How Similar Are German and Afrikaans? (German vs. Afrikaans)

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The last time I compared Afrikaans to another language, it turned out that I was more or less able to understand Dutch. Since I've already been studying German for as long as I've been studying Afrikaans, I still wanted to know how similar the two languages are.
EXPERIMENT TIME! In this video, I read a German text and translate it into Afrikaans to figure out what percentage of each sentence has similar words. Using that, I attempt to quasi-prove that German and Afrikaans have a lexical similarity of 50% -- or that 50% of Afrikaans words are very close to German words! I won't spoil it here, but let's just say, I missed my calling as a scientist with all the hypothesizing and experimenting I do in this video!
Written German article from www.german.net
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[@frankfeuker4511]

Als ich vor 30 Jahren in Süd Afrika war hatte ich als "Low German speaker"keine Probleme Afrikaanssprachige Zeitungen zu lesen. Mehr als 80 Prozent der Wörter waren identisch mit meinen Heimat Dialekt.

[@SuneOli4]

Afrikaans person who can speak German here: This video was interesting coming from someone who is a native speaker of neither. Dankie!

[@wernerduplooy2729]

I am native afrikaans but learned german as well

[@WildPeanuts]

@@wernerduplooy2729 bly jy in namibie?

[@kwaaikat100]

Native Afrikaans speaker here (who happen to speak German as well). I think the similarities are much more obvious to a native speaker of either language, even amongst the words you said were not similar. Take the word “sprechen” which translates to “praat”. The word “spreek” is well known in Afrikaans, but with a different usage. German does not generally pass the threshold of being intelligible to Afrikaans speakers, but I’d say this text you’ve chosen would be understood in large part by most speakers. The German word “schwer” which translates here to “moeilik”. “Swaar” actually means heavy in Afrikaans (as “schwer” does in German), but since “swaar” is quite often used as a synonymn for difficult, most Afrikaans speakers would have no problem understanding that word. I could go on. Add to these the the word orders are so similar, the languages are deifinately closer than they appear to non native speakers. Still think it is a cool video.

[@mrmiskeen8284]

Ik ben uit Kleef in Duitsland en mijn dialeect wat ik praat is bijna het selfte dan afrikaans. Ik bedoel somige jaar gelesen, in het geschidenes, 90 jaar terug in de nederrijnse regio, de Mensen kunnen beter nederlands dan duits verstaan. Helaas is dit de eerste keer om dat ik de taal geschrijven ik heb het nooits fruger gedaan. Mooie video echt prachtig 👍🏼

[@PetraStaal]

Hoera voor de eerste keer! 🇳🇱

[@Lampchuanungang]

This region of Germany understand limburguish, luxembourgish and dutch,alsatian too. Good.

[@pikkewyn]

Wow! dit klink soos Afrikaans. Die woordorde is dieselfde, ek kan dit nie glo nie.

[@matt250594]

As a native Dutch speaker of one of the eastern, almost German dialects, i'd like to point out some similarities you missed (in my opinion). Since the Dutch language forms some sort of a bridge between the two languages. No hard feelings though, most of these are hard to find if you aren't a native speaker of one of these three languages. In the first sentence I can see the same origin in the German word 'erraten' and the Afrikaans word 'raai'. In Dutch we would say 'raden'. The similarity between the German and the Dutch words are obvious. In fast, casual Dutch it feels natural to replace the end of the word 'raden' with an i, so that would leave (phoneticlly) exactly the Afrikaans word raai. Also 'zwei' and 'twee' sound really similar in the spoken form. In the second sentence The only one you missed was the German 'alle' and the Afrikaans 'almal'. In Dutch we say 'allemaal', so it just feels like the Germans and the Afrikaners chose to drop another piece of the Dutch word. Fourth sentence (third was complete) The German word 'alte' and the Afrikaans word 'ou' have the same origin. The Afrikaners like to drop the end of words, so they turned 'oude' into 'ou'. The words 'alte' and 'oude' are quite similar, and obviously share the same origin. Fifth sentence German 'warten', Dutch 'wachten' Afrikaans (dropping the end of the word as usual) 'wag'. Sixth is complete, lets move on the seven I'd say 'Wer' and 'Wie' share a common origin (especially noticable when spoken). Also 'einen' and ''n'. Afrikaners are just dropping different parts of the words now. In Dutch we will say 'een' or 'ene' in some eastern dialects. I hope someone thinks this is interesting and I didn't do this for nothing..

[@ThePolyglotFiles]

Thanks for clarifying that :) As a non-native Afrikaans speaker, it's hard to find all the connections, but now that you've pointed these out, the connection is so much stronger! Thanks for watching!

[@Julian-qk6vd]

Yeah you're so right. I live in Dortmund (maybe you know the city. Many Dutch people are visiting it) a city close to the Netherlands and I understand the most in written Dutch. 6 weeks ago I was in Amsterdam and Leiden and tried to speak some Dutch and so many people spoke to me in German back. So many of you guys speak German.

[@Schneeeulenwetter]

Matias we also say “allemal” in German , but more in a fixed expression . i think it means “always”

[@preciouskamba2820]

I am a afrikaans speak learning dutch so pretty helpful

[@Schneeeulenwetter]

Matias also the « zwei » it is written with a z only, but you’d pronounce it as tz (z like a sharp s) tswei

[@joachimniebling5034]

When I worked in South Africa in 1980. I only spoke German and English. After one month not learning but hearing Afrikaans, I could listen to the Radio in Afrikaans and understood nearly everything. Same with newspapes ( Die Burger ) and TV.

