I think this video missed the most important point: when people make fun of German, they are always yelling and shouting. Nobody every quotes a Rilke-poem with a soft, dreamy voice... So, of course we sound aggressive when yelling. That's the point of yelling.
I think tons of Germans jump to that as a conclusion because of the hyperbolic image of the yelling dictator but in most of the cases shown in the video people weren't even yelling. What they were doing is overstressing gutteral and glottal sounds and consonants in general which is part of the linguistic differences the fern video pointed out and part of the different perceptions of language. There are no beautiful language features just different subjective conceptions of what sounds beautiful.
you hit the nail on its head by friend. Also they use phrases that nobody is using anymore since 70 yrs, as if the world stopped spinning with hitler. Nice exceptions exist, elvis presley sung song in german and did so quite nicely. And former GIs, who settled in germany learned the language rather fast and then the stupid exagurations vanished. Germans never get away favorably in american shows then again, what do you expect from a country that is about to vote a felon into power? not much.
I agree. I always find it so annoying when American actors "speak" German (like Sarah Chalke in the Scrubs scene) and aggressively shout out every word.
Indeed. The "always yelling" is really not a German language thing. I bet, the "volume of speaking" is even higher in other countries. Look (or listen) to the Mediterranean region for example: Italian or Spanish people chatting on the streets are much louder than the standard Germans on a marketplace.😆(not taking drunk people in account, of course)🤣
I think it comes from the early 30/40s in 20th century, where political speakers shouted. I have similar issues with Japanese for instance. I have no real life experience but from what I see and hear in movies, sounds pretty aggressive to me too.
True. Plus, „alright“ in this case literally translates to „in order“. So order (Ordnung) makes it a noun instead of the adjective „(al)right“ in English.
@@derwolf9670 really? It always felt like the one thing I can‘t fully stand behind in English. Countries, languages and brands are capitalized but the remaining nouns aren‘t… feels strange.
@@derwolf9670 Yes, until around 1800 actually, then the fashion faded out or capitalized nouns were only used in headlines or titles but not in regular texts.
I am a native German speaker, and I would say that German only sounds aggressive if you speak it aggressively. other languages like Polish, Russian, Dutch, and even Swiss German can sound more aggressive due to their tone. And in American talk shows, the same 20 to 30 German words are always dug up and made fun of. For a native German speaker, this is extremely boring. It's always the same words. German has tens of thousands of words, and yet "Backpfeifengesicht" is always brought up, which no one in Germany seriously uses.
millions of words* ... we got millions of them not thousands (The duden includes 18 million Base words in 2020, so without all these endless chains) i wonder how many we get if we tried
Stimmt aber insoweit, als wirklich niemand mehr "Backpfeifengesicht" verwendet. Übrigens auch nicht "Streichholzschächtelchen", sondern nur "Streichholzschachtel".
@@dbmaster46446 No, sorry. Estimates say that the total may be in the range of 300,000 uo to half a million words that are theoretically available, but the average person uses around 15,000 words, depending, of course, on education and age (and understands maybe 50,000). Learners get by with 5-7,000 words. I wonder where your 18 million base words come from.
@@aureliande2659 Google mal "anzahl deutscher wörter duden" und nimm den ersten "Duden"-Treffer, im dritten Absatz steht das mit den 18 Millionen Wörtern, ABER die Formulierung (oben) ist schwierig, denn "echte" "chain words" sind da mit eingerechnet, also auch Wörter die im Duden selbst eigentlich gar nicht vorkommen. Immerhin heißt es, dass die 18 Millionen 2020 von Duden gewertet wurden, im gleichen Jahr sagt das Goethe Institut 17,4 Millionen und 2017 sollen es laut Duden noch etwa 23 Millionen gewesen sein. Irgendwas kann da nicht so recht stimmen, denn die Wörter werden ja nicht so schlagartig weniger/mehr, selbst mit diesen "Wortstreichungen" die regelmäßig durchgeführt werden um veraltete Wörter aus den Duden zu entfernen, denn die sind dann ja dennoch existent.
Most people only ever hear German in Nazi movies where Nazi Commanders yell commands at their inferiors. No wonder they only connote German with screaming, harshness and aggressiveness…. It would be the same if every Scottish person were screaming like Braveheart in a battle, or every French person sounded like Napoleon on the battlefield…
Don´t forget RAMMSTEIN 😉😆🤘 Hundreds of thousands of fans abroad have been learning German. They love the sound of my language. Sometimes native English speakers who react to the Rammstein videos say that German sounds somehow menacing, but cool !
Die, die behaupten das Deutsch agressiv klingt, haben in wirklichkeit noch keine richtigen Deutschen normal sprechen gehört. Jeder der in seiner Sprache laut brüllt, hört sich agressiv an.
