To german me, having learned, read, listened to, wrote and sometimes spoken english for about 30 years now, german grammar in english confuses me. It makes it harder for me to follow what's being said. 'eight, five and thirty' had me laughing. It's how we say it in german for some reason.
As a German, German always felt natural to me, and I didn’t think much about the structure. I always had a sense that the English structure is more logical. Hearing the German structure in English makes it so obvious, how bad it really is. As a computer scientist, I would have never designed it that way. Now I’m wondering, how good the English structure really is. I bet, it is much clearer, than the German one. But if we reversed the experiment, maybe we would also find some weird patterns.
@@zark4711 Da kann man sehen wie unterschiedlich die Geschmäcker sind. Ich finde nicht unbedingt, dass die Struktur des Englischen logischer ist sondern einfach weniger komplex (wobei mir wiederum manche Relativsatz-Konstrukte im Englischen etwas absurd erscheinen). Aber ich bin eben auch ein Fan des Lateinischen. 🙂 Der deutschen Sprache kann man, wie ich finde, zugutehalten, dass durch den auffallend unterschiedlichen Aufbau von Haupt- und Nebensätzen diese besser zur Geltung kommen.
Ja, das weniger Komplexe meine ich. Ich finde das klarer. Aber wenn wir Sprache beliebig weit herunterreduzieren, verlieren wir dabei möglicherweise die Individualität oder die Flexibilität, Nuancen ausdrücken zu können.
Das ist ganz normal. Weil wir, die auch Englisch verstehen, die englische Grammatik kennen und können. Wird uns ja in der Schule eingetrichtert. Bei mir damals ab der 5. Klasse, heute ja meist schon früher. Wer dann so sprach, also Englisch mit deutscher Grammatik, hat dann aber den Zorn der Lehrer auf sich gezogen.
@@eggihellwach Ich finde es witzig und um auf seine Frage zu antworten, "Why does it sound like the old historic way of speaking English?" ist einfach zu beantworten, denn, "Englisch is an West Germanic language", laut Wikipedia.
The similarities of Old English and German are certainly a result of all the Germanic tribes like the Angles and Saxons that settled in Britain and heavily influenced or even created the language.
Old English was basically Old Low German with a bit of an accent. At that time all fo the North Sea Germans and the Anglo-Saxons could still understand one another without any problems.
My great grandparents were ablso to talk with Frisians dutch and english through Plattdeutsch (flat german). It was essentially the language around the north sea
I had an Seminar about Old English at University and I'm pretty sure it was easier for me as a German to understand the texts we read than for a native english speaker.
As a German they talk basically like kids learning English for the first time often do. You usually learn the words pretty quickly, but grammar is harder.
what? xD I'm pretty sure you confused that.... you usually learn grammar really easily and vocab takes a while.... you need less than 10 grammar rules to communicate in english but at least a few hundred words.... you usually learn a few key words first but thats it mate.... pretty sure 9/10 are more confident in their grammar skills after a year of learning than their vocabulary
@@Foatizenknechtl No, that's true. You learn the words pretty quickly. Lots of people at our school spoke like that. That always caused a lot of trouble with our teacher because she had studied English in England. But we also talk about "real British English grammar" and not "enough to communicate". And I went to several schools in different states. It was the same everywhere. Maybe it's different today. I know this for sure because I was the exception. I could only learn words in context. Just memorizing the words was never my thing. So I rarely got a better than a 4 in vocabulary tests, often even a 6. But in exams I got an 1 or 2.
@Sc4v3r how would you define "THE words" ...? Bc learning that in english you just put an -ing at the end of the verb is a hell of a lot easier than whatever words youre speaking of, i'm sure 😂
In modern German we avoid to use forms of tun. English and German forked apart. People of Germany and early English speakers could understand each other .
Whenever I write or speak English as a german native, I don't need to think a lot about the basic structure of it. I don't have to "translate" it in my mind. After years of using the language, it comes naturally. But whenever it's mixed and mingled like in this video, it's way harder.
The Anglo-Saxons came to England around the 5th century and influenced the laguage a lot at the time. I only learned a bit about Old English in school, mostly Beowulf and the Lord's prayer, but yeah the structure does remind me more of German than modern English.
2:55 theire is a video where a plattgerman talks in plattgerman with a reporter that speaks old english and they understand each other without Problem.
Shakespeare's plays and the King James Bible are a lot closer to German when it comes to grammar and word order. "Thou hast" -- Du hast "Thou shalt" - Du sollst Some time ago I heard that in some place in England, probably in the southeast, people to this day say:"How bist?", not "how are you" which in German would be: "Wie bist (Du)?"
I can say that it is terribly confusing to listen to this in English and it sounds WRONG, while reading it in German at the same time and it reads CORRECT. 🤪 (No idea if it would sound more normal if I didn't speak English.)
If you show the Lord's Prayer (because there are rare text that didn't change for centuries) written in old english, most germans will identify it as "Vater Unser" (Father our) immediately. English is a (West-)germanic language. The anglosaxons moved to england and in that time the languages spoken in england and especially northern germany were pretty much the same. Several hundred years changed a lot, of course. But the connection is still there. Plattdeutsch (nrthern german dialect/language) still has a lot similarities to english language.
mhm thinking about it i think you are correct... seems like as german and english are related languages that english partly got infiltrated by latin grammer like french spanish portuguese or italian are
German still has 3 words for "you" ("du", "dir" and "dich") and "euch" for "you (plural)". Old English had 2 words for "you" ("thee" and "thou") and a word for "you (plural)" called "ye". In modern English, the only pluralised word for "you" that I can think of is the American "y'all".
That's correct. I am reading the KJV 1611 Bible, it's written in Shakespeare English and more similar to German. I think it's even more structured than modern English. And sometimes the phrase positions are like in German. 😊
they sound familiar to old english, bc the dutch language, german language and the english language come from the same old language tree (west-germanic), it's quite interesting because if you listen carefully some words sound alike (especially in old english) ´drie-drei-three' (dutch-german-english), (we in the netherlands have the same structure as the german language) :D, ye we have to translate english in our minds to this tructure (like in the video) but to me.. my english is well enough to understand all types of english xD some people study the origin of the original language (where it exactly came from ) we never know for certain, what we do know that trading has also impacted the usage of the languages overtime "sprachbunds" like the slavic countries have (they dont have the same language tree ) they sound very alike because of this sprachbunds, maybe overtime the structure changed due to tradings with other countries (old english, to the english nowadays used in everyday life) I study this at univercity and it's really interesting! I stumbled upon your videos and found them very enjoyable :D I hope this comment finds you and answers your question
I speak english since 20 something years, this viedo just fried my brain. I actually had to read the subtitles, to understand some of the things he said.
Hi Dwayne, I have your video very much enjoyed! It was very interesting from the similarities with Old English to learn. I think they have also a different ending for each person had, like "though hast". It is exciting how themselves languages develop in the run of time!
another entertaining video ... thanks Dwayne! Some laugh is what we need these days! As a German, speaking a solid, but not perfect English (and for sure making a lot of mistakes grammar-wise) ...: it sounds odd, listening to these 1:1 grammer sentences. And yes, we all agree that songs are often "lost in translation" ... but: I guess not due to the grammar that much, but more due to the meaning of words. Great Lyrics use strong words and combine them strongly. An English translation of a German song can often give only the bare meaning, but loosing power.... and vice versa.