[@kitiowa]

I am decent with German as a second language and I can make out most of what I hear when listening to Afrikaans radio stations. I can make out more Afrikaans than I can Dutch.

[@scheichajev]

Did you have do deal with racism in South Africa (I'm assuming you are white)?

[@Helgardt6189]

@@scheichajev you have racism on your brain.

[@wietzmarais2938]

Native Afrikaans speker here. Some words I can add: A "perdekar" can also be called a "koets". Compare that to the German word. In Afrikaans we also have a word "wonderbaar" that also compares to one of the German words in last sentence you presented.

[@Marzelmusik]

'byna' and 'beinah(e)' are also related words. in this German sentence beinahe was just replaced by "fast" which means the same

[@catfish_lude]

byna means almost or amper

[@PCLHH]

Yeah. I noticed many things where the two languages are more related than he says.

[@marcovtjev]

@@PCLHH It helps tremendously if you have had some initial classes in the other language (Dutch if you are German and vice versa). Then you learn some common rules how typical words change spelling going from one to the other and other crucial differences (like genitive "der" vs Dutch "van de") Some dialectal knowledge can also help recognize patterns (e.g. standard Dutch "ij" words often change to "ie" in Eastern Dutch dialects).

[@alwaysoutlawed4462]

As an Afrikaans person currently studying German at school, speaking Afrikaans has really helped a lot. Even when the words and grammar differ a lot, the fact that it's more Germanic than English, means that I can guess how words change etc. better than an English person :) yaaaay The reading is also a lot easier! My friends who do not take German, cannot understand it at all if you start talking, but they can understand a couple of words when reading.

[@WanisheMusic]

As a german speaker I would say your 50% was a good guess but maybe a little too conservative. I could understand almost all of the words in the afrikaans sentences and even though many of them were different then the german sentence, they would be the same if the sentence was phrased differently in german(like byna - beinahe). And some words look different but are still definetly linked like "praat" and "sprach" they just dropped the s. Great video! And are you still learning russian? It is my mother tongue so it interests me :)

[@ThePolyglotFiles]

I am still learning Russian :) I'm going to be releasing a pair of Russian vlogs very soon! They're next in line for videos. Thanks for the input and thanks for watching :D

[@jancovanderwesthuizen8070]

WanisheMusic byna is less common than amper which means the same but has no similarity with the German word

[@skywalker96100]

I must say that I do concur with this. Most of the words we have there could just as easily be substituted with a different german word. I feel like the legibility between german and afrikaans is just as dutch to german, namely at about 89% if not higher for the native speaker, if not higher if you know your way around the English language as well.

[@johanfagerstromjarlenfors]

I think you probably can understand more cause afrikaans have a more simple glammar than german witch means you have the knowledge of more different endings and stuff that exist in the one language bur not in the Other. For me as a swede i for exempel think afrikaans is easier to understand than dutch cause of the grammar with endings and stuff in dutch that not exist in afrikaans or swedish. Also the same with german for me. I can often pick up som of the Main meaning of a sentense i. German or dutch but things like tempus or who is doing what etc.. i dont get easy.

[@Schneeeulenwetter]

WanisheMusic the “y” was used in German too. I used to read old letters in German. As i saw it, they used y for a special pronounciation (when the i is sharp). they wrote e.g “bey” for “bei”

[@D3clanb]

I speak German and Dutch; agree with what WanisheMusic says below - there are other German words that would fit the sentence that are at least certainly closer to the Dutch cognates, and therefore also likely to the Afrikaans!

[@sebastianfix9148]

I think you misunderstood the meaning of "lexical similarity". Actually German and Dutch are at least 84% lexical similar. Whereas German and English are at least 60% lexical similar. - Lexical similarity: Doesn't mean that the words are exactly the same, it means that they are "cognates". They come from a common origin, but they may have a different form or be pronounced differently. So: Ek and Ich are "lexical similar". They come from the same origin. As well as "te" and "zu". Om also has a German cognate which is Um. It's just the difference perspective or sentence structure that you use in each language. I would guess that Afrikaans and German has at least 70% lexical similarity, due to the fact that they indeed originated from the same language (Proto-Germanic). Grüße aus Deutschland Groete uit Duitsland (100% lexical simiar by the way :)

[@seid3366]

70%? I figured both would be closer to 75%

[@toade1583]

@@seid3366 72% at lowest, around 80% at highest, depending on how Dutch is to German(estimates usually range over 80% to around 84%) and Dutch and Afrikaans are 90-95% lexically similar, depending on how much Malay influence is on the dialect of the Afrikaans speakers, Cape Malays and other Mixed race Afrikaans speakers will use more Malay words than White Afrikaners who will use less due to less exposure to Malay culture than partially Malay Afrikaans speakers.

[@Ama94947]

The Dutch language is actually closer to English then German though

[@Moe4572]

the lexical similarity is much higher! For example you could use Pferdekarren (Perdekarr = Horse-Waggon) in German as well. wouldn't be usual but fully understandable and exact. in most sentences I would really say about 90% are directly related. Thats pretty obvious once you're familiar with directly alternatives and some sound-shift rules. Some sentences were less understandable though

[@SoWhat89]

There are even more similarities than the ones you pointed out. In the first sentence for example we have "fast" in German and "byna" in Dutch. In German there's also the word "beinah", which also means "almost." Also the word "woon" for "live" which in German was "leben" in the example ("leben" is the exact translation of "live"), can be translated with "wohnen" in German as well. So in that first example you didn't only have 14, but 16 similar words.