The answer is so simple. When you are shouting/screaming it, every language sounds aggressive. Adi H. started it and Hollywood serve it till today. For me German is a beautiful language (not so simple like English). The language of poets and thinkers.
except adi h didn't really just shout. bitch was using (current at the time) teachings of drama and public speaking to make the language easier to understand over long distances. might be he also used this to sound harsher and I would say he overdid it at times, but to say he was just shouting or screaming is ignoring the context.
Maybe they think american drill sergeants sounding soft and gentle. If all movies where filled with such type of people the world would think american english sound very harsh.
Its simply because Americans and the world still need a "Feindbild"/Imagination of evil and german also was used in the past to give people a language for the evil guys. Just look for the vids to "General Hux hits different in german" The comments there are just so disgusting and ridiculous.
Many years ago I was in South Africa and met somebody at a party. When they heard I'm German, they said: Oh, I heard that you guys don't understand humor. I said: Don't understand what? It went on for ages. Humor. What? When you make a joke or something! Alright, but what was that word? Humor. What? Hu-mor! Sorry, I didn't understand that. They never got the joke.
German woman here... I actually find it extremely sad when our beautiful language is always put down like this and called aggressive everywhere! EVERY language is beautiful and interesting in itself and deserves to be appreciated or at least not devalued. And yes - I feel personally offended when I hear Americans, for example, shouting and screaming and screeching out the German language in a totally choppy way and with the wildest accent imaginable. Of course EVERY language sounds aggressive when misused in this way! What many people don't understand is that German is a very logical language, which is actually very easy to learn. Even our many compound words are logical and follow a simple principle: take 2 or more existing words, string them together and voilà, you have a fully functional word to describe something - but you don't have to "invent" a new word... So anyone can create new words whose meaning can be understood immediately. Absolutely simple... ^^ Btw: these mega long words that are often given as examples in such videos are not really used in everyday language! There is a separate word for this (of course 😆): "Beamtendeutsch" (words that are only used by civil servants in explanations, legal texts and the like). And as you can see, this is a great example of a compound word that EVERYONE intuitively understands: Beamten (civil servant) + Deutsch (German) = civil-servant-german. WE have ONE SINGLE word for this - in English it takes a whole sentence to describe this official gobbledygook... Which is easier to remember? And what is also annoying and sad about this stereotype: it is often not only said that the German LANGUAGE sounds aggressive, oh no - from an allegedly aggressive sounding language it is then also directly inferred to the general behavior of the normal German! Yes of course, we Germans are all aggressive... Grrr, how I hate that!
@@MihateAch naja, ist doch wahr! Ich möchte mal hören wie Einwohner anderer Länder sich darüber aufregen würden, wenn wir IHRE Sprache so verhunzen und durch den Dreck ziehen würden...
You must be allowed to have opinions of languages, dialects, sociolects though... Me for instance, have problems with finnish. That the most harsh language I know. (But I still love my finnish friends.) However, I agree that german gets a lot of unfair sh*t from english and american comedians.
@@herrbonk3635Yes, of course I allow other opinions, no question... But it is ONE thing to have a different opinion, and quite ANOTHER to abuse foreign languages, drag them through the mud and disrespect them! And why? Of course, because it's GERMAN... It's so annoying - and I find it insulting. It would never occur to me personally to denigrate another language as "dirty" or "aggressive" just because it sounds different from my mother tongue! I have learned various languages (English, Italian, French, Croatian, Spanish, Dutch) and tried others, but unfortunately failed (Polish, Czech, Hungarian, Romanian, Greek). The main reason for my failure was that it was virtually impossible for me to form the sound sequences etc. - simply because they differ so much from my own language. Is that why I call these languages aggressive or hard or something else? No, I am not! They are simply different, nothing more... The bad thing is that most of these self-proclaimed language experts don't have the slightest idea what German REALLY sounds like! The Americans in particular only imitate the creepy pronunciation and intonation of Hitler (whose actual voice sounded completely different when he wasn't giving speeches... Besides, this way of speaking is a very old stage technique, which is still taught and used in theaters etc. today). Besides, Germans don't shout at each other all day long - such nonsense... I'm really tempted to make a video on the subject myself and show how aggressive OTHER languages sound when you "bark" them out in this way...