Yes it's quite similar to old English. There was a german woman (Vera F. Birkenbihl) who invented a method to learn languages by the syntax of it with word by word translations.
At some areas of Germany the old people understood old english. They spoke 'friesisch' and this ist very simular to old english. Ther is a Lot of german blood in the english Royal line.💪😉
You got yourself a subscription, man. Very funny, you're super likeable. 🎉❤ It's 100% way easier for me to listen to you (you got a very good pronunciation) than to listen to this germanized English. I'm not even sure if I would understand it perfectly without subs. It surely is giving me a headache. At a certani point, you get a feeling for another language, so you know how certain elements have to be used and what is the correct word order.
Three quarters of my colleagues are foreigners. And almost all of them have a mother tongue that is not one of the Germanic languages. It is often difficult for them. Depending on where they came from, their first foreign language at school was French or Arabic, sometimes even English. I always tell them: "Ignore the grammar for now and learn the vocabulary. Then you will understand the others and the others will understand you. It doesn't matter if you sound like Master Yoda." And I stand by that. What use is knowing grammar if you don't know 3/4 of the words? That's what happened to me in English class. I knew the grammar, but was too lazy to learn vocabulary and that was my downfall.
The most important thing I have learned when I was uproad (language school in England for three weeks): Think in the language that you want to learn. Vocabulary is important as it's the pillar of understanding. I wasn't good in English. I really hated the language. As someone with dyslexic and ADD learning another language can be really painful. But after the language school I could understand English so much better. And I fell in love with the language. Also it helps a lot if you read (book, newspaper) and listen (TV, RUclips videos, audio books). That's why you learn vocabulary first. Then grammer. And then pratice, pratice, pratice. And if you know people that can also speaks that language, ask them to help you out and talk with them in that language. It doesn't matter if your grammar isn't perfect or the sentences are simple. That you can understand what other people say and people understand you is so much more important.
@@Moonchild0 Yes. Practice, practice, practice. Many tourists or newcomers say: "I don't dare speak broken German. They'll probably laugh at me." That's nonsense. If a German smiles at that moment, it's because he's happy that someone is trying to speak German instead of being spoken to in English. It's the same in Italy, Spain or Greece. If you try to say simple things in the local language as a tourist, you'll usually put a smile on the other person's face.
@@danielmcbriel1192 As we in German say, speak with "hand and foot" (=gestures). Be respectful and polite. And maybe you will be surprised how helpful people are. They want to help you. Sometimes they smile and wait because they let you breath and think about your next sentence, so you don't feel under pressure. I'm from Austria and we have many guest workers, usually Hungary, Czech and so on. So most of them don't talk German that well. But at least they try it. And I think that's why we are more friendlier towards tourists. But I do think it is different if you visit the country vs you live there as a foreigner. And I do think the better you get at a language the more people will pay attention towards grammer and the phrasing. Especially if you live in a foreign country.
Modern English is streamlined, making it quite efficient and at the same time so simple that whole sentences are needed to describe something complex, whereas modern German only needs one word. Put differently, you can express yourself much more precisely in German than in English.
Yes, isn`t it fascinating? It`s really mind blowing!!! You see once more that we are connected to each other! 😀 In some way I´m not sure what`s better to understand! We Germans learn english in school and hear lots of english speaking music. So it's pure habit to hear English the way you speak it! 🤔Nevertheless, I also understood what was said in the video. It was just a bit too fast at times. You have to hear it very carefully...
Ich war wundernd, falls das würde arbeiten, aber ich finde es mehr verwirrend in Deutsch denn in English. English mit Deutsch Grammatik scheint leichter zu mich denn der ander Weg einrund. English: I had myself asked, whether this function would, but I find it confusinger on German than on English. English with German grammar shines to me lighter to be as aroundturned. lol. My brain is dead.
The thing is, that old english is much closer to its germanic origin. Modern english was also influenced a lot by the french language because of William the Conqueror. After his conquest, two different languages from two different language families (germanic and romance) existed at the same time in the same country. The common people were still speaking old english while the language spoken by the aristocracy was french. Over the centuries those languages merged together in what today is modern english.
It is not easier or better to understand. But we all start learning English at such a young age, many people are able to develop a feeling for the language and the grammar (eventhough most Like myself are both as perfect as nativ speakers). It just feels wrong but I could understand what he was saying. I liked the translations like shield toad (Schildkröte) which means turte, toothdoctor (Zahnarzt) which is the German word for dentist or whater cooker (Wasserkocher) which is the translation for kettle. These examples show how literal the German language is.
I feel like for people who are still learning English in school, this would maybe be easier to understand, but for me personally it's harder because my English is at a level where I don't think in German and then translate it, I just speak intuitive like you do. So now when I listen to that video I feel like I have to do mental gymnastics because I listen to it the same way a native English speaker would and when the sentence doesn't make sense in English I'm having to translate it literally to figure out what the original German sentence was and then I understand it. Without the German subtitles I definitely would have struggled to understand some of the things he was saying.
2:40 If people still question if english is originally a germanic language. You make a really good point there actually. Never thought about it this way but it makes total sense.
If you want to learn about the closed to English version of German we have here check out the video "Hochdeutsch vs. Niederdeutsch" from "easy German" skip the first 3 minutes and you will get tons of words in high German - low German/Frisian and English in comparision. "Plattdeutsch (lower German) and Frisian are still grammatically and vocabulary wise closer to English than standard German so you would be able to understand some part of it.
..for me, as a German, it was fun to listen to this German grammar-English...right at the start of this "conversation" a constant smile crept in...but, although I understood everything when it was spoken out, I prefer the sound of the native spoken English language...so by the way, your voice and way of speaking, the tone of your voice is great to listen to, thx
Fascinating, how fascinated you are.... ;-) For me as a German this version of English sounds funny but interresting. Did you notice that in that grammar also the time cases of future, present and past are structured different and common English would use more of that "I am ...ing" things which would also be understood in German but used very rarely. Bonus Info: Also the numbers above 12 were structured like German in Old English: 24 would be "twenty-four" in modern English, but "four-and-twenty" in old English which matches the German concept.
Very interessting about that is the Great Vowel Shift happend for english. I don't find the video I saw, but there are many were you can see the relationship between german and englisch.
crazy and funny. 😅🤣🤣it sounds like old english because our languages have the same root. and i think you are right that the structure of modern english has been influenced by french. greetings from germany
I am from Germany but to hear English in German grammar sounds weird to me too. But it’s a good method for English speakers to understand how German grammar works without knowing any rules. Just read the weird, word by word translated text in English, while hearing the German audio of the same text. It’s an awesome method for learning languages.
When I started learning English we had no media available to listen to it regularly. So I am not sure if my experience is still valid for younger generations but when I started learning English I tended to use the German word order in sentences and had to learn to switch them around when speaking English. By now it often is second nature. But you might still pick it up in some of my sentences especially when I am tired.
German me, no it does not sound wrong. I learned English very young and just didnt really develop a feel for how the structure of any of these should be. I essentially still dont know how some stuff is structured neither in German nor in English
Having had the misfortune to read Macbeth in german High school ( I had English as one of three "majors"), I can agree with the statement on the thumbnail. English until Shakespearean times was grammar-wise very often very much like German.
