How anyone (including YOU) can read German

German and English are part of the same language family. That means you can tweak German words to make them look a lot more like their English equivalents. In this video, I'll show you how.

I'll also teach you a bit about the shared history of German and English, and why we have Germany's famous fairytale-tellers the Brothers Grimm to thank.

Check me out on Twitter & TikTok:

[MasterQuestMaster]

After being a German native speaker for 27 years, I can now finally read a menu thanks to this video! Thanks YouTube for recommending me this 😂

[brdl]

So happy that dutch is my native language, do half of the swaps and we understand german, do the other swaps and we are talking in english!

[judith]

As a german native speaker, I found it really easy to learn English. I first learned French and it was one hell of a struggle. When I started taking English classes two years later, I was positively surprised by how similar it is to my own language. Never mind the minor differences, to me our two languages are close relatives and I think that everyone who speaks English should also learn German. Never mind the grammatical genders - we'll understand you even if you get them wrong, promise!

[Kommentator]

Noch nie habe ich mehr über meine Sprache erfahren als in englischen Lernvideos.

[ChesapeakeHammockandOutdoors]

I'm a warehouse manager for Lidl here in the US and this video will help me immensely at work! Our regional VP, director and "Logistik" managers are all German and many of our imported items come with German labels. Having a quick and easy way to fumble my way through will be a life saver, AND get me major brownie points with my German bosses! Thank you!

[corneliusludwig]

In the past, I (native German) used to be a German language instructor at a number of colleges and universities in the United States. What you have presented here is a brilliantly condensed version of the material with which I tried to calm down and encourage my students during their first week of German 101. Kudos!

[RebekahTinsman]

I grew up in Germany and am now a German teacher in Texas. I will DEFINITELY be using your amazing video for ALL of my German classes!! Thank you! Extremely well done my friend (mein Freund)! =)

[cryeordie]

This was actually a fantastic video. I grew up speaking German but lost my familiarity with the language once my grandparents passed. After learning other languages, I struggled with German but this has made me see my familiarity with it in a new light. Thanks for this contribution to the polyglot community!

[moonhunter]

I am fully bilingual in German and English. I teach German as a foreign language to English speakers: I always explain to them how to "transmute" sounds to help them recognize and remember words. Examples: feather ➡️ Feder, leather ➡️ Leder

[wangeroogerque]

I'm native German and I noticed some similarities to the English language, but I never noticed how easy you can swap out letters to translate the words.

[chicken-hbzg]

My first language is Scots, when I started learning Dutch I was shocked at the similarities, a lot of the words are the same or similar, and sentence order is generally similar.

"Heb je water?" "Hae ye water?"
"Ken je hem?" "Ken him?"

I started learning some German recently for an upcoming trip and it's been pretty easy as well!

[compphysgeek]

I'm German with an Australian wife. She always says she wants to learn German but also immediately claims she can't learn German. I always tell her that English and German are basically the same language so she shouldn't really have too many issues. I'll show her this video, hopefully it will convince her to have another go.

[mikebentley]

You taught me more in a few minutes than my German teacher taught me in one year, no joke! Thank you and thank you for the video!

[Curth_Hson]

11:15 Suddenly it became swedish for "day". DAG. Swedish - the language between german and english.

[Patbwoy]

Brilliant! I'm a German who's lived in the UK for years. This is utterly fascinating indeed!

[BarnOwl]

This was fun Rob. As a native Dutch speaker this makes total sense to me. I have no problems with Deutsch or English, but it was an eye opener.

[ChrisFalk]

Why wasn't my German grammar lessons in school this good?! It would've been a lot easier and interesting to learn the language then. I love these videos where you begin with presenting a seemingly illegible text and then you proceed to break it down. It's all so obvious after you've explained it. The French video blew my mind!

[JeffOnhill]

I dont think i learned german but i did learn that you have a contagious smile. Just your vibe is very happy and i enjoyed trying to learn from you.

[bioefih]

Thank you so much! I am a russian speaker with a high level of English ( something between B2-C1) who started learning german just a week ago and now with all these tricks it is MUCH easier for me to learn new words. ( Of course, I noticed a lot of similarities before but didn't have a list of all sound matchings, so you have made a great job)))

[verenasophie]

As a German native speaker, I love comparing Austrian dialect words to English. "La'ta", for instance, is the ladder. "Oiwai" (for "alleweil") is "always". These dialects are so much closer to the common roots of both languages (even today!), which is so beautiful and fascinating. An extinct example is "windlow" ("Windloch", so, "wind hole") for "window", but this has not been in use anymore even in my grandmother's generation (her mother, on the other hand, still used this word). There's also "dau'ne" for a kind of "down" meaning, and I guess this list could go on and on. All my examples are Upper Austrian, by the way.