2:06 About German, German humour and the reputation the Germans have, a little anecdote: During an outing on my recent vacation, we had a Chinese American couple in our group and I got chatting with the wife. As I made a couple of little jokes, she asked me where I was from. When I answered that I was German, she professed some amazement about the, to be sure meagre, witticisms I engaged in earlier and remarked something along the lines of "Common wisdom is that Germans don't have much humour. And your language sounds so harsh!" Now, this is a selfreplicating meme, used as bottom drawer crowd pleasers by every anglophone humourist, TV personality and whatnot and it got my dander up. The anglophone way would have been something along the lines of "Yes, I know we're a bit sh*it at humour...“ and let it slide... I answered "When was the last time you read a novel about German topics in German and understood the underlying cultural subjects and memes? German humourlessness comes from the firm anglophone, both US and UK, knowledge that USAians and Brits have humour. It's in their cultural DNA. Now imagine an anglophone making some sort of joke. The German, who has English as a second language and possibly is not quite up to snuff with the cultural aspects of the joke, doesn't get it and has to have the joke explained. The anglophone knows he is funny so the German not getting the joke must be down to lack of humour. Now imagine the German is trying his hand at a joke, possibly translating a German joke into English with the proficiency of a 2nd language speaker ignoring the fact that cultural references often do not map. The anglophone doesn't get the joke but he knows with utter certainty that he has humour. So the joke is bad, which must be down to German lack of humour. Of course he ignores all the intricacies of language, cultural background, national memes, emotional resonances of words, phrases and concepts of hundreds of years of cultural development and history, because he knows that he understands humour. And after the war, enough USAians and Brits had this experience, the Germans were in no position to respond and of course it was chewed and regurgitated in movies and TV in the US and the UK ad nauseam... That is where you heard that Germans have problems with humour." It was actually a bit more elaborate, but that was the gist. I think her eyes glazed over, since she certainly didn't expect a detailed lecture. I think I successfully introduced her to two more German traits. We don't do smalltalk and we'll take any opportunity to lecture at the drop of a hat. And it'll probably be a long time before she tries that line on another German.
in addition, those times during and shortly after the war were not funny. when people have to care for survival, humor is at most sarcastic, and that requires even more understanding of culture, situation and background.
I have found that it's usually not anglophones but specifically US Americans that firmly believe that we Germans lack a sense of humour. Adding to your points I reckon there's another layer to it: The style. US Americans have a simple form of comedy, often a wisecracking smart-a*** with crude in-your-face humour. German humour, our at least the enjoyable half of it, is much more subtle or dry and quite often dark and/or cynical in nature which is somewhat similar to British humour. Und nebenbei, wo hast du Englisch gelernt? Selten so gute Texte von einem Landsmann gelesen.
@@hughjazz4936 Aufgrund eines dreieinhalbjährigen Aufenthalts im Alter von zweieinhalb bis sechs Jahren ist Englisch als anderthalbte Muttersprache in die Firmware kompiliert worden. Der Rest ist massiver Konsum anglophoner Medien aller Art.
As a native german speaker, I confess, I have no idea what german sounds like to others. But I feel that as soon as you learn a foreign language and reach a certain level, any language becomes beautiful.
@@foggyfrogy Those are all the languages you know? 😂 And again, ever heard of Arabic? Russian? Polish? I think the whole "language x sounds so harsh" thing is overdone and boring but man, compared to Arabic, German is a walk in the park. 😄 Still a very interesting language.
As a German I'd say it's pretty unfair to call our language ugly or harsh. There are so many other languages that don't sound soft either, like Dutch, Swiss German, Polish, Russian, Scottish.. The majority of people who joke about it are Americans - somehow it's become a national sport to include WW2, Nazis and the ugly German language into their jokes. Constantly. No other nation does that as much. In my eyes it's time to think about it, especially since hardly any of them are veterans who've actually seen the war.
Most importantly, no German speaks like Hitler. He had a very harsh, performative and exaggerated form of speaking, over-annunciating every syllable. Standard German is really rather soft.
He specifically learned to speak like that for greater effect and to be clearly understandable when speaking to masses with bad or no sound equipment. there is some video on youtube with a secret recording of him speaking normal (soft!) in private. The harsh sound was only intended for public speeches.
@@sarahmann4753 the Hitler recordings are not "from Feli" ^^ she may have shown parts of them in one of her videos but the recordings have very much been public for decades and also been on YT for years.
German is a beautiful language - if you let it. Most who try to imitate it, imitate not the language, but the speech patterns of a certain someone during a certain horrible time. Any language can be made harsh sounding, if you try hard enough. German - especially some of its local dialects - can be smooth and very endearing.
I have seen a video on youtube where someone had secretly recorded him in private, and he had a really normal soft voice! But to make his voice carry louder and farther across large distances on huge assemblies of people (remember different quality and availability of sound processing at that time), and to make it more forceful, urgent and insisting, he took speaking lessons to have a greater effect. And of course it is those speeches that were broadcast on radio and shown in news reels, and later in documentaries. Then hollywood took that "language" as base for all germans in war and post-war movies, spreading it around the world and establishing the stereotype, and quite successfully so, as the clips of entertainment shows and tv series in this video have shown. Nowadays, that is just what people get because they expect it.
