SOUTH AFRICAN REACTS! │ English vs. German vs. Dutch vs. Afrikaans

I thought it would be fun as a fellow Afrikaans speaker to react to something like this! What did you think of these comparisons between these languages, and do you speak more than 1?
Original video: • English vs. German vs....
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[@j.vandeven]

200 yrs ago it was kameelpaard in Dutch. Later on adopted the word Giraffe but Afrikaans kept it that way. Also in Dutch tractor and trekker are both used same as ziekenhuis and hospitaal, although hospitaal sounds archaic. Funnily enough an army field hospital is still called “een veldhospitaal” in Dutch. Almost everything Afrikaans is connected to Dutch apart from maybe some odd words here and there from Portuguese, Malay or Bantu. Sometimes videos such as these try to make it seem like there is more of a difference when there’s not.

[@hoathanatos6179]

In English we also used to say camelpard as a mixture of camel and leopard as it was seen as a camel with the spots of a leopard.

[@buurmeisje]

I love seeing a person seeing the comparison between Dutch and Afrikaans from the Afrikaans perspective, I'm Dutch myself so it's really interesting to see

[@randolf666]

same for me

[@SoniaJbrt]

My Dad is Afrikaans and my Mom is German. I grew up speaking Afrikaans, trying to teach myself German now. It is so easy to understand, but speaking it is another ball game!

[@elsoverloop1909]

The Flemish (Dutch) we speak in some regions of Belgium sounds somewhere between Afrikaans and Dutch from the Netherlands

[@Delzaan]

Krankenhaus would add up kind of for Afrikaans speakers, even though it would take some guessing. In Afrikaans we have words like verkranklik, kranksinnig, krankheid which sorta is related with the word sick

[@marybryan4168]

This was so cool. Thanks for sharing this

[@lieben-totenreacts8548]

Thank you for giving it a chance❤️😁

[@sallymaria]

That was very interesting, thank you for reacting to it. While my German is bad, and I don't speak Dutch at all, I've spent quite a bit of time reading up on the history of languages and their connections, and I find it fascinating. I blame my love of Tolkien, as the history of English was his job and his obsession.

[@faniepretorius5008]

Yup, The Anglo Saxons was from Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands, but because the Danes was the Kings of the Barbarian tribes back then everything English was named after them the "Anglos", but most of the comon settlers to England was Frisian and Saxon, they have by far the biggest influance in English, thats why Dutch is the closest language to Engllish!! English basically a Dutch and German dialect!!

[@timhannah4]

You Forgot Celtic & French Influences.....also Nordick etc etc etc 😂

[@ruhalfoyls]

Piesang also came over from the dutch who took it from the indonesians. In dutch we still use the word but mostly in sayings.

[@randolf666]

the Dutch understand German and Afrikaans, a German does not understand Dutch well or Afrikaans but you as a Afrikaans speaker understand Dutch and German. Dutch is a Indo/Gerrmanic language , and Afrikaans is a sister language of Dutch. i know a few Afrikaans speakers and i must say its easier for me as dutch to understand then German and i learned German at school as of French/Dutch/English never learned Afrikaans bujt somehow i undersrtand it

[@patranye]

I got a couple of really good laughs from this one 😂 Thanks for changing it up a little 😊

[@lieben-totenreacts8548]

Glad you enjoyed it💖

[@phild3936]

Many Afrikaans words sounds like my Flemish dialect (plat Nederlands, Oostvlaming hier) which is strange since Flanders has no direct historical links to Afrikaanders.

[@dutchman7623]

But they do! During the revolt many people from the south fled to the north. Cities like Amsterdam, Haarlem and Leiden had a large southern population. During the VOC times, many of them tried their luck in the oversea territories. Even the Walloon population settled in Nieuw Amsterdam (New York), South Africa, and other areas. As someone from North Brabant, a lot of words from Afrikaans sound very local in my ears.

[@Kadukunahaluu]

I wonder if the old english word for "one" is "an". English "one" looks and sounds likes French "un/une", so I wonder if it was a borrowed word. "Ein apfel" from German means both "An apple" and "One apple" in English; "one" being from latin origins would make a lot of sense here, and why the words "one" and "a/an" is distinguished unlike how it is in some other European languages. Technically, "One apple" and "an apple" tells the same thing Ed:I did a little research, and the old word for "one" is "ān"

[@awbinn3377]

It is. " Ān " was indeed the old English for "one"

[@hoathanatos6179]

The long A in Old English became a long O in Modern English, so ham becomes home and an becomes one. The pronunciation of one comes from the West Midland dialect where Modern English is a weird mixture of various dialects due to industrialization and people from many parts of the country moving to major cities and contributing to the local language, with London being the city with the greatest pull from across the country. The word lunch for instance is from Yorkshire with dinner being the original word in the Southeast of England. Now when you say dinner most people think of the evening meal rather than the midday one.