[@nicholas8257]

In afrikaans praat = spreek (which is similar to german) the same with perdekarre = perdekoets & ry = vaar (fährt)

[@INdiverCT]

Uitsig can also be translated with Aussicht (Blick) which then is more connected and in Platt (lower German) op is also used for auf.. alt and ou are also similar.

[@justnobody4023]

I’m speaking german but I’m form switzerland so I speak a dialect and that makes it more easier for me. There are not always one word for a thing in German (idk about Afrikaans) I think it’s easier to understand Afrikaans as a German speaking person than it is for a Afrikaans speaking person understanding German

[@dafo1648]

You could also say "Pferdekarren" instead of "Pferdekutsche" - "Kutsche" is a loan word from Hungarian. And "uitsig" could also be translated with "Aussicht".

[@juanpieterse4075]

we also use the word perde koets

[@hisoka4061]

Pferdekarre ? Das heißt Kutsche

[@Millbrook1974powderedwater]

If you look at it in a historical way both German and Dutch will share their origins, but every five to ten miles in both countries one could hear a different dialect. Both languages were formed and standardized in the end while Afrikaans underwent the same process, only centuries later. So in a way with Afrikaans you can have a peek at the origins of both German and Afrikaans.

[@paullombard00]

Nice. Also, small thing: In AFR we also use "seer" which is like "sehr" - "baie" is the go-to word for "a lot/many", but "seer" is also popular.

[@clydemarais6592]

Dankie vir die video jy ken jou goed!

[@fallingforfiction8507]

Das hab ich verstanden 😅

[@kipchickensout]

@@fallingforfiction8507 bin nur verwirrt vom "du kennst dich gut". hab ich da was missverstanden?

[@kipchickensout]

@KJ V oh ight

[@karenclaassen4550]

The Afrikaans in the sentence In the centre if the city is a direct translation. Afrikaans people will not say In die sentrum van die stad, but will actually say, "In die middelstad is 'n groot en baie oue kerk"

[@wouterpretorius3552]

Goeie werk. Baie dankie vir die interessante video.

[@JanRademan]

7:29 The Riesenrad is a proper noun for a specific ferris wheel. So it does not translate. "Nie so vêr daarvaandaan nie, staan die Riesenrad." "Die Riesenrad staan nie vêr daarvandaan nie."

[@sidkings]

Fascinating! I'm learning German at the moment. It's incredible how similar the languages are.

[@henriettekruger3249]

Just have to say, a Ferris Wheel in Afrikaans is a "mallemeule". Lit. crazy mill. So that sentence would be "Nie so ver daarvandaan nie is die mallemeule."

[@rriocdhoaerhdt6111]

I’m from germany and I lived in the US for almost 10 months (I studied abroad as part of my bachelors degree) I can tell you that I understand almost 70% just from speaking german and I would say about 10 to 15% from speaking english. Of course I’m talking just about your written sentences. Apart of that, when I traveled through Namibia (I know that Namibian people also often speak german cause of history) I was able to communicate with people that ONLY speak afrikaans. Sure, we had to speak slowlier and more accurate compared to a german-german conversation, nevertheless, it just worked.. and i’m talking NOT about tourist talkings like ‘can you tell me how to go to the beach’ or ‘how much is it for a coke’ or whatever :D simple stuff.. I’m not blaming u at all but I would suggest to find some native speaking person for u’re next video, in order to do the ‘where are the similarities-stuff’ best regards

[@davidgear7076]

Good point... that's waht I wanted to suggest.... finding some native speakers for this stuff...

[@salyfea]

There were a few others, that are also pretty much the same: "uitsig" is like "Aussicht" what is a synonym to "Blick" and "byna" and "beinahe", what is similar to "fast" And a few more. So I think, that the 60 % guess was quite good.

[@wolfieinu]

"Zentrum der Stadt" would probably be translated "middel van die stad," but both could be rendered as "Stadtmitte" and "middestad" respectively. Which is a compound word consisting of the same two words, but Afrikaans combined them the other way around. EDIT: "Pferdekutschen" = "perdekoetse," "carriage" in Afrikaans is more properly "koets," though "kar" is not wrong.

[@inavogel626]

Ja, middestad is perfek.

[@jancovanderwesthuizen8070]

Pferdekarren would convey a slightly different idea when used in German but it's certainly not wrong

[@rexpolyglotus2802]

I did a video about this on my channel recently. I speak 4 Germanic languages, so I tried to read texts in a few that I don't speak. I was able to understand Afrikaans (in its written form) quite well.

[@SoWhat89]

The first sentence contains actually more similarity than a non-German speaker may see. They used "wohnen" (woon) twice in the Afrikaans one whereas in German they used the word "live" (leben) in the second phrase, which there also is a similar word for in Dutch. Furtheremore, "Byna" is similar to "beinah", which is another German word for "almost". "Twee" and "Zwei" of course are also similar and so is "raai" and "erraten". We also have "raten" in German, it's just that the prefix -er is added in this context. In the other sentences there are also more similarities than the ones you discovered at first sight.

