My High School German Teacher kept telling us to stop trying to sound like Hitler making an Angry Speech in Nuremburg. He was always telling us to mellow it out it wasn't as harsh as we were all making it out to be. The problem is, most of us non German American kids really never had much of a chance to hear native German speakers. What I grew up with was watching Documentaries of Hitler making Angry speeches and Hogan' Heros. ( A popular TV comedy show ) When I visited Austria and Germany I had to adjust my ears because the radio, subway and people talk much smoother than what I ever expected.
That stereotype of the loud angry German is so funny to me because as a girl with Croatian parents living in Germany, I always thought how quiet Germans are. When my family is visiting and we're having a normal conversation at a cafe, then Germans look at us cause we're so loud!
@@Caspersian Finde südslawisch ziemlich harsch (vor allem wenn man es mit Russisch oder Polnisch vergleicht), weil die wohl der Meinung sind, Vokale seien überflüssig. Ich meine, "Krk", "smrt" usw., das rollt ja super leicht von der Zunge /s
@@Caspersian ich würde nicht sagen grundsätzlich lauter. Die Sprache ist eher ruhig...aber ich glaube da kommt dann doch etwas das südländische durch und die Leute sprechen einfach "extrovertierter" bzw. lauter in der Öffentlichkeit. Es ist normaler und es stört die Menschen da weniger. Wobei ich jetzt eher nur ein Einblick vom nördlichen Teil (Zagreb, Osijek, Skavonski Brod, Đakovo) habe, da meine Eltern und Verwandtschaft von da kommt. Da gibt es soweit ich weiß teils deutliche regionale Unterschiede.
As a native german, I can see parallels to "Sommervogel", also meaning summer bird. It's truly amazing how the different european languages connect with each other1
@@TeeElEyewhy do you sound so amazed? Norwegian and german are a germanic language. It's no secret they can still understand parts in particular very well?
In Dutch it's called 'vlinder'. A word of which its origins are still unclear. Quite unusual because generally we name animals and insects based on what they look like, or what they do.
It is acommon thing to declare a small parcel as a "gift" when you send something to a friend and do not want to give out actual prices and pay customs fees. I guess if your friend lives in Germany then this may not be a very smart move.
the sorry one is actually quite interesting. in spanish an apology(in the sense of asking for forgiveness, not the other sort of apology) is called disculpa, culpa means guilt, dis/des- is a prefix that denotes removing or eliminating something. so it's asking someone to take your guilt away, just like in german.
@@siteamedits8300 Well russians were kinda immune to it like in Osowiec, they didnt care their lungs said no. They just went and scared the shish out of Germans.
The german word "Gabe" (present) changed to "Gift" in medieval times, when England was conquered bei Saxons and Angles. Even now in northern Germany people understand "Gift" as "Present". The german word "Gift" might have an other origin.
@@drtholen Actually, what I've heard: Originally "Gift" was "Present" in both languages. See also, the german "Mitgift" etc. HOWEVER apparently during hte middle ages, "Gift" (as present) was also used as euphemism for poison. In English, the meaning as present kept, while in german the euphemism took over the actual meaning. Something similar happened with the word "Mist", from what i've heard. In german it refers to manure, dung and so on, and hte piles of the stuff on a farm (and it can also be used to say that something's crap, or in a similar meaning as "damn!"). In English it refers to stuff like fog etc. So, apparently the word "Mist" originally refered to the fumes rising from a heap of dung. In german, it got the meaning refering to the heap of dung... and in english it came to refer to stuff similar in appearance to what was rising from the heap.
As an Italian I can tell you that not only the "Italian" guy is definitely NOT an Italian, but some english speaker trying to imitate the italian sound, but also the words they say (and write) are often wrong. My compliments to you: you are very nice and you make german language sound very musical, a thing that everyone can realize just traveling around in Germany; again - as an Italian - I found that german people usually DO NOT shout at all, on the contrary the voice is kept quite low and natural, surely way more calmer than what we do in Italy :-)
I'm German and I have to say that loud conversations where everyone speaks at the same time and loud are overwhelming me 🙈 I get really quiet then and am tired really quick... I feel like Germans are more like the Nordic cultures that are similarly rather quiet.
I'm German but went to university in Italy. All my friends and flatmates would ask me what language I was speaking on the phone the first time they would hear me speak German with my parents. All of them claimed my German doesn't sound German, because it doesn't sound like German in movies 😂 They all thought German is harsh and loud and didn't think it can sound soft and sweet.
all these examples here are shouts. loudly shouted german words. when nazi movies give you a false impression of the everyday sound of german, mafia movies are true depictions of italian language.
Nothing wrong with German language. I mean dutch from where I live, the Netherlands also sounds closely like German. So nothing wrong with our neighbours Germany. Love you Germany. Greetings from the Netherlands 🇳🇱🇩🇪
As a Brazilian, I can say that the "Brazilian" guy is definely not pronuncing Portuguese correctly. First because "regulação de velocidade" actually means "speed regulation" and the letter "C" in both words sounds like "S", the "Ã" with this accent (~) is a nasalized "Huh", and we never use this term. We say "limite de velocidade" that means "speed limit". Second because don't know what "pano de saco" means (it doesn't make sense. It would make sense if it was "saco de pano" (a bag made of cloth) but the words are switched and sounds like "a cloth for bags" or "...made of bags"
In Brazil, Dolly means actually "best guaraná soda ever" and it's representeded by the most underated animation Dollinho. Dollinho animation is better than all Pixar animations.
I think a few people have mentioned it in the comments already but when I first started learning German I was surprised at how actually soft and beautiful it sounded to my ears because I've always heard that it's a hard and violent sounding language. Nowadays I find the stereotype a bit offensive actually because, as far as I can tell, it appears to be based on Nazi stereotypes and old videos of Hitler speeches and lends itself to the image that Germans are all Nazis. I think most Americans' only real exposure to the German language is in film depictions of Nazis (Inglorious Basterds, the meme'd scene from Der Untergang) and this stereotype probably comes from and reinforces that image. Having lots of exposure to the Russian language as well, I also find this to be true with Russian. It also has the reputation in America of being a very aggressive, hard, violent language but I find Russian to be bouncy and rhythmic and actually a little silly, almost like Italian. But most Americans' exposure to the Russian language is from Cold War movies where evil Soviet spies are scheming to topple American democracy so then the perception of the language itself becomes associated with this kind of evil, scheming violence.
You can have any language getting shouted by an angry man with a raspy voice or getting "sung" or whispered by a girl with a sweet voice. The difference is always night and day - for any language.
The german depiction in Inglorious Basterds is actually pretty good which is unusual. They talk normal german since they are native germans. Even with some different dialects. And Fassbender has the slightest accent which made him perfect for the role of a spy.
There's also a thing called German stage pronunciation which they used in early radio broadcasts and speeches. It was meant to be very distinct with a hard rolling "r" and very pronounced hard consonants, so you could better understand it in the theater with bad acoustics and on early broadcasts with their horrendous sound quality. This pronunciation was taught in oratory classes, and politicians like the Kaiser and later the national socialists would use it on the radio and in speeches to a large audience. As far as I know, nobody ever talked like that in normal conversation. Actors would actually use that kind of stage pronunciation in a milder form up until the 60ies in German movies.
Why hasn’t anyone commented on the fact that the one speaking the Spanish portion sounds more Italian than the Italian guy? Spanish does not have that syntax/intonation lol 😂 (part 1)
I thought it was the same guy doing all the languages through all three parts just different costumes. Only the girl speaking French seemed like a different person.
A nice one about "Krankenhaus" and "Krankenwagen". I am Dutch myself and German and Dutch are known to be pretty close to each other (the Dutch equivalents of those words are "ziekenhuis" and "ziekenwagen" respectively, although "ambulance" (pronounced the French way) is getting more and more common). Yet the Dutch word "krankzinning" (sometimes shortend to "krank") means "insane", so I hear a lot from my countrymen that they always relate those two German words to insanity. And nice to know that "cheers" is "prost" in German. In Dutch it's "proost", but pronounced exactly the same. Well, let's get myself something to drink now. Prost, Felicia! Or should I say this in my own language: Proost, Felicia!
Yes but no. English and German derive from old Germanic language. French, Spanish and Italian derive from Latin. However in 11st century, French Duke of Normandy aka King William the Conqueror became the King of England. As a French speaker, he introduced so many French words to England. Therefore, nowadays, English and French words look more like each other rather than German words.
@Andy Robinson English is a West Germanic language, with most of its grammar and core vocabulary reflecting this fact. It is not "40% lowland German," or any other variety of German. The two merely share a common ancestor.
@@nyxiuss8205 Ich würde es so darstellen: English: Gift - something to give to your friends as a surprise German: Gift - something to give to your enemies as a surprise
@@007arek German can be cute, just like any other language. Someone softly speaking German is as calming as someone calmly speaking Russian, Japanese, Chinese or English. But yeah, the stereotype doesn’t come from nothing. Happens after you cause a world war.
As someone who has studied and uses Japanese with my spouse, the Japanese speaker's intonation and pitch were not something you would ever hear in Japan. Her accent was surprisingly fine, but the rhythm and pitch were set way too high
Half the Japanese words were not right, either. Like, they say 組み合わせ is "combine" as in "put 1 and 1 together", while Mähdrescher (and, presumably, the meaning of the English word they were going for) is like combine as in the agricultural heavy machinery. Same with the Swedish "kombinera", which is the verb for"to add 1 and 1", but NOT the machine.
I studied Japanese and would have had an opinion if her pronunciation/word usage was right..... but I couldn't hear what she was saying from that horrible tone/pitch. Hurt my ears so bad XD. I would have read it but..... I could never figure out kanji ;-;. I can understand some Japanese still though, of course with context. Using specific words with no context is very tricky in Japanese according to my Japanese professor, since some words have so many meanings/specific usages reliant on context.
Yeah, 組み合わせ (kumiawase) is like a combination or assortment of something. Also 手押し車 is pronounced "te-oshi-guruma" and not "te-oshi-sha" as she said. Nipple is wrong as well, it is 乳首 (chikubi). The others were okay, but her pitch was just off, nobody speaks in that squeaky a tone normally, it made it hard to hear what she was saying.
German is a really rich language. I always wished I could speak. Then I settled with English because it's easy, practical, am lazy and I don't really have much patience and time to learn another language but German language always attracted me. Sounding very muscular and confident unlike french what I find annoying while majority of women falls in love with for god knows whatever reason. Much respect from a Turkish-American engineer to the land of math, physics, finance and philosophy. To high class world-leading engineers and NASA genius'. Many thanks for introducing the world Einstein and his relativity, Daimler AG and Deutsche Bahn. Plus, three German pigs in Shrek always made me crack 😂 so yeah German isn't offensive at all at least to my ears, even if I hear the angry funny mustache guy talking who was denied by the academy of fine arts Vienna 😶🌫️😂
I love the way German puts smaller words together to make a very descriptive word that would require separate words (or even a short sentence) in other languages.
Its common in English too which probably makes sense as it is a "Germanic" language. Some examples... "cupcake" "lightbulb" "cheeseburger" "sunflower" These are known as "compound words" in English. And just pointing this out so people don't misinterpret your post to mean that it is unique to German.
@@josephmorneau4339 Yea but for the most part. German has longer bigger compound words. So in that way it's unique for sure. It's also more dense in compound words. Also much more complex grammar. Different in a lot of ways. Also has different word order at times. But yea American english has some little compound words.
@@brendon2462 Yes German has way more and much longer compound words. Just wanted to point out that it wasn't unique to German. I believe "counterintelligence" is the longest compound word in English although I'm no expert so there may be a longer one.
@@josephmorneau4339 True gotcha i find it funny sometimes learning german. For example sehenswürdigkeit/sight or attraction meaning like a theme park. That big of a word just to say sight or attraction.
@@brendon2462 We have "Attraktion" for that. I would use it for a theme park or a circus. Sehenswürdigkeiten are more places like natural wonders, famous buildings or other places that are worthy to take a look at.
One thing I unintentionally learned from this video : A boy I went to school with over 40 years ago had the last name Vogelsang. Thanks to you, Feli … I now know (or at least educated-guess) his last name means “Birdsong” Edit : Confirmed “Birdsong” via Google Translate
It sounds more beautiful, but dragonfly is definitely more badass (and also fitting, because they are predatory insects and to a fly, a dragonfly probably would be something like a dragon)
I must say that the "Swedish" here isn't Swedish at all but mostly weirdly pronounced English. And Feli is correct that Swedish is much closer to German than the other languages for instance "sågspån" is saw dust. It's a literate translation from German.
Ok but there are just as many word overlaps, or more, in all other “western-ish” languages. So that doesn’t really back up any point. I mean, look at “Öl” (Swedish) and “Ale” (English/British) for beer. It’s also practically the same word. You could make this comparison in a dozen languages. (In German it’s Bier 🍺 ) That said… Swedish and Norwegian are so strange, it’s not saying much to say it sounds like (or has similar words as) Deutsch lol It has a few that are the same, or similar enough if you switch a W with a V, but on the whole they’re really different from all languages imo. I think it’s just as similar to Russian… kind of a pointless statement here, I know 😅 also, is it a literal translation of the German, or is the German a literal translation of the Swedish?
"Schmetterling" actually is a loanword from Slavonic languages. "śmietana" (Polish)/"smetana" (Czech) means cream (English)/crème fraîche (french) plus the Germanic ending "-ling", just like in "duckling". So it literally means "butterfly".
@@wietomeiborg1934 Collins Dictionary: "Something that is Slavonic relates to East European languages such as Russian, Czech, and Serbo-Croat, or to the people who speak them." and "Something that is Slavic belongs or relates to Slavs." So it is a Slavic house, but Slavonic language. If there were a people "Slavonians" with their own language, it would be "Slavonian", but they are mostly Croats, some Serbs, even some Germans, speaking mostly the Croatian language.
