How similar are German and Danish? | Super Easy German (119) 

When i try to speak to germans, i just say the same word as in danish but in a german way and they usually understand lol

1 Like für den stabilen Bart 👌🏻

Henrik ist total sympathisch =) Und seine Aussprache auf Deutsch ist richtig gut !!

6:59 Mind blown: a less-used American-English expression for pain is "Ouch, that smarts!" And now I get the connection back to "Schmerz".

As an American who learned German first, I watch a lot of Scandinavian series and I hear German cognates more in Swedish than in the other Scandi languages. Knowing English and German, you can make sense of Scandinavian languages, using either one or the other to process what you hear; with day being the most obvious.

My German teacher in school used to say "Deutsch ist einfach!" when we couldn't remember at certain word. What she always meant was: it's almost the same as the Danish word, just with a little German accent ;D So yeah, in my experience it's very similar

Am I a Frenchman writing in English, seeing a German and a Danish discussing the similarities between their languages ?

Danish guy here: This just cracked me up! Also, can't get over how many times they repeated "dåse" (also Danish slang for a part of the female anatomy).

"Hast du dein Handy in der Lomme?" "Nein, es ist hier!?" Ich schmeiß mich weg! LMAO 🤣👍

Some words in Danish and German are real simular to Dutch pronounces for the same words. It's so interesting :). I love Scandinavian and German people!

I am from Schleswig-Holstein, more specifically, from Ostholstein. We have a lot of Danish and Swedish tourists and we're curious about them coming in the summer every year. They are very friendly, very polite and ... well ... buy tons of alcohol, often with an extra car trailer for it :D When I started to learn Danish and Swedish I was fascinated by their similiarities with Low German (which is the native language of my grand parents).

I think most of the syllables ended up in his beard.

Macht bitte ein Deutsch vs Holländisch Video. Ich glaube, Holländisch ist die ähnlichste Sprache zu Deutsch. Außerdem danke für dieses Video.😊

As a Dutch person I understood about 90 percent. Also some false cousins: I thought dose was a box... or rücken also means something different...

Sympathischer Typ. So stell ich mir einen waschechten Dänen vor :D

The most positive vibe video I've seen on RU-vid since 2007 or so.

In Swedish "dag" (tag in German, day in English) is pronounced dag, with a hard g at the end. The Danish is more similar to English here.

I'm kind of thrilled that both Danish and German have "lekker" as well like in Afrikaans. It also means "tasty" or "sweet", but people will use it for "cool" or "awesome" as well like slang. It's also just a part of every South African's vocabulary. Everyone uses "lekker".

That's the cutest viking I've ever seen

“How similar are german and danish” People living in schleswig-holstein: sweating intensifies

Today I learned that Danish is more similar to German than Swiss German is.

Fun video! As a Frisian/Dutch person, at first i also thought the Scandinavian languages were very different, but when you go learn them you'll see there are many similarities to the West-Germanic languages. Of course a bunch of words are just different and also at times the order of words is different, but mostly it's the pronunciation that's making it difficult, especially with Danish, in which many consonants are "swallowed in" as it were. I'm currently learning Danish, have learned Norwegian before (although i am better at Danish now) and i am currently also beginning to learn Icelandic, which is at another level of difficulty. But my experience with the other North-Germanic languages helps somewhat. But this video reminds me: i really should brush up my German also! It's just that i like the Scandinavian languages very much. But i'm certainly going to improve my not-so-good German in the near future! Isn't language learning fun!

(I am American) Denmark and Germany are the only non-English speaking countries I have been to. I was only there for 10 days each, so I did not have time to learn properly, but I think I could understand more in Danish in print, but more in German from speech.

I've been learning German for years and I started learning Norwegian and found it very easy to pick up compared to other languages because I noticed so many similarities to German.

Danish to me sometimes sounds like a toddler speaking German. Example "Hvad har du der?" = "Wa haddu da?" But it's a beautiful language, very composed and soft.

