, well not really, because alnost all Afrikaans-speaking people are fluent in English as well. But nevertheless, your joke was funny 😄

[@willemkotze8616]

Beer in Afrikaans is 'bier'

[@Cobalt985]

@@willemkotze8616 Same with Dutch, "bier" as well

[@gregorybowrin203]

That would be scary... get in your car and speed away. (P.S. Don't provoke the bear) (P.P.S. Use your wits).

[@jovanberg8798]

Hearing Afrikaans being spoken they right way is so satisfying, the lady from the US looks amazing though. I is very interesting to hear that Dutch and Afrikaans is so similar, I think I should go to the Dutch on my next holiday, ons sal baie goed oor die weg kan kom dink ek.....!!

[@j.p.vanbolhuis8678]

It will take a little to get used to the other guys "accent". But my experience is that after a short period, i can speak dutch, and you can speak afrikaans and you will understand each other fine. Some problems are loan words from other language. For me, in Afrikaans those would be for example baie (veel), kierie (staf) enz.

[@And.r.ew.90]

Ja je kan gewoon Afrikaans praten hier, zolang je langzaam praat. En vice versa 😊

[@jgroenveld1268]

If no one told me that was Afrikaans. I would immediately pick up it is a language/dialect that is closely related to standard Dutch but I would have thought it was some obscure dialect from Belgium that I have not heard in my life.

[@Frahamen]

Dutch people tend to say "it sounds like Belgian Dutch" but that's mostly because it sounds different rather than there is any real similarity. For instence, Flemish Dialects tend to have a more complicated grammar than standanr Dutch, while Afrikkaans is basically defined by simplifying as much as possible.

[@nadien3320]

I'm afrikaans living in the Netherlands and it's so funny, each time I'm on the phone or talking Afrikaans a Dutch person comes up to me asking me where I'm from/what language I'm speaking because they understand me but at the same time dont

[@FlorisFlowers]

Afrikaans have te same sounds as the dialect spoken in Antwerp actually!

[@Bokbev0k]

Very close to Flaams/Flemish

[@luckystriker7489]

Afrikaners have no problem understanding Flemish. Frisian dialects are also easier for us to follow than Franconian dialects.

[@ThatOneGuy-hq5cj]

I knew that Dutch and Afrikaans were similar, but wow - you might be able to get by just speaking Dutch in Afrikaans areas and Afrikaans in Dutch areas :o

[@Ca7iburn]

For simple things, yes. Though the Nederlander might have some trouble with the Malaysian, Koi and Xhosa influence. From the Afrikaans side, I find more complex sentences in Dutch difficult and the word "het" confuses me. The concept of "amper" is also different enough to the point of miscommunication.

[@ThatOneGuy-hq5cj]

@@Ca7iburn Oh, ok. That's really interesting. Thanks!

[@AlertConsument-py6te]

In context it's not that big of a problem. @@Ca7iburn

[@silverglovegaming5391]

As an Afrikaans speaker, I've found in conversations with Dutch people that I can understand about 95% of what they say as long as they don't speak too fast and I don't forget that 'het' is an article in their language. Most of what I don't understand can either be figured out from context, ignored, or quickly clarified with a simple question. Not sure what the experience is like from their side of things but given that we can hold conversations, it's probably not that different.

[@BrianGreco]

This is the well done content I want!

[@DanielDavis1973]

a couple notes about english.. you can see how the initial consonant of yellow drifted to a y in english but a g in german (it happened in other g initial words too.. the G in dutch is actually closer to the original sound for all of them). Also, english still has cognates for other words.. i.e. black -> swarthy, dog -> hound

[@Snivy2641]

4:09 They really said 🇬🇧: shark 🇩🇪: はい 🇳🇱: hi (🇺🇸) 🇿🇦: hi (🇦🇺)

[@spytromics]

These videos are fun. Thanks.

[@andry77777]

South African here 🇿🇦

[@michel6587]

4:35 Kamelpferd🦒🤙 🐪 + 🐎 = 🦒 😂

[@soo7879]

In Afrikans they call PIESANG And in Indonesia we call PISANG. It's simillar

[@Serzje]

In Dutch we also have the word pisang, though it's not very common (anymore?).

[@waso778]

In Dutch we have Pisang Ambon 😅

[@Jo-lj4hu]

This is great!! 💕⭐️ do another 1 language 3 accents video!

