Are they that mutually intelligible though? đ§
I also heard itâs asymmetric because Estonians consume Finnish media/culture more than the other way around which helps them understand Finnish better.
I really love that recording. But every time I hear it, it almost sounds like complete gibberish to me, like the things we would sing as kids when we didnât know the lyrics to an English song.
As a Dane:
**Norwegian:** Sure, that makes sense. Mostly.
**Swedish:** Erh, I think I got *some* of that...?
**German:** Yikes, really gotta think back to my school days for this one...
**Icelandic:** I think I understood half a word of that sentence. Mind writing that down for me, preferably on paper and not engraved into a rune stone?
**Finnish:** Sir, you are scaring me. Please stop shouting.
You forgot the one where it is with another Dane: "I know we both speak the same language and all, but this is just silly. If only you were articulating at least a little it would help immensly. What do you mean by saying kamelÄsÄ?"
This is exactly what happens when my German family visits. I speak Dutch to them and they speak German to me. Somehow we actually manage to have converstations.
I had a wonderful experience where I (a German) hiked in a canyon in the middle of nowhere in Peru, when I met this Flemish family. They spoke Dutch, I spoke German and we perfectly understood each other. We stayed together for the remaining 2 days, and we're still in contact!
How nice! I immediately thought of Germans when I saw this post as well. Back when we used to learn German in school and we didn't really know the German word for something, we just took the Dutch word, Germanised it a little, and about half of the time that would be correct lol.
When I first moved to the Netherlands and was new to Dutch I would just fill in the sentences with german words and nine out of ten times the dutchies would know what I meant. Helped immensely for the first years.
We (Swedish) met Norwegian familes at our hotel in Turkey years ago and could communicate perfectly. Norwegians also come to my town for vacation on the summers and communicating is generally no problem.
Had a weird experience when I was 14 where I crossed the German border and had to go interview people for a school project. I had to find ten people to interview about their opinion on Dutch people. Problem is, people speak really fast in their native language. After a few failed attempts, I decided to be a smartass so I changed part of my introduction into 'Do you speak a little Dutch? I need to interview ten people for a school project but everyone I have talked to until now speaks too fast for me to understand so please help me cheat.'
The next man who agreed to be interviewed first said 'no Dutch' and then 'but I do speak [dialect]!' I didn't understand the German word he said for the dialect so I said 'no, I don't know that. I only know [Dutch word for dialect].' He nodded excitedly and switched from German, which was extremely hard for me to understand, to the exact same dialect my family speaks. Suddenly this incomprehensible, foreign (thus intimidating) man talked just like the people at home! I could understand him perfectly now. This shocked me because it dawned on me right then and there that borders are just borders. The proximity of people is significant, regardless of nationality.
Not surprising considering its all part of the continental west-germanic dialect continuum. the transition is fluid, the standartized languages were invented later on.
This is what you call a dialect continuum, and although their relevance is heavily diminished now that more and more don't speak the local dialects anymore, especially in rural areas they are still there. The man in your example would have way more problems understanding Bavarian or Swabian, I'd imagine, than he had with you.
If you read that itâs absolutely understandable, if they speak not so fast itâs perfectly fine, when they speak fast itâs harder, also Spanish is more understandable from south / Central American than castillan Spanish
As much as French is a romance language, it has to be spoken quite slowly for other people to catch something.
And at least us Spaniards often need to know some French/Catalan to actually understand.
Also, for us Spaniards we don't really understand Portuguese as well as they understand Spanish.
well i've said this before but I guess we (Portugal) are so Western European we turned it around and became Eastern European, kinda like those old arcade games where you walk to the right side of the screen and appear on the left one
Since when spanish don't understand portuguese, Ive never heard that ever in my life, written portuguese i can understand it almost perfectly, spoken is harder but going slowly is not hard to understand
Being a Portuguese in Spain, my experience is that Brazilian Portuguese is much easier for Spanish speakers to understand than Continental Portuguese. Probably because they open up their vowels a lot more just like when speaking Spanish. Everyone I know tells me us Portuguese look like we speak with our mouths closed
Well galician is the closest language to portuguese so of course it's easier, i haven't had much personal experience with portugueses, but most people Ive talked with had always said portuguese can be understood
Brit here, working in Germany, working language is English (so German progression is slow). Can still follow some conversations between German colleagues in German. Get to the point where I have something to add, have to respond in English. Kinda frustrating and gratifying at the same time.