When I was a teenager I spent a year in Norway as an exchange student and learnt to speak Norwegian fluently. Not perfectly but fluently. (I live in Australia) As I got older, I wanted to learn German better as my father had come from Germany but had never taught German to us. Now in my fifties, I went back to university to learn German. I was doing quite well, or so I thought. I attended a Sprachschule in Germany at the beginning of this year and every time I opened my mouth to speak German, Norwegian came out of my mouth instead 😏 It seemed that the more I tried to speak German, the more the Norwegian seemed to come in my mind. It was so frustrating 😪

Ich liebe es, wie Cari das Wort Schmerz ausgesprochen hat

Ich habe in Schweden und in Norwegen längere zeit gewohnt. Und mit Plattdeutschkenntnisse kaum schwierigkeiten beim Sprachen lernen gehabt. Doch als ich Dänisch gehört und ich kam darauf garnicht klar. Und ich sage mal so, mein Schwedisch war nach einem Jahr so gut das an der tankstelle die verkäufer nicht bemerkten das ich Deutscher bin. In Norwegen war es einfacher, die beiden sprachen ähneln sich wie Deutsch- Östereichisch. Nur dachten die Norweger das ich Schwede seih , weil ich angeblich einen Schwedischen Akzent habe wenn ich als Deutscher Norwegisch sprach. Sprache kennt keine Grenzen, wenn man die geschichte der befölkerung der Eu kennt, wird es sehr Interesant. Ich komme aus Nord Deutschland und habe als kind von meinen eltern noch einiges an Plattdeutsch gelernt, welches eine große ähnlichkeit zum Englischen hat. Denn irgenwann haben nach den römern sehr viele Sachsen versucht In Großbritanien Fuß zu fassen. Anders wirds beim Irischen oder Schotischen in Irland sprechen sie gälisch, glaube ich, welches darauf hindeutet das Irland nie von den Römer besetzt war und sie dort ihre sprache weiter genutzt haben. Sprachen sind sehr Fazinierent. Ich habe ADS und normalerweise sehr starke problehme damit sachen auswendig zu lernen . So wie man bei meiner Rechtschreibung bestimmt sieht. Abschluß Zeugnis in der Hauptschule English 5 , Deutsch 3 und Rechtschreibung und Gramatik 6 Aber dann als ich mit der schule fertig war stieg mein interresse English zu lernen , weil ein Englischer Teenager in meine Nachbarschaft zog und Ich ihm Deutsch sprechen bei brachte , lernte ich im gegenzug sehr schnell English.

' easy danish ' It took me more than a year of danish school to learn just the basics and i can't still have a proper conversation with the danes. Lovely language, simple grammar (compared to french at least) but a hell to understand.

Fun fact: Odense means 'Odin´s shrine' and is a viking city from at least the year 988 where it was first mentioned

Danke für dieses Video, ich komme aus Dänemark und habe sehr lange auf dieses Video gewartet❤️ (Correct me if i Said it wrong)

Sehr sympathisch Ihr zwei - macht wirklich Spaß zuzusehen und zuzuhören!

Henrik spricht sehr gut deutsch wie ein deutsche👌, Danke für dieses vidéo

when I was in danish class, german guys were progressing like 5 times of the others and I asked if danish is similar to german, the answer was "naaa not much, cannot say so". well this is how they try to show themself clever, but actually the reality is different :D

Thanks for this! The reason for the close similarity between Danish and German is not just the large influence of Lower Saxon on Danish (during the Hanseatic period), but also (in fact, mainly so) because both Danish and German (as well as English, Dutch, Swedish, Icelandic, Afrikaans, Faeroese and Norwegian) are Germanic languages, arguably descended from a "Proto-Germanic" (spoken somewhere in Scandinavia and North Germany in the 1st century AD). Cheers,

You two are great together. I speak neither German nor Danish, but you had me laughing so hard.

I find myself pretty good in German and English and Danish offcourse... When I was a truckdriver allover Europe I often bought the paper Voetball(Football/soccer) international in the Netherlands because I could read it combining Dutch, English, German, Danish and the words my grandparents used.. So many similar

Such a nice weather you guys have there. Would be interesting to see a comparison video between German and Dutch.

I don't speak German or Danish but I found this video extremely interesting. Cheers.

Bis zum Jahrgang 1947 wurden dänische Substantive grossgeschrieben, genau wie man noch heute deutsche Nomina schreibt. Davon abgesehen wurde der dänische Buchstabe ,,å" ,,"aa" geschrieben. Deshalb haben wir noch heute den Familiennamen z.B. ,,Kierkegaard"--auf Deutsch ,,Friedhof."

And how interesting that many of those words have similar English counterparts as well. Thanks! -Phill, Las Vegas

I know a little german and when I watched "The Rain" on Netflix, immediately I noticed that Danish has a lot of words simillar to German.