[@thomastom8317]

If you take "waar" and "wo" you should take "ek" and "ich" as well as "raai" which is similar to "raten". In addition, would it be possible to replace "woon" in the second sentence with "leef"? Otherwise and in this case the words "leben" and "wohnen" in the German sentence are interchangeable so "woon" could have been covered a second time. Similar to the last point the "byna" would be comparable to the German word "beinahe" which again is interchangeable with the used term "fast". "Twee" and "Zwei" are somewhat similar but i guess it would be ok to not count them. "Pferdekarren" can be used as "Pferdekutsche" even though the "Pferdekarren" is more likely to be a horse-drawn cart (transporting goods) while "Pferdekutsche" is a horse carriage (transporting people). "steht das Riesenrad" is less commonly used than "ist das Riesenrad" so the "is" could have been... you know ;) The "Blick" could be exchanged with "Aussicht" to match the "uitsig". Nice work.

[@simonmuller6919]

I think it would be about 60-70% because like karre for Kutsche means is like a word in German that means the same and ver for weit is like fern wich means weit too

[@wouterkabouter102]

Very interesting, baie dankie! I have to say that there is one little mistake I noticed : we don`t use the word "reuzenrat" for the giant wheel in Afrikaans. We only use the letter "z" in the words Zulu and Zebra as far as I know, otherwise always "s". The question now is what do we call that thing...I guess we would call it "groot wiel". (big wheel)

[@Marksd7804]

Of course you’d add a ‘nie’ at the end of the sentence!! It’s a unique characteristic of Afrikaans. Also Afrikaans makes use of accents that don’t appear in Dutch.

[@inavogel626]

So you did well, but in the end the similarity was quite higher because of a lot of words you didn't know were family.

[@GoodVideos4]

I'm in South Africa, know Afrikaans, except a few words here and there, and am learning German. When I was 17, in 1981, I went to Germany to see people we knew. They were surprised that I could speak such good German, as they put it. That's because a few years before, they came to South Africa, and I couldn't speak one word of German. My being able to, was because of similarities between Afrikaans and German. The Afrikaans helped me quite a bit. One must also have positive attitudes about that. It would also obviously only help with basic, simple German, not the complicated grammar. They would also speak that to me, and also with positive attitudes. Incidentally, I was in South West Africa / Namibia in the mid 1980's. (That was before its independence in 1990.) In those days, it had three official languages, English, Afrikaans and German. What I liked about that, was that signs and notices would be in those three languages. So, I could compare the similar Afrikaans and German, and pick up some German. But, now English is the only official language there (with Afrikaans and German still widely used). So, those three language signs and notices are slowly disappearing, unfortunately. In South Africa, the German nation is often regarded as being part of the Afrikaner nation, whereas in Namibia they are regarded as separate nations. That's also how it is with me. Can also see here, about German in Namibia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_language_in_Namibia

[@gospelfilms7942]

Ek het jou video geniet! Hoe leer jy Afrikaans met die dat daar baie minder hulpbronne beskikbaar is? As jy ooit 'n neiging sou kry om Afrikaanse video's te wil kyk, loer gerus 'n bietjie na my youtube kanaal. Altans, dit sal jou seker help as ek Afrikaanse onderskrifte bygevoeg het? Goed gaan!

[@HeffeFrank]

Thank you for doing this :) I used to learn German and have now moved to Afrikaans and it's overwriting my German knowledge :s

[@chili_mayotron]

u could have just use other German words and the percentage would be higher hahah

[@ammaarabader238]

Hey, I'm native South African and I speak afrikaans, I think the hypothesis you've created is spot on. Really, I gve it thought and it's true. Many similarities between the 3 languages- Afrikaans, German and Dutch. I had a complex conversation with a Dutch speaking guy and I spoke Afrikaans😂 but it worked and German people would fully understand me but could sort of pick-up the just of what I'm saying because i know a South African that dated a German.

[@forestmanzpedia]

No, he made mistakes comparing German with Afrikaans. As a native German speaker myself I can see more similarities than he himself has spotted. Also, Dutch and German have a lexical similarity of 84%, not ~60% Therefore, if you know how to read German, know about the sound shifts, you will definitly spot alot more similarities. Frau = vrouw = vrou, Regen = regen = reën, Ich = ik = ek, Jahr = jaar = jaar, gestohlen = gestolen = gesteel, Dieb = dief = dief. And so many more. Search for "Dutch German langfocus" for more info.

[@johanfagerstromjarlenfors]

Personally i think you ”miss” some of the words that in my opinion is very similar. For example ”ek” is a word that i instantly feel is similar to ich... especially cause i’ve heard many germans say it little more like eh... and the fact that Afrikaans Ek dutch Ik german Ich luxembourgish Ech... just a simple example... i would more say that the similarity rather be like 60-70%

[@IG_Bananasgolf]

In the first sentence you can exchange "fast" for "beinah" and "leben" for "wohnen" and basically make it 80%

[@PCLHH]

These 2 languages are closer related. (I am an Afrikaans native speaker, but I learned German.) No human should say: "Wie met dit ry" it is: "wie daarmee ry"

[@ive3737]

My boyfriend is German and I'm Dutch. I'm pretty sure he will have way more troubles understanding Afrikaans than I have.

