If English is a Germanic language then why is it easier for native speakers to learn Spanish or French than German?

If English is a Germanic language then why is it easier for native speakers to learn Spanish or French than German?

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  1. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    The majority of English vocabulary is Latin despite the grammar structure being Germanic.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      This
      Also, German is kinda the weird stubborn old man of the Germanic languages
      Native speakers of English would have a much easier time with Dutch or Norwegian, they just don't bother because Anglophones

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >Native speakers of English would have a much easier time with Dutch or Norwegian
        Le this.
        Nordic grammar is much easier for English people to learn, and vice versa. Although they're not identical, you can clearly see how Norse and Old English blended well together

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      This
      Also, German is kinda the weird stubborn old man of the Germanic languages
      Native speakers of English would have a much easier time with Dutch or Norwegian, they just don't bother because Anglophones

      The majority of common English vocabulary used in daily life is Germanic, either from Old English or Old Norse.
      "The majority of English vocabulary is Latin" is a disgustingly misleading midwit remark.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        No it's all Latin. Even the world midwit is Latin.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Why do you think this?

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            The Norman BVLL

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        If you're stupid you use German
        If you're educated or well read you use Latin words

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >The majority of common English vocabulary used in daily life is Germanic, either from Old English or Old Norse.
        half of this sentence is Latin though.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          This isn't really daily life, though, it's an academic discussion about language.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      This
      Also, German is kinda the weird stubborn old man of the Germanic languages
      Native speakers of English would have a much easier time with Dutch or Norwegian, they just don't bother because Anglophones

      >english is like… practically a latin language bro!

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      70% of Vietnamese vocab is Chinese

      60% of Japanese vocab is Chinese

      90% of everyday words used in English are Germanic

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        80% of Telugu vocabulary is Sanskrit.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >The
      Germanic
      >majority
      Latin
      >of
      Germanic
      >English
      Germanic
      >vocabulary
      Latin
      >is
      Germanic
      >despite
      Latin
      >grammar
      Latin
      >structure
      Latin
      >being
      Germanic

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >The majority of English vocabulary is Latin despite the grammar structure being Germanic.
        Most of the words in English stem from Latin, although the language's framework is still Germanic.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          >language's
          *tongue's

          >In some English dialects they'd also still say "how bist you?"
          which?

          I knkw they say "bist" in the Black Country and "thou" (or "tha") in parts of Yorkshire.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          >the language's framework is still Germanic

          >no declination of any form except plural (but for nouns only)
          >no conjugation except for one person
          >actually two persons have already been merged altogether
          >the plural person can now be used as a neutral singular because frick you
          >auxilliaries absolutely everywhere, even for fricking negations
          >genitive and many prepositions are slowly disappearing
          kek, modern English is to German what piss is to blood.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >>the plural person can now be used as a neutral singular because frick you
            German does this too though with sie.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Isn't that only for polite second person, not for third person like in English?

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            English's genitive isn't disappearing.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Yes let us see.
        "The of English is being" ????

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >The majority of English vocabulary is Latin despite the grammar structure being Germanic.

      This reminds me of various English Creoles in the Caribbean.

  2. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    A pidgin is a grammatically simplified language that develops between two or more groups of people that do not have a language in common. A creole is a pidgin evolved into a full-fledged language, Middle English was a creole of Old French and Old English.

  3. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    I feel like swedish is very easy to learn for anglos.

  4. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    English is more like Norwegian with French and Latin loan words

  5. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Dutch, Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian are easier for Anglos than Spanish and French are. It's just that no one wants to learn those useless Germanic languages

  6. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    German has 3 genders that have to be memorized for each noun (no general rules like it ends in a feminine it ends in o masculine) and grammatical cases

    english has no grammatical cases and no gender
    but the ancestor of english, old english, is much more similar to german (although it's much more similar to scandi languages than german)

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >although it's much more similar to scandi languages than german
      No, proper Old English is more similar to German than to Scandinavian languages, but it changed under massive Norse influence in the late Old English period.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        The northern dialects were closer to Old Norse than German even before the Viking Age.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Why do you think that? Northumbrian dialects have so much Norse influence because of Viking rule. Old Northumbrian written records from before the Viking show no Norse influence and are clearly West Germanic.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            They had more cognates with Norse, for example they used are while the people down south used the more German sind.
            >are clearly West Germanic.
            I do not dispute that, but German is not a West Germanic language. Low German is, or atleast was back then, but Low German is not the same language as (High) German.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            High German is a West Germanic language, alongside Dutch. The only other Germanic groups are North Germanic (Scandinavia) and East Germanic (Gothic, last spoken in Crimea and now extinct)

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            TIL we still have pre-Norse era paperwork in Old English. Damn, how the frick do these things survive for so long?

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Considering how large the corpus of works from the Northumbrian Renaissance apparently was it's exceeding small, only a small fraction of them survived in Northumbrian, some works were recorded later in the West Saxon dialect (and lot more survives from the period of the West Saxon dialects dominance).