@@Madg0bby Sure, but this video over-emphasizes these things. They are not as prevalent or as much used as the video makes them out to be. Especially in the German dialects - of which there are A LOT - most of the video's remarks are completely irrelevant. It is literally focusing on one tiny aspect of the language to prove a pre-conceived point. This is called cherry-picking... German is literally called the language of "poets and thinkers" and for good reason.
@@Madg0bby Strawman argument... I never said, that the entire phonetics of German is a "tiny aspect". I said, that the video focuses on tiny aspects of the German language, like glottal stops, which mainly exist in "High German", which - let's be honest - isn't spoken in most of Germany. The "fact" that German is perceived as harsh is a cliche, mainly aided by the war-time propaganda of the past. I have a lot of contact with people outside of Germany and the vast majority of them disagree with this stereotype, as soon as they have heard actual German spoken for more than a few words. Even here on youtube, you can find dozens if not hundreds of videos of immigrants to Germany, who dispel the notion, that everyday German is harsh sounding to them.
@@Madg0bby "standard" in this case, doesn't mean, that everyone speaks it daily. It means, that everyone is taught that way. It is the dialect, that SHOULD be spoken, but it rarely is.
@@Madg0bby lol, not it isn't. NRW has Rhinelandic or Rhenish as most spoken dialect. While it is close to high German, it isn't actually high German. The closest to high German is spoken in Hannover, capital of lower saxony.
"Wandrers Nachtlied" (Goethe): "Über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh, In allen Wipfeln spürest du kaum einen Hauch; Die Vögelein schweigen im Walde. Warte nur, balde ruhest du auch." That's the most calm and peaceful and non-aggressive German you can imagine.
It is a sweat poem, but the last sentence is a death threat. 😅 Well, it is meant as a reminder that all things have to go their limited earthly path, but "Warte nur" does sound like a threat.
@@jana_t I was always unsure if Goethe meant "ruhest (rest)" as in "rest in peace" which would be like your understanding, or as in "get some rest". The title of the poem, Wanderer's NACHTlied, makes me think that the latter is meant, and the "Warte nur" is not a thread, but like a promise that the wanderer after a exciting and exhausting day will eventually find the time to sleep soon.
Shouting at max level in a megaphone at 200% Volume and adding a lot of "gh"or "ght" ot "gth" sounds where the do not belong to and you let Cellardoor sound like air raid sirens. "Tzzzellarghtghght-tzoghtghotrrrrr" And do not forget to speak it very very fast without stops inbetween the words and overread some of the vocals.
In Austria we use it a decent amount. But we have a different word for it: "Watschngsicht". Moreover we have the Expression "Am Watschnbaum rüttln", which tranlates to "Shaking the slap tree" and basicly means to beg for slaps.
@@antonnymus3499 ... as we have here in Bavaria but slightly different. But most Austrian is part of the middle-Bavarian dialect group. Only Tyrolean and Carinthian belong to the southern-Bavarian dialects ;-)
In Austria we use our Version of Backpfeifengesicht. And we use always one of our Dialects. In Styria we say ``Watschngsicht´´. It´s not easy to speak for not native Speakers.
As someone who was born in Germany and lives there, I can say that no one really speaks like the clips shown in the video, that's just a cliché that I personally find really annoying
'Feli from Germany' made a great response video in which she pronounced German ‘normally’ and shouted the words of other languages (including Italian, French and English). German is a wonderful language when spoken normally. And Hitler also spoke a completely different German off stage. Feli has also made a very interesting video about this. Well worth seeing and, above all, listening to.
As a Nederlander from zuidoost Brabant, I really like the German language and I enjoy watching their nice TVshows, just to improve my language skills. Some agressive sounds in language might be found in the Dutch language. Even in a small country like ours there are many different ways of speaking
I’m American and I like how the German language sounds. It’s an interesting feeling language. I studied German in school for 2 years and I would have studied it in high school as well but unfortunately I had to switch schools and most American schools(at least in my area) don’t teach German.
Thanks, that's encouraging to hear, as a native German. Especially as I adore English so much, fell in love with the language when I was about 8 years old. And I always find it sad that I can hardly ever return the favor...
Easy: First time Americans hear German is when they hear a certain dictator yell on low quality documentaries, and the last time will be a German Commander in some WW2 Movie. How many German songs do they know? Almost none.
They mainly know Rammstein, who also play with this cliché of an aggressive German language. Even the "r" is rolled, and the concerts are one big pyrotechnic show.
Hey, my stepdad is from Glasgow and now lives with my German mum over here. I'd like to say hello to you from Germany. Every Glaswegian I've met so far has an amazing personality
@@lianel664 Nein, ich habe es nur kurz angesehen und dann meinen Kommentar geschrieben. Das war's. Hast Du ein Problem damit? ^^ Man merke: Um einen Kommentar zu schreiben muß man nicht zwangsläufig ein Video bis zum Ende anschauen.
