Nobody is cringing in Germany, if you pronounce a word wrong. We love when foreigners try to learn our language. Most of the people will react like the german lady.
11:32 as she said, german is a straight forward language, in the opportunity to combine words, they will get a new meaning. it is more a "what you see is what you get" language. for example: english: a turtle german: schildkröte (shield toad) the language is very flexible and allows to add more words to an allready existing, so a new thing can be discribed. I still remember top gear when hammond try to explain a new technology, the "doppelkupplungsgetriebe", and the spelled every single letter, and it seems there is no ending. buuut... the eglish translation is: "double clutch transmission", not quite smaller, just with a spacer in between the words (doppel-double kupplungs-clutch getriebe-transmission).
Right. german is also very descriptive in the nouns. Hand|schuhe: hand shoes = gloves. Glüh|birne: glow pear = lightbulb. Nackt|schnecke: naked snail = slug. But its also easy to recognize the meaning if you can brake the words down into their single parts and if you know the smaller words, you will now the big ones: Verkehr|s|sünder: traffic (binding s) sinner = traffic offender. Streich|holz|schachtel: stroke wood box = matchbox (of course a match is ein Streichholz). Dauer|welle: duration wave = perm. And if you have nouns that are similar things you may find similar parts in them: Auto|bahn: car track/way/path = highway. In fact BAHN is a thing that is much more long than wide and flat. You can also find it in the nouns Aschebahn: ash ~ = cinder track, Rennbahn: running ~= racetrack, Straßenbahn: street~= tram. But also in Tapetenbahn: wallpaper (this one is a composite word too) strip. The word Bahn alone also is the short term of Eisenbahn: iron ~= train.
A other question is also why german use capital letters for nouns. It is for prevent confussion. If we didn't use it this sentence could mean: Der gefangene (F)loh. ( the imprisoned flea) Der (G)efangene floh. ( the prisoner escaped) It is just for better understanding for reading.
I have the theory that capitalising nouns improves readability somewhat and thus compensates a bit for longer words that decrease readability somewhat.
@@aphextwin5712 That's not only a theory. It's all about the picture a word creates. With capitals and composite parts it is more recognizable within a fraction of a second. We can process huge amounts of text in a short reading time.
You can bring this to a boil: umfahren Just the way you pronounce the word, gives the meaning. um-fahren - stress the second syllable it means to bypass something. Stress the first one it means to knock someone or something over by driving a car.
Dwayne I'm so sorry and kinda feel bad rn. But your reaction on Streichholzschächtelchen was priceless. I laughed so hard I had to pause the video for a moment.
English also likes to compose some words. Especially when paired with prepositions. Overrated, Underpants, Insightfull ( even a tripple word), Outstanding, Upsetting, Ongoing, Everybody. Germans just like to expand this concept to the maximum.
I love how good you are in first try! So lovely! And to be honest: No one would write "fünfhundertfünfundfünzig" in our gramma we write every number larger then twelve "zwölf" just as the number. The only things where I see large numbers written in words is on The only place I've seen large numbers written out as words is on vouchers. But only because it has to have both on it, the number as a number and as a word. As with so many things in Germany, whoever thought of this was a bureaucrat. We have also a list with German words, where native German speaker have to look twice before pronouncing. For Example "Brathering" (fried herring) a lot Germans, me included, would pronounce it English, because of the TH 😂 but it ist Brat Hering. And there are a few more of these. For all the lovely Germans reading this: Baumentaster, Altbaucharme, Hoffensterchen, Kreischorverband, Zwergelstern, Rotzeder, Urinsekten, Schreibrand und Nachteilzug 😜😂
Oh man, with these words I'm sitting here like someone who's in their first class of German. Looking at the American woman and Dwayne like "awww, they're so cute, they're doing a really good job" and then I saw your comment and was questioning being born and raised in Germany 😂
Writing out numbers as words only makes sense in handwritten documents to make them somewhat "tamper-proof". It could be easy to change a number, e.g. make a 7 out of a 1, a 8 out of a 3 or add an extra digit, but changing a word (someone else has written) is nearly impossible without leaving any "obvious" traces. But how often do you rely on handwritten documents nowadays?
Zwergelstern was the most difficult. I literally tried for minutes to figure out what a Zwergelstern could be. Sounded like a word that might come from the south of Germany or Austria. 🤔
Here's a trick for English speakers how to pronounce German ü, phonetically transcribed as [y]. The reason why English speakers have a problem with it is that it is a rounded front vowel, and English has no rounded front vowels in its phonetic inventory. However, you have the e sound [i] as in 'knee'. Now, the [i] sound is formed the same way as ü, the only difference is that you spread your lips. so, say [i] and then start rounding your lips gradually (like you do for an o sound or kissy face) but do not move any of your other articulators (your tongue, height of your palate, etc.)! And, voila, you should arrive at the correct ü pronunciation :) (English basically already mimics this sound, e.g. for French -the English vocabulary is estimated to have French origin between 30% and 45%, so they tried to approximate the [y] sound- musique [myzik] 'music' [mjuːzɪk], English kind of combines [i] and [u] in quick succession, it's close but not the same)
Morgenstern Abendstern Zwergelstern Sometimes long words causes problems reading when you not know where to separate. Morgen Stern = morning star Abend Stern = evening star Zwerg Elstern = dwarf magpie (bib finch)
Streichholzschächtelchen is the diminutiv of Streichholzschachtel. There are two different ways to make the diminutiv -chen and -lein and the vowels usually change to the vowels with the dots. Hund (dog) -> Hündchen, Hündlein Kind (child) -> Kindchen, Kindlein Both -lein does not work on all words. Schwein (pig) -> Schweinchen but Schweinlein, never heard of it Katze (cat) -> Kätzchen but never heard of Kätzlein And the diminutive is always neuter so it is das Hündchen, Kätzchen, Kindchen and so on.
in german you can combin words if this is one think. Streich-Holz-Schachtel(chen) = match-stick-box (and the smaller form) the same is with numbers. we just write fivehundredandfiftyfive :-) but in german grammar it is allowed to use "-" for better reading. And we dont use Streichholzchaschtel without "chen" at the end. you can use it if the box is smaller than normal, but i think they just want to make it a little bit harder in the video.
In the end, english is even more complicated to pronounce correctly since its phonetically way more inconsitant : What If English Were Phonetically Consistent? ruclips.net/video/A8zWWp0akUU/видео.html
"Why are you putting the words together?" "Because we freaking can!" 😅 No, but you actually can be pretty specific with compund words. You may never heard of something but maybe can guess from the name what its i.e. its use is. And you can actually make words up to describe something and other people will most likely understand. But why exactly it has to be a word instead of a sentence I don't know. But I kinda like it 😊
Well, all languages have their own fun words. Not sure about "long" words in the English language, but i.e. Welch definitely has them... and without some alcoholic liquids they might be unspeakable for foreigners at all... :) On languages, it depends a bit on the time the words were needed first to find them speakable or not. Take the classic word "window", german "Fenster", french "fenetre" (sorry for the missing accents). The english word might have his roots in "wind oy" (or windy hole) coming back from the viking influences (might be a correct connection since glas windows were created much later than this word), while the german and french word have a close connection. Afaik, many words were first written down by Martin Luther in his work to translate the bible from latin to german (he also created new german words). The connection of words into one new expression is not typical german, but used in many languages; especially in newer terms, but seem to be more atypical in english spoken areas. To give a bit of help: look for maybe known parts of the word, Schlittschuhlaufen has "Schlitt Schuh laufen" - Schlitt might be unknown, but the Schuh is very close to shoe; laufen is also a common term. Running on skating shoes might be a good translation. If we pick the german word again, there are some letters that don't follow normally in germen to create ONE term like "ttsch", a good sign that the first part ends somewhere in between. The double "tt" is maybe the strongest consonant combination in german. So, try to find the syllable (a hard word to detect for a german tongue), and you might get an easier approach.