I was raised bilingual, german and english and it's hurting my brain 😆i hear the english in a german grammar and my brain can't choose a language. I'm malfunctioning right now 😆
Your question: I am not able to answer it properly. It is difficult to explain: it sounds very funny, although I am used to the sentence structure as a German, but nevertheless it awfully sounds wrong. When I began to learn English in school our teacher always had to correct us concerning exactly these things: the sentence structure, the difference between "to get" and "to become" and so much more what is in the video as well, but after years of mainly hearing English it became kind of natural to me. Because of this this video is hilarious, as a German "you laugh you dead".😂
This might be easier to get along with for someone just starting our learning English. But you eventually get a feel for the language and if you are at least somewhat good at it, you start to just instinctively know what is correct and what isn't. And once you reach that - the more talented kids now do that usually at around the age of 9 or 10 - this would start to sound awkward and feel wrong.
Old english and old german or old high german are very similar and if we would speak it, we would partly understand each other. There are also some old dialects in german wich are close to old english, but they are dying out.
This is the way students in Germany start translating in class 5. I often heard sentences like these in my years as an English tea cher in Germany. But if you hae been learning English for a whil e uit soznds weird and it is hard to understand.
Btw, 'tooth doctor helper' (Zahnarzthelfer/in) is no longer the official job description. It's now called 'Zahnmedizinische/r Fachangestellte/r, shortened to ZFA. The english literal translation is 'tooth medical subject (or field) employee'. To answer your question: It does not make structurely any sense at all. We learn english from a quite early age here, nowadays kids learn it from 1st or 2nd grade even. We learn the basics of grammar at the latest in the second year of our english education, plus all the exposure to english grammar in all the media. I can't really follow while listening tbh, cause it's just so wrong, and when i read the german subtitles, my brain automatically translates it into proper english sentences, which is completely out of sync with what i'm hearing.
In my opinion both ways are structurally easy but you have to know them really good. I’m German and I can understand both grammatically structures really good
As a german who learned english in online gaming in the 2000´s over the internet from murricans, i dont know grammar.... xD But i sometimes have problems going back from my english brain to german in grammar when i change the language. German with english grammar is fun. ^^
You're right, Old English is closer to German than to New English. There are a couple of similarities in word order, conjugation, and inflection. There are some interesting videos from, iirc, RobWords and Ecolinguist about that.
Interesting to see someone having the same reaction to this video as I did. That it resembles old english is due to old english being related to old german. I'm sure if someone spoke the german from 200 years ago, it would feel just as weird to me in many aspects. For the question if I understood it better: Not really. I understood it well enough but since I'm used to regular english, it felt very off. If i had to describe it, It kind of was the uncanny valley effect just in linguistics - meaning, while everything seemed similar enough to understand, I still can tell it is 'incorrect'. To be fair though, at the end of the day, the way he spoke was good enough to communicate and that is what language is about - so it would work out to speak like this IRL, i suppose.
thing is, when you learn a foreign language, like as a german -english-, you kinda learn the sound of the words and general phonetics in combination with the grammar of the language, which is why native language grammar in a foreign language you speak just sounds so damn off putting because you never hear it with these words... ever xD
6:00 I wouldn't say it makes more sense structurally, simply because of the way we learn english. Since every language comes with their own grammar and structure, it kinda only makes sense together. That being said, it probably also depends on the level of english other germans speak. When I listen to english or speak it myself, I don't have to translate it into german anymore for me to make sense of it, so because of that, the english grammar just comes naturally with it and the sudden switch up basicly messes up "muscle memory" of both worlds. It's also worth nothing that, while the title of the video says it's just english with german grammar, they also for some reason make up english words which are direct german translation, so instead of saying turtle, they say shieldfrog or shieldtoad, I don't recall exactly. So yeah, making up words that don't exist just feed into the confusion. It would probably be a lot easier if they didn't make up words, pretty sure. So long story short, you speaking normal english is definitely easier and more coherent for me personally.
I had a hard time understanding them and I am german. Germans, along with some dutch and french settlers exported their vocabulary to their new home. Example: The low-german word "Wier" became the english "wire". But honestly I do have no clue why the grammar changed over the centuries. A guess: Because it self better heared has as that what we in the video heared have. XD
The structure of english makes more sense, is more easy, because you dont have to wait till the end of a sentence to find out, what it is about. At least in the most cases. Simple example: "I will go to a bar" vs "Ich werde in eine Bar gehen". In english you first learn the he will go somewere, so you know about his action. Than you learn, that he will go to the bar. In german you learn first the he will 'whatever do' with or at a bar and only the final word tells you, that he will go there, not set it on fire or anything else at or with that bar. In such a simple sentence it might not be a problem, but in longer sentences it could be hard do follow up till the last word tells you what the action it is all about.
Mindblow part II: English is Angelsächsisch (Anglo-Saxon) and this is literally northgerman, BEFORE the danes took over the cumbric island. Some older people still speak this anglo-saxon dialect. There are just a few soundshifts between old english (anglo-saxony) and the new german. Example word "mother" and "Mutter" tt was once a đ and became a th! Back then the o was more spelled like an u, written like ou, like in "you". And if you wonder that some natice english speakers can speak pretty nice german, here is why: You can find many difficult letters in english aswell. Like Ö: the sound of the u when you spell "turn" Ä like the a in "cat". Ü like an u in "supreme". You also can find a soft ch (ich, Milch, dich) hidden in the h of "huge" or "human". The harsher ch (acht, Wacht, wach) is like the sound between c and r in the word "acre". Celtic tribes who had their origin in Hessen, Germany, brought other german influences to Great Britain, to Ireland, Wales, Scotland... and also other words than anglo-saxons did.
Literrally, the old English and low German(old Saxon/Plattdeutsch) still spoken in northern Germany would be translated grammarly exactly what those two are saying in the video. The sentence structure in German like those from Scandinavians have similar gramma structure similar to English/and old Saxon(plattduetsch) than French. What makes High German/Standard German so different to English today are the "separable verbs" and subordinate clauses. With seperable verbs, you have to wait till someone finish speaking before the sentence makes a full sense of what is being said or expresssed. Otherwise, sentences involving standard verbs can litterally be the same as in English.
German is my first language, and without the subtitles it is super confusing. I am used to have to jumble around words in my head to make sense, and when that is not need the words just run in the wrong direction in my head, if that makes sense.
Mindblonwing... I learnd 'so called' english at School... Old Oxford english. Yes, MaAm, excuse me Sir.... Realy a problem, by Immigration for holliday 🤣🤣🤣
When I was taking my first steps in English, my mother gave me the questionable advice that I should deliberately use simple and silly German grammar to get a good feel for how to speak English properly 😂 And she wasn't entirely wrong.
German here: The structure only makes sense in German, in English it completely throws me off. It sounds just as strange, awkward, stiff and not too likeable. Weird, but true. I love both languages. Having studied old English I can tell you that you are right. The two languages are very related to each other (Gemanic), but have developed in different directions. Also I realize how complicated and difficult it might be for learners of German that the verb is always at the end of the sentence. It actually makes more sense to put in the beginning like you do. Odd having to wait and recall the whole pre-sentence. 😂 But in German it just flows along, one is just used to it.