My Spanish ears actually love the sound of German. Of course, instead of listening to old footage of a certain angry guy with a peculiar pilose adornment on the upper lip, or something like that, one should listen to a good reading of a poem by Hölderlin or Eichendorff. It makes quite a difference. As for some individual words I like, Schemetterling (indeed), Atem, Wald, Lerche, Gedicht come to mind. That said, Grundstücksverkehrsgenehmigungszuständigkeitsübertragungsverordnung is inexcusable.
I prefer the abbreviation: GrundVZÜV "GrundFauZüff" sounds a lot shorter and funnier. For enjoyable German I always enjoyed Faust, one of the few novels I know that rhyme through the entire book.
God, I remember learning German in 2015 2016 and I used to and still hate these videos, I know they're used as comedy but these types of videos propagate false image on a certain culture (in this case, German culture) and ensure for some ill informed or lesser informed (ignorant) segment of the population that these stereotypes they hear are true (I encountered some in my area) and stigmatize an entire culture based on these negative stereotypes, and of course no one is attracted to stigmatized things (I speak of experience as my country/culture have a very negative stereotypes abroad and that effects the way I look at myself and how people look at me)
@@chrisoneill3999 First of all, Why do you know him? I hat to Google him and I‘m german 😂 But no, there is no „Schmetterlingsgefieder“. Maybe you mean „Schmetterlingsflieder“ but that has Nothing to do with a butterfly, it is a flower.. „Geflieder“ is an Word for the feather of birds
In Portuguese we use exactly the same word for "Entschuldigung": "desculpa", which is a synonim for "perdão", the version with the same root of "pardon"
Well I am German and I don't see anything... As a native speaker I should notice that. 😑🙄 Also the point of the video is to show a stereotypical German. You probably mean that German sounds different, if you think that this video proofs that German sounds angry then your probably a failure.
@@vast634 Ah so you're arriving at St Mary's church of the pool of the white hazels over against the pool of St Tysilio of the cave, i hope you had a safe journey there
I am from Sweden and I can say that most of the words are incorrect. Combine = kombinera Dolly = säckkärra (the same as German Sackkarre) Nipple = bröstvårta (same as German Brustwarze) Shaver = rakapparat (same as German Rasierapparat) Sawdust = sågspån
@@wandilismus8726 And a lot of French and Latin. IIRC Latin, French and Germanic is over a quarter of the words each with Germanic the smallest of the three and the rest from odds and souds from different other languages.
@@cynic7049 still english is basically germanic. It just fused with the latin language when the germanic tribes of the anglo saxons married the Normandie lines
@@cynic7049 French developed from Latin. They "customized" the old Latin a lot, but it just started out as a simple form of Latin. The Franks spoke a Germanic language before, which has unfortunately been completely lost.
I love how you expand on the etymology and cultural context of the words. Often people overlook the context of words and how they are used but you extrapolate brilliantly on the concepts and make your videos not just entertaining but also informative. Please never stop making these amazing videos. ☺
A bit said she didn't explain Schmetterling though. Schmetter comes from the slavic originating eastmiddlegermanic word "Schmetten", which means "Schmand" or "Rahm" in german, translated to Smetana or Cream, since some Butterflies are attracked to that. In addition to that, there was a superstition that Butterflies are an emobiment of witches, who wanted to steal the above mentioned dairy product. - But the word "Schmetterling" wasn#t really established until the second half of the 18th century, before that, they were usually called "Tagvogel" or "Nachtvogel" so Daybird and Nightbird. Tagvogel and Nachtvogel also have a new meaning today: Tagfalter and Nachtfalter, so literally translated to Dayfolder and Nightfolder (Moth). Interestingly enough, it doesn't deprive from "folding", but actually from the germanic middlehighgerman word "vīvalter", which probably is connected to the latin pāpilio / italian farfalla.
As a Dutch I can relate to German (similar some way), also I know the feeling of the other languages because I'm roaming Europe a lot. I can so imagine how south Europeans and the Brits experience the German language, and yes, it's funny! 😂
I can remember watching videos like these in junior high when I started German classes, except in some videos the languages other than German were pronounced harshly. 😂😂 I find the German language quite unique and interesting, and I think the most beautiful word I have ever heard is Mutterseelenallein. I cannot think of a single English word to describe that level of loneliness.
Thank you. :-) Do you also know "Waldeinsamkeit"? "Forest solitude"? :-D German is known to be a precise language, suitable for science and accurate descriptions etc. But many miss the fact that it can be wonderfully poetic. If you're on a higher level I highly recommend reading poems by Friedrich Hölderlin. He was the Michelangelo of words.
I'm American and I thought the same thing. Then I lived in Germany, picked up conversational German and while I moved back home I still watch movies, news, etc. I hadn't thought about it at all until recently when a friend and I were watching a German movie and we used the subtitles for him. When he cracked the typical German joke about how harsh it sounds, I had realized that I stopped hearing it that way a loooooong time ago. I can't hear its harshness anymore. Now, I think it's beautiful (especially in music) just appreciate the intelligence of it (LOVE the utility of compound words, something English should adopt more), and only "hate" the definite and indefinite article, lol. I also am enjoying the various dialects. What I love is that it opened an entirely new world of people, film, art,, music, and culture that I would not have been privy to otherwise. I could go on and on about how wrong most of the stereotypes about Germans and their culture are, but maybe that's another video. :)
I think what most Americans think German sound like is equivalent to what Germans would think English would sound like if all they'd ever heard was Drill Sergeants or Military types. I lived near Hanau in the US Army, and found German to actually be quite pleasant! (Ich war Hubschraubermechaniker)
WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? GERMAN IS UNDOUBTEDLY THE UGLIEST LANGUAGE ALONG WITH ENGLISH. DURING CENTURIES THERE WAS A SAYING THAT YOU SPEAK GERMAN TO HORSES AND TO WOMEN YOU SPEAK FRENCH ITALIAN OR SPANISH. AN INTERESTING AND BEAUTIFUL LANGUAGES ARE ITALIAN AND SPANISH BY FAR
Oh wow! Ich hab schon fast die Hoffnung verloren, auf UA-cam noch Inhalte zu finden, bei denen es Spaß macht, zuzusehen. Richtig gut gemacht! Es gibt nicht viele, die unser "Deutsch" so gut repräsentieren, wie du! 👌🏻👍🏻 Thumbs up and subscribed 😎✌🏻
I don’t know Swedish, but I have a friend who does. And we both know German. For fun and inspiration, I checked out some Swedish words and although subtle, it was fun finding words that are not similar to English but are similar to German. For example langsam=långsam schwer=svårt schwarz=svart Gefängnis=fångad lügen=ljuga I learned a few of those words, because this friend of mine introduced me to some Swedish songs by Linda Bengtzing and Carola. FYI my friend spent a semester or two as an exchange student at Linnaeus University. Consequently he feels that his command of the Swedish language is better than his command of the German language. He rather says my German is better than his.
@@abinashmishra329 I have lived in Germany for 13 years now. There are a lot of similarities as well as funny differences between the two languages. When biking to Sweden, I could even feel the gradual change, which really shows you that the languages have evolved geographically over time, but share a common origin. What people really wanna hear are the Swedish words that start with "fick-", because that is Swedish for "Taschen-" when talking about calculators, calendars or flashlights. Btw, after a few years I started dreaming in German and suddenly I wanted a larger apartment. 😉
@@abinashmishra329 Also wichtig=viktig (important). I was reading a piece of Swedish text, and that is the only word I understood, because it was so similar to the German word for important. lol
By mentioning how “asche” means ashes in German, it made me realize “cinder” in English also means ashes. Apparently this word comes from “sinter” in Germanic but also got confused with the meaning of “cinis” in Latin, ashes. Sehr interessant!
The literal translation of "Flugzeug" wouldn't be "flying thing", it would be "flying stuff". But that's even funnier 😄 By the way, "flying thing" would be "Flugding". If I try to think about it from the perspective a non-native German speaker, it sounds less absurd. But I'm a native speaker and it sounds just so absurd because I'm not used to it. Interesting. So that's how those hyper descriptive words sound to non-native speakers.
"Zeug" only means "stuff" in a more negative sense in contemporary German. It used to mean "equipment" or "gear" in the past. There is still an old word called "Zeughaus" which was the name of a building where military equipment was stored. So "Flugzeug" in that sense meant "flying equipment" or "flying gear" when the word was introduced.
@@highks496 I wouldn't say in conteporary German "Zeug" is just negative. For example "Ich pack noch schnell mein Zeug zusammen und dann gehe ich los."/"I just pack my stuff and then I'll leave." doesn't sound negative, but "Warum liegt hier so viel Zeug rum?"/"Why is so much stuff lying around here?" does. So I would say the word itself is neutral. It just depends on the context. Just like when I translarte "Ich gehe los" into "I leave", which is not the same word. Another question would be if it wouldn't make more sense to think about what a word means today when we talk about the correct translation today and not about the correct translation 50 years ago.
@@Atlessa Zeug, not zeuge. Zeuge means witness. Zeug is a word like water or air without a plural form. Or rather, it's plural and sigular at the same time because you can't/don't count it. Appart from that, yes those could be German words, but they aren't. They sound weird to my German ears, but the only reason they do, is because they aren't actual German words, so I'm not used to them. Often when we think something is weird, we only think it's weird because we're not used to it. And that's not something special to Germans. Gabelstapler (literal translation: forkstacker) already is a pretty descriptive word and it isn't that far from forklift. In English, they just decided that it's more important that it lifts something up from the ground than the fact that it's then making a stack out if it. Even though it's a pretty descriptive word, it sounds natural for native English speakers because they're used to it.
Disclaimer: the Swedish in part 3 is complete bollocks. To run it down: Combine - skördetröska (no real good translation, but we definitely don't use combine), speed limit - hastighetsbegränsning (the same as in German), dolly - docka, nipple - bröstvårta (same as in German again), shaver - rakapparat/rakhyvel (depends on if it's electic or not), sawdust - sågspån (although the pronunciation is horrible) and cheers - skål! (even though he bends the pronunciation weirdly in the end). That's it for me, hope you learnt something! :D
@@TheAkashicTraveller Hahah, it was indeed an odd choice of octave to be talking in. I would honestly, by just listening, have no clue what he was saying in Swedish either, except hastighetsbegränsning, which he for some reason nailed the pronunciation of.
@@znoochy even the American English was just super stereotyped lol. Even those that have SOUTHERN accents don't talk like that he was really drawing out the vowels
I've always loved these videos, although since moving to Germany I've realized that German actually doesn't sound very harsh at all, I actually very often love the way German sounds.
I think it depends where you are in Germany. In the Saarland German sounds almost as flexible and musical as French, or even Italian. Then you visit Berlin, and Ernst Jandl begins to make sense again.
@@chrisoneill3999 True, lol I've been all over the country and I really loved the way German sounds in Saarland, and then the whole southern/central areas as well like BW and Bavaria. Hamburg also sounds pretty intense just like Berlin, so definitely does depend on the region.
🌿 Thank you Febi. [ I am from the Western Cape, South Africa. I was in my late 30's when I discovered, that I may have partial German linage. In my early 50's, I finally knew, that it was "official". Previously I thought this lineage branch, was Dutch. Due to the change of spelling. There was a time, when this was a Dutch colony. "Hidden" in plain sight, one can say. ] I feel an atmosphere of honesty and good cheer, on your channel. All the best wishes towards You. ❤👋🏻
Speaking of "Schmetterling": There is a lovely poem by Michael Ende talking about a Dragon (in german: Lindwurm ("gentle worm")) and a Schmetterling who don't like their names. In the end, they just change the beginning of their denomination: "Und Hand in Hand verließ den Turm ein Lindling und ein Schmetterwurm."
@@kvasirsblod1289 Danke für die Info! Das wusste ich nicht. Thanks! I had no idea that the english language had imported this word! But literally, "Lindwurm" really means "gentle worm", otherwise, the poem wouldn't work ;-).
Schmetterling kommt von "smetana" , dem tschechischen Wort für Sahne oder vom deutschen "schmettern" für Butterschlagen ( wer weiß schon was zuerst da war ), weil diese kleinen Tierchen so gern an der frischen Butter oder der Sahne naschen . Im Prinzip hat sein Name also dieselbe Bedeutung wie das englische Wort " butterfly".
Yeah, that "Swedish" guy sure isn't Swedish. :p He kinda compresses the words. And "säckväv" isn't a dolly, it's burlap. Dolly in Swedish is "säckkärra". In fact, most of the "Swedish" words are completely wrong. Nipple is "bröstvårta" in Swedish, again similar to the german word. And shaver is "rakapparat", once again similar to the german word. I'm wondering if they aren't faking the Swedish words for comic effect.
The thing i like about german is that a lot of the words have their origin in German an not in another or are rather a combination of words. A Handschuh for example is a shoe for the hand, so the word actually means something in german while in English a glove is just a word that happens to name the thing you put over your hand
Very interesting! In the third part especially, you talked over the first couple of people so I couldn't hear them. But I can say that German spelling bees sound rather interesting! Also, my paternal grandmother was a German Russian, her Klingman great grandparents moved from Bavaria to South Russia (Ukraine) in about 1805 and her parents moved to South Dakota in about 1898. They spoke Low German, which a great uncle referred to as 'Kitchen Russian'. This same great uncle and his wife traveled to Bavaria in the late 1990s to see his family's ancestral homeland and were quite confused as to why their German was mostly unintelligible to the people there. They didn't realize that modern German had transitioned to the modern High German!
I really enjoyed when you took combined words and highlighted the various words inside them and demystified them for us non-native speakers. You didn't highlight in the final section, I would love you to please take some common words and highlight sections. It really helps me. For example, your explanation of Entschuldigung was really great and helped me understand several words. Please do a video like that.