[@Lampchuanungang]

Ah we have a detail here in your case its POSSIBLY ya both speak north standart dutch and north standart deutsch, close to frisian, saxon and danish, afrikaans is very acessible to dutch and deutsch speakers in majorities cases.

[@ive3737]

@@Lampchuanungang If there's Afrikaans on tv or something I understand it better than he does.

[@greenbutter3190]

Stable video👍

[@pieter-samuelduplessis3279]

Just pointing out that you could have cheated with a few translations if you have wanted to, like for example veel/vele mense and viele Leute to give you another similar word.

[@bigrobbyd.6805]

This comparison also shows good examples of Grimm's law, such as the change that occurred between "grosse" and "groot".

[@ThePolyglotFiles]

It is! I've always wanted to do a video on Grimm's law, but I worry I don't know enough about the subject :/

[@And-lj5gb]

Yes, knowing Grimm's law you could link more German and Afrikaans words to each other than Michael did. For example, in the last sentence we have German "auf" and Afrikaans "op". But we know that where other related languages have "p", German often has "f" and if you know this, these two words also appear to be related even if they don't seem recognisable at first glance. "Alte" and "ou" also seem to be related if you know that this word is "oud" in Dutch.

[@etierik]

Did you translate the Afrikaans sentences yourself, or are they from a book? I would expect 'Nie so ver daarvan nie is die reuzenrad', not nie after reuzenrad. But i'm Dutch, not Afrikaans, so it's just a halfway educated guess of mine. Historically, Dutch and German form a dialect continuum. For political reasons the version from Holland and one from central Germany became the written standards and starting in the 16th century Dutch and German drifted apart. Afrikaans was separated from Dutch much later, in the 19th century or so. I would say the main difference between German and Afrikaans is grammatical: German has a very conservative grammar, retaining four cases, three genders , complex verb conjugation, etcetera. Afrikaans has a very simplified formal grammar - no genders, almost no verb conjugations - but they did gain some sentence structure complexities (the double negation). I think English has been the biggest influence on Afrikaans. The influence of local African languages is limited, I think mainly some lexical items.

[@ThePolyglotFiles]

I translated the sentences myself. I did have to look a word or two up, but that sentence with "reuzenrad" sounded a little odd with the "nie" placed at the end as well. Thanks for watching :)

[@wouterkabouter102]

Erik jy het dit goed opgemerk, hierdie sin bevat `n fout maar dis in die woord "reuzenrad", wat nie `n Afrikaanse woord is nie. Die plasing van "nie" in hierdie sin is aanvaarbaar maar in hierdie geval kon dit ook slegs 1x "nie" bevat het : "Nie so ver daarvandaan is die groot wiel"

[@SpartanMFP]

Sentence syntax very similar. Afrikaners and Germans generally overall have very similar trademarks - high work ethic, regard for hygiene, etiquette and discipline, loyalty in the workplace, love for hunting, beer and meat 🙂

[@gfgerber2418]

The Dutch founded the refreshment station at the Cape in 1652. The Dutch garrison at the Cape consisted mostly of Germans if one looks at the names. Many stayed at the Cape once their tour of duty was complete. By 1806 when Britain took over the Colony, archaic Afrikaans was already the lingua franca at the Cape. Second language speakers must have had a great influence on changes that occurred. In the 1600's a Portuguese/Dutch pidgin was spoken by sailors which gave us words like "kabeljou" (a salmon like Fish) and kraal (corral). At the same time about 300 French Huguenots were brought to the Cape, most were from French Flanders and knew Dutch before their arrival here and French were no longer spoken at the cape by the early 1700's. Some words did however persist ; portmenteau (carrying bag), trietserig (triste) and oblietjies ( from obliette, to forget.... a custard slice so delicious it made you forget) to name a few. The Khoi/San languages contributed names for animals and places. Koedoe (a large antilope), Outenikwa ( a mountain range), Kragga Kamma (an area in the Eastern Cape). Nguni (Black) languages also contributed, dagha (building clay, cement) donga (a ditch or ravine), tula (keep quiet), pepha (to carry a child on ones back). After 1806 English became the dominant influence. The British Colonial Government tried to Anglicize the Colony and went so far as to import Scottish Clergy to anglicize the Dutch Reformed Church. These ministers saved Afrikaans by starting Dutch Church schools. They became to be known as Dominies (Scots Dominie, a school teacher) a term used in Afrikaans today for a minister not a teacher. Coming back to German. Afrikaans speakers will, if they read a German text, understand enough to get the gist of what is written. Spoken German as well as Dutch could be understood depending on the dialect and how fast it is spoken. Afrikaans developed from Southern Dutch dialects, Flemish is easily understood and the Limburger dialect of German (Andre Rieu in Maastricht) can also be understood. Go to Beieren or Preussen and it is a totally different story. What I do find interesting though, is that when one speaks a very formal, slightly antiquated Afrikaans the German Influence becomes much more noticeable. In addition to the words you recognised I was able to find quite a few more. alle... almal. "Alle mense" is used in Afrikaans just as in German "alle Leute", with the same meaning Schwierig...... moeilik, the word "swaar" (difficult) can also be used. Pferdekutschen ...... perdekarre. In Afrikaans a "perdekar" is an open buggy. A perdekoets would be a closed vehicle. I think "perdekoets" would be a better translantion in this case than a "perdekar". We would normally just talk of a "koets". Blick.... uitsig. In Afrikaans the word "blik" could be used as an alternative for"uitsig" in this case, however normally, "blik" would be used in the sense of an English, "glance" and is an old fashioned word.