English has a different word order then german. That was my biggest struggle in school while learning english. My teacher always wrote under my essays "S P O !!! Word order!" In german we even can switch the word order in a sentence, but it still would be totally understandable. Like "Morgen werde ich mir ein Auto kaufen." vs "Ich werde mir morgen ein Auto kaufen."😉
old english sounds a lot like german, because its how english came to be: germanic invaders (the anglo saxons. saxony and lower saxony are still names of german states) took over a large part of the british isles, displacing the keltic languages to wales and scottland (welsh and gaelic nowdays) with a low german accent that adopted sone jeltic characteristics. thats old english. modern low-german speakers can comprehend old english very well. later, french influence on england changed the old enhlish grammar and wording to a more french like rythm. so modern english is low german with some celtic words as well as accent, and a lot of french grammar.
when i speak and listen to english, my brain usually thinks in english and then i have english grammar activated. That's why this is super difficult for me as a German to understand. It hardly makes sense, at least in my brain. Worse than yoda
No I was like how weird is our german grammar :) .. it never occoured to me before. But when I watched this video, after a few minutes I thought the german grammar is realy twisted. But it somehow makes sense for the german words. German with english grammar works way better then english with german grammar. But funny side anecdote I consumed so much media in english and read in so many english speaking forums that english can become as natural as german for my brain. For example when watching a show in english my brain just thinks english then and doesn't need to translate. One time I watched a show for quite a long period already that my brain completely 100% switched to english. I then thought about a collegue at work (who is english) and I thought "well, I am sure he would watch the show in english"... a few seconds later I realized " wtf I am watching it in english already". It was a bit of a weird experience, because at that moment (for a brief period of time) my brain worked like it was my native language. The only part where it is a bit of a struggle is when I need to speak english, then I need a bit of adjustment time before I can get completely into it. I also realized in the last couple of months that I struggle more and more with the german articles, I suddenly start to mix up the articles, that never happened earlier in my life, but since I work with more and more greece, english or american people at work, my grammar in terms of articles became pretty loose. Instead of "das Messer" I say like "den Messer" or something like that. So my german starts to become worse, even though it's my native language. (And usually my grammar was always quite good in the past)
It's absolutely not easier to understand. However, that is just because we learn English in a (halfway) proper way. One of the first things for me to learn in any other language is, not to translate word by word, but instead learn the flow and the common phrases. Maybe it would be easier to understand if one would only have learned with a dictionary and close to zero interaction/conversations with proper English.
This is exactly structured like a German would say it, but it’s even more confusing for these, who had English in school and learned it the proper way. But this works the other way around as well.
As a german i understand it very well, the problem is i also understand english very well so it sounded like a mashup of german and english. Very scary how similar it sounds to ye old english.😂😂😂. And yes i realized this back in school. A lot and i mean probably 80% of english words are old german words. I mean like plattdeutsch, my region is barmerplatt. So yes i was a lucky one just had to learn the grammar.😅
The old English comes from the north of Germany. There were the Angles and Saxons who crossed over to Great Britain and then there were the Anglo-Saxons.
To me, it sounds like gibberish. There are two reasons for this: First, English is missing the grammatical markers that indicate what part of the sentence a certain word is. With the English word order, that's fine, as word order dictates it. But using German word order, that information is missing. They also decided to use the base forms of the verbs with the "to", which makes it hard to follow as there are "natural" "to"s in those sentences, too. In German, the base forms of the verbs have an "-en" ending. Second, they purposefully translated a couple of words weirdly. For example, "werden" as "to become" instead of "will". Those two meanings of "werden" as as closely related as the "will" in "last will and testament" and "I'll go" in English. You don't think of them as being the same word, so even translating the sentence back won't get you the right result right away.
wow, I never thought about like that. It actually sounds like old english or middle english or maxbe even a bit like shakespeare early modern english. but since I am so used to proper english this is quite confusing and not helpful at all.
Old English was a Germanic Language. The grammar changed over time due to French and Norse influences. Low German spoken by some still today can talk to Old English speakers quite well.
There are some things that have no adequate equivalent in English, so the directly translated version sounds way off. "ich kümmere mich um etwas" (I'm taking care of something) includes somewhat redundantly who is doing the caring: I myself take care of, you yourself take care of. But at the same time English distinguishes between "take care of" and "care about" So the German sentence becomes a mess when you keep the German quirks but don't add the English ones (or vice versa) "I myself care about animals" doesn't sound like a job description but more like being concerned about animals.
That´s because English and German share the same gand parent - ancient Germanic. That was a language spoken in today´s region of Germany by the Germanic tribes. 2 of these tribes (the Anglos & the Saxons) with just different dialects immigrated to the isle of Britain about 1500y ago and started mixing thair dialects which became Anglo-Saxon (the prototype of modern English) or later just "Anglish". After adding some French/Latin (thanks to William the Conquerer winning the battle of Hastings) as well as a few skandinavian words (thanks to the Vikings) etc + the great vowel shift and some minor changes and developments over time..... we got the English we have today! The germanic language of the tribes that stayed put in "Germany" just evolved into modern day German without turning into a "language-stew" 🤭 ...and that´s why this video sounds like old English to you 🥳
I have no idea what so many people weird find. As fluent germanspeaker have ich therewith no problem, him to understand. He speaks whole normal, my meaning after.
English is a germanic language. But has, in comparison to continental germanic languages, a simplified grammar. English eloquence is based on the usage of norman, frensh, latin or greek terms. German eloquence is based on word order, presyllables, word form and neologism. In music there would be 2 examples: Peter Fox - Fieber (about summer heat) Das Lumpenpack - Kann es sein dass du dumm bist (about insulting someone)
🖤❤️💛 Vielleicht mal die direkte Übersetzung der Songtexte von deutsch auf englisch, dann probieren, ob man es als old english ins modern english übersetzen kann?? 🤔😅✌️
To german me, having learned, read, listened to, wrote and sometimes spoken english for about 30 years now, german grammar in english confuses me. It makes it harder for me to follow what's being said.
'eight, five and thirty' had me laughing. It's how we say it in german for some reason.
Same for me as an Austrian (40 Jahre Englischerfahrung)! 🙂
As a German, German always felt natural to me, and I didn’t think much about the structure. I always had a sense that the English structure is more logical. Hearing the German structure in English makes it so obvious, how bad it really is. As a computer scientist, I would have never designed it that way. Now I’m wondering, how good the English structure really is. I bet, it is much clearer, than the German one. But if we reversed the experiment, maybe we would also find some weird patterns.
@@zark4711 Da kann man sehen wie unterschiedlich die Geschmäcker sind. Ich finde nicht unbedingt, dass die Struktur des Englischen logischer ist sondern einfach weniger komplex (wobei mir wiederum manche Relativsatz-Konstrukte im Englischen etwas absurd erscheinen). Aber ich bin eben auch ein Fan des Lateinischen. 🙂
Der deutschen Sprache kann man, wie ich finde, zugutehalten, dass durch den auffallend unterschiedlichen Aufbau von Haupt- und Nebensätzen diese besser zur Geltung kommen.
Ja, das weniger Komplexe meine ich. Ich finde das klarer. Aber wenn wir Sprache beliebig weit herunterreduzieren, verlieren wir dabei möglicherweise die Individualität oder die Flexibilität, Nuancen ausdrücken zu können.
@@zark4711 Sehr gut auf den Punkt gebracht. So sehe ich es auch. 👍
I'm german and i would be completely lost without the subtitles
As a german, this was very confusing! XD
Same.