I'm no linguist an there are many things that I don't know about my own language but maybe I can explain something that makes understanding some german words a bit easier. In this video there are used a lot of the so called "zusammengesetze Namenwörter", which means nouns that are put together to one word. In the german language we put nouns/words that describe one thing together to one word. The last part is the word for the actual thing and the word or words that come before that describe the one thing. For example "Namenwörter" or better "Namenwort" (which is the singular form) as written above. "Name" is 'name' and "wort" is 'word'. So it's a word for a "name", what would be a 'noun'. Same goes for "Tunwort". "Tun" means 'do/doing' and "wort" again is 'word'. The translation would be 'verb'. Another example: Türgriff = Tür (door) + griff (handle); Türspalt = Tür (door) + spalt (gap); Türrahmen = Tür (door) + rahmen (frame); Türschloss = Tür (door) + schloss (lock) and so on. The most common one is the combination of two nouns as in "Türgriff". You can add more words basically without limitation, that's how these very long words result. For example "Sommerbettwäsche" = "Sommer" (summer) + "bett" (bed) + "wäsche" (linen/laundry). So "Bettwäsche" itself is a word (bed linen/douvet cover) and Sommerbettwäsche is the bed linen used during summer months (it can be quite warm/hot during the nights so you can use a bed linen that is made of thin maybe a bit cooling material (in winter for example we use flannell material sometimes)). There are many more rules and exceptions and variations but maybe this gave you a little insight in how it works. If you want to practice, here are a few words you can look up, they are self explaining when you think of it (with the help of a translator). For a little help I marked where one "word" ends and the other one begins. Sometimes there is used a 'n' in between to connect (that's mostly the plural form of the first "word", which has no meaning in total). Fremd|sprache Sonne|n|blume Wolke|n|kratzer Katze|n|klappe Hals|band Hunde|hals|band Bücher|regal Hand|tasche Reise|tasche Miet|auto Flug|ticket Zug|ticket Bus|ticket Kino|ticket Tisch|decke Tisch|bein Tisch|platte Apfel|baum Kirsch|baum Nadel|baum Laub|baum Auto|bahn Rast|stätte Auto|bahn|rast|stätte Park[en]|platz Auto|bahn|park|platz Spiel|platz Spiel|zeug Kinder|spiel|platz Kinder|spiel|zeug Spiel|zeug|auto Video|anruf Besteck|korb Stoff|serviette Papier|serviette Papier|flieger Nacht|tisch Nacht|tisch|lampe Schreib|tisch Schreib|tisch|lampe Sitz|sack Sitz|sack|bezug Kissen|bezug Sitz|kissen
I am Dutch too and have an allergy for German language. I dislike the sound and the German lessons were like torturing to me. As soon I could I dropped German.
@@lienbijs1205 Maybe that's because you only heard it spoken by other Dutch people. And written it is a bit difficult to learn, I agree. But I meant that I like it the way Germans speak it in movies (voice overs) and so on. To me that is like a softer and clearer sounding sort of Dutch. But maybe that is because I grew up watching a lot of television. German dubbed movies, and series (detectives like Derrik) on German television. And that is also how I learnd to understand and speak German and English at a very young age, by also watching American and English movies and series on the BBC. My mother used the tv as a handy nanny, you see :)
Exactly, I always thought so too. Dutch sounds a lot more harsh to me than German. So does french with the profound "r" pronunciation and many east european languages.
So venom, poison and toxin are all called gift in german? Swedish beats you there; apart from venom, poison and toxin, "gift" also means "married" (make of that what you will). Also: Surprise = Överraskning, literally something like "over shaking". Daisy = Prästkrage, literally "priest collar". Sex (intercourse) = Sex, witch also means six. Sex (biological) is called "kön", also meaning "the queue". Cinderella = Askungen, literally "the ash-kid". Nipple = Bröstvårta (not "nippel"), also literally "breast-wort". Shaver = Rakhyvel or rakapparat (NOT "shaver"), literally "shaving-slicer" (as in cheese slicer) or "shaving-apparatus". Strangely, "rak" also means "straight" (as in "not crooked"). And no, the "swedish" speaker absolutely doen't pronounce the words correctly. Wtf is "zäger-schpäne" (19:31)?!
Just never accept gift from German people, to avoid misunderstanding 😅 I've started learning German just because how it sounds. To me personally, it's amazingly funny to keep trying to pronounce their words, especially long ones. If you bring some level of anger into it that's whole new experience - and I just love it.
(re: gift) I had to pause the video because I got so distracted by the thought of inviting a german speaker to a gift exchange. "I present you with arsenic", "How kind of you! I have brought this bottle of strychnine for you!"
@@holyxiao2529 That's true, at least among younger population. I'm working in Neu Isenburg and have some issues to communicate with most 50+ Germans, but younger ones have pretty good understanding of English. Anyway, my previous comment is a joke related to video content, not mocking with English skills Germans.
your video was actually very instructive and the way you explained the etymology of the first couple words was very nice! Also, for a German girl living in America, you french was pretty good ^^ You seem to have a natural talent for language, keep up the good work :-)
My father was deployed to Germany in 1970 and my mother went with them. Both Americans who only spoke English. While there, my mother wanted to get something for her baby brother and went to a toy store... needless to say when she asked the shopkeep for a gift for her brother, he was horrified until they figured out the miscommunication. XD
I think someday ill make a mistake like this and would say in germany "ich würde gern ein gift kaufen(i wanna buy a "gift") " even if im german and know what gift means becuz im dumb
Very funny. You are doing a great job. Your editing and video production is perfect. You have a great attitude toward cultural sharing. I love when you include German historical information.
One thing I appreciate about German is how literal it is. To be fair, I think interpretation of the German language as “angry” or “harsh” is intermingled with Germany’s role in the two World Wars.
Not just that. I also find in movies and books the German person in there is so often portrayed as being the villain. It’s so stereotypical from long ago.
The german langage is so logic and the germans themselves are so direct, this is very soothing to me. Trying to decipher in french or english what people actually mean by what they're saying and walking on eggshells trying not to hurt anyone's ego, I can do it all but it is exhausting.
@@joshuddin897 • she (sie) - nominative and accusative • they (sie) - nominative and accusative • formal you (Sie) - nominative and accusative • a female person (eine Sie) [informal] Have I forgotten some?
Norwegian has 2 main ways of saying sorry and 'Unnskyld meg' is one of them, being extremely close to the 'Entshuldigung' as both have the skyld/schuld meaning guilt and a prefix meaning avoid/take away and I find this really interesting
without knowing anythin about norwegian, i immediately read that as "entschuldige mich". in german, i would add a "bitte", and that then would translate to "excuse me please" . btw: in english "accuse" is to assign some guilt to someone, and "excuse" is the opposite, thus would also be an almost literal translation, with "ent-..." and "ex-..." referring to the opposite or maybe rather removing something ?!
@@Thorenhard even when not doing it scientifically detailed and exact, knowing (at least the basics of) some languages helps in understanding a lot more other languages too. having done some french, english and latin at school (i can't remember any latin, but still recognize a lot of latin relations in words or grammar, eg in french and italian), it wasn't too difficult to grasp some italian during holidays to not need a german menu when going to the restaurant or to be able to get some accomodation for the night while traveling. and with those languages i once even succeeded to have a basic conversation with someone in spain who didn't know any languages besides spanish: say something in the other languages and let the other one repeat with different wording in yet another language what he believes to have understood. it's slow, but works to some degree, and feels like a nice accomplishment when it worked :-) of course, speaking in some other language is much more difficult when you don't know the vocabulary, but with many words being loan words or very similar (at least in western european languages, where "everything" is based on 'germanic' or latin roots) at least understanding others is partially possible. too bad that because of the politic situation before 1990 (the time when i learned new languages), i was (and still am) missing completely on eastern european languages although i live only 50km away from poland. this must be the situation many us-americans are in for any other languages when they never had contact to non-english speakers besides near the mexican or french-canadian borders.
When I think of Germans & The German Language, I don't think of aggression, rage, or anger. Germans are chill & cool. I like German rap & I like Rammstein. & although sometimes Rammstein can sound aggressive...but that's just the Neue-Deutsche-Hart & Heavy Metal Music sound. But have you ever heard an American blow their top? Holy shit! When we Americans get mad....look out! Its scary. & Americans are typically on the verge of losing our tempers everyday.....& over stuipid shit. -Like a differing of a view or opinion on something, that's often political🤦 Its us, the Americans, that scare me. Germans are the coolest people on the planet.
Rammstein does the old-timey stage-pronunciation which is extremely over the top with very hard consonants and a rolling "r". Nobody ever speaks like that and nobody has ever spoken like that in the past. It was an artificial pronunciation for theater, speeches and radio broadcasts with poor sound quality. The first time I heard Rammstein sing, I started laughing because it was such an over-the-top satire with the stern faces and those super serious stage-pronunciation lyrics. It's a parody.
12:32 Fun fact: In portuguese, we say "desculpa-me" which also means take the guilt away from me. "culpa" is guilt. the prefix des- refers to undo the idea of the root word. In this case, it is do undo the guilt, thus, "take the guilt away from me"
I love this topic. I am American, fluent in Spanish, and I lived in the Dominican Republic for many years. I love to ask people there, who don't speak English, what English sounds like to their ears. It's pretty funny to hear what they perceive. I wish English had remained a little more Germanic. Darn that Norman conquest.
@@charlestaylor3027Thanks! That BTW is the descriptive title of the Windows magnifier program. There are false friends between German and English but this is one they have in common.
That is exactly how German sounds to me, at least whenever I hear it on an American film. When I hear actual Germans speaking it it doesn’t seem harsh at all. Even the “ch” sound, which Americans always over pronounce when trying to sound German, is actually a rather soft and gentle sound.
There is not one "ch" sound, but three varieties (called allophones): In words like "Bach" or "" it is pronounced like in Scots "loch" or Spanish "baja" ("voiceless uvular fricative" in linguistic terms); in words like "ich", "Chemie" (if you're fom Northern Germany), "rechnen" it's a voiceless palatal fricative; and in words like "Buch", "suchen", "Koch" it is a so called voiceless velar fricative. The palatal variety is pretty easy to distinguish from the other two, but the uvular and velar fricatives are pretty close to each other, at least in Standard German. When it comes to different German accents and dialects, all bets are off.
I'm conversational in Japanese, but I barely understood the Japanese in part 3 because the woman was trying to speak too cutely... the opposite stereotype of how German sounds.
honestly it doesn't even sounds like japanese. I speak japanese and brazilian portuguese and I think those parts are spoken by people who don't speak those languages
@@kuchikimakoto Yeah I think all of the non-German languages are spoken by... Germans! The "Japanese" woman has the syllables correct but her high-pitched voice (compared to when the same actress was the "French" woman saying the words normally) made it hard to understand her. I really didn't get "sokudo seigen" (speed limit) at first because usually the last two kanji come first: "seigen sokudo" (制限速度).
I listen to japanese daily, broken japanese, japanese dialects and completely new invented language patterns based on japanese. I enjoy laughing about japanese people making up new stupid words. Yet I only understood one word she was saying and that didn't make much sense in the context either. The term they used: ニップル (nippuru) refers almost exclusively to the nipples of tools and rubber parts. The bodypart is 乳首 = ちくび (chikubi), literally translated means "milk neck". You don't have to believe me, you don't have to be able to read these letters. Just copy and paste each word into your favorite search engine and look at what pictures it's finding (with safe search off). Well... you probably shouldn't be searching for ちくび at work though.
I LOVE that you brought up how language carries different concepts with them! Did you know that ancient civilizations didn't add the word "blue" or it's equivalent until near the end of it's evolution? In the Iliad and almost all ancient texts, the ocean and sky is never called Blue, the word describing the color blue is mentioned a total of 0 times. One of the only ancient cultures we know that differentiated 'blue' as it's own was Ancient Egyptian, because it was more easily accessible, so they needed to make a word for it. In the Iliad, the ocean is "Dark-like wine" and the sky, stormy like the sea or black". It's so cool to imagine that they could technically "see" blue but their language didn't let them differentiate it from other colors.
about marguerites (in Belgian french): I was taught as a kid that marguerite is the big one too, the small one (gänsenblümchen) is called "paquerettes". In Dutch, daisies are called "madeliefjes", "lief" being the same word as "liebe" in German
same in french from france :) I think it's a mistranslation from the people who made the video, or some sort of "chosen" mistranslation because "pâquerette" can sound a bit rude I guess
Don't know if you still read comments for these older ones, but This is the first one I found and wanted to say that this was fascinating and entertaining.
The "Swedish" guy isn´t Swedish and do not even pronounce Swedish words. Actually Swedish is a lot like German construction of words. An electric razor is a "rakapparat" which is a wording made from "rak" which means shave and "apparat" which means "device". No separation between the words and if there would be a third word added it would be connected to the two previous ones with a "s".
Agreed! And I'm not an expert, just a German who is currently learning Swedish, but I am pretty sure they totally mispronounced sågspån (sawdust). The Swedish "å" does not equal the German "ä" like they pronounced it in the video, it is more similar to the German "o" (still a bit different, though).
I used to have a German colleague who would pronounce random German words in a “sexy” way whenever people told her that German sounded harsh: “Braaaaatwurst.”
I would argue that the translation of traffic law is Straßenverkehrsordnung. Das Verkehrsinfrastrukturfinanzierungsgesellschaftsgesetz ist eher ein für die Verwaltungen geltendes Finanzierungs- und Zuwendungsgesetz :)
That's what she meant by the fact that in German example there was always a very, very specific word used. I suspect that the (German) makers of the video will also have googled these very strange and rare words from administrative language.
@@sweetydeerhound4075 sorry but why do you think you could call my comment a nonsense suggestion? Just pointing out that it's not even the exact translation in the original video... But hey, maybe being a troll suits you perfectly, I don't know :)
As a German FL. girl, I have always been interested in accents and I’ve studied classical voice for many years. After 6 years of the “ romantic“ languages, I decided to go with my heritage, which is German. I learned what is called the laughing song, and three others that I can’t think of right now because it’s been quite a while, but I remember the amount of consonants together as well as the vowel sounds that followed were different to any sounds I had ever made especially with really high notes. But I loved it. Thank you! Keep doing this. I loved this vid!