Like in German, we also connect words in Dutch to a ridiculous lenght. One of the most notorious Dutch words (that every Dutch person knows) is Hottentottententententoonstellingen. Wich means: Exhibitions of tents of the Hottentotten (tribe).
The English native speakers might wonder: Why do you have such long words instead of having 2+ words. In German we often use melted together words to describe and form a word as one entity to give it a name. Like some words in English are as well. Matchbox is a good example here. It's a box for matches. So we're kinda similar here and there. We only took it further then the English speakers ;) So in German we have: "Streichholzschachtel" this is actually a melt of 3 words. "streichen" to swipe, "Holz" wood and of cause "Schachtel" or "Schächtelchen" box Cuter or smaller version of the original name comes with a "chen" in the end and vowels turn into umlauts with those dots over it: "Schachtel" becomes "Schächtelchen" for a small box, "Maus" becomes "Mäuschen" when you want to say it's a cute and tiny little mouse, "Haus" becomes "Häuschen" when it's a small house and so on. You name it.
We connect words in order to create a new thought which has a different meaning than the 2 (or more) words have when standing alone ...that´s the basic concept. For instance Auto fahrt = 1 noun + 1 verb = means "car drives" but put together Autofahrt = means "car trip/road trip by car" or Leben + Mittel = 2 nouns = means "life + resource" but put together Lebensmittel = means "food" That´s why we never - seperate - compound words because seperated you got an other meaning than when put together.
3:30 my expression when I saw преподавательница [prepadawat'el'niza] for the first time. 😂 It is the term for a female teacher for adults in russian and memorizing it was a real challenge. I think that happens to you in every language if you start learning it, when you are like "what the hell, how do they even make this sound." 😂 Squirrel is a word I can only pronounce in my head. 😂 Putting words together in german is very usefull, because one needs to stick to a certain word order. "Schlittschuhlaufen" ist a mix of two nouns and one verb, and it can become an object in a sentence that way. Of course one could invent a new word instead but putting some others together will do the job as well.
France still seems to be more into checks. Some years ago (less than 10) I saw someone writing a check at a supermarket and even at a fast food stall. I think it must be at least 2 decades since I had checks.
The word Donaudampfschiffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft with 79 letters was declared the longest published word in the German language by the Guinness Book of Records in 1972. The word was the name of a pre-war Viennese association for subordinate officials of the headquarters of the company's electrical department called "Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaft". 😅
I'm laughing so hard right now, cause, i've been to a fantasy covention several years now and the actors always try to figure out some german words and the word Eichhörnchen became a running Gag. Some actors have been there pretty often and they try to teach each other how to pronounce Eichhörnchen and make a bit of a competition out of it who can pronounce it best 😅😂 . And I think it was 2 years ago, they asked if there is a more difficult word and someone threw the word Streichholzschächtelchen into the room (and yes, we do use the word) and the look on the actors faces was so precious 😂 We do know it's difficult for english speakers to get the ä, ö, ü right and the ch and sch sounds, so, of course we come up with words that have that sound in them. so, don't worry, if you have problems with the pronounciation, it's pretty normal for english speakers. ;)
8:40 I wouldn't even say that one is particularly difficult to say if you can pronounce the ch properly but it's a lot at once if you just get the pronunciation explained to you and have to replicate it then and there. Probably similar to Polish or Czech for us (the few things I know are really easy to say, they just look complicated and aren't as easily remembered as, say, Spanish pronunciation rules).
@dwayne the letters with the dots try to forget the dots and in place of the 2 dots think that there would be an e behind the letter like ä=ae maybe that helps a bit.
Actually the English word for "Eichhörnchen" "Squirrel" always freaks me out. ;-) By the way, there's nothing cringe about it. Those are really hard words. You do a good job.
Someone said "Dutch" is the link between English and German, and i think this is very true. It´s all about the sounds your mouth does to pronounce it to sound correct. The most difficult to pronounce would be the "Kr", "tz", "ch", and the "Umlaute (ö,ü,ä) ".
The natural sound of Ää [ɛ] is actually part of the English language. Öö and Üü don't have english equivalents, that is true. And ẞß is simply a [s] ...
@@KeesBoons Ironically, using phonetic writing would really help videos like this in making pronounciation clear - the International Phonetic Alphabet was *literally* made for that reason.
to give you a short view about the actual differences within Gemran and englisch compared is that the German language is phonetically more consistent than the englisch languge, the German people invented ÖÜÄ and ß as letters to get new signs that fit in the phonetic lag of languages back when the Newspapers were invented as concept. the english language is phoneticallly a jumping and falling lucky ride. just check out alll -ough versions Through, Thorough, bough, brougt or the words By buy, bye - phonetically the same, but different in all posible ways. same goes to there thier they´re ... and fun fact for Germans it is hard to pronounce the English TH - sounds because theses does not exist phonetically in German language.
The biggest differences (i tell them from the german point of view) are probably the huge amount of english vocals and the missing of the "knacklaut" (mostly known as "glottisschlag" which means "glottal stop"). This "knacklaut" is used when (inside a single word) a syllabe starts with a vocal after another one ended with a consonant. The second part is one of the reasons, that german often is referred as a "aggressive/commanding" language. Another reason for that might be the "Auslautverhärtung" ("final hardening") which means, that we use plosives (basically g, k, t, d, b, p) in a "harder" way (wont go into anatomic stuff, but lets say its d=t, g=k and b=p) if its at the end of any syllabe. Im only a speech therapist and no phonetic/phonologic/linguistic doctor or expert, but these things were referred as "basics" to me, back when i learned it.
12:56 Yes, if you write out a cheque where you have to write the number 555 out as a word the grammatically correct way, it has to be written out as "Fünfhundertfünfundfünfzig". That is absolutely correct. But even Germans would try to avoid it and just write "555", even in a novel. In general, numbers bigger than twenty can be written as numbers instead of a word. Honestly, if you think German numbers have long names, try French! (And I'm old enough to have written paper cheques, before plastic cards and digital money became a thing.)
Why do we put words together? To express something (briefly and meaningfully) that would take a whole sentence in English, for example. Example: the german word Luftschloss (two words Luft =air, Schloss = castle - literally translatet to Aircastle or castle in the air meaning: A castle in the air is a fantasy, a figment of the imagination. A castle in the air is the term for ideas, plans or wishes that cannot be turned into reality. The word castle in the air is usually meant in a derogatory way. You can say to someone: "These are just castles in the air And so we have a lot of words that describe something briefly and meaningfully. This comes from the time of poets and thinkers or from ancient times to describe something short and sweet, understandable for everyone and meaningful. For this word (Luftschloss) the roots are: In the middle of the 16th century we find the early New High German phrase "ein Schloß inn lufft bawen"(old german writing and pronunciation), which was paraphrased at the time as: "when someone did a deal underhand/thinks of building a whole castle/now writes an echo of how he wants to build the castle/and lets him build a fourfold plan/soon [... ] the fortune [...] is laid down/and he [...] will be seduced/and the main castle must be left there Meaning: If someone makes a trade/deal underhand and intends to earn a whole castle from it, already imagines how he wants to realize the profit, luck runs out soon afterwards and [the deal] doesn't materialize, he then has to write off the hoped-for profit. This phrase gave rise to the determinative compound noun Luftschloss (castle in the air), which was attested from the 17th century. But there are also words which are put together to describe something too expressive. For example, the name of a law (very popular with foreigners to describe the difficulty of the German language). But if you understand how to spell it apart you can deduce what it is for as a foreigner with for example a translator. For example: Rindfleischettiketierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz - engl. Law on the Transfer of Tasks for Monitoring Cattle Identification and Beef Labeling Splitted it would be: Rindfleisch Ettiketierung (s) Überwachung (s) Aufgaben Übertragung (s) Gesetzt -- the (s) are only linking the words to one Word. The abbreviation for the book of law should read: RkReÜAÜG as an identifikation code is a draft law from 1999 in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, which was passed in 2000 under the name Law on the Transfer of Tasks for Monitoring Cattle Identification and Beef Labeling. Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz" is not part of the basic German vocabulary. So it is wrong to justify the german language as hard from those compound words. by the way: Linguists estimate that the German language has between 300,000 and 500,000 words. The latest edition of the Duden (as of 2020), however, contains 148,000 words. It contains 3,000 new terms. ... The Dudenkorpus, an electronic database, even contains around 18 million entries (as of 2020). This is because it also contains terms from specialist areas such as biology and technology as well as rarely used and outdated words. best regards
Hi! Funny video. "Squirrel" is more difficult in american english. The way you say it, it`s easier! Intereresting, that english speaking people in general often are switching between the pronunciation of the letters "i" and "e". In german it is always the same.
