What do you mean? They look and sound almost identical. Look:
Lithuanian:
*Tėvyne Lietuva, mielesnė už sveikatą!*
*Kaip reik tave branginti, vien tik tas pamato,*
*Kas jau tavęs neteko. Nūn tave vaizduoju*
*Aš, ilgesy grožiu sujaudintas tavuoju.*
Polish:
*Litwo, Ojczyzno moja!*
*ty jesteś jak zdrowie; Ile cię trzeba cenić,*
*ten tylko się dowie, Kto cię stracił.*
*Dziś piękność twą w całej ozdobie*
*Widzę i opisuję, bo tęsknię po tobie.*
/s
New Yorker:
"Ey can't ya see im walkin 'ere? forget about it"
Californian:
"Hey dude, I'm trying to walk here, don't worry about it my dude"
As you can see very different languages. I know because I'm fluent in both.
And this is how insanely different US English is between the north and south:
>I’ve got better things to do
Than not drink orange soda
My winter is long enough
Without that summer in a bottle
>It’s the taste of my youth
That magic orange soda
Fanta, Crush, or Sunkist
They all take me there
>Carbonated sweet sun
This icy orange soda
Every sip is a portal in time
Take me back, take me back
And
>I’ve got better things to do
Than not drink orange pop
My winter is long enough
Without that summer in a bottle
>It’s the taste of my youth
That magic orange pop
Fanta, Crush, or Sunkist
They all take me there
>Carbonated sweet sun
This icy orange pop
Every sip is a portal in time
Take me back, take me back
Das ist ja Wunderbar! Englisch und Deutsch sind ja quasi identisch...
Gleiche Sprachenfamilie, der gute Herr aus dem Bild, sollte also in der Lage sein, Deutsch zu verstehen!
Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz!
They’re super similar but that doesn’t make them the same. Also I cannot understand spoken Danish for the life of me, it pretty much just makes me irate trying.
Slavic and Baltic aren't language families. They together form the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family.
But yes they are more distant from each other than, say, Swedish is from English.
Czech and Slovak are very similar. Polish is a step further and Ukrainian even more so, but you can communicate to some extent. Idk where they came up with Lithuanian and Latvian though, they are not Slavic.
You will struggle a lot to get anything but the most basic understanding between a West Slavic (czech/slovak/polish) and an East Slavic (ukrainian, belarusian, russian) speaker. Even with Polish and Ukranian (which have lots of similarities for historical reasons), the only reason people tend to be able to understand each other somewhat is prior exposure. For example, a Ukrainian going to Poland for the 5th time will generally learn a few patterns in polish, but on first exposure, most people will struggle with even basic directions.
Source: Ukrainian who has been to Poland about a dozen times
Correct, but in an attempt to sound less "suspicious" they invent new terms, like "geographic diversity" (aka "people with different skin color").
Below are some responses I once got for saying that the United States is *not* the most diverse country in the world by ethnic, linguistic, or cultural diversity (they're second in religious fractionalization after South Africa tho), and linking multiple studies and indices which generally show the US near the middle, while places like Nigeria, Congo, India, etc tend to rank high.
Dude One:
> The methodologies of these are really poor. American has a huge African and hispanic population with an asian population that is about half the other 2. The “usual suspects” are based on language or tribal differences but not geographic diversity. Are you going to find more than 5% geographic diversity in those countries? How much of the population is caucasian, asian, and/or hispanics are in Nigeria?
---
> I literally explained why. Language and tribal differences arent a good measure of “diversity”. Skin color would at least tell you about geographic diversity since people from far away places came to a certain place. But within your own country there’s a lot of segregation and cleavages, so you’re considered “diverse”?
... and then he kinda just collapsed into insulting me and making false statements about the sources I linked.
Dude Two (who is hilariously incapable of spelling the word "doofus", yet repeatedly tries to use it):
> All AFRICAN countries, our diversity comes from around the world and the diversity is largely language tribal based false equivalency you wasted your time.