[@isalovree2299]

Meiner Meinung nach ist ein großer Teil von Afrikaans einfach Deutsch vor den meisten Rechtschreib- und Lautreformen. Nachdem Deutsch meine Muttersprache ist, verstehe ich recht viel in Afrikaans, was ich ziemlich cool finde, nachdem ich Afrikaans lernen will. In my opinion, afrikaans is just german before like all of the spelling-reforms and all that stuff. It used to be pronounced really differently as well. Because german is my first language, i understand a good chunk of the language which is cool since i want to learn it at some point.

[@jjdeklerk521]

Afrikaans speaking here, wel gedaan ! Jy praat mooi!

[@asagk]

Pferdekutsche(DE) = Pferdekarren(DE) = Perdekarre (AFRIKAANS). Karren und Kutsche ist in etwa das gleiche, auch wenn ein Karren ehr ein einfaches Fahrzeug ohne jeden Komfort darstellt. Der Karren existiert auch in der Version ohne Pferd; nämlich als "Handkarren", also von Hand gezogen. In alten deutschen Dialekten wird übrigens das Pferd häufig auch als "Paard" bezeichnet. Das entspricht in etwa dem flämischen "Perd". Der deutlichste Unterschied zwischen Flämisch und Deutsch ist die Schreibweise und die Lautverschiebung einzelner Vokale. Das ist somit auch für Afrikaans ähnlich. Jedoch finden sich im Afrikaans zudem noch Worte aus dem Bantu und dem Englischen, welche im Flämischen so nicht existieren.

[@cedric9806]

Just like a lot of people in the comments I'm a german native and I would say the lexical similarity is around 80% because Afrikaans is just using cognates of older /dated german words So if I'm reading an Afrikaans sentence, I can understand most of it

[@wolfieinu]

Vind jy dat dit van die formaliteitsvlak van die sin afhang? Ich finde, dass die Ähnlichkeiten zwischen Sprachen leichter in die mehr formale Formen den (der?) unterschiedlichen Sprachen auffallen. M.a.w. as albei tale formeel geskryf word is hulle makliker wedersyds verstaanbaar. Ich verstehe zB. ganz wenig Französisch, konnte aber akademische Französiche Texten über Literaturanalyse relativ leicht verstehen, vermutlich weil vieles der Fachterminologie zwischen Sprachen geteilt wird. Conversational French, though, I don't have a clue of. Vergewe my Duits, ek is baie uit oefening :)

[@hellfiremissle4907]

ich and ek are pretty similar... in berlin they use ick instead of ich... it has the same root... im sure... you speak the ch like an k.... that's the same k we speak when we say chemnitz

[@pietpadda593]

The languages are much closer in my opinion (if you only consider these sentences...). The sentences can be translated in different ways. For example: Diesen Dialekt zu verstehen is sehr schwierig, wenn man noch Deutsch lernt ~ (Om) hierdie dialek te verstaan is baie swaar (rare, but is synonymous with "moeilik" ~ sich mühend), wanneer (as/terwyl) mens nog Duits leer. This is about 90% in my opinion and not 50%. However, taking more complex writings into consideration, the link is actually much less. I would argue for a lexical similarity of about 35% - 45% based on my translations of C1 German texts. Unfortunately the similarities start to fade quickly after about C2/B1 level, especially when you look at the less frequently used words.

[@jack-4129]

06:10 I don't think that in Afrikaans you'd use the word "sentrum" for the German "Zentrum". Instead the Afrikaans would be "middel", tho "sentrale deel" could also be used. 07:05 As an Afrikaans speaker, I didn't recgonize that the German "stehen" meant "staan". Also I thought "Pferdekutchen" meant "horse kitchen" ;), but now that I know what it means I'd translate it into Afrikaans as the slightly archaic "perdekoetse". 07:31 I've never heard of "reuzenrad" in Afrikaans. A search online gives "mallemeule" but I think that's the horizontal version, so "groot wiel" (big wheel) is probably better. Interestingly, when comparing English to Afrikaans, the following sentence is Afrikaans and means the exact same thing as in English, tho pronounced differently: "My hand is in warm water".

[@jotted7980]

I live in SA and In school I learn afrikaans. AND I GAME with a german speaking person who lives in Germany so this was something I had to sent to him .

[@inavogel626]

So Michael, the word perdekoets is still in use in Afrikaans, because that is exactly what the British royal family still use. Hulle ry in 'n perdekoets - a horse drawn coach.

[@brianwagner398]

I speak Afrikaans at native level and it has helped me with my German.

[@Stichting_NoFap]

I am dutch and I can understand almost all Afrikaans.

[@Deevee7278]

as an afrikaans speaker that leans more on English If a German person spoke very slowly and with My full focus I could possibly understand the whole sentence.. the word "leben":lives (leben:german) I didn't understand but put together in a whole paragraph I made sense but barely.... it's scary how our brains can puzzle distorted words and make a connection to form an understanding of those words.

[@SionTJobbins]

Dutch arrived in souther Africa at beginning of 1600, it was there for about two generations before Dutch East Indies Company officially claimed the territory in 1652.