Ich habe nichts verstanden. Zum Glück gab es Untertitel.😊
Dem kann ich mich nur anschließen 😂 Ohne den Untertitel hätte ich den Sinn des Satzes nicht wirklich verstanden 😅
same for me. at this point, I know to much english to feel comtable with this :D
Das ist ganz normal. Weil wir, die auch Englisch verstehen, die englische Grammatik kennen und können. Wird uns ja in der Schule eingetrichtert. Bei mir damals ab der 5. Klasse, heute ja meist schon früher. Wer dann so sprach, also Englisch mit deutscher Grammatik, hat dann aber den Zorn der Lehrer auf sich gezogen.
@@eggihellwach Ich finde es witzig und um auf seine Frage zu antworten, "Why does it sound like the old historic way of speaking English?" ist einfach zu beantworten, denn, "Englisch is an West Germanic language", laut Wikipedia.
The similarities of Old English and German are certainly a result of all the Germanic tribes like the Angles and Saxons that settled in Britain and heavily influenced or even created the language.
Old English was basically Old Low German with a bit of an accent. At that time all fo the North Sea Germans and the Anglo-Saxons could still understand one another without any problems.
You are right: that can make you Nobody so fast after.
Gruß aus Angeln.
My great grandparents were ablso to talk with Frisians dutch and english through Plattdeutsch (flat german). It was essentially the language around the north sea
WORD 😅👌🏼
I had an Seminar about Old English at University and I'm pretty sure it was easier for me as a German to understand the texts we read than for a native english speaker.
As a German they talk basically like kids learning English for the first time often do. You usually learn the words pretty quickly, but grammar is harder.
what? xD I'm pretty sure you confused that.... you usually learn grammar really easily and vocab takes a while.... you need less than 10 grammar rules to communicate in english but at least a few hundred words.... you usually learn a few key words first but thats it mate.... pretty sure 9/10 are more confident in their grammar skills after a year of learning than their vocabulary
@@Foatizenknechtl No, that's true. You learn the words pretty quickly. Lots of people at our school spoke like that. That always caused a lot of trouble with our teacher because she had studied English in England.
But we also talk about "real British English grammar" and not "enough to communicate". And I went to several schools in different states. It was the same everywhere. Maybe it's different today.
I know this for sure because I was the exception. I could only learn words in context. Just memorizing the words was never my thing. So I rarely got a better than a 4 in vocabulary tests, often even a 6. But in exams I got an 1 or 2.
@Sc4v3r how would you define "THE words" ...? Bc learning that in english you just put an -ing at the end of the verb is a hell of a lot easier than whatever words youre speaking of, i'm sure 😂
In modern German we avoid to use forms of tun. English and German forked apart. People of Germany and early English speakers could understand each other .
Whenever I write or speak English as a german native, I don't need to think a lot about the basic structure of it. I don't have to "translate" it in my mind.
After years of using the language, it comes naturally.
But whenever it's mixed and mingled like in this video, it's way harder.
I gotta repeat the joke from the original video: To Germans, Yoda was the normal one 😂
The Anglo-Saxons came to England around the 5th century and influenced the laguage a lot at the time.
I only learned a bit about Old English in school, mostly Beowulf and the Lord's prayer, but yeah the structure does remind me more of German than modern English.
Well, as a German who is very fluent in German I would bet that compared to any regular English person I can read Chaucer more easily
* very fluent also in English …lol
2:55 theire is a video where a plattgerman talks in plattgerman with a reporter that speaks old english and they understand each other without Problem.
English is an german dialect in final . Forefathers from english people are Angel , Saxons , and Jütes from North Germany and danemark . 😊
Shakespeare's plays and the King James Bible are a lot closer to German when it comes to grammar and word order.
"Thou hast" -- Du hast
"Thou shalt" - Du sollst
Some time ago I heard that in some place in England, probably in the southeast, people to this day say:"How bist?", not "how are you" which in German would be: "Wie bist (Du)?"
You will find the word's in Plattdeutsch
I can say that it is terribly confusing to listen to this in English and it sounds WRONG, while reading it in German at the same time and it reads CORRECT. 🤪
(No idea if it would sound more normal if I didn't speak English.)
100% true
Ja es würde vollkommen korrekt klingen, wenn man deutsch spricht.
If you show the Lord's Prayer (because there are rare text that didn't change for centuries) written in old english, most germans will identify it as "Vater Unser" (Father our) immediately. English is a (West-)germanic language. The anglosaxons moved to england and in that time the languages spoken in england and especially northern germany were pretty much the same. Several hundred years changed a lot, of course. But the connection is still there. Plattdeutsch (nrthern german dialect/language) still has a lot similarities to english language.
It would have made more sense to me in 5th and 6th class, when i had to learn english. Now it sounds confusing
mhm thinking about it i think you are correct... seems like as german and english are related languages that english partly got infiltrated by latin grammer like french spanish portuguese or italian are
German still has 3 words for "you" ("du", "dir" and "dich") and "euch" for "you (plural)". Old English had 2 words for "you" ("thee" and "thou") and a word for "you (plural)" called "ye". In modern English, the only pluralised word for "you" that I can think of is the American "y'all".
That's correct. I am reading the KJV 1611 Bible, it's written in Shakespeare English and more similar to German. I think it's even more structured than modern English. And sometimes the phrase positions are like in German. 😊
Plus the formal version of du: Sie!
@@AmarthwenNarmacil sie, ihr and ihnen, even! Possibly even more.
they sound familiar to old english, bc the dutch language, german language and the english language come from the same old language tree (west-germanic), it's quite interesting because if you listen carefully some words sound alike (especially in old english) ´drie-drei-three' (dutch-german-english), (we in the netherlands have the same structure as the german language) :D, ye we have to translate english in our minds to this tructure (like in the video) but to me.. my english is well enough to understand all types of english xD
some people study the origin of the original language (where it exactly came from ) we never know for certain, what we do know that trading has also impacted the usage of the languages overtime "sprachbunds" like the slavic countries have (they dont have the same language tree ) they sound very alike because of this sprachbunds, maybe overtime the structure changed due to tradings with other countries (old english, to the english nowadays used in everyday life)
I study this at univercity and it's really interesting! I stumbled upon your videos and found them very enjoyable :D I hope this comment finds you and answers your question
I speak english since 20 something years, this viedo just fried my brain. I actually had to read the subtitles, to understand some of the things he said.
Hi Dwayne, I have your video very much enjoyed! It was very interesting from the similarities with Old English to learn. I think they have also a different ending for each person had, like "though hast". It is exciting how themselves languages develop in the run of time!
another entertaining video ... thanks Dwayne!
Some laugh is what we need these days!
As a German, speaking a solid, but not perfect English (and for sure making a lot of mistakes grammar-wise) ...: it sounds odd, listening to these 1:1 grammer sentences.
And yes, we all agree that songs are often "lost in translation" ... but: I guess not due to the grammar that much, but more due to the meaning of words. Great Lyrics use strong words and combine them strongly.
An English translation of a German song can often give only the bare meaning, but loosing power.... and vice versa.
Yes it's quite similar to old English.
There was a german woman (Vera F. Birkenbihl) who invented a method to learn languages by the syntax of it with word by word translations.
At some areas of Germany the old people understood old english. They spoke 'friesisch' and this ist very simular to old english.
Ther is a Lot of german blood in the english Royal line.💪😉
Absolutely! The Royals are basically German. Mountbatten having been „anglicized“ from Battenburg. Still Germans are very looked down upon in the UK.
Yes my grandma speaks Plattdeutsch and can understand Dutch and English.
