Whats the diffrence between the language german and dutch?

Question

Im goin to germany. Im trying to learn how to speak it myself.So i have this online thing were u translate a word from english to german. So i type the word"could" and there are like 10 diffrent ways to say "could" in german. Which german word do i know is the one they use.

Answer 1

Well, there is a world of difference as well as a lot of similarities, between Dutch and German!

To be perfectly politically correct, Dutch is the official language in Holland and one of the three official languages in Belgium (along with French and German). It is also spoken in some of the former Dutch (belonging to Holland) colonies (Suriname, Aruba, The Holland Antilles). A language very closely related to Dutch, called Afrikaans is spoken in certain parts of Africa (South Africa as an official language, and Namibia as a widely spread unofficial language).
The two languages are consistently related. A good German speaker can understand farily well a medium conversation or text in Dutch, since they share a germanic root (West Germanic Languages, common root-Franconian-the language of an old Germanic tribe, called the Francs). To maintain the equilibrium, I must admit that among all foreigners, the Dutch have it the easiest in speaking good German as (theoretically) non-native speakers, and they have the best prononciacion by far, on average, at least. However, for an average German, even trying to pronounce a simple sentence in Dutch may prove as pleasant and easy a task as eating a working chain-saw.

To completely switch from politically correctness to another thing, standardized modern Dutch is just a dialect of German, with a lot of English influence and an oversimplified grammar. The most common joke about how modern Dutch appeared is that a German and an English merchant met on a stormy night in Den Haag (important port in nowadays Holland) and told each other the story of their lifes while getting drunk and using their respective language. As dawn broke, the Dutch language was born.

Some of the older German words, roots and terminations, no longer currently in use in Germany, have however perpetuated in the Dutch language. In Germany itslef there are local dialects (such as Ost-Friesisch) which are closer to current day Dutch than to standard German. Terminations and prononciacion are the keys in distinguishing the two languages.

If you want a reasonable comparrison, try listening to Jamaican (provided you are a native English speaker). The difference you notice between what you hear and US English is about the same with the one between Dutch and German.

As for learning German fast and all by yourself, I strongly suggest you forget the idea! All you can obtain is a broken language, that nobody in the German speaking space (Germany, Austria, Lichtenstein, parts of Switzerland, parts of Luxemburg, parts of Belgium, parts of Denmark, parts of Italy, small parts of Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania, Russia, Kazakhstan etc., Namibia, parts of Cameroon) will ever regard as worth listening to (not because they are uncivil people, but because they wouldn't understand much of the sense of what you want to say).
In learning this language, understanding its grammar is the most important thing, since German has lots more cathegories and variability over these cathegories as English (by the way, another Germanic language), and a very different logic of the Phrase than most other (even Germanic) languages.
Moreover, the currently spoken German also requires (as observed by you on that translating machine), a lot of precision.
For example, in English you have "ticket"..and by that you designate and everybody understands all kinds of entry or travel documents, whereas German requires you to go to the bitter end: fahr-karte, flug-ticket, eintrittskarte (travel-ticket, plane-ticket, entry-ticket).

Still want to go for the crash course?
The best solution, ever invented is a "sleeping dictionary".
In order to get that, all you need is to look honest, charming, innocent and say: "Du bist das hübscheste Mädchen das ich je gesehen habe, und das ist den einzige Satz das ich auf Deutsch ausdrücken kann. Willst du mich mehr lehren, bitte?" (I will not give you a translation, just use the phrase and make sure you pick up the right person to tell it to!)

Viel Spass beim Reisen in Deutschland! (Enjoy your trip in Germany)

Modified after finally noticing that the person asking seems to belong to the feminine gender: Please disregard the pick-up phrase for the "sleeping dictionary"! You are a girl, so you know how to get one by default. Boys in Germany are used to being bluntly aproached by their female, heterosexual counterparts.

Umso mehr Spass beim Reisen in Deutschland! (Enjoy your trip to Germany even more!)

Answer 2

Smile... mixed up your question and your discribtion? :)

Well, dutch and german are two complete different languages, but they have the same roots and they are close in gramatics and words.

For english speaking people, who never had any contact with these languages, they would sound identical. But I can only understand little, if a dutch person is speaking to me.

To the second part of your question:
To learn german by yourself, will be very very difficult! Gramma is much more complicated than in english.

I only know one translation for "could" - "könnten" Which one you get?

Answer 3

Dutch and German are both Germanic languages and therefore related as much as e.g. latin based languages are (French, Spanish, Italian etc.) Lots of common roots but different pronunciations and sentence structures - distinctly seperate languages. Unless you are also planning on going to Holland on your trip you wont need any Dutch ;-) As for learning German, the major difficutly for non-native speakers seems to be the gendered nouns (everything is either male, female, or neutral and there are no rules to make it easier, you just have to know what's what). Sentence structure is different from English and might take some getting used to, but that's something you have to deal with when learning any new language. As for your trouble with 'could', I imagine that it is a question of concord. It depends on whether I, s/he, we, they etc. 'could', and someone above me here kindly provided you with a list that you can learn. One thing that might be useful to know is that for the German polite address 'Sie' verbs take the same form as they do for 'sie' ('they'). E.g if you were speaking to a friend or someone younger than you you would say "koenntest du..." (could you...); and to an adult stranger you'd say "koennten Sie...". Erm, yeah... Most Germans speak English so don;t panic ;-) Good luck.

Answer 4

I don't know much about Dutch, but it's spoken in the Netherlands, not Germany. It's similar to German; if I wanted to grossly oversimplify, I'd say it's halfway between German and English. On the other hand, German is called "Deutsch" in German.

As to the number of ways to say could--that's partly because could means a number of different things in English (e.g. Could you open the window? vs I could tell you, but I won't) and they aren't necessarily all translated by the same word in German, and partly because German has more conjugations, so the word for could is different in "I could" vs. "they could".

If I had to pick one word that "could" translates to, though, I'd say könnte.

PS: You don't wanna know how many words they have for "you"!

Answer 5

well, it's quite complicated to learn quickly by yourself. Especially when it's not as simple as changing the english words to German and making a sentence. In German, you have to move words about. Not to mention the fact that when you use a verb such as ''could'' there are different endings for who are you referring to. I'll just show you the verb 'can' because it's present tense. I can - Ich Kann. You can - Du Kannst etc. This might not make sense, but I'd advise if you're gonna try and learn yourself to get a proper books with tapes and cds etc because you will not learn proper german just through an online site. trust me!

Answer 6

Okay here we go - could...past tense of can. Could in German; können, eg 1) I could have killed him...ich hätte ihn umbringen können. 2) could you ring me tomorrow?...könnten Sie mich morgen anrufen? 3) that could be so...das könnte or kann sein.

Answer 7

ich koennte
du koenntest
er sie es koennte
wir koennten
ihr koenntet
sie koennten

Answer 8

The german language is spoken in GERMANY and the dutch language is spoken in DUTCHATOPIA. See the difference?

Answer 9

Dutch is the language of denmark, while the german language is deautch

Answer 10

They are related and whoever speaks one can READ the
other but not SPEAK IT,