@@Annue2020 Da es sich hier um einen schottischen Kanal handelt und ich verstanden werden will, ergibt es wenig Sinn hier deutsch zu schreiben. Wenn mir ein Chinese auf meinem deutschen Kanal chinesisch kommentiert, dann erreicht der Chinese bei der großen Mehrheit der Leser gar nichts.
@@ddog99 ❓️Where did you hear the word "Heimweh" in the video? This complementary German word (both ending on "...weh") wasn't mentioned. Just try to read - and understand - a comment before you reply.
@@ddog99 You're citing the English phrase. 😉 The German word "Heimweh" wasn't mentioned. Is it really so difficult to understand? My comment referred to the two complementary words in German, both ending on .. weh.
I never liked when American shows make German guests pronounce German words as it is never out of real interest for the language or culture, but instead people are expected to pronounce the words in very stereotypically aggressive ways. To me it's like asking a Chinese guest to pronounce a Chinese tongue twister while pulling their eyes apart. It only furthers stereotypes and since there is no honest interest in the cultural background involved I can never find it respectful.
4:47 To be precise: The translation in English of "Alles ist in Ordnung" means "everything is in order". Ordnung = order is a noun and nouns are written with capital letters in German. You can also say "Alles ist gut (gut = good/fine) instead of "Alles ist in Ordnung". I think it fits more as direct translation.
im gonna put this here, the closest anology i can make for the "German is Aggresive" narrative (while practicaly shouting every damn syllable) is the following "a proto-meme that got stale 1955"
I'm German and I think that actually every language sounds aggressive when you're shouting and yelling. So I guess a lot of the Bias is because of Hitler, Charlie Chaplin's Diktator and others using German in such a way in movies or comedy. For me it's always funny to see / listen to 😂 And btw - I like the scottish accent. And also the irish and welsh accents👍
As a German native speaker from Vienna, I find it all quite amusing. To my ears, our friends from Northern Germany sound harsh, but some German/Austrian dialects are so soft, they sound quaint and cute, almost impossible to take seriously. My own dialect isn't exactly pretty, and I can laugh about Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitänskajüte just like the next guy. And then again, listen to Goethe's Faust in the classic Gründgens adaptation, and tell me that's not pure beauty.
My spanish ex was always amazed how soft, calm and kind i sounded when speaking my native language German with my friends... He always said, this can't be German followed by a demonstration of a hitler inspired "Kauderwelsch" 😅
The thing is this: You can make any language sound agressive if you just shout it out agressivly like is pretty much always done when the idea that "german is such an agressive language" is discussed.
So, I'm german and my boyfriend is american, he moved here almost 2 years ago and is in the process of learning the language. He noted that, while it is true that on a baseline german is harsher than english - which mostly stems from the fact that english uses next to no guttural or throat based sounds (an r that is formed with the tongue rather than the throat, softer or shorter "harsh" sounds like hard s'es or k's), while german uses a lot of those - the language spoken by natives still does not sound aggressive, because we have a sort of melody when speaking. A kind of singsong, if you will. A good example is the phrase "Danke schön" ( ~ thank you). In a lot of these "german sounds so aggressive" videos you will have someone shouting it, over-pronouncing the harsch sounds (the k and the sch) and putting no melody. Meanwhile, a native would emphasize the a and the ö, usually even dragging out the ö, creating a singsong kind of melody in the phrase. I've never really thought about it till my boyfriend pointed this out to me, but I noticed that we do this a lot in our language.
Just only prejudice, maybe mainly in US media making fun about the German language. One idea behind that might be the harsh accent of Austrian Hitler and because of the strange pronounciation, back in those times, for better understanding on microphone/loudspeaker events. The speakers were trained for expressing their words over exaggerated for better understanding in the last rows. Germany was the most developed country back in those times and many inventions were made back then and first used there.
As a german speaker the mistreating of our language just brought tears to my eyes because when you listen to us talk normaly, formaly or calm our language sounds completely different. Not to mention if you scream English it also doesn´t sound so gentel anymore.
7:07 Rindfleisch: beef, Etikettierung: labeling, Überwachung: supervision, Aufgaben: duties, Übertragung: delegation, Gesetz: law beef labeling duty supervision delegation law. A monstrosity invented by German bureaucracy. This law pertains to the delegation of duties regarding the supervision of beef labeling. It was a term used in the context of regulations surrounding the labeling and tracking of beef, particularly following the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) crisis (also known as mad cow disease).