I was born 1968 and I saw my father write checks, but I never had a checkbook myself and I never received a check. When I came of age, we already did everything via bank transfer.
I'm born the same year but I remember using checks in my early 20s - mostly for stuff a little more expensive. Either because it was above the limit of my EC-card which maybe was something like 1000 DM back then or most likely you either had to pay cash or per check in a store. So if you didn't want to walk around with big amounts of cash (like 2000 or 3000 DM) you paid per check.
we write it together as a number but normal just 555 and not like actually written, just a small odd thing from german numbers is u but the singles BEFORE "the tens" so german basicly calls it " Five Hundred Five and fifty"
Allright you were shocked by Steichholzschächtelchen? This is currently the longest german word: Donaudampfschifffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft and it is in the guinness-book of world records.
The reason we put it together to one word is a problem in German grammar: we distinguish highly between a noun and an adjective, one worde can't be both. If you say "police car" you use the word "police" to better define the word "car". In German a noun can not be used that way, that would make it an adjective /attribute and not longer a noun. Therefore we have to put them all together to one worde "Polizeiauto". And about "Fünfhundertfündundfünzig" is a really hard word even for Germans. Most native speakers struggle with that word as well. And usually only numbers 1-10 are written with letters, higher numbers are written with numbers only. And not rarely we pronounce the numbers seperately, so 555 could be written as "five five five".
the trick is to disect the long words into the components and then speak them separately. Streichholzschächtelchen is much easier Streich-holz-schäch-tel-chen. There is only one way to speak a consonant, not a dozen depending on circumstance as in english. So you can take the words apart and speak every bit separately.
11:21 Counterquestion: _Why_ would we put spaces into the middle of a compound word that belongs together?? Splitting everything up is a tick of the English language that has spread to German in the last 20 years or so as a bad habit. At first, people started putting unneccessary hyphens into words everywhere (advertising language is especially prone to that), then in the next step started using spaces like in English to break words apart into horrible chopped up monstrosities that make reading such a sentence the equivalent of walking on LEGOs! It breaks the proper visual flow of a sentence. Yes you _can_ put a hyphen into very long super-compound words (a compound word made up of several compound words) to make them visually clearer. But when you start ripping standard words apart to look "hip", that's a big no. Imagine if an English writer ripped apart the word "undercarriage" (of a car) and wrote it as "under carriage". It might the entire sentence incomprehensible! People would wonder, "Why is something below the carriage? Why is he taking a horse-drawn carriage to the car repair shop?"
There are no big problems with compund words. It might be confusing at first but you can master it in no time. Because they allmost all use the same syllables, very few exceptions. Literal translations: Gloves = Handschuhe = Hand shoes | Hand-schu(h) | Hand-schu-he Light bulb = Glühbirne = Glowing pear | Glüh-bir-ne | Glüh-bir-nen Refrigerator = Kühlschrank = Cooling locker | Kühl-schrank | Kühl-schrän-ke ä=ae; ö = oe, ü = ue, ß = ss (sharp s like snake, former notation also sz [Name: Eszett (ess-zett)]) Hyphenation rules: Rule 1: Word syllables such as "ck", "ch" or "sch" must not be separated. Ra-chen, Ta-sche, Brü-cke etc. (Throat, pocket, bridge) Rule 2: Words with "st" may be separated. Kas-ten, Wüs-te, Wes-te etc. (box, desert, vest) Rule 3: If there are several consonants in a word, the last consonant is separated. sin-gen, ren-nen, Klap-pe, nutz-los, Kat-ze etc. (sing, run, flap, useless, cat) Rule 4: For words with an "h" inside, the words that have an audible "h" are separated before it. In the case of a voiceless "h", this remains on the corresponding part of the word. Audible "h": flie-hen, se-hen, glü-hen etc. (flee, see, glow) Voiceless "h": Fah-ne, Mäh-ne, Boh-ne etc. (flag, mane, bean) Rule 5: Compound words are separated according to their components. Schreib-tisch, Deutsch-buch, Steh-lam-pe, etc. (desk [writing table], German book, floor/standard lamp [Standing lamp]) Here extreme examples: Donaudampfschifffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft Do-nau-dampf-schiff-fahrts-e-lek-tri-zi-tät-en-haupt-be-triebs-werk-bau-un-ter-be-am-ten-ge-sell-schaft The "Gesetz zur Übertragung der Aufgaben für die Überwachung der Rinderkennzeichnung und Rindfleischetikettierung", short: Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz Rind-fleisch-e-ti-kett-ier-ungs-über-wach-ungs-auf-ga-ben-über-tra-gungs-ge-setz = "Cattle marking and beef labeling supervision duties delegation law"
I work at a doctors office and we do dementia tests. One part of the test is, to put the numbers 209 and 4054 into long words. So zweihundertneun und viertausendvierundfünfzig. And then it switches and you have the long words to be put into numbers, its sechshunderteinundachzig = 681 and zweitausendsiebenundzwanzig = 2027.
We are masters of "Snakewords". Some words are buildet from 4 (ore moore) unic Words an whrite it together. Some of these Words are not use often and its hard for Germans too, to say it correctly. P.E. "Bodenseeschifffahrtsgesellschaft" It's build from Bodenssee, wich is a lake in South Germany, Austria and Switzerland (by the way - it's a very beuautifull Spot to travel) , Schiff (ship), Fahrt (drive) and Gesellschaft (company). The special except in this Word are the 3 f. In the past (at my schooltime) you have written it only with 2 f. But it's changed after the "Rechtschreibreform" (right write reform) 😂
Contrary to your impression, the compound nouns always allow us to describe things and new things easily and, above all, accurately. This precise description of objects also enables precise work. And that is a not insignificant part of the economic success of Germany and also for the other German-speaking countries. Because neither Switzerland, nor Luxembourg, nor Austria are economically depressed... In English, however, a lot of things are only explained in context. I mean hey... More than 30 possible uses for the 2 letters that make up the word "go"? That doesn't really help...
As a non-bavarian speech therapist, I got to disagree. (atleast in terms of "unique" german rules, consonants and vocals in the bavarian dialect) Also the bavarian "r" is much more used in other languages, then the hochdeutsch "r".
