I wonder what's the level of mutual ineligibility between DE<>NL (probably DE is easier to NL) but it's funny how Germans sometimes seem to play dumb and not understand a thing in NL

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whstl 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

As a German speaker, spoken Dutch REALLY trips me up because of small pronunciation differences in almost every word. Written Dutch is way closer.

The Dutch seem to understand German better, but my Dutch friends credit that more to education and exposure.

	▲	seszett 6 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I don't know about the Dutch but apparently the Flemish don't understand German without having learned it at school. I speak both some German and some Dutch (as nth languages, I can understand them fine but speaking is hit and miss) and sometimes I don't notice which is which and answer in the wrong language, to me they're almost the same language with a different accent. I translate the German into some Frenglish mess for my Flemish friends to help them understand and it works great.
	▲	em-bee 8 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		they have access to german tv and watch it.

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i_don_t_know 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I'm German, I don't speak Dutch. But I was able to follow a Dutch tour guide in Den Haag just fine when she was explaining things in Dutch. She kindly repeated everything in English for my benefit (I was the only foreigner) even though I told her I understood her just fine in Dutch.

You have to "adjust your ears" a bit but I think if you know German and English then you can understand Dutch just fine if it's not slang.

	▲	hopelite 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It also depends on the particular dialect a German speaks. Dutch is effectively old German before all the various alterations and "reforms" to the German language that were instituted to create fragmentation between the germanic people of Europe, i.e., English, Dutch, Germans, Austrians, Swiss, Belgians throughout the ~16th-20th century by aristocrats driving wedges between peasants between kingdoms and dukedoms in order to define their own nations/ethnicities through language and culture so their royal families could rule over and would find it difficult to associate with each other. It is one of the things that also contributed to the fragmentation of Germany before unification, language barriers that even created unique cultures between sides of a valley that were in different dukedoms. A similar thing has caused the tension between the germanic and Romance languages that followed the Roman border line N to S that separates Europe.

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em-bee 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

dutch is a bit harder to understand. like some german dialects that not every german understands either, like swiss german, luxemburgian or friesian (also spoken in the northern parts of the netherlands), or plattdeutsch.

i grew up in austria and in the north of germany so i got an early appreciation for understanding dialects. yet learning dutch took me a few months of staying in the netherlands. on the other hand when i visited luxemburg people were shocked that i could understand them when they spoke amongst each other

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Freak_NL 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Frisian is not a dialect, and is not usually spoken outside of Frisia (the Dutch province). In German Ostfriesland they do speak a German dialect with Frisian roots.

	▲	em-bee 36 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		i was simplifying. the difference between dialect and language is fluid. plattdeutsch (low german) is also considered a language, as is luxembourgish. frisian btw is also spoken in nordfriesland (in schleswig-holstein) and there are a few speakers of saterfriesish which is the last remaining dialect of east frisian.

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hopelite 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Ironically, technically speaking, there are seemingly more similarities between British English, i.e., Anglican German and current High German due to various perversions and "reforms" of the German language over the last many decades, in order to drive the Germanic people away from each other.

If the EU were a serious and legitimate institution, there would be an effort to implement reforms that nudge English, Dutch, and present day German all towards better mutual intelligibility, NOT diversion from each other through perversion and "simplification", or what seems to be a pollution and destruction of the current German and Dutch language through what at least Germans have a term for, "Verdenglichung", i.e., the portmanteau of German (De..) and English, prefixed with "ver...", meaning the transformation or application of.