Oh come on...split up Rindfleisch, too: Cattle flesh. And now that the shock effect has happened: Or cattle meat. German doesn't have the flesh/meat split; the cognate to meat, "Mett", is a specific preparation of minced meat.
As most people know there are a lot of dialects in Germany with major pronunciation differences. The infamous German R sound or the harsh CH both don't really exist in the Bavarian dialect(s). Bavarians roll the R like they do in Italy or Scotland. And Bavarians often avoid the CH sound.
Originally, the flow of a German sentence is stopped between the words through gaps, yes. But when talking on a daily base, we also eventually build bridges. I think this is a thing for any language. The more you are comfy with a certain language, the more you go with the flow, thus tend to chain words together.
I watched this video before, it explains very well, why German is preceived to sound harsh. "Ordnung" is a noun and in German nouns start with a capital letter. Good reaction video and may I compliment you on your German pronouncation, its getting better ! ;) Regards from Offenbach!
I really like your accent, I wouldn’t have guessed you are from Glasgow, because I’ve been told Glaswegian is nearly unintelligible to non-Scottish people?! Your accent is probably how I became a subscriber, because I love listening to you speak…and then I found out you actually have a reasoned opinion and perspective to give, unlike quite a few American reaction ytbers… Love, from 🇩🇪
3:00 I'm a Swede, and I often find German beautiful. Especially when spoken slowly, and especially in the north, including Berlin. Word length, pronunciation and grammar tend to be a little bulky, of course, However, in some strange, way, that can actually add to the beauty.
Languages aren’t aggressive, people are. The stereotype of Germans in movies is aggressive because of the deliberate stereotyping, which is an aggression in itself. German has some phonemes that are difficult to pronounce for many people with other first languages, but the same goes for Dutch or a few non-Germanic languages, and if such languages are used with deliberate accentuation of these phonemes, they can sound intimidating. But if you want to intimidate people, almost any language will do.
4:49 I think the literal translation of "Alles ist in Ordnung" would be more like "Everything is in order". And here order is a noun and nouns are capitalized in German.
@@strange144 That’s what it means, but the literal translation is „everything is in order“. Literal translations are very different from good translations, especially when it comes to puns, proverbs or metaphors. A literal translation to „Jetzt haben wir den Salat.“ is „Now we have the salat.“, but doesn’t convey the meaning of that sentence at all.
I come from Germany, more precisely from Kiel, in the north. I love your accent, I worked in Great Britain for 4 years until Brexit and learned to love and appreciate it during that time.
Tatsächlich war Mark Twain sogar der Auffassung, dass deutsche Wörter oft "schwächer" klingen als ihr Gegenstück auf Englisch. " Would any man want to die in a battle which was called by so tame a term as a SCHLACHT? "
@@dekjet Mark Twain hat vieles gesagt. Wenn man beide Begriffe vergleicht, fällt einem aber auf, dass es keinen greifbaren Unterschied in der Gewichtung gibt.
We capitalize the nouns. In the example at 4:45 "Alles ist in Ordnung" translates to "Everything is alright." but the direct, word by word translation would be "Evenything is in order."
i used to live with a bunch of irish blokes in baveria... they had no problem learning the bavarian dialekt (accourding to connor its close to gaelic)... but the hell it was to speak "hochdeutsch" they didnt get it a bit... wired how languages work...
they use those "ich" and "ach" sounds that other languages try to avoid. A Chinese mother telling her child something important in a loud voice, always sounds like scolding and dressing down that kid, because of the different tones used in their language (like the difference between a question and an exclamaition).
Germany has a lot of great poets but instead of those, people only think of the speeches of Goebbels and Hitler. Do they really think we scream I love you into our loved ones ears? I always roll my eyes when americans make "fun" about german. It's carrying on a stupid way of thinking.
I must say that your Scottish accent greatly assists you in your German pronunciation. You actually do a pretty good job when attempting words you’ve never seen. I really enjoy your channel and your interest in all things German. I’m a Londoner of German parents and have lived in both countries 50/50. I feel that the Germans directness also makes German sound aggresive in conjunction with the more guttural sounds and histories echos of evil Nazi film villains. Looking forward to more of your excellent content 😊
Who in their right mind would call your cute Scottish accent aggressive? I associate this accent with relaxed people and darts players, while some English accents sound much more aggressive to me because I associate that with drunk football hooligans.
I‘m from Austria, so I also speak German. The word you asked for: Rinderkennzeichnungsfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz One by one translated it would mean: beef-identification-meat-labeling-surveillance-task-transfer-law The last word of a compound word is the main word. So this word is about a law. The name of the law tells you what the law is about. It’s a law about a beef-meat labeling, the surveillance of it and the tasks that need to be obeyed.