Why we put the words together? Because germans try everytime to be efficient. You say exactly the same, like in match box, we just leave out the spaces between, which makes it actually mostly shorter then a whole sentence, isn't it? 😉 And it gives us the opportunity to create new words everytime. And we wanna be as specific as we can. So german is a very descriptive language. Like in Eichhörnchen, you just say horn (Hörnchen), but we say oak horn (Eichhörnchen), cause there are many kinds of horns, but this one likes to eat acorns (Eicheln) and lives in oaks (Eiche). So its an an oak horn, literally. And you did a good job with your pronounciation. It's easier Brits then for americans, cause you use the letters a o u sometimes we do. Best way to pronounce german correctly, don't try to speak it as fast as you can. Most americans tries that and I don't know why? Just break it down in syllables and every german will understand you. You just need to know, how to pronounce the letters in german, like üöä and aeiou or that ei is pronounced the same as your letter i and the two ways to pronounce the ch and the v. That's it 😎
Normally we don‘t write such long numbers out. Instead we write 555. But we actually say it like that. The direct translation would be fivehundredfiveandfifty. Greetings from Germany😊
You were doing well with "Brötchen", let me help you with "Schlittschuhlaufen"- always try to split words into silbles. Schlitt- Schuh - Lau-fen. Fünfhundert Fünf UND (and) fünfzig
whats most confusing ME as a german about the numberthing is why we say the Single Digit before the tenner-count... like you say 500 50 and 5. we say 500 5 and 50. me as someone who watches and reads everything in english, has a degree in Business english and sometimes even dream in english, hearing the german order of it doesnt make sense to me.... and its hard when people tell me a phone number for example in sets of twos, they say "Dreiundvierzieg" (43, three and forty) and i have already written down the 3 but then have to scram the 4 before that and its just annoying and makes no sense
Always remember: German "ie" is normally long i (English "ee"), but *never* like English "i". Vice versa, German "ei" is normally like English "i", never like English "ee".
If you want to really feel intimidated about long words look up the story of "Rhabarberbarbera". This story actually is VERY hard to read, not to mention to pronounce.
German is a Lego language. Every word is a brick and you can put them together endlessly to create new words. If you know the seperate words you'll know the meaning of the combined word or at least have an idea. It's very nice like that but it can create long words. English speakers like to pick the longest combinations like from laws for shock value even if basically no German uses those.
Flugzeugträgerverband a moduled word Flug - it flies Zeug - a machenisem Träger - transporter Verband - mismacthing group carrierfleet And to make it woers try it in a dialact where you hear not a single 'G'. Or try to pronouns Rache the sound of the 'ch' hard for englishnativs
13:14 "Fünfhundertfünfundfünzig" No, we would just write 555. 😀 P.S.: Yes, back in the days (I'm old enough to remember) we wrote numbers down like this on a check.
A warm greeting from Germany, thank you for your interest in the German language. Yo brother, German sounds like shredder, but it is probably the most precise language in the world. For every word we have, we have a form for male, female, lifeless, past, present, future, you, I, they, this and so on for every word. So if you mean this, it's a special word suitable for the time and person, sometimes it's not enough to know the pronoun, you also have to transform the word itself into German.
I think the biggest problem for english speaking people is the „ch“ in German. Because there is no simular sound. Wether the „ch“ that sounds giggeling : Brötchen Eichhörnchen or like the sound if you got something stuck in your throat and you try to get it out like: Lachen Krach Strauch Bach
well STREICHHOLZSCHÄCHTELCHEN is a word people use, but not with the CHEN at the end because the STANDARD matchbox here is rather small... an even smaller one would make not much sense.
It is pronounced Eich-hörn-chen, see, simple ;) Also Rühr-ei, a stirred egg. Streich-holz-schächtel-chen you can also say streich-holz-schachtel Strike wood box little aka matchbox ;)
I heard many english speaker pronounce the french word "rue" ( = street ) correctly and than say, they can't pronounce the ü. But its almost exactly the same. Also they say, they can't pronounce the "ch"-sound. Then I heard someone say "urghh" and that sounded like we would write "urch" . The scottish shouldn't have a problem with that - they have Loch Ness and probably no problem pronouncing that.
Yo the check thing is weird for us Europeans I guess since we almost never use it. At least not anymore. Me being a German with relatives in the US I know about the weekly payment day which is the friday. That's where Americans are getting payed and thats why they use the word "paycheck". It is literally the check for their weekly payment. (In the US most of the people are getting payed weekly and not monthly) That's also the reason why most of the Americans party on fridays rather than on saturdays because they have all the dosh! 😂 PLUS that's also why streamers on various platfroms are getting the most subs and donations because them Americans got their payments 😎 Chachiiing!
do we write fünfhundertfünfundfünzig? hell no, we write 555 😂i must say i like the german way to stick two known words together to describe something new. like Streichholz=match. Streichholz litterly means "stroke-wood" a piece of wood you stroke to set it ablaze. but i must admit there are some funny reading errors even for germans if they dont recognice the words in the word. a good example would be "blumentopferde" which consists of the words "blumen+topf+erde=flower+pot+earth" and means "flower potting soil" but sometimes people read it as "blumento+pferde" which would translate to "blumento horses". there are several examples for things like this.
Nobody is cringing in Germany, if you pronounce a word wrong. We love when foreigners try to learn our language. Most of the people will react like the german lady.
11:32 as she said, german is a straight forward language, in the opportunity to combine words, they will get a new meaning. it is more a "what you see is what you get" language. for example:
english: a turtle
german: schildkröte (shield toad)
the language is very flexible and allows to add more words to an allready existing, so a new thing can be discribed. I still remember top gear when hammond try to explain a new technology, the "doppelkupplungsgetriebe", and the spelled every single letter, and it seems there is no ending. buuut... the eglish translation is: "double clutch transmission", not quite smaller, just with a spacer in between the words (doppel-double kupplungs-clutch getriebe-transmission).
Right. german is also very descriptive in the nouns. Hand|schuhe: hand shoes = gloves. Glüh|birne: glow pear = lightbulb. Nackt|schnecke: naked snail = slug.
But its also easy to recognize the meaning if you can brake the words down into their single parts and if you know the smaller words, you will now the big ones: Verkehr|s|sünder: traffic (binding s) sinner = traffic offender. Streich|holz|schachtel: stroke wood box = matchbox (of course a match is ein Streichholz). Dauer|welle: duration wave = perm.
And if you have nouns that are similar things you may find similar parts in them: Auto|bahn: car track/way/path = highway. In fact BAHN is a thing that is much more long than wide and flat. You can also find it in the nouns Aschebahn: ash ~ = cinder track, Rennbahn: running ~= racetrack, Straßenbahn: street~= tram. But also in Tapetenbahn: wallpaper (this one is a composite word too) strip. The word Bahn alone also is the short term of Eisenbahn: iron ~= train.
A other question is also why german use capital letters for nouns. It is for prevent confussion.
If we didn't use it this sentence could mean:
Der gefangene (F)loh. ( the imprisoned flea)
Der (G)efangene floh. ( the prisoner escaped)
It is just for better understanding for reading.
I have the theory that capitalising nouns improves readability somewhat and thus compensates a bit for longer words that decrease readability somewhat.
@@aphextwin5712 That's not only a theory. It's all about the picture a word creates. With capitals and composite parts it is more recognizable within a fraction of a second. We can process huge amounts of text in a short reading time.
Capitalization is the difference of „I’ve helped my uncle Jack off a horse“ and „I’ve helped my uncle jack off a horse“ 😂😂😂
You can bring this to a boil:
umfahren
Just the way you pronounce the word, gives the meaning.
um-fahren - stress the second syllable it means to bypass something. Stress the first one it means to knock someone or something over by driving a car.
Dwayne I'm so sorry and kinda feel bad rn. But your reaction on Streichholzschächtelchen was priceless. I laughed so hard I had to pause the video for a moment.