[@simjom02]

Dutch ziekenhuis for hospital sounds very similar to sickhouse to English ears, I'd assume sickhouse was the native English word for one before French influence.

[@kenster8270]

Pity that they chose a vocal fryer to represent the English language 🤦‍♀

[@StaraptorEagle]

What beautiful languages. I hope they never disappear. I enjoy hearing all of them.

[@Keiko_Lamprecht]

I speak Afrikaans, and hearing him count reminds me of Mevrou Brand in grade 1 😭

[@bennaustin6632]

English seems closer to Dutch than German. Some words are just much more similar. I watched another video guessing Dutch words and sentences and using very basic German plus English did ok. Would guess it might be even easier with Friesian. Also saw some cognates watching a comparison of Scandinavian languages with Old Norse. Harder to hear than to see in writing. Like watching movies with subtitles, suddenly I recognise the cognates. There are obvious cognates we don’t really use often though. Eg hound for a specific type of dog, swarthy (meaning dark in colour) is close to the words for black in other germanic languages. Rose for a particular shade of pink.

[@millytupacgarrix6870]

Muy bien amigos, hacen buen trabajo, deseo también que suban mas con Rumano y Griego, saludos desde Ecuador

[@Meowie765]

Imagine a German screamed at you on the seashore while you were swimming saying "HAI HAI HAI", and you say Hi back to him rather than swimming for your life.

[@mobileletsplays4660]

lol

[@CookieWorlds]

Yes i am german and its so weird

[@SchmulKrieger]

@@CookieWorlds weird is only English in that case. Hai or Haai is common among all Germanic languages. In Norwegian it is Hai, in Danish and so on.

[@CookieWorlds]

@@SchmulKrieger haai? This doesent exist

[@SchmulKrieger]

@@CookieWorlds you haven't watched the video, great.

[@samb3303]

Afrikaans the most beautiful and expressive language in the world 💙💙🇿🇦

[@tzeimet]

It’s interesting how similar the West Germanic languages are, especially if you compare basic sentences without loanwords (e.g. French origin words in English). They are practically identical. In fact you could probably formulate most sentences in Dutch to be almost identical to Afrikaans and they would still make sense, for example spreken and praten both exist in Dutch.

[@the_real_hislordship]

Afrikaans and Dutch are far more different than that. Grammar and words. But when a Dutch person speaks, I think it sounds like a drunk person trying to speak but swallowing their words while deliberately overemphasizing a lot of the vowels. Then that "het" in the wrong place 🤯

[@Accentor100]

Great video comparing these languages.

[@makayladeklerk5854]

As someone who speaks Afrikaans I find our language so nice

[@tanjavantonder4312]

Awesome to have all 4 of these together!! Zehr interessant! Hallo Afrikaans sprekendes!!

[@mikasaackerman4608]

2:50 The pronunciations in this part sounds like a cat purring

[@lolla2710]

Banana,Banane,Banaan,PIESANG Giraffe, Giraffe, Giraffe, KAMEELPERD( Directly translates to Camel horse)😂😂😂 Why is Afrikaans so literal😂😂We call gloves Handskoene(handshoes) We can helmets Pletterpet(falling hat) We call chameleons Verkleurmannetjie(little colour changing man) And we call cotton candy spookasem (Ghost breath) It's just too funny 😂

[@Waffle1301]

Yeah but it is easy to remember I love my Language

[@kke]

"Little colour changing man", that's cute.

[@jancornelisse9037]

"Pletterpet" is superfunny and to the point ! (crashcap)

[@barrysteven5964]

Don't know why some people are triggered by using an American for the English. I'm English myself and I'm not triggered. Her accent was different that's all but there are so many different accents across the UK and the rest of the English speaking world that accent is no big deal. Just one word was different, she said 'airplane' whereas we say 'aeroplane' (although since the famous comedy films more and more Brits actually say 'airplane' too!!) Also the spellings 'favorite color' would be 'favourite colour' in most other English speaking countries.

[@temptemp6276]

This is meant to be a comparison between languages one of which is English and they can't even spell colour or favourite. At least call it American v Dutch v German v Afrikaans then...

[@Serzje]

Great video to showcase the differences in basic words. The only point of criticism is, the misspelling of the word 'hospitaal' in Afrikaans.

[@paulaswaim8434]

I love Afrikaans! What a fun language.