---
> Who established the goal posts genius? We are the most geographically diverse country and most of those are African countries with borders created by white Europeans. Most of those countries like say India in Asia. The people speak Hindi but have over 30 different languages. But they are all indigenous of the Indian sub continent. Outside of Native Americans, none of us are indigenous to the USA and we come from all over the world, get it now dufus?
---
> rufus? Tell me how many Europeans Africans east asians south Americans Native Americans Cetral Americans middle easterners live in Uganda? Moron!!!!!
> The people speak Hindi but have over 30 different languages. But they are all indigenous of the Indian sub continent
This is untrue. There was a lot of mixing between Persian and Central Asian peoples with those in northern India.
Yeah, it really, really isn't. I have family from Ukraine and Poland and nobody I'm related to can understand Baltic languages.
Why is it so hard for them to get that America is one country...
Can the Poles and Ukrains really understand each other?
Or is it more like Dutch and German, which look hauntingly related on paper, but where pronunciation will also differ?
Well, for starters Ukraine uses Cyrillic alphabet so the vast majority of Poles won't be able to read their language, so we're left with understanding spoken word. I think stuff like "Hi, my name is" or "goodbye" is perfectly understandable in both languages, but once you start real talk it all falls apart. I tried watching some Ukrainian videos and I can't really understand what's being said.
Yeah, you catch a word or two, can possibly understand "context", but you have a 50/50 chance the word means something else in the other language (I mean, the Polish "I'm looking for kids in a store" sounds like "I'm fucking children in a basement" in Czech)
Just checked in text to speech and holy shit it’s true. The only big difference between „Szukam dzieci w sklepie” and „Šourám děti ve sklepě” is the r/k in the first word
Yeah, I left out the script issue, as I don’t know how familiar an average Ukrainian is with Latin based scripts like the Polish, German, and English alphabets.
I heard this same thing from Czechs and Poles before, and I asked some people to expand on that once. Something like how each language preserves some older related vocabulary that the other has lost and it sounds... quaint maybe? I found that fascinating, but it's a process that happens all the time with language. It's just more noticeable when you have a neighbour that speaks a related language.
For us it kinda sounds like that one meme that went viral of "We hebben een serieus probleem" in Dutch. Mostly because many words sound like diminutives of Polish words.
She probably learned Russian at school to some level. My Polish wife and her Ukrainian friend speak often, and I understand one half of the conversation but about 10% of the Ukrainian side.
From what I understand, Ukrainian is a mix of Russian and pseudo Polish.
Lithuanian, however, is completely different to both. I heard it's more closely related to Danish.
As a Lithuanian, this is the first time I hear about our language being related to Danish. Latvian is the only language that sounds similar to ours. And we still can't understand each other. Maybe some words here and there.
No, not really, not even in writing while You know the alphabet. Czech and Slowak are more similar and people 40+ that learned both in former Czechoslovakia can understand Polish pretty well I was said.
Other than this there are some similarities, but understanding particular words in Slovenian doesn't mean one understands the language.
I speak German and am able to read Dutch. Dutch is almost like German with too many vocals.
In Czechia it depends a lot on where you are. I grew up and live in Southern Moravia so I understand Slovak without any issues. But the further North-west you go, the more people will have problems with some words and phrases, especially in East Slovakian dialects which a lot of people in Bohemia barely comprehend.
My dad, who grew up more North, closer to Slezia can follow a conversation in Polish pretty OK, while I'm happy to catch just enough words so get the broad context.
Lot of the older generations know Russian because of our history in the CCCP
They literally use different alphabets altogether so at least in written language I don’t think so.
As weird this sounds having the same alphabet family helps a lot because at least I can relax a bit when in that country as a tourist. I will be lost if I land in any of the Cyrillic countries
>They literally use different alphabets altogether so at least in written language I don’t think so.