@@Cutie_Pie88 Kann gut sein. Ich habe das auch nicht besonders verfolgt. Mir ging es nur darum die Idee hinter einem zusammengesetzten Wort zu vermitteln. Es ist sicher hilfreich zu wissen dass das letzte Teil-Wort die Richtung vorgibt und alles davor nur eine genauer Betrachtung bietet.
I am german, was raised in Italy and also speak french and english (obviously😉) I love speaking these "not my native" languages and I am not afraid making mistakes in these countries because people appreciate you speaking and wanting to learn their language, so it is a very nice bridge to other cultures 🥰
One thing the guy from the video forgot is Auslautverhärtung. That means we devoice plosives in word final position, for example a German would pronounce “bed” and “bet” exactly the same way. The same goes for “gap” and “gab”, or “lack” and “lag”. That definitely gives the language a “harder” sound.
If comedians yell each word they can hardly pronounce in german, of course it sounds harsh. If i want i can make englisch sound harsh by spitting each word like it's some bitter stuff in my mouth. Here's a challenge: try yelling "good day, sir! and it is a lovely day!" as hard as you can while overpronouncing every syllable and then tell me if it sounds harsh or not. Also there is one detail those who look down on german do not get: it is precise. in contrast english is faaar more vague, which makes it a bit challenging to learn for germans since we are used to express this exact one thing, not somehow describing it with a lot more filler words.
German is incredibly deep and logical. For example Fernweh was mentioned. You have to know, that Heimweh (i.e. home sickness) was probably around earlier. Everyone already knew that word so it made sense to use Fernweh (away sickness) to describe the opposite feeling. It is crazy how many German words there are to describe a feeling, considering feelings are very personal thing. But somehow German is able to coin feelings into a word and everyone understands what is talked about. I guess many of these words were invented by German Dichters (poem writers).
When we are talking about language and accents: I love your scottish accent. It's my favorite one of english accents. Greetings frim lake Constance (South of Germany) Edit: Your German pronounciation is very good as well!
6:54 I love how he was completly happy and as soon as the word Rinderkennzeichnungsfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz popped up he was shocked.
Hi, a German here 👋🏼 Scottish is my favorite English accent and maybe that's because, as you said, our languages have similarities 🤷🏼♀️ I've also studied Japanese, which is supposed to sound harsh as well... Love that you're reading along with the video as well - you should continue to learn German, you've got great talent😊
Our "ch" sound might sound a bit harsh and the way we build the "r" can sound aggressiv (?) to some people. But everything can sound not so nice, if yelled
be aware that there are two completely different sounds for CH : one is the hissing sound of a cat (used in "ich") and the other is like klingon/russian, as if you try to clean the throat in preparation to spit (used in Bach)
I have been planning to make a video on false stereotypes myself for over a year. Actually, there has never been a "stereotype" of German sounding hard or Germans having no sense of humor UNTIL there was a direct order from the White House to Hollywood in 1940 in order to make the soon-to-be enemy look as bad as possible! Then, American cultural imperialism did its thing. Have you ever seen a German in a feature film after 1940 as a poet, someone friendly doing good things, or as a great inventor matching with reality? No. It's always the villain or simply the admirer of the Austrian painter. That sucks so much. And even worse, many Germans themselves believe these false, made-up stereotypes now. Once I find the time, I certainly WILL do a video on all that myself because I'm so fed up with that all. Just a last remark, I once spoke with my grandma (1910-1998) about it:She said that also back then in the 1920/1930s, Germans found the way the Austrian painter spoke very weird and unnatural. Of course, because that man took acting lessons in order how to sound more dramatic, especially with the use of (rather) newly invented microphones that often still were of low quality. -- To answer your question with regard to Scottish English: My very good friend Stephen comes from a village called Bellshill, near Glasgow. He rolls his r, he knows how to pronounce the German "ch" since there is a very similar sound in Scottish English like in "Loch", and his English doesn't follow the melody of what people in Westminster would speak. If you ask me, he sounds lovely! During the Euro 2024, roughly 200,000 fans from Scotland were in Germany and they all spoke this beautiful variant of English. I'm used to it, and I find it wonderful.
a Classic US Show with German Guest´s mostly combines some sort of WW2 Jokes " hihihi you lost, we won, we saved everyone", harsh Words with the shown Quiz, Autobahn, Beer, Sausage and Oktoberfest. rarely anything else. its the same for ages.
When i watch movies that have german in them i so often see the actors messing it so i even do not understand it but then i am pleasantly surprised when someone speaks it as good as i do
I really appreciate the sound of scottish english! Feels strangely familiar, from a russian german perspective (probably because of the 'r' sound) Would love to see you react to some videos about the scottish accent/dialects😊
I just can't take it anymore! German never sounds aggressive unless it is spoken agressively. It doesn't sound military or whatever. It really is a very interesting language and many people who are non-native speakers agree with me!