[@alessbritish228]

@@Godsmen413 oh really? interesting

[@derekvanbreda3655]

Great video, except for the spelling mistake in the very last clip. Hospital is indeed English, the correct Afrikaans spelling is Hospitaal

[@bodoor8172]

Hospitaal is used in Dutch also, it isn’t very common though.

[@thrillereighties8241]

@@bodoor8172 Well if someone tells me they are taking me to the Krankenhaus I will most likely ask to be dropped off right there and then.

[@danielvanr.8681]

En "gunstelingkleur" moes in een woord geskryf gewees het. Hierde ewige woordafbreking is 'n blerrie Engelse siekte... :(

[@luckystriker7489]

@@danielvanr.8681 100% gunstelingkleur is 'n samestelling

[@anasbelkrimimohamad_3-8-82]

Learn and learn simultaneously in one video, great video, thanks.

[@deutschmitpurple2918]

❤❤

[@anasbelkrimimohamad_3-8-82]

@@deutschmitpurple2918 🥰Thank you very much!

[@Lampchuanungang]

Lovable, charming germanic chat and talk, that is pretty, afrikaans, deutsch,dutch and english are germanic langs, and closed and calm with each other they can understand mutuales in theory and in pratice. Show of dialogue compared.🖤🇿🇦💛🇩🇪💙🇳🇱❤🇺🇸

[@ostaroryan4719]

South African here. There is a town in South Africa called Tijgerhof (which is EU Dutch in origin). I however subconsciously will often pronounce it and write it as "Tierhof", which is Afrikaans pronunciation and spelling

[@SchmulKrieger]

Euro Dutch, not EU Dutch. EU is the European Union, not European.

[@MrPillowStudios]

Jaas, ai zein mai dat jew wpreitsteu looz agh.

[@burazerf.2857]

@@SchmulKrieger European Dutch, euro is currency.

[@SchmulKrieger]

@@burazerf.2857 Are there other Dutch languages despite the Dutch in Europe?

[@burazerf.2857]

@@SchmulKrieger Of course.

[@frozenice1715]

Never new Afrikaans was so close to Dutch, and I think I'd be able to converse with people that speak Afrikaans.

[@splashafrica]

Jy behoort afrikaans nog makeliker te kan lees as wat jy dit kan praat. Die grootste probleem met Nederlands is dat ons julle stopped tussen woorde nie kan hoor nie julle praat als in een sin as jy stadig praat dan sal dit baie help dat ons julle kan verstaan

[@frozenice1715]

@@splashafrica Ja, het is moeilijk om iemand te verstaan die een andere taal praat. Ik stotter tijdens het praten, maar het is niet omdat ik niet zo goed ben in Nederlands. Ik heb echter een grote woordenschat voor mijn leeftijd. Ik praat langzamer dan de meeste mensen.

[@LFPGaming]

dis nie elke dag wat 'n mens 'n goeie video sien wat afrikaans blootstelling gee nie. knap gedaan. it's not every day that you see a good video that gives afrikaans some exposure. good job.

[@Evaisa]

I love how afrikaans sounds like dutch if you strip out any sense pf sentence structure and half the gramatical rules

[@Uche676]

Colonizers

[@knorrieie1238]

Lmao yep

[@siyabongamviko8872]

But the way the Afrikaans speaker here pronounces the words is so unusual for me. I'm not an Afrikaans speaker, but I am exposed to it a lot and can pick out maybe 40 - 50% in general. I've never heard both white Afrikaans speakers and the black ones (Coloured) speak this way. It was so much closer to Dutch, more than I thought Afrikaans pronunciation is.

[@vert3cx373]

We have some Dutch foreigners renting desks at our office and this is exactly how they sound. It's close enough for an Afrikaans speaker to understand, whilst at the same time it's hard to grasp exactly what is being said since there are small differences and they just speak really fast. 😂😂

[@Jeff-zw9tf]

I had to wipe off my screen after that Dutch "groen". haha Wow!

[@YuRaLL]

soft G, best G!

[@striker-zq1040]

Okay so i know english, dutch and a lil german. I came primarily for the afrikaans but I'm happy the german was there too. I loved this

[@elimperdonable4725]

Eu amei, já quero mais

[@greenytaddict]

Currently learning Dutch, so proud of how far I have come after watching this video.

[@autumnphillips151]

That’s great! I’m currently learning Swedish, myself. It would be nice to see all of the Germanic languages compared in a video. I’d love to see English, Scots, the Frisian languages, Low Saxon, Dutch, Afrikaans, German, Yiddish, Icelandic, Faroese, Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish all together.