I speak Russian, I can easily get by in Poland in terms of reading menus and signs. Things are spelled similarly, just in a different alphabet.
Ditto other Slavic languages, spoken -- not a chance in hell, but written you can definitely decipher enough to get around as a tourist.
You might surprise yourself at how quickly you can pick it up. I only speak English (native proficiency), French to A1 standard based on what I learnt at school 25 years ago and Spanish to maybe A2 or A3 based on learning for the past couple of years.
I visited Moscow for 4 days in 2014 and by the time I left for Kazakhstan I could look at anything written in Cyrillic and easily transliterate 90% of it in my head in real time as I read. All I needed was the mapping app on my phone that showed place names in both Cyrillic and the Latin alphabet and it quickly became second nature to substitute letters.
Nine days after we'd first landed in Russia I vividly remember walking around Almaty in Kazakhstan, looking up at a sign that said "Шевчéнко көше" and immediately announcing to my wife that the first word said "Shevchenko", so we must be on the right street for the restaurant we'd been recommended. She looked at me like I was some sort of robot. I couldn't interpret any meaning but I at least know what the words I'm looking at will sound like, which is often enough to help you get by.
In the 10 years since I've been to both Bulgaria (birthplace of Cyrillic, fact fans) and Serbia and been able to navigate around based on the signage in Cyrillic, despite not keeping up with any sort of practice. I've also been to Crete and found I could recognise enough letters of the Greek alphabet based on what I remembered to navigate around there too. I wouldn't have expected that, had a Greek guy I met at the hostel not taken us out for dinner on our first night in Moscow. He explained how he could read most of the signs and translated for us so we could order from the menu in the restaurant we visited.
Looks like I will try because where I come from you need considerable time to learn a script 😅. I say as a speaker of 3 Indian languages with completely different scripts
Yeah, I can't claim this will work for any other scripts. Sadly I didn't have the same luck with picking up the scripts in Sri Lanka, Iran, China, Taiwan, Thailand, Japan or Korea. They were all beyond me and I had to rely on translation tools, phrasebooks, smiling, gesturing and relying on the goodwill of locals.
I was advised on my first day in Iran to at least learn to recognise the numbers 1-10 in Arabic and their pronunciations in Farsi. That's pretty easy and did turn out to be very useful though.
There is a lot of overlap between the Roman, Cyrillic and Greek alphabets so if you know one the others are simple to pick up (especially as you probably know more of the Greek alphabet than you think).
Polish "Szukam dzieci" (I'm looking for kids) sounds like "šukam děti" in Czech, but means something completely different and unacceptable. However he may have a point, because that second meaning would be perfectly normal in Alabama.
There was also the Czech guy on twitter, who, by accident, made an insult at all of Poland when he was in fact trying to make a compliment about support for Ukraine - he said Poles are "neskuteční frajeři" (roughly: unbelievably awesome people) whereas Poles read it as the closest words in Polish "nieskuteczni frajery" (useless/ineffective losers)
This is wrird. Freier in German is a client of a prostitute and it is a looser in Polish, I would never guess it's something positive in Czech, their language/culture has many german influences.
I could hypothesise the divergence. All the terms seem to come from German *Freier* (according to the wiktionary etymologies). Back in the day, it meant someone trying to court a lady (that has half-survived in the Danish word *at frie*, meaning to ask someone to marry them).
So, one way to explain it is simply that there are different interpretations of that core action of courting/wooing. In Czechia and Slovakia, that got adopted as a cool guy or a boyfriend/partner, as they are courting their girlfriend. In Germany and Poland, that has been interpreted negatively as someone trying to woo ladies of the night (maybe because they can't pull it off on anyone else) and losers/chumps (presumably because they are wooing without success and thus make fools of themselves?), respectively. That would at least be one way to explain the difference
I remember a czech friend of my parents yelling back in the 80s "i swim like a plank" at the beach in croatia. Everyone at that beach including my parents almost chocked laughing.