Check thing is hilarious. And I was on worktrip In USA back 1999 and big bosses had pagers on their belts. Wtf
English also likes to compose some words. Especially when paired with prepositions. Overrated, Underpants, Insightfull ( even a tripple word), Outstanding, Upsetting, Ongoing, Everybody.
Germans just like to expand this concept to the maximum.
Donaudampfschifffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft 😅
@@RikaMagic-px6bkthat’s not a proper word
@@afjo972 I know but it shows how long words can be
Hey props to you, your pronunciation of Eichhörnchen was pretty spot on on your first try
ever heard of this gearman word: Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz ?
I love your accent. 😉And i think, you could learn german very fast, because you speak difficult pronounciations quite easy.
Yes we write 555 fünfhundertfünfundfünfzig.
Eichhörnchen: It's easy for us German potatoes, we have more problems to Pronounce squirrels 😂😂😂
As a German is "Massachusetts" horrible for me to pronounce. Also "Squirrel"
11:32 to say exacly what it is, like "Kolbenrückzugsfeder" is the spring witch pulls back the piston. just count the letters ;o)
I love how good you are in first try! So lovely! And to be honest: No one would write "fünfhundertfünfundfünzig" in our gramma we write every number larger then twelve "zwölf" just as the number. The only things where I see large numbers written in words is on The only place I've seen large numbers written out as words is on vouchers. But only because it has to have both on it, the number as a number and as a word. As with so many things in Germany, whoever thought of this was a bureaucrat. We have also a list with German words, where native German speaker have to look twice before pronouncing. For Example "Brathering" (fried herring) a lot Germans, me included, would pronounce it English, because of the TH 😂 but it ist Brat Hering. And there are a few more of these.
For all the lovely Germans reading this:
Baumentaster, Altbaucharme, Hoffensterchen, Kreischorverband, Zwergelstern, Rotzeder, Urinsekten, Schreibrand und Nachteilzug 😜😂
Oh man, with these words I'm sitting here like someone who's in their first class of German. Looking at the American woman and Dwayne like "awww, they're so cute, they're doing a really good job" and then I saw your comment and was questioning being born and raised in Germany 😂
Writing out numbers as words only makes sense in handwritten documents to make them somewhat "tamper-proof". It could be easy to change a number, e.g. make a 7 out of a 1, a 8 out of a 3 or add an extra digit, but changing a word (someone else has written) is nearly impossible without leaving any "obvious" traces. But how often do you rely on handwritten documents nowadays?
Zwergelstern was the most difficult. I literally tried for minutes to figure out what a Zwergelstern could be. Sounded like a word that might come from the south of Germany or Austria. 🤔
@@wWvwvV but it is just a beautiful bird 🕊️ 😁
Mit dem Baumentaster hattest du mich😉 den Rest kannte ich.
Back in the days I needed a little more practising on ‘pedestrian precinct ' 😅
Here's a trick for English speakers how to pronounce German ü, phonetically transcribed as [y]. The reason why English speakers have a problem with it is that it is a rounded front vowel, and English has no rounded front vowels in its phonetic inventory. However, you have the e sound [i] as in 'knee'. Now, the [i] sound is formed the same way as ü, the only difference is that you spread your lips. so, say [i] and then start rounding your lips gradually (like you do for an o sound or kissy face) but do not move any of your other articulators (your tongue, height of your palate, etc.)! And, voila, you should arrive at the correct ü pronunciation :) (English basically already mimics this sound, e.g. for French -the English vocabulary is estimated to have French origin between 30% and 45%, so they tried to approximate the [y] sound- musique [myzik] 'music' [mjuːzɪk], English kind of combines [i] and [u] in quick succession, it's close but not the same)
Morgenstern
Abendstern
Zwergelstern
Sometimes long words causes problems reading when you not know where to separate.
Morgen Stern = morning star
Abend Stern = evening star
Zwerg Elstern = dwarf magpie (bib finch)
Streichholzschächtelchen is the diminutiv of Streichholzschachtel.
There are two different ways to make the diminutiv -chen and -lein and the vowels usually change to the vowels with the dots.
Hund (dog) -> Hündchen, Hündlein
Kind (child) -> Kindchen, Kindlein
Both -lein does not work on all words.
Schwein (pig) -> Schweinchen but Schweinlein, never heard of it
Katze (cat) -> Kätzchen but never heard of Kätzlein
And the diminutive is always neuter so it is das Hündchen, Kätzchen, Kindchen and so on.
Seeing you freak out about Streichholzschächtelchen is the best XD They really like to include a lot of "ch"es in these words.
in german you can combin words if this is one think. Streich-Holz-Schachtel(chen) = match-stick-box (and the smaller form)
the same is with numbers. we just write fivehundredandfiftyfive :-) but in german grammar it is allowed to use "-" for better reading.
And we dont use Streichholzchaschtel without "chen" at the end. you can use it if the box is smaller than normal, but i think they just want to make it a little bit harder in the video.
haha, Stroke-Wood
In the end, english is even more complicated to pronounce correctly since its phonetically way more inconsitant :
What If English Were Phonetically Consistent?
ruclips.net/video/A8zWWp0akUU/видео.html
... and now try this german word, please: "Donaudampfschiffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft" :)
"Why are you putting the words together?"
"Because we freaking can!" 😅
No, but you actually can be pretty specific with compund words. You may never heard of something but maybe can guess from the name what its i.e. its use is.
And you can actually make words up to describe something and other people will most likely understand.
But why exactly it has to be a word instead of a sentence I don't know. But I kinda like it 😊
February. I mean wtf, no way to pronounce that.
Well, all languages have their own fun words. Not sure about "long" words in the English language, but i.e. Welch definitely has them... and without some alcoholic liquids they might be unspeakable for foreigners at all... :)
On languages, it depends a bit on the time the words were needed first to find them speakable or not. Take the classic word "window", german "Fenster", french "fenetre" (sorry for the missing accents). The english word might have his roots in "wind oy" (or windy hole) coming back from the viking influences (might be a correct connection since glas windows were created much later than this word), while the german and french word have a close connection.
Afaik, many words were first written down by Martin Luther in his work to translate the bible from latin to german (he also created new german words). The connection of words into one new expression is not typical german, but used in many languages; especially in newer terms, but seem to be more atypical in english spoken areas.
To give a bit of help: look for maybe known parts of the word, Schlittschuhlaufen has "Schlitt Schuh laufen" - Schlitt might be unknown, but the Schuh is very close to shoe; laufen is also a common term. Running on skating shoes might be a good translation. If we pick the german word again, there are some letters that don't follow normally in germen to create ONE term like "ttsch", a good sign that the first part ends somewhere in between. The double "tt" is maybe the strongest consonant combination in german. So, try to find the syllable (a hard word to detect for a german tongue), and you might get an easier approach.
Like in German, we also connect words in Dutch to a ridiculous lenght. One of the most notorious Dutch words (that every Dutch person knows) is Hottentottententententoonstellingen. Wich means: Exhibitions of tents of the Hottentotten (tribe).
Well on the Eichhörnchen I feel slightly squirrelly.
You had good attempts, mate.
Quite enjoyed, your Stolpersteinchen. ( Small stumble stones)
In the subtitles, the words are often cut at the wrong places.
In Germany we say "Deutsche Sprache, schwere Sprache"
The English native speakers might wonder: Why do you have such long words instead of having 2+ words.
In German we often use melted together words to describe and form a word as one entity to give it a name. Like some words in English are as well. Matchbox is a good example here. It's a box for matches. So we're kinda similar here and there. We only took it further then the English speakers ;)
So in German we have: "Streichholzschachtel" this is actually a melt of 3 words. "streichen" to swipe, "Holz" wood and of cause "Schachtel" or "Schächtelchen" box
Cuter or smaller version of the original name comes with a "chen" in the end and vowels turn into umlauts with those dots over it: "Schachtel" becomes "Schächtelchen" for a small box, "Maus" becomes "Mäuschen" when you want to say it's a cute and tiny little mouse, "Haus" becomes "Häuschen" when it's a small house and so on. You name it.