Felicia’s talk about languages carrying different concepts reminded me of the popular example of the Russian language having multiple words designating different colors for what anglophones see as just shades of blue
It's only one extra color, and in English I would call it "light blue". And yes, that's a totally different word, that has nothing to do with the Russian word for "blue". We even got it in a rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, light blue, blue, purple. Of course, we have a lot of additional ways to describe blue color, like sky blue, dark blue, indigo or turqoise, but those are considered different shades of regular blue or light blue, not a separate color (and blue and light blue are separate colors)
The German language also knows more words for colours like the English one. Take purple, for example. In German, depending on it’s shade, it’s either Lila, Flieder, Violett or Purpur.
"Schmetterling" really is a harsh word for such a beautiful and fragile creature... but it actually has Slavic roots. "Smetana" means "cream" (the dairy product) in Czech and other East European languages. In former times fresh milk would be kept in big open cans, allowing the cream rise to the top to be skimmed off for producing butter. What I read is that butterflies would settle on the cans to have their share of cream, so both "Schmetterling" and "Butterfly" allude to that, meaning "cream/butter stealer". The incredibly beautiful Spanish "mariposa" is believed to stem from an old children's game called "Mary sit down" while French "papillon", Italian "farfalla" and German "Falter" probably all have the same really old Indo-European root.
My favorite one, which I actually had to learn when I was living in Germany is "Personenkraftwagenhaftpflichtversicherung", though normally it's abbreviated as PKW-Haftpflichtversicherung (much better, really). And btw. it means obligatory passenger vehicle liability insurance.
As someone who is currently training to become a lawyer in Germany, let me just say that they got the part about laws all twisted up to a point that it almost hurts. Let me nerd on about this: Before I start: there is a difference between “law” as in an area of law (in German: Recht) and “law(s)” as in specific legal regulations (in German: Gesetz/Verordnung etc.). Now, in the video they take terms like “traffic law”, which, to my ears, would be a broad term meaning the area of law dedicated to traffic (my translation would thus be “Straßenverkehrsrecht”, literally “street traffic law” in general), but they then choose a german example of one extremely specific fringe regulation that goes under the umbrella of this field of law. There are obviously TONS of specific legal regulations with “funny” (or rather painfully long) names in any area of law. The one they chose really wouldn’t come to mind when thinking about traffic law though (never heard of it tbh). I would have gone with “Straßenverkehrsgesetz” (THE (specific) “street traffic law”) or “Straßenverkehrsordnung” (THE “street traffic regulation”). Same goes for all the other laws or better: areas of law they chose.
The english "combine" is just a nickname, that thing is called "combine harvester", and the word "harvester" can be equally harsh when it comes to pronunciation :)
After WWII , American films started bullying the German language , based on Hitler's martial speeches. I love when German girls speak , it's so sexy and sweet
You find the beauty of German language in Goethe's poem: "Wanderers Nachtlied" _Über allen Gipfeln_ _Ist Ruh'_ , _In allen Wipfeln_ _Spürest Du_ _Kaum einen Hauch_ ; _Die Vögelein schweigen im_ _Walde_ . _Warte nur! Balde_ _Ruhest du auch_
_Above all peaks_ _Is rest_ , _In all tops_ _You are feeling_ _Hardly a breath_ _The birds are silent in the forest_ . _Just wait! Soon_ _You are resting too_
@@leximatic thank you so much. I want to learn German as my 4th language. I know it's difficult but i like it... i also like to read books and poems in German 😁
@@knownanonymous1691 It's not that easy, i know, even for native speakers. 😉 The grammar is not so hard, most angloamerican learners fight with "der, die, das" and the pronounciation. But you will like how Germans are able to just tinker with words and still keep correct grammar and comprehensiveness.
What are some German words that sound PRETTIER in German than they do in English and other languages? 🇩🇪 Leave your suggestions down below 👇 :)
i call my daughter, Kaninchen
Wissenschaft
Didn't you mention a link in the description to one of your own videos? I didn't see one.
As I mentioned below, I think Gemütlichkeit is very pretty, but I have no idea how you would translate it. Eine Herausforderung. 😉
Plüschmors, Northern German for Bumblebee (Hummel) :D
My High School German Teacher kept telling us to stop trying to sound like Hitler making an Angry Speech in Nuremburg. He was always telling us to mellow it out it wasn't as harsh as we were all making it out to be. The problem is, most of us non German American kids really never had much of a chance to hear native German speakers. What I grew up with was watching Documentaries of Hitler making Angry speeches and Hogan' Heros. ( A popular TV comedy show ) When I visited Austria and Germany I had to adjust my ears because the radio, subway and people talk much smoother than what I ever expected.
It actually disappoints me that German isn't as angry as people think. I feel like that makes it more fun/unique.
When we drive we are angry... very angry. 😅
Even though no German speaks like this German actor does, he totally cracked me up! 🤣
Propaganda at its finest lol. You should have been watching German films a long time ago to dispell your illusions.
Colonel Klink is not the best teacher for german pronunciation. :D
That stereotype of the loud angry German is so funny to me because as a girl with Croatian parents living in Germany, I always thought how quiet Germans are. When my family is visiting and we're having a normal conversation at a cafe, then Germans look at us cause we're so loud!
Well (atleast stereotypically) that depends on where in germany you are
also ist kroatisch lauteR?
@@Caspersian Finde südslawisch ziemlich harsch (vor allem wenn man es mit Russisch oder Polnisch vergleicht), weil die wohl der Meinung sind, Vokale seien überflüssig. Ich meine, "Krk", "smrt" usw., das rollt ja super leicht von der Zunge /s
Tell that to my parents in law from Asia. 😂
@@Caspersian ich würde nicht sagen grundsätzlich lauter. Die Sprache ist eher ruhig...aber ich glaube da kommt dann doch etwas das südländische durch und die Leute sprechen einfach "extrovertierter" bzw. lauter in der Öffentlichkeit.
Es ist normaler und es stört die Menschen da weniger.
Wobei ich jetzt eher nur ein Einblick vom nördlichen Teil (Zagreb, Osijek, Skavonski Brod, Đakovo) habe, da meine Eltern und Verwandtschaft von da kommt. Da gibt es soweit ich weiß teils deutliche regionale Unterschiede.
When something hurts you or kills you, it's a gift.
- German Girl, 2021
I'm feeling that as a german 🤣
very funny false friends. Have to remember it
So the mustache man of the 40s gifts the Jews?
That sounds strange.
You should never bring gift to German, he might be feel quite odd:))
@@Ghostscar 😂
Schmetterling is a pretty word, but I love the Norwegian word for butterfly "sommerfugl". It literally means summer bird ☺️
As a native german, I can see parallels to "Sommervogel", also meaning summer bird. It's truly amazing how the different european languages connect with each other1
ANOTHER NORWEGIAN HELL YEAH
angry norwegian moms are scary
@@TeeElEyewhy do you sound so amazed? Norwegian and german are a germanic language. It's no secret they can still understand parts in particular very well?
we say "Perhonen" but i gues u know :D
In Dutch it's called 'vlinder'. A word of which its origins are still unclear.
Quite unusual because generally we name animals and insects based on what they look like, or what they do.
"Come on kids, everyone aboard the flying thing!" "What's it's real name, papa?" "I just told you, flying thing!"
Flugzeug! 🤣
I think "flugzeug" sounds better than "aEroplAnOs"
@History Mistery Yes, Zug means train but Zeug means thing.
That's what we call Butterflies, a flying thing.
Yea. It makes more sense in German. 😂
That “brazilian” guy seems like any regular foreign person trying to speak portuguese with strong accent
Sim, Cara. Parece que ele tá lendo frases em português, mas falando em espanhol, sei lá
He is just being Portuguese. Not Brazilian.
@@claricesilva2700 That's not even close to either brazilian portuguese or portuguese portuguese
I'm pretty sure it's just the same German guy in a disguise for all of the ones in part 3 and 4.
True lol
Puts a whole new perspective in giving someone a "gift" in Germany
It is acommon thing to declare a small parcel as a "gift" when you send something to a friend and do not want to give out actual prices and pay customs fees. I guess if your friend lives in Germany then this may not be a very smart move.
Das Geschenk = the present 🎁 what English speakers call a gift.
Yeah, wait till you find out what the German word "Mist" means.
That's a so called "false friend"; gift ≠ gift. But yes, I thought the same as I heard that.
@@collegealgebravideos9540 I believe it means piss....😂
the sorry one is actually quite interesting.
in spanish an apology(in the sense of asking for forgiveness, not the other sort of apology) is called disculpa, culpa means guilt, dis/des- is a prefix that denotes removing or eliminating something. so it's asking someone to take your guilt away, just like in german.
I've never noticed that before. Wow! It's good to know
"If it's toxic, it's Gift"
Germany in the first world war be like "ho ho ho, Merry Christmas!"
HHAHHHAHH
Heavy
XDDDDDDDDDD
Holy fuck im russian i shouldnt have laugh at that XD
@@siteamedits8300 Well russians were kinda immune to it like in Osowiec, they didnt care their lungs said no. They just went and scared the shish out of Germans.
@@eventhorizon7374 True
But a lot of them died after the fight because of various lung and skin problems.Anyways they are alive in out hearts
i love it
7:13
"we germans call venom or poison, gift"
the irony is too much
I learned something today. To never accept gifts from germans.
The german word "Gabe" (present) changed to "Gift" in medieval times, when England was conquered bei Saxons and Angles. Even now in northern Germany people understand "Gift" as "Present". The german word "Gift" might have an other origin.
@@drtholen Actually, what I've heard: Originally "Gift" was "Present" in both languages. See also, the german "Mitgift" etc. HOWEVER apparently during hte middle ages, "Gift" (as present) was also used as euphemism for poison. In English, the meaning as present kept, while in german the euphemism took over the actual meaning.
Something similar happened with the word "Mist", from what i've heard. In german it refers to manure, dung and so on, and hte piles of the stuff on a farm (and it can also be used to say that something's crap, or in a similar meaning as "damn!"). In English it refers to stuff like fog etc.
So, apparently the word "Mist" originally refered to the fumes rising from a heap of dung. In german, it got the meaning refering to the heap of dung... and in english it came to refer to stuff similar in appearance to what was rising from the heap.
@@undertakernumberone1 check out the etymology of "Gemüse", very unique
because in germany the only present there is poison
I have found that all languages sound good when spoken by a good heart.
A good heart is hard to find according to Feargal Sharkey.
@@colinp2238 :D
Amen!
True, it's really the speaker that counts...German sounds lovely on this channel. ;)
Cringe
Never apologize for your language, no matter how it appears to others.
As an Italian I can tell you that not only the "Italian" guy is definitely NOT an Italian, but some english speaker trying to imitate the italian sound, but also the words they say (and write) are often wrong.
My compliments to you: you are very nice and you make german language sound very musical, a thing that everyone can realize just traveling around in Germany; again - as an Italian - I found that german people usually DO NOT shout at all, on the contrary the voice is kept quite low and natural, surely way more calmer than what we do in Italy :-)
I'm German and I have to say that loud conversations where everyone speaks at the same time and loud are overwhelming me 🙈 I get really quiet then and am tired really quick... I feel like Germans are more like the Nordic cultures that are similarly rather quiet.
The same goes for the Brazilian Portuguese, this is definitely not a Brazilian speaker.
I still love this video because he breaks so many stereotypes.
Same goes for the spanish guy... so bad lol
Same for the "Japanese" person. Couldn't even understand them, and there were mistakes.
as a brazilian i can tell the same thing for the portuguese sound, he is not a brazilian.
I swear German and Russian can either be the two most beautiful languages or the two scariest languages
Да нет наверное
ага
Yeah, good point!
Слышь, пацанчик, ты с какого района?
@@mEDIUMGap United States
I'm German but went to university in Italy. All my friends and flatmates would ask me what language I was speaking on the phone the first time they would hear me speak German with my parents.
All of them claimed my German doesn't sound German, because it doesn't sound like German in movies 😂
They all thought German is harsh and loud and didn't think it can sound soft and sweet.
Been told before that i sounded softer speaking in German than i did in English
all these examples here are shouts. loudly shouted german words. when nazi movies give you a false impression of the everyday sound of german, mafia movies are true depictions of italian language.
We all think of stereotypes when it comes to foreign languages or foreign people cuz Hollywood enforces it in our brains
Because the only thing they watch is war movies?
Russians : **First time?**
Nothing wrong with German language. I mean dutch from where I live, the Netherlands also sounds closely like German. So nothing wrong with our neighbours Germany. Love you Germany. Greetings from the Netherlands 🇳🇱🇩🇪
Greetings from Germany to our beautiful neighbour The Netherlands, where I went on holidays so often back in the day. ❤
@@Winona493 Guten Tag. Danke.
@@LESRAM1981Beautyfull people during the Football EM in Germany. I love this to the right and then to the left. Great Choreographie.
Hallo uit Bonn!@@LESRAM1981
As a Brazilian, I can say that the "Brazilian" guy is definely not pronuncing Portuguese correctly. First because "regulação de velocidade" actually means "speed regulation" and the letter "C" in both words sounds like "S", the "Ã" with this accent (~) is a nasalized "Huh", and we never use this term. We say "limite de velocidade" that means "speed limit". Second because don't know what "pano de saco" means (it doesn't make sense. It would make sense if it was "saco de pano" (a bag made of cloth) but the words are switched and sounds like "a cloth for bags" or "...made of bags"
In Brazil, Dolly means actually "best guaraná soda ever" and it's representeded by the most underated animation Dollinho. Dollinho animation is better than all Pixar animations.
