Comments by "Holger P." (@holger_p) on "How anyone (including YOU) can read German" video.

  1. Impossible. You need to know the single words, and you speak the single words. Only handicap is, the missing spaces in between. But you know the construction rules from English like, snowball or catnip . You just can go on like "catnipdeliveryboy". If you know the single words, it's easy to read and to understand. You will not find them in any dictionary, cause they are created on the fly .. while you speak.
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  2. For constructing main rule is, English sentence structure does work in German. It's just .. there is more possible. Splitted verbs look strange to English. But "I pick it up" with the verb "pickup" is known in english too, just not as often used as in German.
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  3. It's not so much an anchestor of English, but an influencer, like French is. The Gaelic/Welsh/Icelandic tribes are somehow related to each other.
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  4. "do" is more an auxiliary verb like to form the past with "I did ".Would work in German to, but it's not common. Actually children are tought to not use 'tun' at all. It's like a Tabu word in well formed German.
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  5. French/Latin almost makes 30-40% of vocabulary. The little Norse influence I would rather name keltic and shows up in welsh.
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  6. Pronunciation is different, but quiet strict in German. You can very much imply from writing to speaking. The 'ch' in soft and hard speaking, is almost the only thing not reflected in writing. But if you hear an O, you write an O, and not things like eau.
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  7. Germans had all the 'th' until a spelling reform in 1880. All "silent" letters have been consequently removed. So "Thaler" you must have seen in a writing before 1880, it's Taler today. Or formerly "Thor"=Door became Tor, but has more the meaning of a gate.
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  8. The video was supposed to encourage, and take away anxiety ... don't destroy it.
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  9. That's more the french explanation. A german would not have the idea anything is doubled. It's a letter and sound by itself. But for the English: It sounds like English V.
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  10. Never heared this word before in English or German. Thought you mean arbeit, but meaning is closer to ' although' (obwohl)
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  11. You mean, Swedish is Closer to English than German ? I don't think so. But Suedes speak very well English, maybe your perception is biased. I think Swedish is about same lingual distance from English as German is.
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  12. Nice excourse. Sometimes it helps to see a word written, sometimes it helps to hear it spoken. This is due to german had several spelling reforms, they made adaption to spelling according to sounds, once every 100 years. English never has done this. That's why spelling does not reflect the sound. And lookalike words ligh tough and dough, do not even rhime. That would never happen in German.
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  13. And if you keep a horseback rider in mind, you get the connection.
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