The longest German word is currently „Donaudampfschifffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunternehmenbeamtengesellschaft“ 😂
We connect words in order to create a new thought which has a different meaning than the 2 (or more) words have when standing alone ...that´s the basic concept.
For instance
Auto fahrt = 1 noun + 1 verb = means "car drives"
but put together
Autofahrt = means "car trip/road trip by car"
or
Leben + Mittel = 2 nouns = means "life + resource"
but put together
Lebensmittel = means "food"
That´s why we never - seperate - compound words because seperated you got an other meaning than when put together.
3:30 my expression when I saw преподавательница [prepadawat'el'niza] for the first time. 😂 It is the term for a female teacher for adults in russian and memorizing it was a real challenge. I think that happens to you in every language if you start learning it, when you are like "what the hell, how do they even make this sound." 😂
Squirrel is a word I can only pronounce in my head. 😂
Putting words together in german is very usefull, because one needs to stick to a certain word order. "Schlittschuhlaufen" ist a mix of two nouns and one verb, and it can become an object in a sentence that way. Of course one could invent a new word instead but putting some others together will do the job as well.
lol the english translation of Eichhörnchen is Squirrel which is one of the hardest words to pronounce for us german speaking people.
True, got made fun of for not being able to pronounce it lol. But nobody could pronounce Eichhörnchen either :D
France still seems to be more into checks. Some years ago (less than 10) I saw someone writing a check at a supermarket and even at a fast food stall. I think it must be at least 2 decades since I had checks.
The word Donaudampfschiffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft with 79 letters was declared the longest published word in the German language by the Guinness Book of Records in 1972. The word was the name of a pre-war Viennese association for subordinate officials of the headquarters of the company's electrical department called "Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaft". 😅
Zugführerberufsbekleidung = Workwear for the platoon driver
I'm laughing so hard right now, cause, i've been to a fantasy covention several years now and the actors always try to figure out some german words and the word Eichhörnchen became a running Gag. Some actors have been there pretty often and they try to teach each other how to pronounce Eichhörnchen and make a bit of a competition out of it who can pronounce it best 😅😂 . And I think it was 2 years ago, they asked if there is a more difficult word and someone threw the word Streichholzschächtelchen into the room (and yes, we do use the word) and the look on the actors faces was so precious 😂 We do know it's difficult for english speakers to get the ä, ö, ü right and the ch and sch sounds, so, of course we come up with words that have that sound in them. so, don't worry, if you have problems with the pronounciation, it's pretty normal for english speakers. ;)
555 is written together like it was on the screen! Greetings from Germany
This word is very tricky Rinderkennzeichnungsfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz
8:40 I wouldn't even say that one is particularly difficult to say if you can pronounce the ch properly but it's a lot at once if you just get the pronunciation explained to you and have to replicate it then and there. Probably similar to Polish or Czech for us (the few things I know are really easy to say, they just look complicated and aren't as easily remembered as, say, Spanish pronunciation rules).
LMAO
DWAYYYNE ... thats so funny to hear you try to speak german mate :)
But you were often close right.... soz for my bad english ;)
You pronounced the German words, including Eichhörnchen, very well! 👏
your pronounciation is very very good - hi from Munich :)
@dwayne the letters with the dots try to forget the dots and in place of the 2 dots think that there would be an e behind the letter like ä=ae maybe that helps a bit.
Yeah, like in old english. There you can actually see the similarities between german and english 😉
4:42 "there's no way they are saying Eichhörnchen in the movie UP for squirrel"
True. They say "Katze" (= cat) instead. ;)
Actually the English word for "Eichhörnchen" "Squirrel" always freaks me out. ;-)
By the way, there's nothing cringe about it. Those are really hard words. You do a good job.
Someone said "Dutch" is the link between English and German, and i think this is very true. It´s all about the sounds your mouth does to pronounce it to sound correct. The most difficult to pronounce would be the "Kr", "tz", "ch", and the "Umlaute (ö,ü,ä) ".
The natural sound of Ää [ɛ] is actually part of the English language.
Öö and Üü don't have english equivalents, that is true.
And ẞß is simply a [s] ...
@@ClockMaster-mq2hm Actually the ß is a double s, not a single one.
@@KeesBoons I didn't mean the letter s, that's why the brackets. I meant the phonetic consonant sound [s], the voiceless alveolar fricative
@@ClockMaster-mq2hm Sorry, my mistake. I'm not so familiar with using phonetic script.
@@KeesBoons Ironically, using phonetic writing would really help videos like this in making pronounciation clear - the International Phonetic Alphabet was *literally* made for that reason.
to give you a short view about the actual differences within Gemran and englisch compared is that the German language is phonetically more consistent than the englisch languge,
the German people invented ÖÜÄ and ß as letters to get new signs that fit in the phonetic lag of languages back when the Newspapers were invented as concept.
the english language is phoneticallly a jumping and falling lucky ride.
just check out alll -ough versions
Through, Thorough, bough, brougt
or the words By buy, bye - phonetically the same, but different in all posible ways.
same goes to there thier they´re ...
and fun fact for Germans it is hard to pronounce the English TH - sounds because theses does not exist phonetically in German language.
The biggest differences (i tell them from the german point of view) are probably the huge amount of english vocals and the missing of the "knacklaut" (mostly known as "glottisschlag" which means "glottal stop"). This "knacklaut" is used when (inside a single word) a syllabe starts with a vocal after another one ended with a consonant.
The second part is one of the reasons, that german often is referred as a "aggressive/commanding" language.
Another reason for that might be the "Auslautverhärtung" ("final hardening") which means, that we use plosives (basically g, k, t, d, b, p) in a "harder" way (wont go into anatomic stuff, but lets say its d=t, g=k and b=p) if its at the end of any syllabe.
Im only a speech therapist and no phonetic/phonologic/linguistic doctor or expert, but these things were referred as "basics" to me, back when i learned it.
ruclips.net/video/A8zWWp0akUU/видео.html 😄
In school i found wastepaperbasket extremely heavy to speak! Greatings from Austria!
12:56 Yes, if you write out a cheque where you have to write the number 555 out as a word the grammatically correct way, it has to be written out as "Fünfhundertfünfundfünfzig". That is absolutely correct. But even Germans would try to avoid it and just write "555", even in a novel. In general, numbers bigger than twenty can be written as numbers instead of a word. Honestly, if you think German numbers have long names, try French!
(And I'm old enough to have written paper cheques, before plastic cards and digital money became a thing.)
I remeber, my Dad write a Check. It was in the 80s, Im 45yo!
Why do we put words together? To express something (briefly and meaningfully) that would take a whole sentence in English, for example.
Example: the german word Luftschloss (two words Luft =air, Schloss = castle - literally translatet to Aircastle or castle in the air
meaning: A castle in the air is a fantasy, a figment of the imagination. A castle in the air is the term for ideas, plans or wishes that cannot be turned into reality. The word castle in the air is usually meant in a derogatory way. You can say to someone: "These are just castles in the air
And so we have a lot of words that describe something briefly and meaningfully. This comes from the time of poets and thinkers or from ancient times to describe something short and sweet, understandable for everyone and meaningful.