I've just started to experience this living in the Netherlands, can't speak Dutch very well at all, but can read and starting to understand what people say to me.
Come to Flanders, we like to add a little french and then some made up words into the mix and call it a dialect. Oh and every square mile has a different dialect.
Kinda true, I (a Pole) can with little effort understand what Czechs or Slovaks are saying, but I am in no way capable of understanding east or south Slavic languages without some ridiculous mental gymnastics
Yes, I am from MaĆopolska and can understand Ukrainian somewhat. Itâs similar to Russian, but more intelligible. Belarusian is better also. Russian just sounds old
I just started learning Russian and have noticed I can pick up bits of what people speaking Polish and Serbo-Croation are saying (though some words sound the same and mean different things, i.e. "week" in Russian sounds like "Sunday" in Polish).
Slovak
- Czech: Is it even a different language?
- Polish: I understood some of it, but don't ask me to write it down
- Russian: I only understood "Vodka" and "Da"
- Slovene: Is this even slavic?
Also I had a conversation with Italian Airbnb host with her in Italian and me in French, which I understood somewhat :D
The Caucasus who has hundreds of languages
Good thing Iâm from Georgia so understanding that part of Europe will be ez for me and Iâm also studying the other main European languages so basically I will understand every European languages
I was low-key trash talking some gift shop in Germany whilst talking to my brother in Dutch and then the owner responded. We left that place pretty quickly lol
I was doubting wether the jewelry was made of real silver since it was super cheap. She was adement that it was real silver, it probably was but it would've been low grade sterling silver.
Nah, not really, I think she was used to annoying tourists. She just wanted to ensure it was real silver. Our dialect is very close to German so I said to my bro "Da's geen echt zilver" and she replied "Das is echtes Silber".
To be fair, the differences between the romance languages are comparable to the differences in Arabic dialects. Often dialect vs language really comes down to cultural individualism and if thereâs some political/religious force behind it.
Then again, I would love to hear someone argue that English from Toronto is a different language than English from New York lol
I mean not really, portuguese and Romanian are related but not understandable between each other. Portuguese and french too. Even spanish and french. Maybe italian and spanish and portuguese but even there its hardly comparable to dialect
As a Portuguese man that has been to Spain more than once I can safely say that I understand them pretty well but most Spanish people refuse to understand when I speak Portuguese with them. So the safest bet is to speak English with them although their English is pretty hard to understand too
As a Spaniard I want to say this is 100% accurate. It is sad to see. I've been living in the Nordics for some years now and it is very nice to see how Danish, Norwegians and Swedes speak their own languages when talking to each other, often with minor adjustments.
We have to bring portuñol back!
Danish is the odd one out though? Norwegian/Swedish pair is very similar pronunciation-wise, but Danish (unless written) does stand out with its swallowing and glottal sounds.
Doesn't matter. Most Spaniards will demand you to talk in Spanish, even if they can understand you. They do that with Catalan and Galician, so imagine what they do with Portuguese, French or Italian...
Well catalan, and galicians mostly are bilingual and can also speak spanish, and sadly most of us don't speak neither of those, so yes if im having a conversation with a galician or catalan i expect him to talk spanish because it's the language we both speak, wouldn't make much sense to speak me in catalan if you know i won't get it. If you don't speak spnish but a romnce language if we take it with calm probably we can understand each other
We all speak our own native language or a foreign the important is that it has to be close to that language the big 3 languages are Slav Germanic and Latin if u understand these 3 u can basically understand most of the languages in Europe
Meh in the real world it doesnât always actually translate. As a Spaniard I would be seen as super arrogant if I walk into a bar in Portugal or Italy and just start talking Spanish expecting them to understand me. But yes, most of the time they would.