You got yourself a subscription, man. Very funny, you're super likeable. 🎉❤
It's 100% way easier for me to listen to you (you got a very good pronunciation) than to listen to this germanized English. I'm not even sure if I would understand it perfectly without subs. It surely is giving me a headache.
At a certani point, you get a feeling for another language, so you know how certain elements have to be used and what is the correct word order.
Three quarters of my colleagues are foreigners. And almost all of them have a mother tongue that is not one of the Germanic languages. It is often difficult for them. Depending on where they came from, their first foreign language at school was French or Arabic, sometimes even English.
I always tell them: "Ignore the grammar for now and learn the vocabulary. Then you will understand the others and the others will understand you. It doesn't matter if you sound like Master Yoda."
And I stand by that. What use is knowing grammar if you don't know 3/4 of the words?
That's what happened to me in English class. I knew the grammar, but was too lazy to learn vocabulary and that was my downfall.
The most important thing I have learned when I was uproad (language school in England for three weeks): Think in the language that you want to learn. Vocabulary is important as it's the pillar of understanding.
I wasn't good in English. I really hated the language. As someone with dyslexic and ADD learning another language can be really painful. But after the language school I could understand English so much better. And I fell in love with the language. Also it helps a lot if you read (book, newspaper) and listen (TV, RUclips videos, audio books).
That's why you learn vocabulary first. Then grammer. And then pratice, pratice, pratice. And if you know people that can also speaks that language, ask them to help you out and talk with them in that language. It doesn't matter if your grammar isn't perfect or the sentences are simple. That you can understand what other people say and people understand you is so much more important.
@@Moonchild0
Yes. Practice, practice, practice.
Many tourists or newcomers say: "I don't dare speak broken German. They'll probably laugh at me." That's nonsense. If a German smiles at that moment, it's because he's happy that someone is trying to speak German instead of being spoken to in English.
It's the same in Italy, Spain or Greece. If you try to say simple things in the local language as a tourist, you'll usually put a smile on the other person's face.
@@danielmcbriel1192 As we in German say, speak with "hand and foot" (=gestures). Be respectful and polite. And maybe you will be surprised how helpful people are. They want to help you. Sometimes they smile and wait because they let you breath and think about your next sentence, so you don't feel under pressure.
I'm from Austria and we have many guest workers, usually Hungary, Czech and so on. So most of them don't talk German that well. But at least they try it. And I think that's why we are more friendlier towards tourists.
But I do think it is different if you visit the country vs you live there as a foreigner.
And I do think the better you get at a language the more people will pay attention towards grammer and the phrasing. Especially if you live in a foreign country.
Nice to see you having an epiphany!
Modern English is streamlined, making it quite efficient and at the same time so simple that whole sentences are needed to describe something complex, whereas modern German only needs one word. Put differently, you can express yourself much more precisely in German than in English.
You are right. Many Germans, especially younger ones, are not even able to speak simple German properly.
Yes, isn`t it fascinating? It`s really mind blowing!!! You see once more that we are connected to each other! 😀
In some way I´m not sure what`s better to understand! We Germans learn english in school and hear lots of english speaking music. So it's pure habit to hear English the way you speak it!
🤔Nevertheless, I also understood what was said in the video. It was just a bit too fast at times. You have to hear it very carefully...
Reminds me of the German dub of "Asterix in Britain", but in reverse :D
Your facial expression in this video is extra cute! 😄
This works in both direction..
Ja, in der Tat es tut.
@@Eurician 😁👍
Ich war wundernd, falls das würde arbeiten, aber ich finde es mehr verwirrend in Deutsch denn in English. English mit Deutsch Grammatik scheint leichter zu mich denn der ander Weg einrund.
English: I had myself asked, whether this function would, but I find it confusinger on German than on English. English with German grammar shines to me lighter to be as aroundturned.
lol. My brain is dead.
@@ssergium.4520 Than try to read old English text. It is more like German than the modern English.
The thing is, that old english is much closer to its germanic origin. Modern english was also influenced a lot by the french language because of William the Conqueror. After his conquest, two different languages from two different language families (germanic and romance) existed at the same time in the same country. The common people were still speaking old english while the language spoken by the aristocracy was french. Over the centuries those languages merged together in what today is modern english.
Don't forget the Old Norse. There are several hundred terms in modern English that derive directly from Old Norse
They sound like Yoda 😂
It is not easier or better to understand. But we all start learning English at such a young age, many people are able to develop a feeling for the language and the grammar (eventhough most Like myself are both as perfect as nativ speakers). It just feels wrong but I could understand what he was saying.
I liked the translations like shield toad (Schildkröte) which means turte, toothdoctor (Zahnarzt) which is the German word for dentist or whater cooker (Wasserkocher) which is the translation for kettle.
These examples show how literal the German language is.
I feel like for people who are still learning English in school, this would maybe be easier to understand, but for me personally it's harder because my English is at a level where I don't think in German and then translate it, I just speak intuitive like you do. So now when I listen to that video I feel like I have to do mental gymnastics because I listen to it the same way a native English speaker would and when the sentence doesn't make sense in English I'm having to translate it literally to figure out what the original German sentence was and then I understand it. Without the German subtitles I definitely would have struggled to understand some of the things he was saying.
As a German, to me this sounds cringe and totally wrong. Perhaps because we all learned English the propper way.
2:40 If people still question if english is originally a germanic language. You make a really good point there actually. Never thought about it this way but it makes total sense.
We put the verb at the end
What Dwayne means is actually middle English, and yes, it was more grammatically similar to German than modern English.
If you want to learn about the closed to English version of German we have here check out the video "Hochdeutsch vs. Niederdeutsch" from "easy German" skip the first 3 minutes and you will get tons of words in high German - low German/Frisian and English in comparision. "Plattdeutsch (lower German) and Frisian are still grammatically and vocabulary wise closer to English than standard German so you would be able to understand some part of it.
My head starts banging, when i am listening 🤣🤪😂
..for me, as a German, it was fun to listen to this German grammar-English...right at the start of this "conversation" a constant smile crept in...but, although I understood everything when it was spoken out, I prefer the sound of the native spoken English language...so by the way, your voice and way of speaking, the tone of your voice is great to listen to, thx
Fascinating, how fascinated you are.... ;-) For me as a German this version of English sounds funny but interresting. Did you notice that in that grammar also the time cases of future, present and past are structured different and common English would use more of that "I am ...ing" things which would also be understood in German but used very rarely.
Bonus Info: Also the numbers above 12 were structured like German in Old English: 24 would be "twenty-four" in modern English, but "four-and-twenty" in old English which matches the German concept.
Very interessting about that is the Great Vowel Shift happend for english. I don't find the video I saw, but there are many were you can see the relationship between german and englisch.
crazy and funny. 😅🤣🤣it sounds like old english because our languages have the same root. and i think you are right that the structure of modern english has been influenced by french. greetings from germany
I am from Germany but to hear English in German grammar sounds weird to me too. But it’s a good method for English speakers to understand how German grammar works without knowing any rules. Just read the weird, word by word translated text in English, while hearing the German audio of the same text. It’s an awesome method for learning languages.
When I started learning English we had no media available to listen to it regularly. So I am not sure if my experience is still valid for younger generations but when I started learning English I tended to use the German word order in sentences and had to learn to switch them around when speaking English. By now it often is second nature. But you might still pick it up in some of my sentences especially when I am tired.