            The Norf really had it rough and lost a lot considering it was one of the first areas to really write in English instead of Latin.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Imo English would sound ugly without the Norse influence. Of all the modern Germanic languages Icelandic is easily the most beautiful. West Germanic sounds poopen farten-y and North Germanic sounds more like Proto-Germanic elf speak.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >(no general rules like it ends in a feminine it ends in o masculine)

      Uhmm...what?

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        He's referring to Spanish where as a general rule of thumb masculine words end in -o and feminine in -a. It's not universal but a decent enough guide.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        In Latin languages, you can easily tell if a noun if feminine or masculine based on the word ending, e.g. La Casa (ends in a, feminine) versus Los Pollos (ends in o, masculine).
        German is complete fricking anarchy, with only a "kind of but not really" pattern here and there. "The Girl" is gender neutral (das Mädchen), for instance. It gets even worse when you factor in cases, which can turn the Die article (used for feminine and plural) into Der (the masculine article) when it's used in the Dative case.
        If you're learning German, there is no way around this, you just have to memorize the correct article of every single noun in the language.

  7. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    [...]

    Latin video - Vit - wit

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Except latin video means "see" like in indo european, while english wit means intelligence or sense, as it does in the germanic branch. I.e. english has the word from a germanic language, not a latin one.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        English is mostly a Latin language, not a Germanic one. Now shut the frick up.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          No, since we don't say house white like Spanish, we say white house like Germans. Sure we use a lot of words from Latin. We also make up a lot of words for fun, like rotpocket or zipperbreasts.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          Either give an actual argument or frick off back to R/ history memes

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            The argument is that wit is Latin and the German word Witz refers to a joke and something else. The most common word, Time, comes from temp. The German word zeit is different. All the English words that matter are Latin.
            You are the perfect example of a mentally moronic redditor, too dumb to even read or discuss anything. It is obvious that English nouns are mostly Latin and the only way you could miss this is with utter subhumanity.
            His is a moron board and you are at home here. You are not a midwit, you are a moron.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Go look at an etymological dictionary.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Your dictionaries merely give the same answer as Wikipedia.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Yes, and your point is?

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            That it is wrong.
            Also comical result
            https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/witz#Middle_High_German
            German word links to nahuatal. Wikipedia has joined homosexualry.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            ...because you entered it with a lowercase W and all German nouns begin with uppercase letters. If there's a homonymous Nahuatl word why shouldn't it list it?
            Also
            >From Middle English wit, from Old English witt (“understanding, intellect, sense, knowledge, consciousness, conscience”), from Proto-West Germanic *witi, from Proto-Germanic *witją (“knowledge, reason”), from Proto-Indo-European *weyd- (“see, know”).
            >From Middle English tyme, time, from Old English tīma (“time, period, space of time, season, lifetime, fixed time, favourable time, opportunity”), from Proto-Germanic *tīmô (“time”), from Proto-Indo-European *deh2imō, from Proto-Indo-European *deh2y- (“to divide”). Cognate with Scots tym, tyme (“time”), Alemannic German Zimen, Zīmmän (“time, time of the year, opportune time, opportunity”), Danish time (“hour, lesson”), Swedish timme (“hour”), Norwegian time (“time, hour”), Faroese tími (“hour, lesson, time”), Icelandic tími (“time, season”). Related to tide. Not related to Latin tempus.
            Also 'Zeit' is cognate with 'tide'.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            Bro you are talking with the GDP/Stalingrad/density schizo. Don't bother
            Just so people know. Easy ways to tell this homosexual is your interlocutor.
            >He never t types IQfy only His
            >Mods have joined homosexualry, X has joined homosexualry, etc.
            >Posting inelaborate screenshots and shit without much context.
            >Other of his generally moron takes is that tanks aren't real.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            German language is English. Trade is physically impossible over 1000 miles. Yamato was rivet construction. Tank brigades are physically impossible. Mobile IP addresses are functionally unlimited.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            *latin

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            So true.
            Ford ran the soviet car industry and romanians fought the ww2 eastern front.

          • 2 years ago
            Anonymous

            >All the English words that matter are Latin
            Sun. Moon. Earth. Man. Hair. Ear. Hand. Arm.
            Summer. Winter. Spring. Fall. Land. Water. Dirt. Food. Drink.
            >The most common word, Time, comes from temp
            >From Middle English tyme, time, from Old English tīma (“time, period, space of time, season, lifetime, fixed time, favourable time, opportunity”), from Proto-Germanic *tīmô (“time”)...
            >Cognate with Scots tym, tyme (“time”), Alemannic German Zimen, Zīmmän (“time, time of the year, opportune time, opportunity”), Danish time (“hour, lesson”), Swedish timme (“hour”), Norwegian time (“time, hour”), Faroese tími (“hour, lesson, time”), Icelandic tími (“time, season”). Related to tide. Not related to Latin tempus.

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          [...]
          Latin video - Vit - wit

          LMAO you must be literally moronic

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Do you not understand the difference between 'cognate with' and 'derived from'? Those words are from the same Proto-Indo-European root, but one's borrowed from Latin and one's inherited through Proto-Germanic.