In German you capitalise a word as soon as it is/ becomes a noun. Every noun is capitalized. So, while "ordnen" (to sort something/ put something in order) is an action, meaning a verb, and therefore NOT capitalized, "das Ordnen" (the sorting of (the books or something else)) has to be capitalized, because in this case the word is used as a noun. That's the grammatical rule. It can get, however, very confusing even for natives. It's a very common spelling mistake to make in written German even as a native speaker. :) A helpful rule is, that all words that end on -ung (like Ordnung), -heit or -keit are usually nouns and therefore to be capitalized. Also, on top of this, in German grammar we have 4 different cases ("Fälle") for nouns that go back to the Latin grammatical structure (it was 6 cases in Latin I believe) In German the first is the nominative (which is just the regular case of a noun like "das Haus"(the house), question word: who or what?), second the accusative (in English that's the direct object, I believe: "den Häusern"(something belongs "to the houses", question word in German: Wen oder was?), third the dativ (the indirect object: "dem Hund" (this leash "belongs to the dog", to whom? The dog (dem Hund). Question word in German: Wem oder was?) and lastly the genitive. You also find the genitive in English in the 's, like in Tim's apple meaning the apple of Tim (Whose apple? Tim's apple). The genitive therefore indicates possession. We use this "s", smiliar to how it functions in English, only that we use it very often to build long compound nouns. We call this "s" the "genitive s"(or "fugen s"). So, for example, the compound word "Gesundheitskarte" (meaning health(care) card) is constructed by indicating with the "genitive s", that it's the card OF your healthcare: Gesundheit's karte (health's card) -> Gesundheit-"s"-karte = Gesundheitskarte. A lot of nouns become less scary if you disect them like this. :) For example: Handelskammer (Handel-s-kammer) = chamber (Kammer) of commerce (Handel) Sonntagsausflug (Sonntag-s-ausflug) = a short trip (Ausflug) to somewhere ouside near by because it's sunday (and we therefore have time for that) Einweihungsfeier (Einweihung-s-feier) = a party (Feier) to celebrate the inauguration (Einweihung) of something Informationszentrum (Information-s-zentrum) = center (Zentrum) of/for information (Information), information center Essenszeit (Essen-s-zeit) = time (Zeit) to eat (Essen), the time for eating Wissensdurst (Wissen-s-durst) = the thirst (Durst) for more knowledge (Wissen) Schaffensdrang (Schaffen-s-drang) = the urge (Drang) to create/ for creating (Schaffen) something ❤
What I miss is the fact that there is Hochdeutsch = High German, but most of the people have a dialect. For a Bavarian (south Germany) it is hard to understand someone from Schleswig-Holstein (south Germany) or from Saxony (east). Whole words a different, for example breadroll: Brötchen (west), Semmel (south), Schrippe (Berlin area). Some accents sound grumpy (Bavarian), like singing a song (north), annoying (Swabia) or just funny (Saxony). And even when regional people try to speak Hochdeutsch, you mostly can hear their origins.
Hi Mert! What most people who make fun of it don't understand is that our compound words allow us to describe things precisely. And this precision helps us to work precisely. Or to put it bluntly: Our very precise language is an often overlooked part of our economic success...
The part of putting words togehter in german reminded me of an funny german insult, "Toilettentieftaucher" which describse someone who dives deep into toilets.
HaHa As if we were speaking so choppy. The video is not about explaining the German language but about making it sound bad. Words are used as examples throughout that hardly anyone uses in everyday life. All of the example videos were spoken by people who do not have German as their native language or by actors who make cheap jokes at the expense of the German language. Comedians always say what the audience wants to hear. And, mainly Americans, want to hear that German sounds ugly. That's why Hollywood always makes such an unspeakable noise when German is spoken.
Like in other countries we do have different accents in Germany too. I com from Cologne and my accent (Kölsch) sounds like singing while talking. By the way we from Cologne love our scottish friends. Our carnival music is often made from scottish folk music.
I love these cliches about us! 😂 There are actually some words that sound stupid (idk like "Krankenhaus" instead of "Hospital"...) but we can talk just as chilled as anyone else. "Schwöre!" ✌️ 🤓 I'll even tell you a secret: None of us wear lederhosen and you won't find sauerkraut in restaurants where I live. 🥲 The only thing that's true is the cliche about our beer, because we drink a lot of this stuff, hahaha. PROST! 🍻 Good video mate, I left a like. 👍😁👍
I have no idea why, but I am absolutely in love with the Scottisch accent. I think it's really adorable :) Also: all nouns are capitalised in German, that's why "Ordnung" (order) is written with a capital o. Example: Ich esse eine Scheibe Brot mit Butter und Käse. I eat a piece of bread with butter and cheese.
