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The Awful German Language (1880)

(faculty.georgetown.edu)
186 points nalinidash | 6 comments | 16 May 25 04:09 UTC | HN request time: 0.745s | source | bottom
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chilldsgn ◴[16 May 25 06:07 UTC] No.44002271[source]▶
I absolutely love German, it is one of my favourite languages, there's such beauty in it. I am not a native speaker, but enjoy studying it. I am a native Afrikaans speaker and I see so many similarities between the two, which I find intriguing.
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bradley13 ◴[16 May 25 06:13 UTC] No.44002292[source]▶
Don't tell the people in the Netherlands and Belgium, but Dutch is a German dialect with pretensions, and Afrikaans is a Dutch dialect, so...
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1. patates ◴[16 May 25 06:33 UTC] No.44002377[source]▶
I can speak English and German which makes me able to somewhat understand written Dutch (especially if I know the context), but no chance when it's spoken.
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2. lqet ◴[16 May 25 06:45 UTC] No.44002437[source]▶
As a German, I enjoy reading the Dutch text on supermarket products and manuals, it is a source of great fun in my family :) Children especially love it. Dutch just has so many words that sound extremely cute and funny to Germans:

"Sleep well" -> "Slaap lekker", in German "Schlaf lecker" = "Sleep tasty".

"Nuttig" -> "Useful", in German "nuttig" means "slutty"

"Huren" -> "to rent", in German "huren" means "to whore".

"Oorbellen" -> "earrings", "ear bells".

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3. jamiek88 ◴[16 May 25 07:18 UTC] No.44002600[source]▶
It’s the same for me, a Brit, reading screenshots my Dutch mates send me from say TikTok or whatever localized to Netherlands one that tickles me is ‘reacties’ underneath instagram posts!
4. fransje26 ◴[16 May 25 11:03 UTC] No.44003890[source]▶
"Uitvaart" -> Funeral, in German "Ausfahrt" -> exit

:-)

5. davedx ◴[16 May 25 13:55 UTC] No.44005590[source]▶
Right! I speak English and Dutch, so I can read maybe less than half of German. It's just enough to be tantalising but not enough to really understand it. Likewise with Swedish.
6. snovymgodym ◴[16 May 25 16:31 UTC] No.44007346[source]▶
Knowing English and German also makes it possible to understand something like 50-75% of written Norwegian, Swedish, or Danish in my experience.

Apparently a part of this is due to a huge number of Low-German loanwords present in all three due to the influence of the Hanseatic league in the region during the middle ages.