[@KajiRider1997]

5:58 that's the indo influence. My mom loves Pisang goreng

[@dutchman7623]

Baked banana is very popular in the Netherlands. And when you do not like it, you're the pisang!

[@KajiRider1997]

I think its because Afrikaans got the Dutch words from old dutch. like spelling IJ like Y in five and WE instead of EN at the end of the plural words. if you go to old churches in the netherlands like de grote kerk in Leiden you'd probably be able to read the leus on the wall better than most modern dutch people

[@kevartje1295]

The kameelperd can be litterally translated to kameelpaard (also camelhorse) in dutch so I think the Dutch colonists saw a giraffe for the first time in Afrika and thought "well, it looks like a horse with a long neck so we'll call it camelhorse" and then came back with the stories about these animals and we as dutchies thought "well the English called it a giraffe and that sounds better so lets stick with that". Meanwhile in Afrika they didn't know about the change and kept calling it camelhorse.

[@ianengel]

The Anglo-Saxon/Old English word for giraffe was "camelopard/cameelpard" it changed after all the French and Latin influences

[@arthurvanberkel7293]

The official latin name of one of the giraffe species, (the northern giraffe) is "Giraffa Camelopardalis".

[@brian0902]

I was able to pick up most words that are used in English. Many of the standout words in English come from other languages. For example, in Dutch, I knew without the English translation, "ziekenhuis" means hospital. First off, "hospital" has Latin roots; if we remove it, we would be saying "sick house." If I'm correct (though I could be wrong), "ziek" translates to sick, and "huis" is house. That's how I was able to pick that out, along with other words.

[@Anson_AKB]

in german, we also have the word "siech" which means that someone is severely/helplessly/deadly ill and lost all his power. thus we have the same word ziek/siech with a slightly different and more special meaning. "normal" sickness is "Krankheit" and being sick is "krank sein"

[@VascarVanVamp]

All 4 languages are incredibly close to each other. Often they even use the same phrase, just with their own words. Krankenhaus means (krank) sick + (Haus) house, so the same as in Dutch, where sick means zieke and house means huis. And since you asked: a Fahrrad consists of driving and wheel. So a wheel to drive (or riding). Some German dialects would be understood even in South Africa as they use similar words like Perd, appel/apple and Trekker. Would probably be received like a bad Germikaans.

[@tijnaltena5718]

Krank is also Dutch, just really old fashioned. Think Krankzinnig.

[@lamaglama6231]

Now I wonder if zieke and the german word siechen are the same. If so we are now using your old word and you are using our old word 🙂

[@tijnaltena5718]

@@lamaglama6231 they have the same root, but siech in German is used only for very old terminal people I believe.

[@lamaglama6231]

@@tijnaltena5718 Not necessarily only for old people. We use it when it appears that a person will not recover and is not able to do much more than waiting for the final relief. It's nothing anyone would want. I assume zieken in dutch doesn't have these connotations and means sick?

[@carolyntaylor7]

@@lamaglama6231 yes

[@martinlimbach3837]

Whether you believe me or not, Fahrrad fahren in Germany is much more fun than staying in Krankenhaus. Hospital is used in many languages, but in the Netherlands it is called ziekenhuis and in Germany Krankenhaus which in both languages mean house for sick people. Praat a language is in Dutch as usual as spreek a language, it depends on the place you are in the Netherlands. If you compare breakfast, lunch and dinner you will find that English and Dutch are similar and German and Afrikaans. Afrikaans often sounds strange to me because it is written like Dutch, but it sounds very different. Because Africans speak slower than Dutch, Afrikaans is difficult to understand, but for me it is understandable - most of the time. I think the conjugation of "to be" in Afrikaans strange, it is similar in the other 3 languages but different in Afrikaans.

[@carinarodebak9419]

Quite fun to watch. I'm interested in languages and cultural differences. As a Swede married to a Dane I'm used to differences between ourselves and as members of the Germanic language gtoup we aldo have some similarities to English, German, Dutch as well. I'm not sure if Afrikaans is officially counted in this group but it ought to fue to what I heard here. Ananas in Scandinavian languages. When giraffes were first introduced to Swedish scientists in the 1700hundreds its was called kameleopard in their writings. Thought to be a mixtaposition between camels and spotted leopards. Your kamelopard with the horse/pard bit make more sense and must have been misunderstood by those early Swedish naturalists. Carl von Linné studied in Leyden, so Dutch must have influenced him.