[@potvis9000]

the term tractor and trekkker are both correct in the netherlands

[@christiang.7926]

In German too: Traktor/ Trecker

[@royalsteven]

Its funny styles, we always crack Belgian jokes about their accent or Afrikaner language wich sounds like broken Dutch. But I love that the Dutch had so much influence. In Surinam, Antilles, Brasil, South Afrika, Belgium, they speak Dutch well.

[@dewaldnel1411]

We always say: Why do the Dutch speak Afrikaans with sich a funny accent? It's because they smoke too much weed. 😂

[@royalsteven]

@@dewaldnel1411 Yes that might be true :D

[@otherflatcoke]

Wie is die Chris-Jan? 😂 Love it buddy Edit: 2:27 LOL

[@liam_lusophile626]

English speaker: Hi German/Dutch/Afrikaaner: We're gonna need a bigger boot

[@johannesjansevanrensburg7653]

Ek is so trots op ons pragtige Afrikaanse taal wies nog Afrikaans hier 🇿🇦

[@Myuunium]

Niet Afrikaans, maar ik vind het geweldig hoe jullie spelling veel simpeler is. Niet moeilijk doen met jouw/leeuw, gewoon jou en leeu. Geen ij, gewoon y.

[@kallocarina8879]

Ik ben niet Afrikaans maar kan Nederlands praten. Ik weet dat het een andere taal is maar de twee zijn heel dezelfde

[@MyFridgeIsBetterThanYours]

Awe ouens

[@Ca7iburn]

@@MyFridgeIsBetterThanYours Awe

[@NoNoahhhh]

Ik ben zo trots op onze prachtige afrikaanse taal. Wie is nog afrikaans hier. Ik can go live in south afrikaa !!! I versta/begrijp wat je zegt !!!!

[@mclovin1071]

The Afrikaans word for banana is "piesang" which is derived from Indonesian. SA's complex history 😢

[@RyeRye-W-]

for the American one isn’t that Melissa Kristina 😂

[@rvat2003]

Exactly! I'm a language nerd and came upon this video through that but when I saw her face in the thumbnail I immediately recognized her. And a lot of people are commenting on her "vocal fry" which is indeed very "CALIFORNIAAAA".

[@jj_the_warrior]

As a afrikaans speaker Dutch is so much more beautiful and i understand it For example the say ziekenhuis for hospital which translates to sick house And for favorite color the say lievenskleur which means love color

[@gideonroos1188]

I have to disagree. Afrikaans sounds much better to me. Dutch sounds very flat, whilst Afrikaans vowels tend to be more rounded, at least in prestige varieties and in the central- to north-east. This renders much cleaner and clearer vowels. And it also is much more purely Germanic, and with less English influence, again, at least in prestige varieties.

[@luckystriker7489]

@@gideonroos1188 I agree. Modern Dutch sounds lazy an sloppy to me. The slurred vowels remind me of a drunk person. I recently heard a Dutch dialect - I think it was Frisian - that sounded awesome, though.

[@Mynervas]

⁠Frisian is a language, not a dialect. The Frisians are proud of that fact. :)

[@rakuengrowlithe4654]

This was cool. My favourite part was where everyone says "banana" and then Afrikaans is "piesang!" Also in one part you could have lessened the distance for english. Dog is common now but I believe the etymology of the word is unknown. However, English also has "hound" which means the same thing and, although not as popular these days, comes from German.

[@tertiusdejager1440]

Mistaken Afrikaans grammar: "Do you have any siblings?" Should be "Het jy enige broers of susters?" "Ek werk by die hospital". Should be "hospitaal" 2 a's.

[@luckystriker7489]

...en 'gunstelingkleur' moet 'n samestelling wees. Jy kan ook sê: "Het jy enige sibbe?"

[@invisiblegamer2649]

its amazing to hear someone speak Afrikaans properly (baie mense in Suid-Africa kan dit nie eers reg praat nie)

[@pionieresvizzero2224]

i wonder how dutch/ afrikaans they translated "oliphant" in lord of the rings. Curious that Tolikien was born in South Africa.

[@gevoel8293]

Not only Tolikien, your National Hero of Switzerland, Rodger Federer mother is also from South Africa and Afrikaans. And the same for Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliff) his mother is also from South Africa. :D

[@alexleroux6006]

Can you make a video "one language, three accents" with the french, like you did with the english please ? Example : Metropolitan vs Canadian vs Belgian.