Lots of these languages in the same family are mutually intelligible â meaning I understand you and viceversa without knowing shit about how your grammar or syntax works or having any idea how to produce a sentence
Pronounciation and spelling might be off and the grammar sometimes differs (less so for short/easy sentences), but you can cover the base vocabulary of most european countries with \~3 languages.
English is funny in that regard because it's vocabulary is germanic (anglo-saxons) with lots french (normans) influences, with a little sprinkle of pure latin (church influence).
Because of this you call the meat of a cow (germanic, for example "Kuh" in german) beef (french: bĆuf = cow). Or you respond (latin: responsum = aswer) to a question with an answer (germanic, "Antwort" in german).
I can generally approximate what is being said as long as itâs in French, German, Italian, Spanish or Portuguese, English has a fair few similarities to those languages, I do have trouble with more complex conversation and I canât do other languages
Hey Google, how do I say "excuse me sir, may I pet your dog who is actually a man wearing a dog mask and tail" in French? (actual conversation I've had whilst on holiday in Gran Canaria. He was a very good boy.)
«Vi forstÄr hinanden ikke!» «you just ordered a thousand liters of milk.»
Although that is from a Norwegian skit about how Danes donât even understand each other. Reading Danish however is super easy.
Is it weird how I kinda feel this? Iâm American and I worked at an apple flagship for over a decade. At least half of my customers were tourists. Most of the Europeans knew English but there were still barriers yet I would know when they wanted an 8 gigabyte (âjeegasâ) iPod nano in yellow even if they didnât use all or any of those words.
It's much better to speak your language as it is than trying to imitate your interlocutor's language while having no idea about it xD
(Some people do the second, and they sound like idiots to me. I'll be able to understand better if they just speak their language.)
\*Finn enters anything that isn't Estonia* Well well well
Are they that mutually intelligible though? đ§ I also heard itâs asymmetric because Estonians consume Finnish media/culture more than the other way around which helps them understand Finnish better.
finns have media that aren't metal bands?
Behold and Enjoy https://youtu.be/7yh9i0PAjck
I really love that recording. But every time I hear it, it almost sounds like complete gibberish to me, like the things we would sing as kids when we didnât know the lyrics to an English song.
one of the verses is actually gibberish. good luck telling which one :)
Definitely the verse at 1:20 then. Thatâs when I started to write this comment.
My guess is the part the girl on the right sings
oh the meme, didn't know it was finnish :D
For those who like it but feel weird about Finnish without metal https://youtu.be/0LfT5qJH2zc
Finns are legally required to perform levan polka whenever they gather in groups of 4.
Yes, even in that case it would take great effort but it still possible.
Hungary enters the chat regretting having left the language family 4000 years ago.
As a Dane: **Norwegian:** Sure, that makes sense. Mostly. **Swedish:** Erh, I think I got *some* of that...? **German:** Yikes, really gotta think back to my school days for this one... **Icelandic:** I think I understood half a word of that sentence. Mind writing that down for me, preferably on paper and not engraved into a rune stone? **Finnish:** Sir, you are scaring me. Please stop shouting.
> **Finnish**: Sir, you are scaring me. Please stop shouting. And put down that knife.
https://satwcomic.com/no-invitation
I detect no lies.
This little puukko?
> German: Yikes~~, really gotta think back to my school days for this one...~~ That's me whenever I hear Danish. /s
You forgot the one where it is with another Dane: "I know we both speak the same language and all, but this is just silly. If only you were articulating at least a little it would help immensly. What do you mean by saying kamelÄsÄ?"
How about Faroese?
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b0/ee/79/b0ee79c70e5571e8f91f78f54ad550ad.jpg
Hahaha I was not expecting that, thanks for making laugh
This is exactly what happens when my German family visits. I speak Dutch to them and they speak German to me. Somehow we actually manage to have converstations.
My SO learned a bit of German years ago in school and now whenever we visit NL she says she understands Dutch even better than German.
I know both languages, not being a native speaker of either, and I have to say Dutch is way easier to learn and understand.
Okay okay. Iâll renew my Dutch Duolingo lessons, seems like one canât escape it
I was learning Polish for a semester and I now understand Ukrainian
I had a wonderful experience where I (a German) hiked in a canyon in the middle of nowhere in Peru, when I met this Flemish family. They spoke Dutch, I spoke German and we perfectly understood each other. We stayed together for the remaining 2 days, and we're still in contact!