[@INdiverCT]

Warten and wag.. to me sound also similar.. granted g and r are different, but the way g is sounded is similar to the r kind of..

[@hermandormehl8827]

7:14 in Afrikaans we also use the word 'koets' , if it is a formal 'perdekar'.

[@RottenFrog]

Koets = Kutsche / perdekar = Pferdekarre. 'n Ou kar (motor) is ook 'n "Karre".

[@reinhardn7295]

I am Afrikaans and German and its funny but you reel sounds like a true English person speaking Afrikaans, you sounds exactly like the English people here in South Africa. Baie mooi dat jy leer :D

[@jpgous675]

As a native Afrikaans speaker I would agree with your 50%. I have studied a bit of German in school and University so I can speak a little German. German is definitely a much harder and more complex language to learn than Afrikaans

[@Lampchuanungang]

Learn alsatian bro.

[@titaniatixie]

As an Afrikaans speaker, I am only aware that Germans and Afrikaans speakers say "Blonde Hair" the same way.

[@johanfagerstromjarlenfors]

The text in 3:46 in swedish: Kan du gissa var jag bor? I min stad bor det nästan två miljoner människor. As swede i can understand german and dutch and afrikaans a little, sometimes it’s very similar and sometimes not at all. And as a speaker of english i van understand the parts that is similar to english aswell. As we can se the word ”can” is similar in i think all germanic languages but spelled diferent. In many germanic languages ”du” is similar and others have a version of ”you”.

[@INdiverCT]

Moelijk.. is similar to mühevoll that is another term for schwierig

[@kitiowa]

You have underestimated the lexical connections. The etymological variance is greater but the words roots are the same. "Speak" and "old" are two you missed off the top of my head.

[@INdiverCT]

In the second sentence; I think also sPREchen and PRAat or sPRECHEN and PRAAT’N are similar as well as ALLE and ALmal

[@kaitlynkwankis2349]

Lol I love listening to how he is saying this in Afrikaans XD As a person that's from there, he sounds like he is trying to sound more Dutch and German, probably because he's been learning that first.

[@sti_va]

I speak german and I understand perdekarre as "pferde karre". Karre meaning Kutsche, just another word.

[@DutchScape]

1:00 This is both incorrect. Flemish is actually the furthest to Low German of all Dutch dialects. The closest dialects to Low German are those adjacent to it, in the Northeast of the Netherlands and are often grouped together with the Low German dialects as Low Saxon. Also: It's a myth that Afrikaans is closer to Flemish. Afrikaans developed from Southern South Holland dialects. Any similarities to Flemish are more due to both conserving certain characteristics in parallel.

[@mornehurter6962]

Batavosphere well as jy so daar na will kyk is jy seker maar reg maar Afrikaans het nog steeds baie in gemeen met die tale

[@Lampchuanungang]

@@mornehurter6962 the limitations of many groups its try separate flemish, from dutch from afrikaans in linguistical pratice and Studio they all formed a lang family a continuum of speech. They came from one germanic idiom in the origins.

[@theactualnic]

Ek praat Afrikaans as ek woon in Suid Afrika. Dit is net so snaaks dat jy sal dit leer!! Waar studie jy die taal in Amerika??

[@olpizl]

The first sentence you compared has (imo) 12 out of 14 similar words. Kannst - kan, wo - waar, ich - ek, wohne - woon, in - in, meiner - my, stadt - stad, leben/wohnen - woon, fast/beinahe - byna, zwei - twee, millionen - miljoen, menschen - mense.

[@olpizl]

In the 3rd one are also a few more similarities. „Im“ is the short form of „In dem“ which can be connected to „In die“ in Afrikaans. Also you could replace „der Stadt“ with „von der Stadt“ so it would be much more like the Afrikaans „van die stad“.

[@olpizl]

In the 4th one: „eine Kutsche“ can also be described as „ein Karren“ so „perdekarre“ is much more related to „Pferdekutsche“ as one might think. Also „auf“ and „op“ sound related for me (I‘m speaking german natively), because „auf“ can also mean „on top of“ and that would be „oben“ in german which sounds much like „op“ imo.

[@olpizl]

6th sentence: „Wer damit fährt“ could also be described with „Wer das reitet“ which could be related to „wie (wer) dit (das) ry (reitet)“. There is also the german word „ditte“ which is the berlin dialect for „das“. Also „uitsig“ is pronounced like the german word „Aussicht“ which also means „view“.

[@jjdeklerk521]

Wel gedaan

[@propellerhead428]

We have been in Africa since 1652 afrikaans only got recognised a bit later and it's is a local adaptation it dit not arived Dutch arived and we changed it into Afrikaans.

[@Frahamen]

Thing is; Dutch people say Afrikaans sounds like Flemish; and Flemish people say it's more like Dutch Dutch. What you need to take of it, is it feels different.

[@wouterkabouter102]

...and Afrikaans people think we don`t sound similar to either Dutch or Flemish. Afrikaans sounds completely different from Dutch and Flemish, so much so that most Afrikaans persons do not understand Dutch/Flemish unless if they are used to hearing it, some words yes, but not enough to follow a conversation of normal speed. I was in that boat, when I went to Holland to study I could not follow conversations at first, it took me a few weeks to adapt. But only after you know all the words they have which we don`t and words which have a different meaning there, thén you understand them 100%. But perfecting the accent....I might never manage that, it`s too far apart.