Comparando com as outras línguas, creio que era pra ser carrinho de carga ou carrinho bagageiro, como os que usam pra mover engradado de bebidas.
Yeah, I'm Italian and they kept using wrong words, like, it's "Aereo" not "Aero" and "canarino" not "canario"
No te preocupes, el "chico mexicano" tenía acento extranjero y menciona las c y z como los españoles.
@@Drobexxx yeah the Italian part was totally messed up... Cenerentòoola
I think a few people have mentioned it in the comments already but when I first started learning German I was surprised at how actually soft and beautiful it sounded to my ears because I've always heard that it's a hard and violent sounding language. Nowadays I find the stereotype a bit offensive actually because, as far as I can tell, it appears to be based on Nazi stereotypes and old videos of Hitler speeches and lends itself to the image that Germans are all Nazis. I think most Americans' only real exposure to the German language is in film depictions of Nazis (Inglorious Basterds, the meme'd scene from Der Untergang) and this stereotype probably comes from and reinforces that image.
Having lots of exposure to the Russian language as well, I also find this to be true with Russian. It also has the reputation in America of being a very aggressive, hard, violent language but I find Russian to be bouncy and rhythmic and actually a little silly, almost like Italian. But most Americans' exposure to the Russian language is from Cold War movies where evil Soviet spies are scheming to topple American democracy so then the perception of the language itself becomes associated with this kind of evil, scheming violence.
You can have any language getting shouted by an angry man with a raspy voice or getting "sung" or whispered by a girl with a sweet voice. The difference is always night and day - for any language.
The german depiction in Inglorious Basterds is actually pretty good which is unusual. They talk normal german since they are native germans. Even with some different dialects. And Fassbender has the slightest accent which made him perfect for the role of a spy.
There's also a thing called German stage pronunciation which they used in early radio broadcasts and speeches. It was meant to be very distinct with a hard rolling "r" and very pronounced hard consonants, so you could better understand it in the theater with bad acoustics and on early broadcasts with their horrendous sound quality.
This pronunciation was taught in oratory classes, and politicians like the Kaiser and later the national socialists would use it on the radio and in speeches to a large audience. As far as I know, nobody ever talked like that in normal conversation.
Actors would actually use that kind of stage pronunciation in a milder form up until the 60ies in German movies.
Bozhe moi!
@@jellysquiddles3194 it's true. Heard this in Frankfurt on the street trams years ago.
Why hasn’t anyone commented on the fact that the one speaking the Spanish portion sounds more Italian than the Italian guy? Spanish does not have that syntax/intonation lol 😂 (part 1)
Totally agree 😅😅
Yeah I was gonna say that 😂 like wrong accent dude
And the Italian portion is really exaggerated
I thought it was the same guy doing all the languages through all three parts just different costumes. Only the girl speaking French seemed like a different person.
I noticed that too.
A nice one about "Krankenhaus" and "Krankenwagen".
I am Dutch myself and German and Dutch are known to be pretty close to each other (the Dutch equivalents of those words are "ziekenhuis" and "ziekenwagen" respectively, although "ambulance" (pronounced the French way) is getting more and more common). Yet the Dutch word "krankzinning" (sometimes shortend to "krank") means "insane", so I hear a lot from my countrymen that they always relate those two German words to insanity.
And nice to know that "cheers" is "prost" in German. In Dutch it's "proost", but pronounced exactly the same.
Well, let's get myself something to drink now.
Prost, Felicia! Or should I say this in my own language: Proost, Felicia!
There was a time, in Switzerland, Hospital was called "Siechehuus" and Ambulance "Siechewage".
@@nest1109 So "Sleche" means "sick" or "ill" in Swiss German?
@@TheRealTricky I think so.
"Siech" singular. "Sieche" plural.
My favorite quote from my German teacher:
"Remember, English loves Latin. German loves German."
Yes but no. English and German derive from old Germanic language. French, Spanish and Italian derive from Latin. However in 11st century, French Duke of Normandy aka King William the Conqueror became the King of England. As a French speaker, he introduced so many French words to England. Therefore, nowadays, English and French words look more like each other rather than German words.
@@napoleoncake3514 English is 40% lowland German, 40% Norman French, with a little Latin and some Greek
@Andy Robinson English is a West Germanic language, with most of its grammar and core vocabulary reflecting this fact. It is not "40% lowland German," or any other variety of German. The two merely share a common ancestor.
@@ericjohnson6634 You need to look up the definition of lowland German, Angles Saxons Friesian and Jutes
Every one of those languages classified as “Lowland German”
As someone who's been "attempting" to learn German for over a year now, I really enjoy your videos. Keep it up!
viel glück, und viel spass ; )
"Venom or poison... but in germanny we call it gift..." - had me rolling...
Remember:
English: Gift - something to give to your friends as a surprise
German: Gift - something to give to your friends as a surprise
@@nyxiuss8205 Are they friends considering you are giving them the gift?
@@nyxiuss8205
Ich würde es so darstellen:
English: Gift - something to give to your friends as a surprise
German: Gift - something to give to your enemies as a surprise
@@cymaticCS both…both is good
@@nyxiuss8205 Natürlich, ich wollte nur sagen, wie ich das sehe. 😜
Your videos are well produced, fun and entertaining! Can’t stop watching your channel, great work! 😊
It’s just so cool to hear a person go from language to language so easily and it sounds so fluent and good
I'm Italian, believe me it's Easy speak Italian if you Do It likes this...like Peter Griffin in Family guy.
How germans speak: pretty, cute and friendly
Stereotype: a harsh speech to 10000 soldiers, with lots of screaming
The only true way DEUTSCHHHH ZU SPRRECHEN
I lived in America for a year and in my expierence people there are way louder than any german.
Those stereotypes do not come from nothing. :P
Cute, really? What is your mother tongue?
@@007arek German can be cute, just like any other language. Someone softly speaking German is as calming as someone calmly speaking Russian, Japanese, Chinese or English.
But yeah, the stereotype doesn’t come from nothing. Happens after you cause a world war.
@@nyxiuss8205 I think the more important is that what is your mother tongue. For me none Germanic language is nice.
As someone who has studied and uses Japanese with my spouse, the Japanese speaker's intonation and pitch were not something you would ever hear in Japan. Her accent was surprisingly fine, but the rhythm and pitch were set way too high
Half the Japanese words were not right, either. Like, they say 組み合わせ is "combine" as in "put 1 and 1 together", while Mähdrescher (and, presumably, the meaning of the English word they were going for) is like combine as in the agricultural heavy machinery. Same with the Swedish "kombinera", which is the verb for"to add 1 and 1", but NOT the machine.
I studied Japanese and would have had an opinion if her pronunciation/word usage was right..... but I couldn't hear what she was saying from that horrible tone/pitch. Hurt my ears so bad XD. I would have read it but..... I could never figure out kanji ;-;. I can understand some Japanese still though, of course with context. Using specific words with no context is very tricky in Japanese according to my Japanese professor, since some words have so many meanings/specific usages reliant on context.
Yeah, 組み合わせ (kumiawase) is like a combination or assortment of something. Also 手押し車 is pronounced "te-oshi-guruma" and not "te-oshi-sha" as she said. Nipple is wrong as well, it is 乳首 (chikubi). The others were okay, but her pitch was just off, nobody speaks in that squeaky a tone normally, it made it hard to hear what she was saying.
Japanese sounds beautiful and badass
She sounds more like a stereotypical anime character ;)
German is a really rich language. I always wished I could speak. Then I settled with English because it's easy, practical, am lazy and I don't really have much patience and time to learn another language but German language always attracted me. Sounding very muscular and confident unlike french what I find annoying while majority of women falls in love with for god knows whatever reason.
Much respect from a Turkish-American engineer to the land of math, physics, finance and philosophy. To high class world-leading engineers and NASA genius'. Many thanks for introducing the world Einstein and his relativity, Daimler AG and Deutsche Bahn.
Plus, three German pigs in Shrek always made me crack 😂 so yeah German isn't offensive at all at least to my ears, even if I hear the angry funny mustache guy talking who was denied by the academy of fine arts Vienna 😶🌫️😂
I love the way German puts smaller words together to make a very descriptive word that would require separate words (or even a short sentence) in other languages.
Its common in English too which probably makes sense as it is a "Germanic" language. Some examples... "cupcake" "lightbulb" "cheeseburger" "sunflower" These are known as "compound words" in English. And just pointing this out so people don't misinterpret your post to mean that it is unique to German.
@@josephmorneau4339 Yea but for the most part. German has longer bigger compound words. So in that way it's unique for sure. It's also more dense in compound words. Also much more complex grammar. Different in a lot of ways. Also has different word order at times. But yea American english has some little compound words.
@@brendon2462 Yes German has way more and much longer compound words. Just wanted to point out that it wasn't unique to German. I believe "counterintelligence" is the longest compound word in English although I'm no expert so there may be a longer one.
@@josephmorneau4339 True gotcha i find it funny sometimes learning german. For example sehenswürdigkeit/sight or attraction meaning like a theme park. That big of a word just to say sight or attraction.
@@brendon2462 We have "Attraktion" for that. I would use it for a theme park or a circus. Sehenswürdigkeiten are more places like natural wonders, famous buildings or other places that are worthy to take a look at.
“Entschuldigung” has a similar logic of the Portuguese counterpart. “Desculpa” -> des (to take, to deny), culpa (guilt).
Basically it equates to "pardon me." Sorry, I can't pardon you, I'm not the governor. ;-)
Pensei isso na hora kkkk
Italian 'Scusi' sounds like the English colloquial 'excuse me' but in familiar settings people say 'scuse me'.
id wager there is a clear proto-indo-european ancestor for the word. latin: culpa, old high german skulda
it's short for: ich bitte um entschuldigung
Ich finde deine Videos so klasse gemacht, du sprichst so unglaublich deutlich und erklärst vieles in kurzer Zeit. Respekt!
Ja echt Klasse
@@berndf7437 Ich stimme zu. Das Maedchen ist so geil
One thing I unintentionally learned from this video : A boy I went to school with over 40 years ago had the last name Vogelsang. Thanks to you, Feli … I now know (or at least educated-guess) his last name means “Birdsong”
Edit : Confirmed “Birdsong” via Google Translate
I absolutely lost it at krankenwagen. That sounds like some horrid beast from a steampunk nightmare.
If you get sick, take the sick wagon and go to the sick house. It makes perfect sense.
Release the Krankenwagen!
I always found all their wagens kinda hilarious sounding. Like panzerkampfwagen. Really? Armored war wagon? What are you, Warhammer dwarves?
Sometimes we call it ambulanz
It lives in the dark corners of the krankenhaus 😅
I think the german word "Libelle" sounds much better than "dragon-fly".
Libelle is cute but dragon fly is so savage
Yeah it's dragon fly ... In Portuguese we say Libelula.
Nothing can be better than a DRAGON!!! xD
It sounds more beautiful, but dragonfly is definitely more badass (and also fitting, because they are predatory insects and to a fly, a dragonfly probably would be something like a dragon)
Also known as a darning needle
I must say that the "Swedish" here isn't Swedish at all but mostly weirdly pronounced English.
And Feli is correct that Swedish is much closer to German than the other languages for instance "sågspån" is saw dust. It's a literate translation from German.
I can see that. Sägespäne just has more Es
i thought i was just mishearing the swedish, but i got it at nippel that it was not accurate at all xD
Ok but there are just as many word overlaps, or more, in all other “western-ish” languages. So that doesn’t really back up any point. I mean, look at “Öl” (Swedish) and “Ale” (English/British) for beer. It’s also practically the same word. You could make this comparison in a dozen languages. (In German it’s Bier 🍺 ) That said… Swedish and Norwegian are so strange, it’s not saying much to say it sounds like (or has similar words as) Deutsch lol It has a few that are the same, or similar enough if you switch a W with a V, but on the whole they’re really different from all languages imo. I think it’s just as similar to Russian… kind of a pointless statement here, I know 😅 also, is it a literal translation of the German, or is the German a literal translation of the Swedish?
@@rosemadder5547 But their Swedish word for dolly means a kind of fabric in Swedish, and the word nipple does not exists in the Swedish language.
@@MrUnkasen nippel in Swedish is where you put your oil or greasing fat in on machines for lubrication :)
"Schmetterling" actually is a loanword from Slavonic languages. "śmietana" (Polish)/"smetana" (Czech) means cream (English)/crème fraîche (french) plus the Germanic ending "-ling", just like in "duckling". So it literally means "butterfly".
It's Slavic, not Slavonic.
@@Pianoman-cb6yz Slavic and Slavonic are just synonyms, there is no difference. You may prefer Slavic, I prefer Slavonic.
Slavonia is a historical region in Croatia - so Slavonian would be relating to that area
Slavic is the name for the ethnic group
@@wietomeiborg1934 Collins Dictionary: "Something that is Slavonic relates to East European languages such as Russian, Czech, and Serbo-Croat, or to the people who speak them." and "Something that is Slavic belongs or relates to Slavs." So it is a Slavic house, but Slavonic language.
If there were a people "Slavonians" with their own language, it would be "Slavonian", but they are mostly Croats, some Serbs, even some Germans, speaking mostly the Croatian language.
My Spanish ears actually love the sound of German. Of course, instead of listening to old footage of a certain angry guy with a peculiar pilose adornment on the upper lip, or something like that, one should listen to a good reading of a poem by Hölderlin or Eichendorff. It makes quite a difference. As for some individual words I like, Schemetterling (indeed), Atem, Wald, Lerche, Gedicht come to mind. That said, Grundstücksverkehrsgenehmigungszuständigkeitsübertragungsverordnung is inexcusable.
I prefer the abbreviation: GrundVZÜV "GrundFauZüff" sounds a lot shorter and funnier. For enjoyable German I always enjoyed Faust, one of the few novels I know that rhyme through the entire book.