German me, no it does not sound wrong. I learned English very young and just didnt really develop a feel for how the structure of any of these should be. I essentially still dont know how some stuff is structured neither in German nor in English
Having had the misfortune to read Macbeth in german High school ( I had English as one of three "majors"), I can agree with the statement on the thumbnail. English until Shakespearean times was grammar-wise very often very much like German.
As someone who lives with an secondary school teacher, that's what students exams of 6th graders looks.
First it was hard to understand, but now I understand it.
I was raised bilingual, german and english and it's hurting my brain 😆i hear the english in a german grammar and my brain can't choose a language. I'm malfunctioning right now 😆
Pretty accurate summary: funny, but makes a lot of sense (also sometimes not really) ; )
Your question: I am not able to answer it properly. It is difficult to explain: it sounds very funny, although I am used to the sentence structure as a German, but nevertheless it awfully sounds wrong. When I began to learn English in school our teacher always had to correct us concerning exactly these things: the sentence structure, the difference between "to get" and "to become" and so much more what is in the video as well, but after years of mainly hearing English it became kind of natural to me. Because of this this video is hilarious, as a German "you laugh you dead".😂
I am German and I have to admit... I would be lost without the subtitles 😁
"I only understand train station" 🤪
This might be easier to get along with for someone just starting our learning English. But you eventually get a feel for the language and if you are at least somewhat good at it, you start to just instinctively know what is correct and what isn't.
And once you reach that - the more talented kids now do that usually at around the age of 9 or 10 - this would start to sound awkward and feel wrong.
Old english and old german or old high german are very similar and if we would speak it, we would partly understand each other. There are also some old dialects in german wich are close to old english, but they are dying out.
This is the way students in Germany start translating in class 5. I often heard sentences like these in my years as an English tea cher in Germany. But if you hae been learning English for a whil e uit soznds weird and it is hard to understand.
Btw, 'tooth doctor helper' (Zahnarzthelfer/in) is no longer the official job description. It's now called 'Zahnmedizinische/r Fachangestellte/r, shortened to ZFA. The english literal translation is 'tooth medical subject (or field) employee'.
To answer your question: It does not make structurely any sense at all. We learn english from a quite early age here, nowadays kids learn it from 1st or 2nd grade even. We learn the basics of grammar at the latest in the second year of our english education, plus all the exposure to english grammar in all the media. I can't really follow while listening tbh, cause it's just so wrong, and when i read the german subtitles, my brain automatically translates it into proper english sentences, which is completely out of sync with what i'm hearing.
In my opinion both ways are structurally easy but you have to know them really good. I’m German and I can understand both grammatically structures really good
As a german who learned english in online gaming in the 2000´s over the internet from murricans, i dont know grammar.... xD
But i sometimes have problems going back from my english brain to german in grammar when i change the language. German with english grammar is fun. ^^
You're right, Old English is closer to German than to New English. There are a couple of similarities in word order, conjugation, and inflection. There are some interesting videos from, iirc, RobWords and Ecolinguist about that.
Interesting to see someone having the same reaction to this video as I did. That it resembles old english is due to old english being related to old german. I'm sure if someone spoke the german from 200 years ago, it would feel just as weird to me in many aspects.
For the question if I understood it better: Not really. I understood it well enough but since I'm used to regular english, it felt very off. If i had to describe it, It kind of was the uncanny valley effect just in linguistics - meaning, while everything seemed similar enough to understand, I still can tell it is 'incorrect'.
To be fair though, at the end of the day, the way he spoke was good enough to communicate and that is what language is about - so it would work out to speak like this IRL, i suppose.
thing is, when you learn a foreign language, like as a german -english-, you kinda learn the sound of the words and general phonetics in combination with the grammar of the language, which is why native language grammar in a foreign language you speak just sounds so damn off putting because you never hear it with these words... ever xD
6:00 I wouldn't say it makes more sense structurally, simply because of the way we learn english. Since every language comes with their own grammar and structure, it kinda only makes sense together. That being said, it probably also depends on the level of english other germans speak. When I listen to english or speak it myself, I don't have to translate it into german anymore for me to make sense of it, so because of that, the english grammar just comes naturally with it and the sudden switch up basicly messes up "muscle memory" of both worlds. It's also worth nothing that, while the title of the video says it's just english with german grammar, they also for some reason make up english words which are direct german translation, so instead of saying turtle, they say shieldfrog or shieldtoad, I don't recall exactly. So yeah, making up words that don't exist just feed into the confusion. It would probably be a lot easier if they didn't make up words, pretty sure. So long story short, you speaking normal english is definitely easier and more coherent for me personally.
For me,as a german,I struggle in nearly the most languages,cause of grammar....
I had a hard time understanding them and I am german. Germans, along with some dutch and french settlers exported their vocabulary to their new home. Example: The low-german word "Wier" became the english "wire". But honestly I do have no clue why the grammar changed over the centuries. A guess: Because it self better heared has as that what we in the video heared have. XD
The structure of english makes more sense, is more easy, because you dont have to wait till the end of a sentence to find out, what it is about. At least in the most cases.
Simple example:
"I will go to a bar" vs "Ich werde in eine Bar gehen". In english you first learn the he will go somewere, so you know about his action. Than you learn, that he will go to the bar. In german you learn first the he will 'whatever do' with or at a bar and only the final word tells you, that he will go there, not set it on fire or anything else at or with that bar. In such a simple sentence it might not be a problem, but in longer sentences it could be hard do follow up till the last word tells you what the action it is all about.
Mindblow part II:
English is Angelsächsisch (Anglo-Saxon) and this is literally northgerman, BEFORE the danes took over the cumbric island. Some older people still speak this anglo-saxon dialect.
There are just a few soundshifts between old english (anglo-saxony) and the new german.
Example word "mother" and "Mutter"
tt was once a đ and became a th!
Back then the o was more spelled like an u, written like ou, like in "you".
And if you wonder that some natice english speakers can speak pretty nice german, here is why:
You can find many difficult letters in english aswell.
Like Ö: the sound of the u when you spell "turn"
Ä like the a in "cat".
Ü like an u in "supreme".
You also can find a soft ch (ich, Milch, dich) hidden in the h of "huge" or "human".
The harsher ch (acht, Wacht, wach) is like the sound between c and r in the word "acre".
Celtic tribes who had their origin in Hessen, Germany, brought other german influences to Great Britain, to Ireland, Wales, Scotland... and also other words than anglo-saxons did.
Literrally, the old English and low German(old Saxon/Plattdeutsch) still spoken in northern Germany would be translated grammarly exactly what those two are saying in the video.
The sentence structure in German like those from Scandinavians have similar gramma structure similar to English/and old Saxon(plattduetsch) than French.
What makes High German/Standard German so different to English today are the "separable verbs" and subordinate clauses. With seperable verbs, you have to wait till someone finish speaking before the sentence makes a full sense of what is being said or expresssed. Otherwise, sentences involving standard verbs can litterally be the same as in English.
I got the feeling that this germanized English sounds like a very posh old poetic German. Like Old English. Like people talk in fantasy movies.😮
Like Yoda in Star Wars :-)
I get everything they say, but it's confusing, because I know English too well.😂
German is my first language, and without the subtitles it is super confusing. I am used to have to jumble around words in my head to make sense, and when that is not need the words just run in the wrong direction in my head, if that makes sense.
We are one World, one future... hold on and one past.
