The Dutch Language

They stopped just at the right time as from 21 onwards it continues with eenentwintig, translates to one-and-twenty. The last number is first and then the decimal. In English it is also like that up to nine-teen but then changes to twenty-one. I always found that a bit weird.

In Dutch it continues like that all the way to 99 (nine-and-ninety). It is the same in German. Most Dutch speaking people would say German is closest relation, not English.

German is closer to Dutch, very close to Friesian, Which is the closest relative to English.

Friesian and 14th century English are dialects more than different languages.

Sounds a bit like German with an influence of English. I've always heard they were similar which makes sense considering their close proximity geographically.

A Dutch person can probably understand a German speaker and vice versa.

Reminds me of the subtle differences between Irish and Scottish Gaelic which are very similar.


Edit. Makes you think all languages are a hybrid of each other through the eternity of time, integrated words and mixture of cultures. In that respect English is a mixture of thousands of generational languages that have come before it. Hundreds of thousands of years

Not surprising. Its only weird because English became so dominant and the British and later the USA became the world hegemony. Western Europe is cooler when you see it outside of a European lens. Its a tiny part of the globe. Amazing that it came to dominate the world.

Tony EH wrote: »

Yes.

Dutch is Deutsch.

The Belgians could be a mix of German/French peoples same as Luxembourg

PTH2009 wrote: »

The Belgians could be a mix of German/French peoples same as Luxembourg

That's the Flemish.

Who, BTW, get very uppity if you get them wrong. Belgium can be an odd place though.

Dutch and German are really mutually intelligible to me

However, I don't say that to Germans or the Dutch

With Dutch, once you get the accent down, and can recognise the word endings, it's much easier to learn.

Basically put on a heavy Jaap Schhhtam accent and you're halfway there

PTH2009 wrote: »

Afrikaans is similar to Dutch isn't it ?

French, Dutch and South Africans can be pretty rude people at times

I like Dutch people for being less 'nice' than Irish people tbh.
I'd rather people be rude cos they don't like me, than pretend they like me. Personal preference though.

Tony EH wrote: »

Um, I don't know.

I can get to grips with German, which I find pretty straightforward (not that I'm a speaker mind you). But Dutch always leaves me in the dark.

The hardest thing about German is the masculine/feminine thing. "Die Luftwaffe" and all that.

I know what you mean, but if you have a good grasp of German, the sentence structure can be quite similar.
I've been using Duolingo on and off for about 2 years now, and my school German is probably back where I was at when I left school, but my Dutch is almost at the same level after only 2years.

Practising it is the issue, speaking a language, making mistakes, getting the idioms, all that helps a lot I find.

As a Portuguese mothertongue than also speak other Latin languages, a see English as a corrupted Latin language with many of the words from Latin and often with different meanings. And many of the non Latin words and verbs have a synonym that is Latin like "commenced" instead of "started", "interred" instead of "buried", "augmented" instead of "increased" so on and on. Funny is that some Anglos says those kind of words to us thinking we can't understand.

bubblypop wrote: »

I think the less like English, the easier to learn!

English is so easy that I still have to find a foreigner that speaks it close enough to a native speaker. Even people from ex English colonies such as India or Nigeria that proudly says they were teached English from school are barely understandable. Met people here with more than 10 years living in Ireland that still needs someone to help with translation.