That's not German...that is "Amtsdeutsch", German for burocrats. They love this kind of overdescriptive nonsense.
"certain angry guy with a peculiar pilose adornment on the upper lip" - I am totally stealing that phrase.
Prettier in German:
- Freiheit
- Gänseblümchen
- Schmetterling
- Habseligkeiten
- Heimweh
- Fernweh
- Lebenslust
- Wanderlust
- Sternschnuppe
- Firlefanz
- Gemütlichkeit
Schmetterling always sounds to me like some kind of heavy armored vehicle. Schmetterlingsgefieder sounds like it just started strafing me.
@@chrisoneill3999 Schmetterlingsgefieder isn‘t an actual word. Schmetterlinge 🦋 don’t have „Federn“. Birds have „Gefieder“
@@snm2526 'Schmetterlingsgefieder isn‘t an actual word '. I think Eduard Moerike might disagree with you on that one.
God, I remember learning German in 2015 2016 and I used to and still hate these videos, I know they're used as comedy but these types of videos propagate false image on a certain culture (in this case, German culture) and ensure for some ill informed or lesser informed (ignorant) segment of the population that these stereotypes they hear are true (I encountered some in my area) and stigmatize an entire culture based on these negative stereotypes, and of course no one is attracted to stigmatized things (I speak of experience as my country/culture have a very negative stereotypes abroad and that effects the way I look at myself and how people look at me)
@@chrisoneill3999 First of all, Why do you know him? I hat to Google him and I‘m german 😂
But no, there is no „Schmetterlingsgefieder“. Maybe you mean „Schmetterlingsflieder“ but that has Nothing to do with a butterfly, it is a flower..
„Geflieder“ is an Word for the feather of birds
In Portuguese we use exactly the same word for "Entschuldigung": "desculpa", which is a synonim for "perdão", the version with the same root of "pardon"
caramba
😐🥔
Perdón ou síntoo is "tut mir leid"
it's almost the same in spanish, "disculpa" and "perdon"
It’s funny how the more she tried to explain how the words aren’t scary, the more she proved the videos point 😂
Well I am German and I don't see anything... As a native speaker I should notice that. 😑🙄 Also the point of the video is to show a stereotypical German. You probably mean that German sounds different, if you think that this video proofs that German sounds angry then your probably a failure.
What????
Each and every language is beautiful when spoken by your lover.
Except for Welsh, Welsh would sound beautiful even if it was spoken by someone who was trying to kill you
@@MrTrilbe more like: cyrraedd Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch
@@vast634 Ah so you're arriving at St Mary's church of the pool of the white hazels over against the pool of St Tysilio of the cave, i hope you had a safe journey there
@@MrTrilbe Like French. I think someone can whisper the cruellest things in this language and it would just sound lovely. :D
Which you don't have.
I am from Sweden and I can say that most of the words are incorrect.
Combine = kombinera
Dolly = säckkärra (the same as German Sackkarre)
Nipple = bröstvårta (same as German Brustwarze)
Shaver = rakapparat (same as German Rasierapparat)
Sawdust = sågspån
The nordic languages are germanic too. Englisch is germanic too, but they included french and latin at some point
@@wandilismus8726 And a lot of French and Latin. IIRC Latin, French and Germanic is over a quarter of the words each with Germanic the smallest of the three and the rest from odds and souds from different other languages.
@@cynic7049 still english is basically germanic. It just fused with the latin language when the germanic tribes of the anglo saxons married the Normandie lines
What they meant by Combine was not the verb but the noun Combine harvester. This is skördetröska in Swedish.
@@cynic7049 French developed from Latin. They "customized" the old Latin a lot, but it just started out as a simple form of Latin. The Franks spoke a Germanic language before, which has unfortunately been completely lost.
I love how you expand on the etymology and cultural context of the words. Often people overlook the context of words and how they are used but you extrapolate brilliantly on the concepts and make your videos not just entertaining but also informative. Please never stop making these amazing videos. ☺
Not even 5 minutes in and she already gave a wonderful breakdown of the roots of the language. She just gained a fan from this ol' mennonite. ✌😇
A bit said she didn't explain Schmetterling though.
Schmetter comes from the slavic originating eastmiddlegermanic word "Schmetten", which means "Schmand" or "Rahm" in german, translated to Smetana or Cream, since some Butterflies are attracked to that.
In addition to that, there was a superstition that Butterflies are an emobiment of witches, who wanted to steal the above mentioned dairy product. - But the word "Schmetterling" wasn#t really established until the second half of the 18th century, before that, they were usually called "Tagvogel" or "Nachtvogel" so Daybird and Nightbird.
Tagvogel and Nachtvogel also have a new meaning today: Tagfalter and Nachtfalter, so literally translated to Dayfolder and Nightfolder (Moth).
Interestingly enough, it doesn't deprive from "folding", but actually from the germanic middlehighgerman word "vīvalter", which probably is connected to the latin pāpilio / italian farfalla.
As a Dutch I can relate to German (similar some way), also I know the feeling of the other languages because I'm roaming Europe a lot. I can so imagine how south Europeans and the Brits experience the German language, and yes, it's funny! 😂
As a German learning Dutch - it feels like a both more cute AND more guttural version. I quite like it. :D
To Germans dutch sounds a bit like german with some english thrown in. Or maybe that's just my personal impression.
I can remember watching videos like these in junior high when I started German classes, except in some videos the languages other than German were pronounced harshly. 😂😂 I find the German language quite unique and interesting, and I think the most beautiful word I have ever heard is Mutterseelenallein. I cannot think of a single English word to describe that level of loneliness.
Thank you. :-) Do you also know "Waldeinsamkeit"? "Forest solitude"? :-D
German is known to be a precise language, suitable for science and accurate descriptions etc. But many miss the fact that it can be wonderfully poetic.
If you're on a higher level I highly recommend reading poems by Friedrich Hölderlin. He was the Michelangelo of words.
@@BlackAdder665 thank you so much for the recommendation!
Sorry - the roots of "Mutterseele" are french: mout du seul. But thank you for your kind comment
@@manfredbrosamle-lambrecht5959 What does that translate to, please (English or German)?
@@BlackAdder665 Hi, that simply means "totally alone", ganz alleine. I'm not sure if it's mut or mout
I'm American and I thought the same thing. Then I lived in Germany, picked up conversational German and while I moved back home I still watch movies, news, etc. I hadn't thought about it at all until recently when a friend and I were watching a German movie and we used the subtitles for him. When he cracked the typical German joke about how harsh it sounds, I had realized that I stopped hearing it that way a loooooong time ago. I can't hear its harshness anymore.
Now, I think it's beautiful (especially in music) just appreciate the intelligence of it (LOVE the utility of compound words, something English should adopt more), and only "hate" the definite and indefinite article, lol. I also am enjoying the various dialects. What I love is that it opened an entirely new world of people, film, art,, music, and culture that I would not have been privy to otherwise.
I could go on and on about how wrong most of the stereotypes about Germans and their culture are, but maybe that's another video. :)
I think what most Americans think German sound like is equivalent to what Germans would think English would sound like if all they'd ever heard was Drill Sergeants or Military types.
I lived near Hanau in the US Army, and found German to actually be quite pleasant! (Ich war Hubschraubermechaniker)
WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? GERMAN IS UNDOUBTEDLY THE UGLIEST LANGUAGE ALONG WITH ENGLISH. DURING CENTURIES THERE WAS A SAYING THAT YOU SPEAK GERMAN TO HORSES AND TO WOMEN YOU SPEAK FRENCH ITALIAN OR SPANISH. AN INTERESTING AND BEAUTIFUL LANGUAGES ARE ITALIAN AND SPANISH BY FAR
Duh
Captain Capslock is alive…
Hubschraubbärmähchanikehr
I think German is a beautiful language. Maybe because I'm a Dane and most of the words are similar to Danish.
Oh wow! Ich hab schon fast die Hoffnung verloren, auf UA-cam noch Inhalte zu finden, bei denen es Spaß macht, zuzusehen. Richtig gut gemacht! Es gibt nicht viele, die unser "Deutsch" so gut repräsentieren, wie du! 👌🏻👍🏻
Thumbs up and subscribed 😎✌🏻
I like the sound of German, when spoken normally. You’re a very good sport. Vielen dank. 😁
As a Swede, I must say that the supposedly Swedish person is saying non-swedish words or simply the wrong word. Sägespäne = Sågspån
I don’t know Swedish, but I have a friend who does. And we both know German. For fun and inspiration, I checked out some Swedish words and although subtle, it was fun finding words that are not similar to English but are similar to German. For example
langsam=långsam
schwer=svårt
schwarz=svart
Gefängnis=fångad
lügen=ljuga
I learned a few of those words, because this friend of mine introduced me to some Swedish songs by Linda Bengtzing and Carola. FYI my friend spent a semester or two as an exchange student at Linnaeus University. Consequently he feels that his command of the Swedish language is better than his command of the German language. He rather says my German is better than his.
@@abinashmishra329 I have lived in Germany for 13 years now. There are a lot of similarities as well as funny differences between the two languages. When biking to Sweden, I could even feel the gradual change, which really shows you that the languages have evolved geographically over time, but share a common origin. What people really wanna hear are the Swedish words that start with "fick-", because that is Swedish for "Taschen-" when talking about calculators, calendars or flashlights.
Btw, after a few years I started dreaming in German and suddenly I wanted a larger apartment. 😉
I was desperately looking for this comment. He was almost incomprehensible to me at times
Yeah, he also said Säckväv (Sackcloth) for Säckkärra (Dolly) and Nipple for Nipple and that is completly wrong, in Swedish it's called Bröstvårta.
@@abinashmishra329 Also wichtig=viktig (important). I was reading a piece of Swedish text, and that is the only word I understood, because it was so similar to the German word for important. lol
By mentioning how “asche” means ashes in German, it made me realize “cinder” in English also means ashes. Apparently this word comes from “sinter” in Germanic but also got confused with the meaning of “cinis” in Latin, ashes. Sehr interessant!
The literal translation of "Flugzeug" wouldn't be "flying thing", it would be "flying stuff". But that's even funnier 😄
By the way, "flying thing" would be "Flugding". If I try to think about it from the perspective a non-native German speaker, it sounds less absurd. But I'm a native speaker and it sounds just so absurd because I'm not used to it. Interesting. So that's how those hyper descriptive words sound to non-native speakers.
"Zeug" only means "stuff" in a more negative sense in contemporary German. It used to mean "equipment" or "gear" in the past. There is still an old word called "Zeughaus" which was the name of a building where military equipment was stored.
So "Flugzeug" in that sense meant "flying equipment" or "flying gear" when the word was introduced.
...you also still find it in other words like "Werkzeug" (tools), literally "work equipment"
@@highks496 I wouldn't say in conteporary German "Zeug" is just negative. For example "Ich pack noch schnell mein Zeug zusammen und dann gehe ich los."/"I just pack my stuff and then I'll leave." doesn't sound negative, but "Warum liegt hier so viel Zeug rum?"/"Why is so much stuff lying around here?" does. So I would say the word itself is neutral. It just depends on the context. Just like when I translarte "Ich gehe los" into "I leave", which is not the same word.
Another question would be if it wouldn't make more sense to think about what a word means today when we talk about the correct translation today and not about the correct translation 50 years ago.
Hebezeuge (Krane, Ketten, Seile) und Flurförderzeuge (Gabelstapler) would like a word with you...
@@Atlessa Zeug, not zeuge. Zeuge means witness. Zeug is a word like water or air without a plural form. Or rather, it's plural and sigular at the same time because you can't/don't count it.
Appart from that, yes those could be German words, but they aren't. They sound weird to my German ears, but the only reason they do, is because they aren't actual German words, so I'm not used to them. Often when we think something is weird, we only think it's weird because we're not used to it. And that's not something special to Germans.
Gabelstapler (literal translation: forkstacker) already is a pretty descriptive word and it isn't that far from forklift. In English, they just decided that it's more important that it lifts something up from the ground than the fact that it's then making a stack out if it. Even though it's a pretty descriptive word, it sounds natural for native English speakers because they're used to it.
Disclaimer: the Swedish in part 3 is complete bollocks. To run it down: Combine - skördetröska (no real good translation, but we definitely don't use combine), speed limit - hastighetsbegränsning (the same as in German), dolly - docka, nipple - bröstvårta (same as in German again), shaver - rakapparat/rakhyvel (depends on if it's electic or not), sawdust - sågspån (although the pronunciation is horrible) and cheers - skål! (even though he bends the pronunciation weirdly in the end). That's it for me, hope you learnt something! :D
I couldn't even tell what any of the Japanese was, asid from Kanpai, through that horrible high pitched voice he put on for some reason.
@@TheAkashicTraveller Hahah, it was indeed an odd choice of octave to be talking in. I would honestly, by just listening, have no clue what he was saying in Swedish either, except hastighetsbegränsning, which he for some reason nailed the pronunciation of.
@@znoochy even the American English was just super stereotyped lol. Even those that have SOUTHERN accents don't talk like that he was really drawing out the vowels
@@recklessriot6456 Yeah, I would probably just have laughed it off if only the pronunciation was a bit off...
I've always loved these videos, although since moving to Germany I've realized that German actually doesn't sound very harsh at all, I actually very often love the way German sounds.
Well, I'm glad you figured that out after you moved there
I think it depends where you are in Germany. In the Saarland German sounds almost as flexible and musical as French, or even Italian. Then you visit Berlin, and Ernst Jandl begins to make sense again.
@@chrisoneill3999 True, lol I've been all over the country and I really loved the way German sounds in Saarland, and then the whole southern/central areas as well like BW and Bavaria. Hamburg also sounds pretty intense just like Berlin, so definitely does depend on the region.
I have to try the “gender traffic” next chance I get 🤣😆🤪
@@dagi72164 the english word(s) of it is sexual intercourse, not much better ^^
🌿
Thank you Febi.