For this word (Luftschloss) the roots are:
In the middle of the 16th century we find the early New High German phrase "ein Schloß inn lufft bawen"(old german writing and pronunciation), which was paraphrased at the time as:
"when someone did a deal underhand/thinks of building a whole castle/now writes an echo of how he wants to build the castle/and lets him build a fourfold plan/soon [... ] the fortune [...] is laid down/and he [...] will be seduced/and the main castle must be left there
Meaning:
If someone makes a trade/deal underhand and intends to earn a whole castle from it, already imagines how he wants to realize the profit, luck runs out soon afterwards and [the deal] doesn't materialize, he then has to write off the hoped-for profit.
This phrase gave rise to the determinative compound noun Luftschloss (castle in the air), which was attested from the 17th century.
But there are also words which are put together to describe something too expressive. For example, the name of a law (very popular with foreigners to describe the difficulty of the German language). But if you understand how to spell it apart you can deduce what it is for as a foreigner with for example a translator.
For example:
Rindfleischettiketierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz - engl. Law on the Transfer of Tasks for Monitoring Cattle Identification and Beef Labeling
Splitted it would be: Rindfleisch Ettiketierung (s) Überwachung (s) Aufgaben Übertragung (s) Gesetzt -- the (s) are only linking the words to one Word. The abbreviation for the book of law should read: RkReÜAÜG as an identifikation code
is a draft law from 1999 in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, which was passed in 2000 under the name Law on the Transfer of Tasks for Monitoring Cattle Identification and Beef Labeling.
Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz" is not part of the basic German vocabulary. So it is wrong to justify the german language as hard from those compound words.
by the way:
Linguists estimate that the German language has between 300,000 and 500,000 words. The latest edition of the Duden (as of 2020), however, contains 148,000 words. It contains 3,000 new terms. ... The Dudenkorpus, an electronic database, even contains around 18 million entries (as of 2020). This is because it also contains terms from specialist areas such as biology and technology as well as rarely used and outdated words.
best regards
Hi! Funny video. "Squirrel" is more difficult in american english. The way you say it, it`s easier! Intereresting, that english speaking people in general often are switching between the pronunciation of the letters "i" and "e". In german it is always the same.
I was born 1968 and I saw my father write checks, but I never had a checkbook myself and I never received a check. When I came of age, we already did everything via bank transfer.
I'm born the same year but I remember using checks in my early 20s - mostly for stuff a little more expensive. Either because it was above the limit of my EC-card which maybe was something like 1000 DM back then or most likely you either had to pay cash or per check in a store. So if you didn't want to walk around with big amounts of cash (like 2000 or 3000 DM) you paid per check.
we write it together as a number but normal just 555 and not like actually written, just a small odd thing from german numbers is u but the singles BEFORE "the tens" so german basicly calls it " Five Hundred Five and fifty"
If you wanna upgrade Eichhörnchen, try the Bavarian way: „Oachkatzerlschwoaf“ (squirrel tail)
Allright you were shocked by Steichholzschächtelchen? This is currently the longest german word: Donaudampfschifffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft and it is in the guinness-book of world records.
The reason we put it together to one word is a problem in German grammar: we distinguish highly between a noun and an adjective, one worde can't be both. If you say "police car" you use the word "police" to better define the word "car". In German a noun can not be used that way, that would make it an adjective /attribute and not longer a noun. Therefore we have to put them all together to one worde "Polizeiauto".
And about "Fünfhundertfündundfünzig" is a really hard word even for Germans. Most native speakers struggle with that word as well. And usually only numbers 1-10 are written with letters, higher numbers are written with numbers only. And not rarely we pronounce the numbers seperately, so 555 could be written as "five five five".
the trick is to disect the long words into the components and then speak them separately. Streichholzschächtelchen is much easier Streich-holz-schäch-tel-chen. There is only one way to speak a consonant, not a dozen depending on circumstance as in english. So you can take the words apart and speak every bit separately.
Back to the check thing. in Germany account to account transfer started by imperial law in 1875. Yes we did have an Emperor at that time 😀
We put them together to make place on the paper , or today on the screen!
11:21 Counterquestion: _Why_ would we put spaces into the middle of a compound word that belongs together?? Splitting everything up is a tick of the English language that has spread to German in the last 20 years or so as a bad habit. At first, people started putting unneccessary hyphens into words everywhere (advertising language is especially prone to that), then in the next step started using spaces like in English to break words apart into horrible chopped up monstrosities that make reading such a sentence the equivalent of walking on LEGOs! It breaks the proper visual flow of a sentence. Yes you _can_ put a hyphen into very long super-compound words (a compound word made up of several compound words) to make them visually clearer. But when you start ripping standard words apart to look "hip", that's a big no.
Imagine if an English writer ripped apart the word "undercarriage" (of a car) and wrote it as "under carriage". It might the entire sentence incomprehensible! People would wonder, "Why is something below the carriage? Why is he taking a horse-drawn carriage to the car repair shop?"
There are no big problems with compund words. It might be confusing at first but you can master it in no time. Because they allmost all use the same syllables, very few exceptions.
Literal translations:
Gloves = Handschuhe = Hand shoes | Hand-schu(h) | Hand-schu-he
Light bulb = Glühbirne = Glowing pear | Glüh-bir-ne | Glüh-bir-nen
Refrigerator = Kühlschrank = Cooling locker | Kühl-schrank | Kühl-schrän-ke
ä=ae; ö = oe, ü = ue, ß = ss (sharp s like snake, former notation also sz [Name: Eszett (ess-zett)])
Hyphenation rules:
Rule 1: Word syllables such as "ck", "ch" or "sch" must not be separated.
Ra-chen, Ta-sche, Brü-cke etc. (Throat, pocket, bridge)
Rule 2: Words with "st" may be separated.
Kas-ten, Wüs-te, Wes-te etc. (box, desert, vest)
Rule 3: If there are several consonants in a word, the last consonant is separated.
sin-gen, ren-nen, Klap-pe, nutz-los, Kat-ze etc. (sing, run, flap, useless, cat)
Rule 4: For words with an "h" inside, the words that have an audible "h" are separated before it. In the case of a voiceless "h", this remains on the corresponding part of the word.
Audible "h": flie-hen, se-hen, glü-hen etc. (flee, see, glow)
Voiceless "h": Fah-ne, Mäh-ne, Boh-ne etc. (flag, mane, bean)
Rule 5: Compound words are separated according to their components.
Schreib-tisch, Deutsch-buch, Steh-lam-pe, etc. (desk [writing table], German book, floor/standard lamp [Standing lamp])
Here extreme examples:
Donaudampfschifffahrtselektrizitätenhauptbetriebswerkbauunterbeamtengesellschaft
Do-nau-dampf-schiff-fahrts-e-lek-tri-zi-tät-en-haupt-be-triebs-werk-bau-un-ter-be-am-ten-ge-sell-schaft
The "Gesetz zur Übertragung der Aufgaben für die Überwachung der Rinderkennzeichnung und Rindfleischetikettierung", short: Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz
Rind-fleisch-e-ti-kett-ier-ungs-über-wach-ungs-auf-ga-ben-über-tra-gungs-ge-setz = "Cattle marking and beef labeling supervision duties delegation law"
I work at a doctors office and we do dementia tests. One part of the test is, to put the numbers 209 and 4054 into long words. So zweihundertneun und viertausendvierundfünfzig. And then it switches and you have the long words to be put into numbers, its sechshunderteinundachzig = 681 and zweitausendsiebenundzwanzig = 2027.
We are masters of "Snakewords". Some words are buildet from 4 (ore moore) unic Words an whrite it together. Some of these Words are not use often and its hard for Germans too, to say it correctly.
P.E. "Bodenseeschifffahrtsgesellschaft" It's build from Bodenssee, wich is a lake in South Germany, Austria and Switzerland (by the way - it's a very beuautifull Spot to travel) , Schiff (ship), Fahrt (drive) and Gesellschaft (company).