[@lieben-totenreacts8548]

That is very interesting, thank you for sharing this with us👏😁

[@corinna007]

In my family's language, Mennonite Low German: Een (pronounced like German Eins without the S) or Eent Twee (Pronounced like Zwei) Drei Vea (pronounced almost like "Fire" in a British accent) Fief (the "ie" is like German) Sass Säwen Acht Näajen Tien Root Bleiw Witt Jreen Jälroot Jäl Roosa Schwoat Aupel Banan (I don't know what a pineapple is called) Malkj Broot Worscht Kjarps Kjees Koffe Hunt Kaut / Kauta (For some reason we have two separate words for the male and female, instead of just the article) Koo Pieet Boa Heifesch Tieja Liew Jierop Eelefaunt Beisikjel Mootasikjel Loftschepp Kjätel / Trekjta Boot Zuch And interestingly, the word for shark in Finnish is also "Hai".

[@Anson_AKB]

in german a shark is a "Hai" too, which is the base for a joke: [translated to english] two fish meet in the ocean. says one to the other "Hi!". says the other in a terrified way "where?" other words are similar and quite different at the same time, eg "Loftschepp" would easily be recognized by a german as "Luftschiff" (air ship), but with the different meaning of not being an airplane, but a Zeppelin or Blimp. And for some words, there are regional differences, or a difference between "good Language" and "everyday language". we use two words synonymously "Traktor" and "Trecker" (in the video "tractor" for english and durch, "trekker" for afrikaans) Kaffee is the beverage, and the french version Cafe is the location/shop where you sit down to drink Kaffee english has its own version of "Hund/hond" besides dog : hound tier is a completely different thing (false friend): in german "Tier" means "animal" in general and not a "Tiger". and i have heard (not sure about the details) that the old version of that word with the general meaning also was used in english before turning it into "deer" to name only a specific animal.

[@debbieholoquist2059]

This was fun -- languages are interesting.

[@lieben-totenreacts8548]

I am so happy to hear that, thank you for watching this one😁🤗

[@nomaam9077]

Low German is the base language for all of these languages. So why should there be big differences?

[@KajiRider1997]

Rooi is also not used anymore unless its slang like die rooie hoofd van je

[@And.r.ew.90]

Piesang komt volgens mij uit het Maleis

[@willemdebatavier7485]

The word " Piesang" is the Indonesian word for a banana. The Dutch have been that part of the world since the 1595's. During the VOC years, many Indonesians were taken to South Africa and also to Surinam to work on plantations. Afrikaans should remain the language of South Africa.

[@lamaglama6231]

The dutch and afrikaans "bye" have a high chance to be misunderstood by a german. It sounds like "Tot sinds" wich means 'they are dead" 😅

[@stephanHK]

koeien is dutch also (means: 2 or more cows)

[@vangeneche]

In Flanders, we say in some of our dialects 'koei' for koe, and 'peerd' for horse instead of resp.koe and paard.

[@kevartje1295]

12:28 praat is also a word in dutch and could also be used instead of spreek but spreek is more common. I think praat would be more in use with little kids here.

[@carolyntaylor7]

That’s why I wrote to you yesterday in Dutch. You’re right! I’ve ‘talked’ with an Afrikaans speaker & used Dutch. No problem understanding. Dutch has a habit of smashing words together to create a new word: woordenboek = dictionary. Vliegtuig (flying device) = airplane, luchtvaart (air sailing) = flying, aardvark = earth pig. Isn’t language fun?! 😊

[@lieben-totenreacts8548]

It definitely is so much fun👏 I love learning all the differences and similarities between them all😁

[@lamaglama6231]

Love listening to dutch. It's such a weird mixture of cute, harsh and sexy to me and I love it. Grew up in Northern Germany and only have good memories of dutch people 🙂

[@carolyntaylor7]

@@lamaglama6231 I was a voracious reader as a child. There was a sentence that stuck with me for some reason. The book was’The Captain’ by Jan DeHartog. It was set at the outbreak of WW2. ‘I was placed on sentry duty with orders not to admit anyone who could not properly pronounce scheve Scheveningens schoenen with the rasping sch that makes Dutch less a language than a way to wear down one’s tonsils without the aid of surgery. I had no idea that I would live in the Netherlands and realize who accurate the description was!!

[@lamaglama6231]

@@carolyntaylor7Aww, hopefully for good reasons. I really like the sound of it and I know I am not alone!

[@sarirube2940]

Piesang immediately reminded me of "pisang", the Indonesian (Malayan) word for banana. A quick internet search thaught me that there seem to be some Malayan words in your language that were brought over by slaves, so this makes sense. And for Krankenhaus: it's a compound word (we Germans love those *g*) which perfectly describes the purpose of an hospital (Krank(en) = sick (people) + Haus = house, put it together and tada - you get a house for sick people

[@lieben-totenreacts8548]

That is very interesting, thank you for sharing with us🤗😁

[@carolyntaylor7]

The Dutch do the save thing - smash words together to describe a new concept.