[ I am from the Western Cape, South Africa. I was in my late 30's when I discovered, that I may have partial German linage.
In my early 50's, I finally knew, that it was "official". Previously I thought this lineage branch, was Dutch. Due to the change of spelling.
There was a time, when this was a Dutch colony. "Hidden" in plain sight, one can say. ]
I feel an atmosphere of honesty and good cheer, on your channel.
All the best wishes towards You.
❤👋🏻
After looking at some of the comments, I see it's difficult to escape.
From those in an irregular course, looking for a place to vomit.
Speaking of "Schmetterling": There is a lovely poem by Michael Ende talking about a Dragon (in german: Lindwurm ("gentle worm")) and a Schmetterling who don't like their names.
In the end, they just change the beginning of their denomination:
"Und Hand in Hand verließ den Turm
ein Lindling und ein Schmetterwurm."
Lindwurm heisst in Englisch einfach lindworm.
@@kvasirsblod1289 Danke für die Info! Das wusste ich nicht.
Thanks! I had no idea that the english language had imported this word! But literally, "Lindwurm" really means "gentle worm", otherwise, the poem wouldn't work ;-).
@@philiphintze not really imported. Lindwurm is a old germanic word for a snake like dragon.
Schmetterling kommt von "smetana" , dem tschechischen Wort für Sahne oder vom deutschen "schmettern" für Butterschlagen ( wer weiß schon was zuerst da war ), weil diese kleinen Tierchen so gern an der frischen Butter oder der Sahne naschen .
Im Prinzip hat sein Name also dieselbe Bedeutung wie das englische Wort " butterfly".
He's the guy who wrote Neverending Story, isn't he?
Yeah, that "Swedish" guy sure isn't Swedish. :p He kinda compresses the words. And "säckväv" isn't a dolly, it's burlap. Dolly in Swedish is "säckkärra". In fact, most of the "Swedish" words are completely wrong. Nipple is "bröstvårta" in Swedish, again similar to the german word. And shaver is "rakapparat", once again similar to the german word. I'm wondering if they aren't faking the Swedish words for comic effect.
Same with the Spanish guy.
The only things the "Swedish" guy nailed (or got close) pronouncing were "Hastighetsbegränsning" and "Skål"
Whoever did the "Swedish" in that video is a failure worse than the Soviet Union.
The thing i like about german is that a lot of the words have their origin in German an not in another or are rather a combination of words. A Handschuh for example is a shoe for the hand, so the word actually means something in german while in English a glove is just a word that happens to name the thing you put over your hand
Very interesting! In the third part especially, you talked over the first couple of people so I couldn't hear them. But I can say that German spelling bees sound rather interesting! Also, my paternal grandmother was a German Russian, her Klingman great grandparents moved from Bavaria to South Russia (Ukraine) in about 1805 and her parents moved to South Dakota in about 1898. They spoke Low German, which a great uncle referred to as 'Kitchen Russian'. This same great uncle and his wife traveled to Bavaria in the late 1990s to see his family's ancestral homeland and were quite confused as to why their German was mostly unintelligible to the people there. They didn't realize that modern German had transitioned to the modern High German!
I really enjoyed when you took combined words and highlighted the various words inside them and demystified them for us non-native speakers. You didn't highlight in the final section, I would love you to please take some common words and highlight sections. It really helps me. For example, your explanation of Entschuldigung was really great and helped me understand several words. Please do a video like that.
Kugelschreiber = Kugel (ball) + schreiber (writer)
Sägespäne = Säge (saw) + späne (chips)
@@bernadettemurr8025 Thank you for these :)
I'm no linguist an there are many things that I don't know about my own language but maybe I can explain something that makes understanding some german words a bit easier. In this video there are used a lot of the so called "zusammengesetze Namenwörter", which means nouns that are put together to one word. In the german language we put nouns/words that describe one thing together to one word. The last part is the word for the actual thing and the word or words that come before that describe the one thing. For example "Namenwörter" or better "Namenwort" (which is the singular form) as written above. "Name" is 'name' and "wort" is 'word'. So it's a word for a "name", what would be a 'noun'. Same goes for "Tunwort". "Tun" means 'do/doing' and "wort" again is 'word'. The translation would be 'verb'.
Another example: Türgriff = Tür (door) + griff (handle); Türspalt = Tür (door) + spalt (gap); Türrahmen = Tür (door) + rahmen (frame); Türschloss = Tür (door) + schloss (lock) and so on.
The most common one is the combination of two nouns as in "Türgriff". You can add more words basically without limitation, that's how these very long words result. For example "Sommerbettwäsche" = "Sommer" (summer) + "bett" (bed) + "wäsche" (linen/laundry). So "Bettwäsche" itself is a word (bed linen/douvet cover) and Sommerbettwäsche is the bed linen used during summer months (it can be quite warm/hot during the nights so you can use a bed linen that is made of thin maybe a bit cooling material (in winter for example we use flannell material sometimes)).
There are many more rules and exceptions and variations but maybe this gave you a little insight in how it works.
If you want to practice, here are a few words you can look up, they are self explaining when you think of it (with the help of a translator). For a little help I marked where one "word" ends and the other one begins. Sometimes there is used a 'n' in between to connect (that's mostly the plural form of the first "word", which has no meaning in total).
Fremd|sprache
Sonne|n|blume
Wolke|n|kratzer
Katze|n|klappe
Hals|band
Hunde|hals|band
Bücher|regal
Hand|tasche
Reise|tasche
Miet|auto
Flug|ticket
Zug|ticket
Bus|ticket
Kino|ticket
Tisch|decke
Tisch|bein
Tisch|platte
Apfel|baum
Kirsch|baum
Nadel|baum
Laub|baum
Auto|bahn
Rast|stätte
Auto|bahn|rast|stätte
Park[en]|platz
Auto|bahn|park|platz
Spiel|platz
Spiel|zeug
Kinder|spiel|platz
Kinder|spiel|zeug
Spiel|zeug|auto
Video|anruf
Besteck|korb
Stoff|serviette
Papier|serviette
Papier|flieger
Nacht|tisch
Nacht|tisch|lampe
Schreib|tisch
Schreib|tisch|lampe
Sitz|sack
Sitz|sack|bezug
Kissen|bezug
Sitz|kissen
@@bernadettemurr8025 Thank you very much!
I'm Dutch and I find (Hoch)Deutsch a very beautiful language to listen to. It sounds so clear and smooth to me.
I am Dutch too and have an allergy for German language. I dislike the sound and the German lessons were like torturing to me. As soon I could I dropped German.
@@lienbijs1205
Maybe that's because you only heard it spoken by other Dutch people. And written it is a bit difficult to learn, I agree.
But I meant that I like it the way Germans speak it in movies (voice overs) and so on. To me that is like a softer and clearer sounding sort of Dutch. But maybe that is because I grew up watching a lot of television. German dubbed movies, and series (detectives like Derrik) on German television.
And that is also how I learnd to understand and speak German and English at a very young age, by also watching American and English movies and series on the BBC.
My mother used the tv as a handy nanny, you see :)
Duits lijkt op onze taal jazeker, ik had het ook als vakkenpakket gehad op de MAVO
Dutch sound to my like funny German
Exactly, I always thought so too. Dutch sounds a lot more harsh to me than German. So does french with the profound "r" pronunciation and many east european languages.
So venom, poison and toxin are all called gift in german? Swedish beats you there; apart from venom, poison and toxin, "gift" also means "married" (make of that what you will).
Also:
Surprise = Överraskning, literally something like "over shaking".
Daisy = Prästkrage, literally "priest collar".
Sex (intercourse) = Sex, witch also means six. Sex (biological) is called "kön", also meaning "the queue".
Cinderella = Askungen, literally "the ash-kid".
Nipple = Bröstvårta (not "nippel"), also literally "breast-wort".
Shaver = Rakhyvel or rakapparat (NOT "shaver"), literally "shaving-slicer" (as in cheese slicer) or "shaving-apparatus". Strangely, "rak" also means "straight" (as in "not crooked").
And no, the "swedish" speaker absolutely doen't pronounce the words correctly. Wtf is "zäger-schpäne" (19:31)?!
Yes all of them can translated to "Gift" in german, but we also use "Toxin" in a more science related context.
Just never accept gift from German people, to avoid misunderstanding 😅
I've started learning German just because how it sounds. To me personally, it's amazingly funny to keep trying to pronounce their words, especially long ones. If you bring some level of anger into it that's whole new experience - and I just love it.
(re: gift) I had to pause the video because I got so distracted by the thought of inviting a german speaker to a gift exchange. "I present you with arsenic", "How kind of you! I have brought this bottle of strychnine for you!"
@@crystalis79 Exchanging gifts for Valentine 's leads to toxic relationship :D
Wait, what's wrong with accept a gift from Germans?
German here- most Germans know at least a little bit english, soo I don’t think that there will ever occur such a misunderstanding
@@holyxiao2529 That's true, at least among younger population. I'm working in Neu Isenburg and have some issues to communicate with most 50+ Germans, but younger ones have pretty good understanding of English.
Anyway, my previous comment is a joke related to video content, not mocking with English skills Germans.
your video was actually very instructive and the way you explained the etymology of the first couple words was very nice! Also, for a German girl living in America, you french was pretty good ^^ You seem to have a natural talent for language, keep up the good work :-)
My father was deployed to Germany in 1970 and my mother went with them. Both Americans who only spoke English. While there, my mother wanted to get something for her baby brother and went to a toy store... needless to say when she asked the shopkeep for a gift for her brother, he was horrified until they figured out the miscommunication. XD
I think someday ill make a mistake like this and would say in germany "ich würde gern ein gift kaufen(i wanna buy a "gift") " even if im german and know what gift means becuz im dumb
😅
@@Kleinkindchenhehe Ich würd dann fragen "Taugt Ratzengift?" xD
Anglophones are known worldwide not to learn other languages.
Very funny. You are doing a great job. Your editing and video production is perfect. You have a great attitude toward cultural sharing. I love when you include German historical information.
Feli, you have my deep admiration for your ability to laugh at your own culture and language. You are terrific! 😍
7:00
- “My son is gifted.”
- „Oh je, wie ist das passiert?“
Dein Name ist schon ein Witz.
@@ingevonschneider5100
Ach was…!
@@3.k Ist das dein richtiger Name? Respekt.
@Ragnar Pries
- My brother is in the kitchen.
- Yeah, I knew all the time that he was no good.
- … 🤨
One thing I appreciate about German is how literal it is. To be fair, I think interpretation of the German language as “angry” or “harsh” is intermingled with Germany’s role in the two World Wars.
Which is ridiculous. WWI, was everyone’s fault. A total tragedy of circumstances. There was no single nation who was the “bad guy.”
Not just that. I also find in movies and books the German person in there is so often portrayed as being the villain. It’s so stereotypical from long ago.
@@cullen_stringer1014 that doesn’t matter. It’s all in perception. Once people got something in their brains it’s going to stay there.
@@alanlight7740 Very interesting Point of view and historicaly quite true
The german langage is so logic and the germans themselves are so direct, this is very soothing to me. Trying to decipher in french or english what people actually mean by what they're saying and walking on eggshells trying not to hurt anyone's ego, I can do it all but it is exhausting.
I think everything sounds more precise in German, but even bad things sound beautiful in Italian.
Get lost. German is a convulated language. You use SIE for everything.
@@joshuddin897
• she (sie) - nominative and accusative
• they (sie) - nominative and accusative
• formal you (Sie) - nominative and accusative
• a female person (eine Sie) [informal]
Have I forgotten some?
@@joshuddin897 Sie + the endings of the verbs
@@the_coding_show you might add sieh (same pronunciation as sie) .. imperative of look/watch
The most important thing I've learned about this video: Be careful if a German offers you a "Gift."
Imagine how we Germans feel when a young American girl buys gifts for her beloved ones
@BGRatz77 I mean, if her gifts were alcohol (technically a poison) both of our languages would be accurate lol.
Norwegian has 2 main ways of saying sorry and 'Unnskyld meg' is one of them, being extremely close to the 'Entshuldigung' as both have the skyld/schuld meaning guilt and a prefix meaning avoid/take away and I find this really interesting
without knowing anythin about norwegian, i immediately read that as "entschuldige mich". in german, i would add a "bitte", and that then would translate to "excuse me please" .
btw: in english "accuse" is to assign some guilt to someone, and "excuse" is the opposite, thus would also be an almost literal translation, with "ent-..." and "ex-..." referring to the opposite or maybe rather removing something ?!
welcome to the world of etymology and comparative linguistics! it is a rabbit hole.
@@Thorenhard even when not doing it scientifically detailed and exact, knowing (at least the basics of) some languages helps in understanding a lot more other languages too.
having done some french, english and latin at school (i can't remember any latin, but still recognize a lot of latin relations in words or grammar, eg in french and italian), it wasn't too difficult to grasp some italian during holidays to not need a german menu when going to the restaurant or to be able to get some accomodation for the night while traveling. and with those languages i once even succeeded to have a basic conversation with someone in spain who didn't know any languages besides spanish: say something in the other languages and let the other one repeat with different wording in yet another language what he believes to have understood. it's slow, but works to some degree, and feels like a nice accomplishment when it worked :-)
of course, speaking in some other language is much more difficult when you don't know the vocabulary, but with many words being loan words or very similar (at least in western european languages, where "everything" is based on 'germanic' or latin roots) at least understanding others is partially possible. too bad that because of the politic situation before 1990 (the time when i learned new languages), i was (and still am) missing completely on eastern european languages although i live only 50km away from poland. this must be the situation many us-americans are in for any other languages when they never had contact to non-english speakers besides near the mexican or french-canadian borders.
Basically "un-guilt me"
Pardon me is also asking for someone to take the guilt away, like when a criminal is given a pardon and can go free.
When I think of Germans & The German Language, I don't think of aggression, rage, or anger.