The special except in this Word are the 3 f. In the past (at my schooltime) you have written it only with 2 f. But it's changed after the "Rechtschreibreform" (right write reform) 😂
I have one mord german word:
Eierschalensollbruchstellenverursacher. (It is a gadget to behead your egg at breakfast)
Eichhörnchen is brilliant, Squirrel is also very hard to pronounce for a german.
I have used Streicholzschächtelchen or Streichholzschachtel everytimme in my life. And it is not the longest one we have and use.
Contrary to your impression, the compound nouns always allow us to describe things and new things easily and, above all, accurately. This precise description of objects also enables precise work. And that is a not insignificant part of the economic success of Germany and also for the other German-speaking countries. Because neither Switzerland, nor Luxembourg, nor Austria are economically depressed...
In English, however, a lot of things are only explained in context. I mean hey... More than 30 possible uses for the 2 letters that make up the word "go"? That doesn't really help...
Squirrel is only hard to pronunce when you try to pronunce it American English.
When it is one concept you combine the words :-)
As for plugging words together: This is normal habit for Germanic languages. English is the exception.
Same in Sweden, you have take a third language. Most chose German, I chose Spanish. Then Chinese as a fourth language, but that really didn’t stick. 😊
Waiting for the REAL difficult German words. Looking at you Bavarian 🐿
As a non-bavarian speech therapist, I got to disagree. (atleast in terms of "unique" german rules, consonants and vocals in the bavarian dialect)
Also the bavarian "r" is much more used in other languages, then the hochdeutsch "r".
10:08 "Schnitzelhaufen... is that how you say it?" No, I don't think it is.
On Cheks there is the full number written ! Dreitausendachthundertzwölf Euro und Siebenubzwanzig Cent
"Massachusetts", "Squirrel" and "Sloths" arw killing me. Cant pronounce tjem correctly for the life of me
Why we put the words together? Because germans try everytime to be efficient. You say exactly the same, like in match box, we just leave out the spaces between, which makes it actually mostly shorter then a whole sentence, isn't it? 😉
And it gives us the opportunity to create new words everytime.
And we wanna be as specific as we can. So german is a very descriptive language. Like in Eichhörnchen, you just say horn (Hörnchen), but we say oak horn (Eichhörnchen), cause there are many kinds of horns, but this one likes to eat acorns (Eicheln) and lives in oaks (Eiche). So its an an oak horn, literally.
And you did a good job with your pronounciation. It's easier Brits then for americans, cause you use the letters a o u sometimes we do. Best way to pronounce german correctly, don't try to speak it as fast as you can. Most americans tries that and I don't know why? Just break it down in syllables and every german will understand you. You just need to know, how to pronounce the letters in german, like üöä and aeiou or that ei is pronounced the same as your letter i and the two ways to pronounce the ch and the v. That's it 😎
Normally we don‘t write such long numbers out. Instead we write 555. But we actually say it like that. The direct translation would be fivehundredfiveandfifty. Greetings from Germany😊
You were doing well with "Brötchen", let me help you with "Schlittschuhlaufen"- always try to split words into silbles. Schlitt- Schuh - Lau-fen. Fünfhundert Fünf UND (and) fünfzig
The diminutiv "chen" is used for young, small or cute objects or persons - the egyptian deity of the sun, early in the morning ... Ra-chen? 🙂
whats most confusing ME as a german about the numberthing is why we say the Single Digit before the tenner-count... like you say 500 50 and 5. we say 500 5 and 50.
me as someone who watches and reads everything in english, has a degree in Business english and sometimes even dream in english, hearing the german order of it doesnt make sense to me.... and its hard when people tell me a phone number for example in sets of twos, they say "Dreiundvierzieg" (43, three and forty) and i have already written down the 3 but then have to scram the 4 before that and its just annoying and makes no sense
Always remember: German "ie" is normally long i (English "ee"), but *never* like English "i". Vice versa, German "ei" is normally like English "i", never like English "ee".
If you want to really feel intimidated about long words look up the story of
"Rhabarberbarbera".
This story actually is VERY hard to read, not to mention to pronounce.
German is a Lego language. Every word is a brick and you can put them together endlessly to create new words. If you know the seperate words you'll know the meaning of the combined word or at least have an idea. It's very nice like that but it can create long words. English speakers like to pick the longest combinations like from laws for shock value even if basically no German uses those.
Flugzeugträgerverband a moduled word
Flug - it flies
Zeug - a machenisem
Träger - transporter
Verband - mismacthing group
carrierfleet
And to make it woers try it in a dialact where you hear not a single 'G'.
Or try to pronouns Rache the sound of the 'ch' hard for englishnativs
13:14 "Fünfhundertfünfundfünzig"
No, we would just write 555. 😀
P.S.: Yes, back in the days (I'm old enough to remember) we wrote numbers down like this on a check.
A warm greeting from Germany, thank you for your interest in the German language.
Yo brother, German sounds like shredder, but it is probably the most precise language in the world. For every word we have, we have a form for male, female, lifeless, past, present, future, you, I, they, this and so on for every word.
So if you mean this, it's a special word suitable for the time and person, sometimes it's not enough to know the pronoun, you also have to transform the word itself into German.
I think the biggest problem for english speaking people is the „ch“ in German.
Because there is no simular sound.
Wether the „ch“ that sounds giggeling :
Brötchen
Eichhörnchen
or like the sound if you got something stuck in your throat and you try to get it out like:
Lachen
Krach
Strauch
Bach
op plattdüütsch
eekhoornschen- eichhörnchen
brööken - brötchen
Sleddenschuullopen- schlittschulaufen
😊😊
allerbest un goote👍
well STREICHHOLZSCHÄCHTELCHEN is a word people use, but not with the CHEN at the end because the STANDARD matchbox here is rather small... an even smaller one would make not much sense.
She said she can't pronounce O with dots but English have same sound too, they don't just have dedicated letter for it. Like Fur, Skirt etc.
It is pronounced Eich-hörn-chen, see, simple ;)
Also Rühr-ei, a stirred egg.
Streich-holz-schächtel-chen you can also say streich-holz-schachtel
Strike wood box little aka matchbox ;)
My wife comes from Finland, and even after 30 years she is complaining, that here in Germany you cannot hear the r at the end of a word.
I heard many english speaker pronounce the french word "rue" ( = street ) correctly and than say, they can't pronounce the ü. But its almost exactly the same. Also they say, they can't pronounce the "ch"-sound. Then I heard someone say "urghh" and that sounded like we would write "urch" . The scottish shouldn't have a problem with that - they have Loch Ness and probably no problem pronouncing that.
German nouns are mostly ambiguous words. They put words together to give you the exact meaning of the word.
Yo the check thing is weird for us Europeans I guess since we almost never use it. At least not anymore. Me being a German with relatives in the US I know about the weekly payment day which is the friday. That's where Americans are getting payed and thats why they use the word "paycheck". It is literally the check for their weekly payment. (In the US most of the people are getting payed weekly and not monthly) That's also the reason why most of the Americans party on fridays rather than on saturdays because they have all the dosh! 😂 PLUS that's also why streamers on various platfroms are getting the most subs and donations because them Americans got their payments 😎 Chachiiing!
Germanic languages compound like no other... The German language is the king of compounding...
do we write fünfhundertfünfundfünzig? hell no, we write 555 😂i must say i like the german way to stick two known words together to describe something new. like Streichholz=match. Streichholz litterly means "stroke-wood" a piece of wood you stroke to set it ablaze. but i must admit there are some funny reading errors even for germans if they dont recognice the words in the word. a good example would be "blumentopferde" which consists of the words "blumen+topf+erde=flower+pot+earth" and means "flower potting soil" but sometimes people read it as "blumento+pferde" which would translate to "blumento horses". there are several examples for things like this.