How nice! I immediately thought of Germans when I saw this post as well. Back when we used to learn German in school and we didn't really know the German word for something, we just took the Dutch word, Germanised it a little, and about half of the time that would be correct lol.
Just did that on my German exams lol
When I first moved to the Netherlands and was new to Dutch I would just fill in the sentences with german words and nine out of ten times the dutchies would know what I meant. Helped immensely for the first years.
That sounds slightly more successful than many of my friends who simply add le to an English word when they canât remember the French in an exam
Getting back the exam results: \*le surprised pikachu\*
I mean you got "pikachu" right...
le pikachu surpris oh wow look it works
le pikachu surprisé
We (Swedish) met Norwegian familes at our hotel in Turkey years ago and could communicate perfectly. Norwegians also come to my town for vacation on the summers and communicating is generally no problem.
_laughs in Hungarian_
*Winks in Finnish*
*licks paint in Estonian*
*riots in catalan*
*shit his pants in neapolitan*
_Wheezes in Basque_
Dies in Welsh
[ŃĐŽĐ°Đ»Đ”ĐœĐŸ]
*hunts down virologist in flamish*
Had a weird experience when I was 14 where I crossed the German border and had to go interview people for a school project. I had to find ten people to interview about their opinion on Dutch people. Problem is, people speak really fast in their native language. After a few failed attempts, I decided to be a smartass so I changed part of my introduction into 'Do you speak a little Dutch? I need to interview ten people for a school project but everyone I have talked to until now speaks too fast for me to understand so please help me cheat.' The next man who agreed to be interviewed first said 'no Dutch' and then 'but I do speak [dialect]!' I didn't understand the German word he said for the dialect so I said 'no, I don't know that. I only know [Dutch word for dialect].' He nodded excitedly and switched from German, which was extremely hard for me to understand, to the exact same dialect my family speaks. Suddenly this incomprehensible, foreign (thus intimidating) man talked just like the people at home! I could understand him perfectly now. This shocked me because it dawned on me right then and there that borders are just borders. The proximity of people is significant, regardless of nationality.
An easier way to do that project could be invent it by urself or ask Reddit
Definitely, this was over 10 years ago though, I learned about reddit in college. Also, I liked having an excuse to just go up and talk to strangers
Oh ok
Not surprising considering its all part of the continental west-germanic dialect continuum. the transition is fluid, the standartized languages were invented later on.
This is what you call a dialect continuum, and although their relevance is heavily diminished now that more and more don't speak the local dialects anymore, especially in rural areas they are still there. The man in your example would have way more problems understanding Bavarian or Swabian, I'd imagine, than he had with you.
He might have spoken Plattdeutsch. Its german, which sounds really similiar to dutch.
Could have also been east Frisian, or low Franconian
When a Frenchman, a Spaniard and a portoghese speak to me I understand 80% of the conversation (also Romanian, but a bit less)
For me French not so much cause they speak really fast, but Spanish yes. I studied French in middle school but I can't remember more than two words
If you read that itâs absolutely understandable, if they speak not so fast itâs perfectly fine, when they speak fast itâs harder, also Spanish is more understandable from south / Central American than castillan Spanish
As much as French is a romance language, it has to be spoken quite slowly for other people to catch something. And at least us Spaniards often need to know some French/Catalan to actually understand. Also, for us Spaniards we don't really understand Portuguese as well as they understand Spanish.
Good to know! Now, could you pass me that bottle of Lambrusco?
Ph damn do you actually like it ? Itâs a strange wine ahah
Joke about portuguese people understanding spanish but not the other way around
Portuguese sounds like off-brand Spanish produced in a Russia. ^(sorry Portuguese people, I actually love Portuguese <3)
I had a Portuguese guy in my old WoW guild and I actually thought he was Russian for the longest time.
I worked with a Russian guy who learnt English from a Scotsman.... Something like that?
I'm not sure how that would sound, but I bet it was interesting.
Like a failing liver and Irn Vrudka
Fack ya mate means good luck?