Mindblonwing...
I learnd 'so called' english at School...
Old Oxford english.
Yes, MaAm, excuse me Sir....
Realy a problem, by Immigration for holliday 🤣🤣🤣
When I was taking my first steps in English, my mother gave me the questionable advice that I should deliberately use simple and silly German grammar to get a good feel for how to speak English properly 😂 And she wasn't entirely wrong.
German here: The structure only makes sense in German, in English it completely throws me off. It sounds just as strange, awkward, stiff and not too likeable. Weird, but true. I love both languages. Having studied old English I can tell you that you are right. The two languages are very related to each other (Gemanic), but have developed in different directions.
Also I realize how complicated and difficult it might be for learners of German that the verb is always at the end of the sentence. It actually makes more sense to put in the beginning like you do. Odd having to wait and recall the whole pre-sentence. 😂 But in German it just flows along, one is just used to it.
As a native Dutch speaker I must say I see no problem with speaking like this.
English has a different word order then german. That was my biggest struggle in school while learning english. My teacher always wrote under my essays "S P O !!! Word order!"
In german we even can switch the word order in a sentence, but it still would be totally understandable.
Like "Morgen werde ich mir ein Auto kaufen." vs "Ich werde mir morgen ein Auto kaufen."😉
old english sounds a lot like german, because its how english came to be:
germanic invaders (the anglo saxons. saxony and lower saxony are still names of german states) took over a large part of the british isles, displacing the keltic languages to wales and scottland (welsh and gaelic nowdays) with a low german accent that adopted sone jeltic characteristics. thats old english.
modern low-german speakers can comprehend old english very well.
later, french influence on england changed the old enhlish grammar and wording to a more french like rythm.
so modern english is low german with some celtic words as well as accent, and a lot of french grammar.
when i speak and listen to english, my brain usually thinks in english and then i have english grammar activated. That's why this is super difficult for me as a German to understand. It hardly makes sense, at least in my brain. Worse than yoda
No I was like how weird is our german grammar :) .. it never occoured to me before. But when I watched this video, after a few minutes I thought the german grammar is realy twisted. But it somehow makes sense for the german words. German with english grammar works way better then english with german grammar.
But funny side anecdote I consumed so much media in english and read in so many english speaking forums that english can become as natural as german for my brain. For example when watching a show in english my brain just thinks english then and doesn't need to translate. One time I watched a show for quite a long period already that my brain completely 100% switched to english. I then thought about a collegue at work (who is english) and I thought "well, I am sure he would watch the show in english"... a few seconds later I realized " wtf I am watching it in english already". It was a bit of a weird experience, because at that moment (for a brief period of time) my brain worked like it was my native language.
The only part where it is a bit of a struggle is when I need to speak english, then I need a bit of adjustment time before I can get completely into it.
I also realized in the last couple of months that I struggle more and more with the german articles, I suddenly start to mix up the articles, that never happened earlier in my life, but since I work with more and more greece, english or american people at work, my grammar in terms of articles became pretty loose. Instead of "das Messer" I say like "den Messer" or something like that. So my german starts to become worse, even though it's my native language. (And usually my grammar was always quite good in the past)
It's absolutely not easier to understand. However, that is just because we learn English in a (halfway) proper way. One of the first things for me to learn in any other language is, not to translate word by word, but instead learn the flow and the common phrases. Maybe it would be easier to understand if one would only have learned with a dictionary and close to zero interaction/conversations with proper English.
Yep, thats the way you all have to speak right now. Do it! I LOVE IT! XD
This is exactly structured like a German would say it, but it’s even more confusing for these, who had English in school and learned it the proper way.
But this works the other way around as well.
When I saw the video for the first time, it felt natural to me.
No, I had to read the German subtiles past the first minute…
As a german i understand it very well, the problem is i also understand english very well so it sounded like a mashup of german and english. Very scary how similar it sounds to ye old english.😂😂😂. And yes i realized this back in school. A lot and i mean probably 80% of english words are old german words. I mean like plattdeutsch, my region is barmerplatt. So yes i was a lucky one just had to learn the grammar.😅
2:22 You are ther something on the trail
The old English comes from the north of Germany. There were the Angles and Saxons who crossed over to Great Britain and then there were the Anglo-Saxons.
It spunds a bit like when people who don’t really speak English are trying really hard ;)
But it is very confusing
To me, it sounds like gibberish. There are two reasons for this:
First, English is missing the grammatical markers that indicate what part of the sentence a certain word is. With the English word order, that's fine, as word order dictates it. But using German word order, that information is missing. They also decided to use the base forms of the verbs with the "to", which makes it hard to follow as there are "natural" "to"s in those sentences, too. In German, the base forms of the verbs have an "-en" ending.
Second, they purposefully translated a couple of words weirdly. For example, "werden" as "to become" instead of "will". Those two meanings of "werden" as as closely related as the "will" in "last will and testament" and "I'll go" in English. You don't think of them as being the same word, so even translating the sentence back won't get you the right result right away.
wow, I never thought about like that. It actually sounds like old english or middle english or maxbe even a bit like shakespeare early modern english.
but since I am so used to proper english this is quite confusing and not helpful at all.
Old English was a Germanic Language. The grammar changed over time due to French and Norse influences. Low German spoken by some still today can talk to Old English speakers quite well.
There are some things that have no adequate equivalent in English, so the directly translated version sounds way off.
"ich kümmere mich um etwas" (I'm taking care of something) includes somewhat redundantly who is doing the caring: I myself take care of, you yourself take care of.
But at the same time English distinguishes between "take care of" and "care about"
So the German sentence becomes a mess when you keep the German quirks but don't add the English ones (or vice versa)
"I myself care about animals" doesn't sound like a job description but more like being concerned about animals.
That´s because English and German share the same gand parent - ancient Germanic. That was a language spoken in today´s region of Germany by the Germanic tribes. 2 of these tribes (the Anglos & the Saxons) with just different dialects immigrated to the isle of Britain about 1500y ago and started mixing thair dialects which became Anglo-Saxon (the prototype of modern English) or later just "Anglish". After adding some French/Latin (thanks to William the Conquerer winning the battle of Hastings) as well as a few skandinavian words (thanks to the Vikings) etc + the great vowel shift and some minor changes and developments over time..... we got the English we have today!
The germanic language of the tribes that stayed put in "Germany" just evolved into modern day German without turning into a "language-stew" 🤭
...and that´s why this video sounds like old English to you 🥳
I have no idea what so many people weird find. As fluent germanspeaker have ich therewith no problem, him to understand. He speaks whole normal, my meaning after.
English is a germanic language.
But has, in comparison to continental germanic languages, a simplified grammar.
English eloquence is based on the usage of norman, frensh, latin or greek terms.
German eloquence is based on word order, presyllables, word form and neologism.
In music there would be 2 examples:
Peter Fox - Fieber (about summer heat)
Das Lumpenpack - Kann es sein dass du dumm bist (about insulting someone)
It definitely isn’t easier to understand this, I guess it’s because of my fluency in English, it doesn’t make sense anymore, and it sounds weird
Speaking english with literal translation from german is funny but confusing.
I'm used to listen to english grammar ;)
So, you watch ryan too ;)
🖤❤️💛 Vielleicht mal die direkte Übersetzung der Songtexte von deutsch auf englisch, dann probieren, ob man es als old english ins modern english übersetzen kann?? 🤔😅✌️