[@Mornecas1]

Perdekarre can also be called perdekoetse.

[@portapotty2856]

Afrikaans here. Can understand most German if they speak at a reasonable pace. But when they start rushing it's hard. And no, no Bantu, very little Malay, and some English.

[@TheDirk2222]

Ek praat Afrikaans in my huis! Aber ich kann ja auch gut auf Deutsch den Weg finden👌🏼

[@catfish_lude]

baie cool ek wil duits leeer

[@TheDirk2222]

RainbowFoxSilo das schafft man, wenn man schon ziemlich ein Verständnis irgenwelcher germanischen Sprache hat. Jy kan selfs Duits binne maande vlot kan praat! Mik hoog, hou die kruit droog en jou oog op die doel. Baie sterkte

[@kipchickensout]

@@catfish_lude jy kan duolingo gebruik want dit het duits en ook duitse stories, maar duolingo het nie afrikaans nie i wonder how much of that was correct

[@matthiasliszt8490]

Ja, wenn man beides nicht kann tut man sich halt schwer. Actually there are more similarities and as others have said 50 or 60% lexical similarity is too low. It's just when they start to speak that recognition drops ... I'd say lexical similarity is higher than 75% and thus high enough to read and understand short texts. Dutch is still better understood by Germans and Afrikaans is close to Dutch.

[@Patrick-pj1wj]

im a german and i skipped this video every time the the point ur translating, turned the sound off. it was like two words in every sentence i didnt understand, which changed the wholes sentence sense when i looked up the translation.

[@nielbd]

It wasn't influenced by Bantu but by Khoisan

[@joanieleroux8945]

Ruizenvaden? That does not sound like afrikaans. I can completely see a similarity though. What is interseting however for me as an afrikaans person and dutch my third language. Dutch makes it alot easier to understand german. If you would compare dutch with german I think it will be even more similar. Words like heb transforms into habben etc. interesting

[@DutchScape]

joanie leroux I guess Afrikaans and Dutch bleed together a bit on Google translate. "Reuzenrad" is perhaps translated as "Reusewiel"?

[@DutchScape]

It means "Ferris wheel" and bing translates it to "Ferris wiel". But "rad" in Dutch is just an archaic word for "wheel".

[@wouterkabouter102]

Ek stem saam Joanie, as mens Nederlands verstaan is Duits die volgende stap maar om Duits te probeer verstaan voordat jy Nederlands ken was byna Grieks vir my

[@kelv___]

@@DutchScape I'm a native Afrikaans speaker, and as far as I know, the word for "Ferris wheel" is "mallemeule". Which could also be used for "carousel". Lol. I don't know, maybe my life was a lie 😅. But yeah, never heard of "reuzenrad" before!

[@kelv___]

@@wouterkabouter102 sal jy voorstel dat ek eers Nederlands leer? Ek en manlief is nou so 'n maand of wat besig met Duits. Dit gaan seker nie te sleg nie! Maar sal seker help as daar 'n makliker manier is?

[@stonersloth4207]

Maak vol means make full wich translates to mach voll

[@charevandenheever4460]

I'm Afrikaans. I don't understand a word of German. 😂

[@thirsttweeter3776]

Love your videos. However reuzenrad is not an Afrikaans word. Afrikaans for ferris wheel is groot wiel (big wheel)

[@xsr1358]

Hey dude..plz talk about tamil king raja raja cholan... :)

[@nomadicmentality3471]

Your Afrikaans accent is really great

[@chrisneethling3721]

I'm a mix of both worlds. Would love to meet people, except for family... that are as well.

[@mattjnreitzig5294]

As a native afrikaans person, I would say that I could understand about 50% of German you spoke. As you say if you were to put both langauges together on paper - you would be able to understand the JUST of both languages. Thanks ...

[@forestmanzpedia]

3:46 As a German native speaker, I can see 13 cognate words in both languages. Kannst (Können) = Kan, erraten (from "raten") = rai, wo = waar, ich = ek, wohne (wohnen) = woon, In = in, meiner = my, Stadt = stad, leben = lewe (not mentioned), beinahe (not mentioned) = byna, zwei = twee, Millionen = miljoen, Menschen = mense. You can say "In meiner Stadt wohnen beinahe zwei Millionen Menschen". "Beinahe" here would be a bit akward because from I what I'd say it's used only in situational cases like "Er wurde beinahe aufgeweckt" (He was about to be awakened). Not sure about "fast" and "jy". Although, English used to have "though" which was used as "you", the latter being the same as "jy". "though" has similarity with "du" in German because of the th shift to a hard "d" in German. "th" sound went lost in German. Also, the lexical similarity between Dutch and German is 84%, not 60. Therefore, Afrikaans and German should have a lexical similarity in the 70s or 80s. So... you should make a new video and correct your mistakes. You can do it haha.

[@ShaunRoselt]

Afrikaans speaker here. I can understand a bit of German and Dutch.

[@yourgirleft]

6:52 it should have been wat vir toeriste wag. Nie wat op hulle wag. We don’t want the carriages to be on the tourists.

[@mehmetbagcan4904]

Buy a done key, bru!

[@JesterquinnYT]

Sprechen - Spreek Praat in English means talk Spreek means speak You used the wrong translation.

[@hermandormehl8827]

I'm an Afrikaans speaker and I can understand 80% of German language when he spoken slowly