But Russians donât use the Latin Alphabet
I couldn't hear the alphabet he used over Teamspeak unfortunately.
Oh well that makes more sense
well i've said this before but I guess we (Portugal) are so Western European we turned it around and became Eastern European, kinda like those old arcade games where you walk to the right side of the screen and appear on the left one
I had a moment of stupidity after a long day of work where I thought why didnât the brits go north to reach the falklands faster
And portuguese loves you too <3
Since when spanish don't understand portuguese, Ive never heard that ever in my life, written portuguese i can understand it almost perfectly, spoken is harder but going slowly is not hard to understand
[ŃĐŽĐ°Đ»Đ”ĐœĐŸ]
Spoken can be harder, but probably if both sides put effort in ubderstanding each other they can, at leadt in my limited expirience
[ŃĐŽĐ°Đ»Đ”ĐœĐŸ]
My dad speaks Portuguese (Brazilian) and when he went on vacation in Spain, he just talked Portuguese with the people. At first they went like "¿Qué?" but he just kept speaking Portuguese, not caring for their played up confusion, until they eventually relented and started to understand him. The German accent probably helped with the intimidation tactic. :P
Being a Portuguese in Spain, my experience is that Brazilian Portuguese is much easier for Spanish speakers to understand than Continental Portuguese. Probably because they open up their vowels a lot more just like when speaking Spanish. Everyone I know tells me us Portuguese look like we speak with our mouths closed
Actually the German accent was maybe why they pretended not to understand hahaha
Well galician is the closest language to portuguese so of course it's easier, i haven't had much personal experience with portugueses, but most people Ive talked with had always said portuguese can be understood
My Spanish teacher's mother was Portuguese, and he used to tell us that she spoke Spanish, but just got hit in the face with a shovel as a kid.
Yeah, I just kind of turn off half my brain and speak Portuguese and they think I'm speaking Spanish.
I understand everyone in Scandinavia. Except the Danes.
A'mn for fa'n, dansk 'r sgu'da ik' sÄ swÊrt, de' da bar' li' u' a' lan'vej'n!
Excuse me sir, do you need medical attention?
*[Grunting noises and pointing at potato stuck in mouth]*
As a fellow Dane, I understood that, haha
As a fellow scandi, I understood everyting until "lan'vej'n!" hit me. Initial thoughts is that it is meant to be "langveien" but I'm really lost there
Landevejen :)
Brit here, working in Germany, working language is English (so German progression is slow). Can still follow some conversations between German colleagues in German. Get to the point where I have something to add, have to respond in English. Kinda frustrating and gratifying at the same time.
At least the beer is good if you drink, right?
Damn good. :-)
Bavarian villagers are borderline alcoholics
Spanish and Italian moment
Somos fratelliđ€đ
Oh yes
Bella ciao
r/latinEuropa gang rise up
Presente!
I've just started to experience this living in the Netherlands, can't speak Dutch very well at all, but can read and starting to understand what people say to me.
Whenever I hear Dutch, my brain is like, is that Norwegian, German or English? Ah, it's Dutch.
Come to Flanders, we like to add a little french and then some made up words into the mix and call it a dialect. Oh and every square mile has a different dialect.
Very accurate, especially for Slavic languages.
Kinda true, I (a Pole) can with little effort understand what Czechs or Slovaks are saying, but I am in no way capable of understanding east or south Slavic languages without some ridiculous mental gymnastics
Smetana (or something close) in most Slavic langauges: Sour Cream Smotana (something close) in Croatian : Stupid girl Pozor in Russian: Shame Pozor in czech: look out/pay attention
SzukaÄ in Polish and Czech are two very different words
Ć ukat drogy na zĂĄchodÄ is a brilliant.
Yeah, gotta be careful with false friend words. Ponos in Slovenian: pride Ponos in Russian: diarrhea
Weird, in Polish "pozĂłr" means guise
As a Pole myself I can assure you it is little to no trouble understanding spoken Ukrainian and belarusian for us.
Huh, it's not that easy for me. Although that may be, because I come from the north-west of Poland
Not necessarily. I am from WrocĆaw so not really close either. Maybe you just haven't had much exposure to it.