Ihr 2 seid mega sympathisch 😘

as a Briton learning Danish for a few years it made me realise how instinctively Danish my pronunciation is of even German words now

mach das nächste video deutsch vs schwedisch

Also ich komme aus dem Plattdeutschen/ Niederdeutschen Raum und einige Wörter kenne ich von der Ausprache auch, zumindest kann ich sie auch gut zuordnen. Er hat recht das sich viele Sachen mit dem Niederdeutschen ähneln. Die Dänen waren ja auch große Handelspartner mit den Hansestädten und dadurch hat sich sicher auch die Sprache vermischt und weiterentwickelt. Zumindest ist das gerade meine Vermutung. :-)

Sowas müsst ihr unbedingt öfter machen. 👍🏾

Mann, zeimlich habe ich jetz dieses Video so viel geliebt. Ich habe für ein Video wie dies zu viel gewartet. Danke ihr!

Cari you are so amazing and will always be a wonderful German teacher I have learned so much from watch these amazing videos ❤️

When I have been to Copenhagen, I got suprised in how the Danish people are able to speak Deutsch, sehr gut!

I don't speak any German or Danish; I watched it out of curiosity and because I admire Danish actors very much. You two are so engaging. I loved this video!

Danish pronunciation is nuts. I love it.

how about German and Swedish?

I think it will be easier with swedish as they pronounce the letters more.

Sehr sympathisch, ihr Beiden.... Danke

Sehr sympathisch, Ihr Zwei. Und sehr humorvoll. Man kann über Unterschiede auch lachen 😄

4:10 - Translation: "Also wir haben jetzt noch..." You: "Alzvairmyetz noch...." These kinds of things fascinate me :) Danke für das Video! Sehr interessant!

Also in English we have many sk words from Danish! skin skirt sky etc...

I feel the pain of the too many vowels. With my family in Denmark it was always convos like "it's not "oouuww", it's "ouuuewwh"" , and it all sounding the same to me.

Very interesting. Many cognates. I would like to hear more phrases and equivalent sentences side by side. Thanks!

Henrik spricht Deutsch genau wie ein Deutsche ☝🏻

Danish ist zwischen Englisch und Deutsch? 🤔 Tag>>>Dag>>>>Day? Hmmmm. Sehr Interessant

Hab gleich verstanden! 😁Juhuu! Super Video! Der Typ sehr sympathisch!

Danke für dieses video! Sehr entspannend :)

So ging es mir in Norwegen. Verstanden habe ich fast nichts aber lesen ging ganz gut!

Love this video’! I also want to learn a bit danish because I hear it sometimes in Schleswig-Holstein especially in Flensburg 😍

Ich habe noch ein bisschen Plattdüütsch mit auf den Weg bekommen und gerade wenn ich in Holland, aber auch in Skandinavien bin, hilft es ungemein. Wenn ihr also noch Verwandte habt die Platt sprechen, lernt es! Es lohnt sich auf jeden Fall, gerade - oder auch weil - die Sprache(n) am Aussterben ist(sind).

Most of Northern Europe shares the same words from the shipping world: Mast, Deck, Flag, Klüfert/Klyver, Hunter/Jager, Fok, Havn/Habour, Boat/Boot/Båd, Ship/Skib

As a swede I loved this video and most of the words are almost the same in swedish! Btw danish and swedish are very similar so I don’t know if there would be a point with making a video with swedish, but we have ÄÖ like german instead of æ and ø and our pronounciation is less swallowing and more logic than danish

Ich fand ihn so süß, dass ich seinen Kanal abonniert habe. Er sieht sehr cool aus

loved this!

Ich habe vor ein paar Monaten angefangen, Dänisch zu lernen. Es hat mich überrascht, wie viele Wörter zwischen Englisch und Deutsch ich erkennen konnte . Die Sprache klingt echt schön, aber die Aussprache ist ziemlich schwer besonders wenn man keine Dänen kennt, mit denen man üben kann.

Wao das bewegt mich Danish zu lernen !

I love Germany. We had ahem a past, but we have moved on. Germany is am amazing neoighbour.

Tolle Video! Danke!

Tollen Kanal hast du/ihr da!

03:21 Es klingt wie ein schwäbisches Wort: "die Bäääähna" :D

Прекрасное общение. Sehr interessante Kommunikation

Vielen dank. das war sehr interessant .

