How Anyone (Including YOU) Can Read German REACTION

How Anyone (Including YOU) Can Read German REACTION

This is my reaction to How Anyone (Including YOU) Can Read German

Recently I have reacted to videos about the German language and in this video I react to RobWords giving some interesting tips on how to learn German and how English and German are very similar. This actually does give me an interest to learn German.

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[noptrix]

The best thing you can do if you want to learn the German language is to learn the German alphabet, i.e. the pronunciation. As an English speaker, using English pronunciation for the alphabet makes it difficult to read German words. Once you've done that, the rest is actually just learning vocabulary. The grammar comes naturally, you don't need to learn much.

[scarnoir]

I am German. This guy is linguistic gold for every native English speaker.

[maja-kehn]

I think being Scottish might even help you learn German because the Scottish pronunciation is often closer to German than the English one.

[Ptenz]

As a German is really refreshing to see closeness and history of both languages

[jensgoerke]

This method also helps with reading Dutch and Danish if you're familiar with German. For some words you need to go back to the original term: "automobil" evolved into the German "Auto" and into the Danish "bil". The German slang word "Karre" is closer to the English "car", from the older "Karren" or "carriage". Linguistics can be fun.

[tubekulose]

I can remember you once mention that the Scottish accent makes "cow" sound pretty much like the German "Kuh". I guess that's why you smiled at this point in particular. 🙂

[Fuerwahrhalunke]

English is a Germanic language, just like... German. I watched a different videos a while ago about 13th century old English and was able to understand more of it as a German than I did of modern day English, because it's much more related to German, where it hasn't developed it's own quirks to become what it is today.

[pultforce]

As an english tutor of a small group I have to say that I agree to this method. I also told my students to first learn words that are almost the same in both languages where they have to replace only one or two letters to get the result. Or words that start with the same letters and words that sound exactly the same in both languages. And there are really a lot of words. For example with the same start: word = Wort ; bred = Brot ; street = Straße ; way = Weg ; stone = Stein. Words that sound and mean the same but are written differently: here = hier ; mouse = Maus ; house = Haus ; mine = mein.
As far as I know there is a word in the Glasgow region for gray and boring weather: drist. In German we say: trist.

[nicolewirth]

The Scottish do have similar pronunciations and it might be easier to speak more properly. But learning German as a foreign language is the same skill for everyone. As a translator I tell you: it’s possible! Do it! Greetings from Germany 🇩🇪

[denisdrumm]

I'm glad you've reacted to this video. It is one of my most favourite language-related ones and in my humble opinion it deserves more credit and attention. Hopefully this changes now as a few reaction channels have already covered it.

[mizapf]

2 points that English speakers usually struggle with:

1. German "z" is always "ts", never "s". Make sure that t is not dropped. It is closely bound to the s, no aspiration. The best way is to start like "t" and then quickly switch to "s".
2. The ending "-e" is never silent. It is a similar sound like the "a-" in English "above". Also, the ending e does not affect the vowel before (compare "Tag" (day) and "Tage" (days) which is just like "Tag" with that ending "-e").

BTW, the German "ch" after a/o/u is pretty much the same as in Scottish "loch".

[peterfromgw]

My great grandfather (mein Urgroßvater) had come out to Australia in the 1850s during the gold rush. He came from Nord Rhein Westfalen but in 1912, he took up Australian citizenship as he may have been interned during World War 1 as an enemy alien. He returned to farming after the gold rush and called his farm outside Bendigo as “Westfalen Farm”. Just an aside - Australia’s greatest military man, Lt. General Sir John Monash (read about him), came from a German family and had changed the family name from Monasch. Grüße aus Australien. Tschüss.

[karowolkenschaufler]

"rob words" is great in general.
and I could surprise my dutch cousin when I told her that people here in berlin say "ick" for "ich".

[DanielJames-dgzs]

There are more letters that you can swap around to understand German: English “dg” is German “ck” as in bridge – Brücke, ridge – Rücken (back), hedge – Hecke, edge – Ecke, sludge – Schlick, etc. The other way round, English drops the letter “n” before sibilants: Gans – goose, fünf – five, sanft – soft, Zahn – tooth (here the German sibilant after the “n” was dropped).

[TomWaldgeist]

I‘m German and I’m using this method learning Norwegian, which also didn’t have the second consonant shift.

[Leftyotism]

5:35 German speaker here. Fuß is not pronounced like Fuss, with an ß you don't have the short vowels that you usually have with a double consonant in front of said vowel.
It's pronounced like "foos", with a long "u".
Just thought I had to throw that in there for anyone interested, lol.

[johnhendriks]

I am from Amsterdam, The Netherlands. When I was young it was mandatory for everybody attending secondary school (6 years) to learn 3 foreign languages, French, English and German. The main reason is probably that The Netherlands is a trade country and it's important to be able to talk with people from other countries. So, a lot of Dutch people are good in languages, but in my case I had an advantage to learn German. From the age of 9 till 19 I lived close to the German border, so I met Germans and it's easier to learn when you are young

[xxJOKeRxx]

I have my doubts it will actually help much to translate stuff but it's an interesting video to show the similarities how close the languages are and how they developed apart from each other.

[poepflater]

When I was about 14 I was jealous as I couldn't take German as a subject due to the other ones I selected, but my friends were taking it so I found this book called German for Dummies in the library... I won't say I am fluent but with the ability of a young mind to quickly add vocabulary, that book taught me heaps and really made it accessible to me. Today I still listen to German music like Rammstein.

[wernergobl]

I think this video puts out the best similarities. Enjoyed this one really much.

Sometimes, when we are on vacaction in Italy, I try to find similarities to english, to get some information from signs. As example: cimitero is cemetery.