[@N254NK]

Pumpkin 🎃 in Dutch 😂😂😂

[@KajiRider1997]

8:21 again old dutch what is still mostly spoken in many dialects. Koe = Singular. Koeien = Is plural, Koeie = slang. Die koeie dar ver in der weide.

[@javierhillier4252]

You should check out the romance/Latin languages comparison too you might see some similarities too

[@dutchman7623]

A lot of Romance/Latin words entered the Dutch language as well. The more snobbish they are, the more they through in. The Germanic alternative is still used though, they exist next to each other.

[@KajiRider1997]

since Pynapple is spelled with a Y does that mean that changing it to Pijnapple mean it a apple that hurts rather than a apple that looks like a pine kernal? xD

[@dutchman7623]

A fruit that looks like a pine cone. In Dutch: pijnappel. (Also used as a very decorative ornament in architecture.) Ananas is the name from its origin.

[@Maedhros0Bajar]

In Dutch there are people that use brussen for siblings, but it's rare to hear it used. Honestly, I never did myself Brussen as in: BRoers & zUSSEN

[@choonbox]

In my nethersaxon dialect we say Sibbe

[@corinna007]

In my family's Mennonite Low German we say it more or less the same as Standard German, except the G is replaced by J and the final "-er" becomes an A (both of which also happen with a lot of other words), so it's "Jeschwista".

[@Anson_AKB]

@@corinna007 such replacements are also part of some german dialects (spoken language), eg in Berlin: _"ne jut jebratne jans is ne jute jabe jottes"_ (Eine gut gebratene Gans ist eine gute Gabe Gottes = a well fryed goose is a fine gift by god)

[@erwin1976]

Strange! we also say trekker here and not a tractor, and there are more words like that. I think that the Boers did not speak Dutch as civilized as in the video.😂

[@Hansjoh21]

Fascinating that airplane is same with Dutch and Afrikaans (vliegtuig), while it's a modern word and in the time of English colonization. Why is that?

[@Delzaan]

Because Afrikaans looks to Dutch for Dutch words, seeing Afrikaans is practically Dutch... And not just basically, it is Dutch words

[@carolyntaylor7]

Why create a new word when you can use 2 words everyone knows and understands to name a new invention?

[@normora5857]

As a German learning Dutch I get about 85% of what I read in Dutch without having to look for the words. I think about the same goes for Africaans, surely at a lesser percentage. Understanding spoken Dutch or speaking it myself is way more difficult.

[@stephanHK]

piesang is indonisian (old dutch colony)

[@Herobox-ju4zd]

I think it's actually absurd we call Afrikaans a separate language from Dutch. There are dialects within the Netherlands that are more difficult to understand for common Dutch speakers and have a way different vocabulary, but for some unknown reason those are just dialects and Afrikaans is a whole different language. It's stupid.

[@lamaglama6231]

Very interesting video and reaction. Glad my curiosity made me watch it! The German sechs was very weirdly pronounced though. The ch in sechs should sound more like a g than the normal ch.

[@Anson_AKB]

going only by the sound in germany : sechs = sex :-) try telling someone in german that you got six videos, without having to explain it :-) first i got five videos, and then another one :-)

[@pikkewyn]

Camelopard is Engels (came en lopard) en kom van Grieks kamelopardalis of so iets

[@Dan-B]

You’ll notice that English is often the outlier among the languages, that’s because although it has a Germanic origin, it’s been heavily influenced by Romance languages like Latin and French.

[@lucybogacheva1447]

interesting. I'm even afraid to imagine how terrible my pronunciation is. I more or less understand English, but speak... maybe it seems that way to me, but the African language is more complicated.

[@destadhouder3689]

Praten is minder formeel dan spreken, en vaak ook intiemer; babbelen is wel een synoniem van praten maar niet van spreken. Bij spreken ligt meer dan bij praten het accent op de inhoud. Vergelijk Ik zal eens met hem praten en Ik zal eens met hem spreken. translation: Praten is less formal than spreken, and often more intimate; babbelen(Chatting )is a synonym of praten, but not of spreken When spreken the emphasis is more on the content than with praten Compare I will praten to him and I will spreken to him.

[@Anson_AKB]

in german "to speak" is "sprechen", and some dialcts say "babbeln" which is more like "chattering"

[@KajiRider1997]

But don't you guys have something like saucijzen too? f, I still need to put those in the freezer

[@KajiRider1997]

Bit awkward that afrikaans pronounces the 9 as the dutch version of the hard r word.

[@vergierdeweg40]

Pisang is Maleis.

[@dicknr1]

man this reaction was gold. Zijn een hoop videos over Nederland te vinden. hoop dat je er meer kijkt.