Ihr seid so sympathisch ❤

I think the most annoying thing that people say about Danish is that the consonants don’t matter, because that’s simply the furthest from the truth. A big reason why we have so many vowel sounds is BECAUSE of the consonants. Fx: “rør” vs “rød” vs “rø”. If the consonants didn’t matter you’d think the ø vowel was pronounced the same in all these, but it isn’t. “Rø” is the basic pronunciation, but the other two are colored due to the consonant that follows, and they sound quite different. This happens often with “r” as well as “g”: “og” where g colors the o to become a diphthong and thus sounds like “ou”. If you “ignore the consonant” you get “oh”... regarding the soft D, which is when the D is placed in syllable final position and becomes a dental fricative rather than a plosives. I always say that if you speak English, you can say a soft D because it is literally the same as the TH sound in “the” but reverse tongue movement. Anyway, there’s so many things to say about Danish writing system and yes honestly some is nonesense (but you know, I’ll recommend you the English Pronunciation Poem and you’ll see it’s not so uncommon 😝) however, there are so many rules to pronunciation that I feel learners are just never taught rather they’re just told to memorize the pronunciation of each word.... so many people give up because they never learn how to converse, only how to read.

As someone who learned both languages as a foreigner, I have to say the similarities helped me expand my vocabulary in both languages significantly. When I learned a new Danish word, I would always check if its similar in German and vice versa. Also, Germans in my Danish class were always among the best in class.

Es war ein sehr effizientes Video 👏

Fantastisk video. Mange tak. Vielen danke.

Sehr charmant der Däne und sehr diplomatisch :)

The same happens between Spanish and Portuguese. Spanish is very clear, each of its vowels (a, e, i, o, u) have one clear sound, no schwas (ə). Portuguese, though, has open and closed vowels like ê, é, ô, ó, nasal vowels ã, ão, ães, ãos. Besides, schwas in almost every word like in English. German and Spanish phonetics are straightforward, Danish and Portuguese phonetics ein Durcheinander!

Guys, I love you, thank you for the videos.

Gut gemacht , Das war super

Love from Bangladesh...I am coming this winter...

Very interesting. Some words in Danish sound like a mix between German and English. :) And some are even written similarly, like Rabatt (DE) = Rabat (DK) = Rebate (EN)

Danke für dieses tolle Video! Ich als deutschsprechende Schweizerin hatte tatsächlich bislang nichts mit der dänischen Sprache zu tun und bin umso mehr überrascht, wie viele Gemeinsamkeiten da vorhanden sind! Ich habe echt Lust mehr darüber zu erfahren! 😃

Always fun!

Danke! Ich habe wirklich wenig über Dänisch gewusst, und jetzt sind auch meine Hemmungen (wie bei Cari) weg. Der Henrik war auch sehr geduldig :D

I loved the Dose apart 😁

As far as pronunciation is concerned I can see the influence of Danish on english pronunciation of the words that are shared or similar in german,danish, and english . Of course I am not an expert just a native english speaker interested in the influence of Dane law on the modern english language.

Die dänischen Vokale, die ein wenig zum Schwa tendieren, die erweichten Konsonanten und das stimmlose S erinnern an Sächsisch oder Amerikanisch, also Sprachen, die schnellem Wandel, Mischung und Einfluss ausgesetzt waren.

Vielleicht mehr Sätze? Es ist ein bisschen langweilig nur zufällige wörter zu hören. Außerdem, sehr gut, danke! ☺️

Sehr gute Episode! Ich habe früher Deutsch gelernt und konnte einmal fließend Deutsch. Habe aber einen Dänen getroffen und nach 2 Wochen habe ich ein Buch das heißt „Teach Yourself Danish“ von ihm bekommen. Ich habe wegen meiner Deutschkenntnissen ohne Problem Dänisch gelernt. Jetzt kann ich fließend Dänisch, kann immer noch deutsch aber habe nur wenige möglichkeiten deutsch zu üben, wenn ich zweimal im monat zu meinem deutschen Toastmasters gehe. Und ja, ich habe diesen Dänen übrigens geheiratet. 😉

What i can take from this video.... As a German: Get drunk and you speak perfectly danish.... But whats interesting: While having the english subtitles, you can somethimes see the similarities... Its awesome how language evolves even over borders.

Thank you very much.