[@DAF2194]

Dutch vs Flemish vs Afrikaans and Fries would be nice too. Problem is, *which* Flemish or Dutch. There are wildly divergent accents.

[@NovaScotiaBall2011]

And Swiss

[@oliveranderson7264]

Most Belgian accents wouldn't be very different from Parisian French. In fact, someone from Paris and someone from Brussels will probably sound more alike than someone from the South of France.

[@NovaScotiaBall2011]

@Oliver Anderson It is European French not Parisian French

[@oliveranderson7264]

@@NovaScotiaBall2011 Not all varieties of European French are the same

[@TheeTHeck]

🎉🎉 VERSUS VIDEOS ARE BACK 🎉🎉 (Now do a Spanish accents comparison 😜)

[@stefannaude361]

Jis this Afrikaans guy must be from Pretoria. "My moh en my poh" (Btw im from Pretoria so I'm allowed to say this😅)

[@danielgracindo]

Adorei esses videos e estou aprendendo cada idioma.

[@dgolf8410]

It sounded like the dutch lady is trying to speak Afrikaans and the Afrikaans guy keeps correcting her😂

[@splashafrica]

Afrikaans people call Dutch gerookte afrikaans meaning smoked afrikaans due to their weed culture suggesting their language is not properly spoken 🤣

[@Positiveaffirmationsforyou]

😂😂😂

[@alessbritish228]

@@splashafrica faxx

[@Nt-nu4if]

It sounded more like the Afrikaans speaking guy tried to learn Dutch( 'Ek is' = I is😂) Remember Afrikaans came from Dutch and not the other way around.

[@damasescriva]

El inglés es como el primo lejano de esos tres. xD P. S. En inglés también se usa la forma _aeroplane_. P. S. II. En castellano el color azul también se le llama «blao», aunque ya es un nombre poco usado en la actualidad, y como podéis ver, comparte parentesco con el _blau_ alemán, _blue_ inglés, _bleu_ francés, el _blauw_ neerlandés, etc.

[@binxbolling]

Mainly because of the Norman Invasion of 1066.

[@pamelaschutz1248]

What fun! I particularly enjoyed hearing how Dutch is different from Afrikaans, and noting that Afrikaans has often taken on a word order more similar to English than to Dutch, no doubt because we've lived cheek-by-jowl ever since the early 1800s in South Africa. (The Afrikaners, well, the Dutch really at that stage, were here a lot longer than us. We only came to stop Napoleon getting a foothold, and later for other reasons).

[@joshuawalker7054]

The American speaker is "DigitalMunchies" aka Melissa Kristin. She sings under the stage name Mila Mundson.

[@omurdemircii]

Thanks for comparing germenic languages!

[@deutschmitpurple2918]

💕💕😊😊

[@steveneardley7541]

There is so much in common in these predominantly Germanic languages. But the vowel sounds are very different! Difficult too--lots of diphthongs.

[@sheepstone2648]

This answers a lot of questions.

[@Miguel-up1jm]

I love how it says Icy bin dreißig Jahre alt.

[@BeryAb]

0:39 That's not how "sechs" is pronounced, it's pronounced as if the "ch" were a "k". Maybe it could just be a strange accent, though.

[@sirploko]

It's literally just pronounced like "sex". These clowns couldn't even get a German speaking person for their stupid video.

[@WhiteOrb]

Yes he has a small dialect, he also pronounces k in the direction of g and not k. But we have many dialects here in Germany :D

[@sirploko]

@@WhiteOrb Rat mal wo ich herkomme...

[@TS29er]

Absolutely. But I have never heard anyone pronouncing 'sechs' like that

[@WhiteOrb]

@@sirploko xD

[@haerindollys]

when germany said orange is sounds like a french guy smh

[@Newtonlopez07]

Hello beautiful you look so beautiful and your smile is so adorable ☺️

[@robertcrafton7187]

Super crushing on Afrikaans. Really, really liked it. Spelling as well.

[@gideonroos1188]

Afrikaans spelling is extremely phonetic, intentionally so. Once you know the basic rules the only words that'll trip you up are loan words that still use their original foreign spelling.

[@cbalducc]

My guess is Afrikaans is based on an older version of Dutch than is used today. Plus English, Malay, and Bantu words.

[@thechichaaquatik7842]

It's indeed a daughter language of dutch.