  8. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    English is much more related to Scandi languages than German. French and Spanish are just easy because they’re simple.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Vocabulary plays a huge role with French you must admit. You learn a couple tricks and reading french is like reading coded English like piglatin. Especially for any word with more than 2 syllables - you have to learn the 2 or elss syllable words I'll admit unlike for learning Germanic languages where it's the opposite.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Not really, genetically English and German are both West Germanic while the Scandinavian languages are North Germanic. English does have substantial Norse influence, though, yes.

  9. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    (Mainland) Scandinavian languages are the easiest for Anglos to learn IIRC

  10. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    >Latinx in denial

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      ?

  11. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Jesus Christ, how often is this question going to be asked? Language groups are determined by their genetic lineage, not by the percentage of their vocabulary. English could be 90% French derived and it would still be a Germanic language due to being a descendant of a West Germanic language

  12. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Languages are classified by historical origin, not by similarity of vocabulary or whatever. I don't know why this is such a difficult concept for this board to grasp.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Eh, languages can essentially switch groups over time. Norwegian, for instance, is today much closer to the other mainland Scandinavian languages than it is to Faroese and Icelandic, and it is infact more mutually intelligible with Swedish and Danish than the two "East Norse" languages are with each other.
      However, English has clearly not stopped being a Germanic language in any sense, despite all the Romance loanwords.

  13. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Every time this thread gets made I just point out how if you applied the same logic universally, that you'd have to classify Japanese as a Sino-Tibetan language because roughly 60% of its vocabulary is derived from various dialects and stages of Chinese. That always seems to shut you morons up.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      The obsession with English betrays their monolingualism and Anglophone origins. English is really not unique at all within Europe anyway
      >Russian is riddled with French and German everywhere
      >Greeks use Turkic words and vice versa
      >Portuguese and Spanish both have Germanic words from the Goths and Suebi + Arabic words from the Moors
      >Farsi is filled with Arabic words

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      I've heard some people actually say that though.

  14. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    English was much more Germanic in the recent past. Where we say formerly people 100 years ago would've said whilom. Same goes for words like people and folk, parallel and athwart, etc. Many Germanic words fall out of use because they are perceived as sounding less intelligent to English speakers than their Latin counterparts... or "doubles."

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      This is caused by the rise of the scientist as a significant prestige class and the reliance of the modern world on scientific technologies. Scientific terms thus take on a more prestigious character and most of those are in Greek or Latin.

      A well spoken man a hundred years ago spoke poetically, a well spoken man in this day and age speaks technically.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      This definitely factors into it. In some English dialects they'd also still say "how bist you?" Which is almost identical to the German "wie bist du?". Nowadays the use of Bist is disappearing rapidly and will probably die out this generation. Although the replacement word, are, is still Germanic and related to the Scandinavian's Är.
      Imagine if we said Waterstuff instead of Hydrogen kek.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        Have you ever read 'Uncleftish Beholding'?

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        >In some English dialects they'd also still say "how bist you?"
        which?

        • 2 years ago
          Anonymous

          https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/bist

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Formerly is actually of Germanic origin

  15. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    It's not. German is far easier than Spanish, or especially french.

  16. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Deutsch est ist leicht lernen, ziel schwer du meistern

  17. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Sun. Moon. Earth. Man. Hair. Ear. Hand. Arm.
    Summer. Winter. Spring. Fall. Land. Water. Dirt. Food. Drink.
    >sun
    Solis/soul
    >earth
    Terra - erra - earth
    >man
    Virile
    >hair
    Coma/comb
    >ear
    Auris
    >hand
    Manual
    >summer
    Estivate
    >winter
    Frigid/frigus
    >spring
    Fons- fountain
    >drink
    Bibere imbibe
    >water
    Russians were alcoholic and called it vodka
    >food
    Morsus - morsel
    They are all some version of Latin, lib. German is the moron words. German is an addition to English not the core language. German is the beginning of the cancer of language based on cliches and indefinite articles.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      >I translated a bunch of English words into Latin, that means the English words came from Latin.
      Man is vir, not virile you moron, you can't even translate properly at that. You sound like the Latin version of this video.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        You've done excellent work lib, share the works of your research on Reddit.

  18. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Blame Guillaume the Bastard.

  19. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    its an english language from england

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      you don't like it you know where the door is

  20. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Is there a single, actual linguist in this entire thread?

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      There was one but he was a redditor and denied the first post.

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      Not a professional linguist, but a linguistics major here.

  21. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    english has its own group of sub languages though like american english, hindu english, pidgin english
    english is its own thing

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      German is Ebonics. The dumb English vocabulary overlaps with German. The intellectual terms are Latin.

      • 2 years ago
        Anonymous

        what are you trying to say that english isnt english? pretty sure the names a dead give away

    • 2 years ago
      Anonymous

      The nerd stuff is Latin, the SOUL is Germanic

  22. 2 years ago
    Anonymous

    Then why do some 90 odd % of Dutch and Swedes speak English?

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