Germans are chill & cool. I like German rap & I like Rammstein. & although sometimes Rammstein can sound aggressive...but that's just the Neue-Deutsche-Hart & Heavy Metal Music sound.
But have you ever heard an American blow their top?
Holy shit! When we Americans get mad....look out! Its scary.
& Americans are typically on the verge of losing our tempers everyday.....& over stuipid shit. -Like a differing of a view or opinion on something, that's often political🤦
Its us, the Americans, that scare me. Germans are the coolest people on the planet.
Nah, Canadians are the most even-tempered people. Try to piss off a Canadian, it's damn hard to do!
@@TonyM132 Its hard to walk around pissed when you have..... *BACON* !!!
🤣🤣🤣
@@TonyM132 wrong.
@@TonyM132 try calling a Canadian American and see how chill they are. Unless you say North American then it's fine
Rammstein does the old-timey stage-pronunciation which is extremely over the top with very hard consonants and a rolling "r". Nobody ever speaks like that and nobody has ever spoken like that in the past. It was an artificial pronunciation for theater, speeches and radio broadcasts with poor sound quality.
The first time I heard Rammstein sing, I started laughing because it was such an over-the-top satire with the stern faces and those super serious stage-pronunciation lyrics. It's a parody.
12:32 Fun fact: In portuguese, we say "desculpa-me" which also means take the guilt away from me. "culpa" is guilt. the prefix des- refers to undo the idea of the root word. In this case, it is do undo the guilt, thus, "take the guilt away from me"
Actually I use almost the same word in spanish just shortened, I say "disculpa"
Igual en español
I love this topic. I am American, fluent in Spanish, and I lived in the Dominican Republic for many years. I love to ask people there, who don't speak English, what English sounds like to their ears. It's pretty funny to hear what they perceive. I wish English had remained a little more Germanic. Darn that Norman conquest.
People always think that German sounds aggressive but it's really not true at all
I think it's just that most movies portray German soldiers, and most anything military is aggressive. :)
@@Trifler500 I see probably could be that reason
@@Trifler500 Well lot of German troops has been sent to front with amphetamine, so they may sound bit aggressive after.😉
English: MAGNIFYING GLASS!
Italian: LENTE D'INGRANDIMENTO!
Norwegian: FORSTØRRELSESGLAS!
German: Lupe.
Lupe is the English word for a jewellers magnifying glass
@@charlestaylor3027Thanks! That BTW is the descriptive title of the Windows magnifier program. There are false friends between German and English but this is one they have in common.
Danish; Lup
@@NormanF62 in German "Lupe" is borrowed from the french "loupe". German equivalent: Vergrößerungsglas
@@NormanF62 lupus is wolf in Latein
That is exactly how German sounds to me, at least whenever I hear it on an American film. When I hear actual Germans speaking it it doesn’t seem harsh at all. Even the “ch” sound, which Americans always over pronounce when trying to sound German, is actually a rather soft and gentle sound.
There is not one "ch" sound, but three varieties (called allophones): In words like "Bach" or "" it is pronounced like in Scots "loch" or Spanish "baja" ("voiceless uvular fricative" in linguistic terms); in words like "ich", "Chemie" (if you're fom Northern Germany), "rechnen" it's a voiceless palatal fricative; and in words like "Buch", "suchen", "Koch" it is a so called voiceless velar fricative. The palatal variety is pretty easy to distinguish from the other two, but the uvular and velar fricatives are pretty close to each other, at least in Standard German. When it comes to different German accents and dialects, all bets are off.
Dein Englisch klingt so sauber,man hält dich wirklich für eine geborene Amerikanerin.Respekt das in so kurzer Zeit hinzubekommen.❤
also ich persönlich höre direkt den Akzent raus, fällt mir aber bei Deutsch auch sehr schnell auf (bei anderen Sprachen/deren Akzente nicht)
mein vater sprachen deren sexy@@sexyschnidden9702
I'm conversational in Japanese, but I barely understood the Japanese in part 3 because the woman was trying to speak too cutely... the opposite stereotype of how German sounds.
I feel you
honestly it doesn't even sounds like japanese. I speak japanese and brazilian portuguese and I think those parts are spoken by people who don't speak those languages
@@kuchikimakoto Yeah I think all of the non-German languages are spoken by... Germans!
The "Japanese" woman has the syllables correct but her high-pitched voice (compared to when the same actress was the "French" woman saying the words normally) made it hard to understand her. I really didn't get "sokudo seigen" (speed limit) at first because usually the last two kanji come first: "seigen sokudo" (制限速度).
I listen to japanese daily, broken japanese, japanese dialects and completely new invented language patterns based on japanese. I enjoy laughing about japanese people making up new stupid words.
Yet I only understood one word she was saying and that didn't make much sense in the context either.
The term they used: ニップル (nippuru) refers almost exclusively to the nipples of tools and rubber parts.
The bodypart is 乳首 = ちくび (chikubi), literally translated means "milk neck".
You don't have to believe me, you don't have to be able to read these letters. Just copy and paste each word into your favorite search engine and look at what pictures it's finding (with safe search off). Well... you probably shouldn't be searching for ちくび at work though.
I LOVE that you brought up how language carries different concepts with them! Did you know that ancient civilizations didn't add the word "blue" or it's equivalent until near the end of it's evolution? In the Iliad and almost all ancient texts, the ocean and sky is never called Blue, the word describing the color blue is mentioned a total of 0 times. One of the only ancient cultures we know that differentiated 'blue' as it's own was Ancient Egyptian, because it was more easily accessible, so they needed to make a word for it.
In the Iliad, the ocean is "Dark-like wine" and the sky, stormy like the sea or black". It's so cool to imagine that they could technically "see" blue but their language didn't let them differentiate it from other colors.
about marguerites (in Belgian french): I was taught as a kid that marguerite is the big one too, the small one (gänsenblümchen) is called "paquerettes". In Dutch, daisies are called "madeliefjes", "lief" being the same word as "liebe" in German
Same in U.s, in California. They're similar, but different flowers.
same in french from france :)
I think it's a mistranslation from the people who made the video, or some sort of "chosen" mistranslation because "pâquerette" can sound a bit rude I guess
eupen german
Don't know if you still read comments for these older ones, but This is the first one I found and wanted to say that this was fascinating and entertaining.
The "Swedish" guy isn´t Swedish and do not even pronounce Swedish words. Actually Swedish is a lot like German construction of words. An electric razor is a "rakapparat" which is a wording made from "rak" which means shave and "apparat" which means "device". No separation between the words and if there would be a third word added it would be connected to the two previous ones with a "s".
Agreed! And I'm not an expert, just a German who is currently learning Swedish, but I am pretty sure they totally mispronounced sågspån (sawdust). The Swedish "å" does not equal the German "ä" like they pronounced it in the video, it is more similar to the German "o" (still a bit different, though).
I much prefer the tempo of Swedish to German. Swedish sort of bounces along while German gets coughed up.
@@xxlix437 More like "or" in English.
The same with the brazilian portuguese, this guy is not brazilian hahaha. He has a very odd accent. Looks like someone trying to speak portuguese.
I used to have a German colleague who would pronounce random German words in a “sexy” way whenever people told her that German sounded harsh: “Braaaaatwurst.”
:D now tell me Germans have no sense of humour. I love your colleague. :D 👍😂
Omg I Love this 😂😂
I would argue that the translation of traffic law is Straßenverkehrsordnung. Das Verkehrsinfrastrukturfinanzierungsgesellschaftsgesetz ist eher ein für die Verwaltungen geltendes Finanzierungs- und Zuwendungsgesetz :)
what in the hell? WOW!
That's what she meant by the fact that in German example there was always a very, very specific word used. I suspect that the (German) makers of the video will also have googled these very strange and rare words from administrative language.
Cat K. W. You are really being a bad ass ... ! Such a good laugh this is quite a "nonsense suggestion" :)
@@sweetydeerhound4075 sorry but why do you think you could call my comment a nonsense suggestion? Just pointing out that it's not even the exact translation in the original video... But hey, maybe being a troll suits you perfectly, I don't know :)
@@sweetydeerhound4075 Straßen (Street) Verkehrs (Traffic) Ordnung (Regulatiion) , short: StVO
de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stra%C3%9Fenverkehrs-Ordnung_(Deutschland)
As a German FL. girl, I have always been interested in accents and I’ve studied classical voice for many years. After 6 years of the “ romantic“ languages, I decided to go with my heritage, which is German. I learned what is called the laughing song, and three others that I can’t think of right now because it’s been quite a while, but I remember the amount of consonants together as well as the vowel sounds that followed were different to any sounds I had ever made especially with really high notes. But I loved it. Thank you! Keep doing this. I loved this vid!
Felicia’s talk about languages carrying different concepts reminded me of the popular example of the Russian language having multiple words designating different colors for what anglophones see as just shades of blue
It's only one extra color, and in English I would call it "light blue". And yes, that's a totally different word, that has nothing to do with the Russian word for "blue". We even got it in a rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, light blue, blue, purple.
Of course, we have a lot of additional ways to describe blue color, like sky blue, dark blue, indigo or turqoise, but those are considered different shades of regular blue or light blue, not a separate color (and blue and light blue are separate colors)
Reminds me of that "meme" that was "how men see colors" v/s "how women see colors" xD
I am not sure if the saying is correct, but I have read that the Inuit have up to a hundred words for different types of snow.
The German language also knows more words for colours like the English one. Take purple, for example. In German, depending on it’s shade, it’s either Lila, Flieder, Violett or Purpur.
@@claudiakarl7888 Indigo, lilac, purple, violet.
The guy labeled "Mexican" sounds like he's trying to pronounce Spanish words as if they were Italian.
He also said "mariposa" like a person from northern Spain with the "th" sound
Yeah that pronunciation bothered me too. Lmao
@@bryannguyen2383 is an S really lisped anywhere? I thought that was a C or Z only.
@@susie2251 It's not. Only on C and Z. Source: Spanish learner who has been to Spain, Guatemala, Mexico, and Costa Rica
@@wadesultan5074 yeah, I’ve studied in Spain and Mexico too. That’s why I was thrown by the suggestion it was on something else too.
"Schmetterling" really is a harsh word for such a beautiful and fragile creature... but it actually has Slavic roots. "Smetana" means "cream" (the dairy product) in Czech and other East European languages. In former times fresh milk would be kept in big open cans, allowing the cream rise to the top to be skimmed off for producing butter. What I read is that butterflies would settle on the cans to have their share of cream, so both "Schmetterling" and "Butterfly" allude to that, meaning "cream/butter stealer". The incredibly beautiful Spanish "mariposa" is believed to stem from an old children's game called "Mary sit down" while French "papillon", Italian "farfalla" and German "Falter" probably all have the same really old Indo-European root.
I disagree
@@michaelflores9220 may I ask, why you disagree? To me that explanation makes sense and obviously is correct.
I think Schmetterling is actually a pretty soft word. I like it.
I thought "Smetana" was a composer. 😂
My favorite one, which I actually had to learn when I was living in Germany is "Personenkraftwagenhaftpflichtversicherung", though normally it's abbreviated as PKW-Haftpflichtversicherung (much better, really). And btw. it means obligatory passenger vehicle liability insurance.
As someone who is currently training to become a lawyer in Germany, let me just say that they got the part about laws all twisted up to a point that it almost hurts.
Let me nerd on about this:
Before I start: there is a difference between “law” as in an area of law (in German: Recht) and “law(s)” as in specific legal regulations (in German: Gesetz/Verordnung etc.). Now, in the video they take terms like “traffic law”, which, to my ears, would be a broad term meaning the area of law dedicated to traffic (my translation would thus be “Straßenverkehrsrecht”, literally “street traffic law” in general), but they then choose a german example of one extremely specific fringe regulation that goes under the umbrella of this field of law. There are obviously TONS of specific legal regulations with “funny” (or rather painfully long) names in any area of law. The one they chose really wouldn’t come to mind when thinking about traffic law though (never heard of it tbh). I would have gone with “Straßenverkehrsgesetz” (THE (specific) “street traffic law”) or “Straßenverkehrsordnung” (THE “street traffic regulation”).
Same goes for all the other laws or better: areas of law they chose.
The english "combine" is just a nickname, that thing is called "combine harvester", and the word "harvester" can be equally harsh when it comes to pronunciation :)
Oh, that's what they were going for. I got stuck on sports..
If you've ever flown Lufthansa, the German spoken by the flight attendants is one of the sweetest things you'll ever hear.
In contrast, I always wondered if native English speakers could even understand what was being said in the English part of the announcements. ;-)
After WWII , American films started bullying the German language , based on Hitler's martial speeches. I love when German girls speak , it's so sexy and sweet
Each language has it's own beautiful words who makes the language perfect. Your episode is very good.
My language is Marathi.
You find the beauty of German language in Goethe's poem:
"Wanderers Nachtlied"
_Über allen Gipfeln_
_Ist Ruh'_ ,
_In allen Wipfeln_
_Spürest Du_
_Kaum einen Hauch_ ;
_Die Vögelein schweigen im_ _Walde_ .
_Warte nur! Balde_
_Ruhest du auch_
I'd like to find the beauty of this
But i don't understand it LOL 😂😂
_Above all peaks_
_Is rest_ ,
_In all tops_
_You are feeling_
_Hardly a breath_
_The birds are silent in the forest_ .
_Just wait! Soon_
_You are resting too_
@@leximatic thank you so much.
I want to learn German as my 4th language. I know it's difficult but i like it... i also like to read books and poems in German 😁
@@knownanonymous1691 It's not that easy, i know, even for native speakers. 😉 The grammar is not so hard, most angloamerican learners fight with "der, die, das" and the pronounciation. But you will like how Germans are able to just tinker with words and still keep correct grammar and comprehensiveness.
Nah, da gibt's bessere... da ändert sich das reimschema ja einfach vom Kreuzreim in den Umarmenden Reim...
Studying German, this vid is funny AF! The best one you've done so far.