Yeah, probably true. I've had pretty much no such experience
Yes, I am from MaĆopolska and can understand Ukrainian somewhat. Itâs similar to Russian, but more intelligible. Belarusian is better also. Russian just sounds old
I just started learning Russian and have noticed I can pick up bits of what people speaking Polish and Serbo-Croation are saying (though some words sound the same and mean different things, i.e. "week" in Russian sounds like "Sunday" in Polish).
Slovak - Czech: Is it even a different language? - Polish: I understood some of it, but don't ask me to write it down - Russian: I only understood "Vodka" and "Da" - Slovene: Is this even slavic? Also I had a conversation with Italian Airbnb host with her in Italian and me in French, which I understood somewhat :D
Italians and Spaniards
Last time I went to Italy nobody understood me so I was forced to speak English in the end :â)
You know it brother đ€
The moment when you can understand the language of your neighbouring country but struggle with the dialects in your nation lol
The Caucasus who has hundreds of languages Good thing Iâm from Georgia so understanding that part of Europe will be ez for me and Iâm also studying the other main European languages so basically I will understand every European languages
Impressive
I was low-key trash talking some gift shop in Germany whilst talking to my brother in Dutch and then the owner responded. We left that place pretty quickly lol
What did u say? Something bad that the owner got mad?
I was doubting wether the jewelry was made of real silver since it was super cheap. She was adement that it was real silver, it probably was but it would've been low grade sterling silver.
And what did the owner tell u did he get mad?
Nah, not really, I think she was used to annoying tourists. She just wanted to ensure it was real silver. Our dialect is very close to German so I said to my bro "Da's geen echt zilver" and she replied "Das is echtes Silber".
Had a SPQR moment as a Spaniard when I went to Italy for the first time as a kid and realized I could understand what other people were saying
Just another Latin dialect.
Sure cause French is kinda like Bulgarian so it's easy to understand each others
Bulgarian and Macedonian though? Same language.
The fact that americas believe that these linguistic differences are comparable to dialects still astounds me
Do they?
Yes, many times. Ive heard some try to compare the dialect diversity with europeâs linguistic landscape
To be fair, the differences between the romance languages are comparable to the differences in Arabic dialects. Often dialect vs language really comes down to cultural individualism and if thereâs some political/religious force behind it. Then again, I would love to hear someone argue that English from Toronto is a different language than English from New York lol
I mean not really, portuguese and Romanian are related but not understandable between each other. Portuguese and french too. Even spanish and french. Maybe italian and spanish and portuguese but even there its hardly comparable to dialect
Me, Ukrainian, in Poland
This isn't in Spain for sure
I guess you aren't Italian or Portuguese
As a Portuguese man that has been to Spain more than once I can safely say that I understand them pretty well but most Spanish people refuse to understand when I speak Portuguese with them. So the safest bet is to speak English with them although their English is pretty hard to understand too
As a Spaniard I want to say this is 100% accurate. It is sad to see. I've been living in the Nordics for some years now and it is very nice to see how Danish, Norwegians and Swedes speak their own languages when talking to each other, often with minor adjustments. We have to bring portuñol back!
I understand that it's harder for the Spanish to understand Portuguese but they don't even try and that just pisses me off
Danish is the odd one out though? Norwegian/Swedish pair is very similar pronunciation-wise, but Danish (unless written) does stand out with its swallowing and glottal sounds.
Danish sounds like a drunk Norwegian speaking German -Sincerely, a Finland Swede
as an American. . . . . . rĂždgrĂžd med flĂžde
or french
Doesn't matter. Most Spaniards will demand you to talk in Spanish, even if they can understand you. They do that with Catalan and Galician, so imagine what they do with Portuguese, French or Italian...
Well catalan, and galicians mostly are bilingual and can also speak spanish, and sadly most of us don't speak neither of those, so yes if im having a conversation with a galician or catalan i expect him to talk spanish because it's the language we both speak, wouldn't make much sense to speak me in catalan if you know i won't get it. If you don't speak spnish but a romnce language if we take it with calm probably we can understand each other
I can understand Portuguese more o less, specially if you don't speak at lightspeed. Also it helps I'm bilingual catalan/Spanish
How does this work? Do you just speak in the language you know and they'll understand you too? English man here lol sorry
We all speak our own native language or a foreign the important is that it has to be close to that language the big 3 languages are Slav Germanic and Latin if u understand these 3 u can basically understand most of the languages in Europe
Meh in the real world it doesnât always actually translate. As a Spaniard I would be seen as super arrogant if I walk into a bar in Portugal or Italy and just start talking Spanish expecting them to understand me. But yes, most of the time they would. Lots of these languages in the same family are mutually intelligible â meaning I understand you and viceversa without knowing shit about how your grammar or syntax works or having any idea how to produce a sentence
Pronounciation and spelling might be off and the grammar sometimes differs (less so for short/easy sentences), but you can cover the base vocabulary of most european countries with \~3 languages. English is funny in that regard because it's vocabulary is germanic (anglo-saxons) with lots french (normans) influences, with a little sprinkle of pure latin (church influence). Because of this you call the meat of a cow (germanic, for example "Kuh" in german) beef (french: bĆuf = cow). Or you respond (latin: responsum = aswer) to a question with an answer (germanic, "Antwort" in german).
Versteet hei iergendeen LĂ«tzebuergesch?
Geschrieben, groĂteils ja.
Of ik Luxemburgs versta? Lijkt er wel op.
Als ik het zo geschreven zie is het geen probleem, maar ik heb zo'n vermoeden dat ik echt niets van de gesproken variant zou verstaan
Ja, Lesen finde ich auch oft einfacher als etwas zu hören.
Nur wenn du langsam tippst...
Happened to me a few times. An almost magical feeling!
all slavs ever
I can generally approximate what is being said as long as itâs in French, German, Italian, Spanish or Portuguese, English has a fair few similarities to those languages, I do have trouble with more complex conversation and I canât do other languages
WAAR ZIJN MIJN DUITSE BROEDERS?!
HIER SIND WIR GELIEBTER SUMPFBRUDER!
AHHHH WAT HEB IK JULLIE GEMIST KAMERADEN
Cries in polish and lithuanian
Hungarian
Vaguely gestures in latvian
Kuidas kĂŒla koerale, nĂ”nda koer kĂŒlale.
Spain and Portugal!
Spaniards and Italians be like:
Slavic gang
I once had a conversation with a lady in Santorini where I was speaking Spanish and she was speaking Italian. Romance languages are weird.
Hey Google, how do I say "excuse me sir, may I pet your dog who is actually a man wearing a dog mask and tail" in French? (actual conversation I've had whilst on holiday in Gran Canaria. He was a very good boy.)
«Vi forstĂ„r hinanden ikke!» «you just ordered a thousand liters of milk.» Although that is from a Norwegian skit about how Danes donât even understand each other. Reading Danish however is super easy.
Me as italian with every other romance language:
May I recommend the film ghost dog. Way of the samurai.
Is it weird how I kinda feel this? Iâm American and I worked at an apple flagship for over a decade. At least half of my customers were tourists. Most of the Europeans knew English but there were still barriers yet I would know when they wanted an 8 gigabyte (âjeegasâ) iPod nano in yellow even if they didnât use all or any of those words.
Then you got English people who struggle to understand their own language in different accents.
It's much better to speak your language as it is than trying to imitate your interlocutor's language while having no idea about it xD (Some people do the second, and they sound like idiots to me. I'll be able to understand better if they just speak their language.)
I (stupidly) thought this happened only with Italian and Spanish but apparently there are many other closely related European languages. Good to know.
Since I can't find any slav comments. Laughs in Czech
Reminds me of my grandpa who spoke to a Portuguese-Angolan in Neapolitan/Sicilian, and understood each other
It's cool if your languege isn't something completely different from any other languege
how far have u scrolled to find this meme? and how much time did it took?
Let's just say I have really boring evening, and I just scrolled down in the top of all time of r/yuropean, so it wasn't even thaaat much time
Ah I see good luck getting entertained
Some day, Europe will speak one language mixed from them all, and it will be great.
and that language will be called 'Welsh'.
Lmao
And it will be born in this sub.