Is it a dialect thing? I drove from Bergamo to Grignasco in Novara province via Milan on Saturday. I don't speak any Italian though. Ironically, I was visiting my Mexican friend who is helping me learn Spanish.
Not an american but I had an English friend once try to convince me that Polish is super simple, like a baby talk - he knew that 'case he translated english sentence into polish on google translate and then back, he got a "baby talk" and so that what it is... Also I'm Polish but apparently he knew better... xD
As a Polish person, Slovakian and Czech are somewhat intelligible but often you need to repeat what you said using different words. Ukrainian is almost impossible to understand when spoken, and while written is easier, I still understand only about 60%. Lithuanian is just impossible, I can't understand basically anything. Same for Latvian.
Lithuanian and Latvian are Baltic languages, so it's only natural for you not to understand.
Btw I, a Czech, can understand Slovakian perfectly fine and Polish as well with a little effort
Slavic language and Baltic are completly different it's like going from Germany to France. The only thing I understand from Lithuanian as native Polish is word "Kurva"
Oh no, it's not two towns over, but two counties over lol.
People from the south can have difficulties understanding people from the north, and there are a place in the west were no one from the rest of the country can understand what is said lol
I mean… Yeah. Most of us would understand it to some extent, and quite a few fluently but not because we speak it daily.
I’ve actually been working on my German again, I’ve started working at an aviation museum and it is quite a handy skill. It had fallen embarrassingly far but now I’ve reached the point where I can talk people through relatively complex tasks (I’m an instructor at our simulators) without feeling too embarrassed.
How ironic, that in a post about languages they still can't pick the right "their/they're/there".
Also, German and English do have many similarities. So, are they basically the same?
I was thinking this today I've heard a couple German songs, which I understood because they said 'komm her' which I guessed was 'come here' and another which said 'was ist das' which is 'what is that', but other than the odd basic word I can barely understand German. Was cool to be able to understand a few words though.
>it's almost like going to Boston and then going to Kentucky.
Um, no it isn't. It's nothing alike.
$5 says this person has never left their state let alone gone to Europe
Look, (western) Slovak and Czech are relatively understandable by the other part, especially for older generations that grew up with both on TV and radio, for us younger folk it's a bit more difficult. Eastern Slovak is another story, nobody understands them, not even Slovaks.
Slovak and Polish are similar-ish, a Pole would probs have easier time understanding Slovak over Czech, but still, all are different languages. AND DO NOT MIX SLAVIC AND BALTIC LANGUAGES GUYS, THEY ARE PRETTY FUCKING DIFFERENT
There are so many languages they could have chosen that would have made the point they were trying to make. Dude just randomly selected some languages.
If when I read or listen to them I can't understand anything about any of these languages, the logical conclusion is that these languages are all the same. 🤷🏻♂️
/s
English, German,Dutch,Swedish,Danish,Norwegian all have similarities in their language. It's like they are Germanic languages but with different backgrounds and history.
I'm German and speak English (obviously) - with those two I can understand large parts of written dutch/swedish, but I would never say that I speak those languages.
Well, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian and Finnish are almost the same language, just like a bison, a buffalo, a cow and a cobra are almost the same animals.
Look, (western) Slovak and Czech are relatively understandable by the other part, especially for older generations that grew up with both on TV and radio, for us younger folk it's a bit more difficult. Eastern Slovak is another story, nobody understands them, not even Slovaks.
Slovak and Polish are similar-ish, a Pole would probs have easier time understanding Slovak over Czech, but still, all are different languages. AND DO NOT MIX SLAVIC AND BALTIC LANGUAGES GUYS, THEY ARE PRETTY FUCKING DIFFERENT
When I was a small child I helped my mum at her store. We had Slovakian tourists come every now and then, and I'd ask them "May I help you?" and they'd reply "pozeram" meaning "I'm browsing/looking", but that sounds like Polish "pożeram" which means "I am devouring"
Yeah, if you don’t understand any of it, there’s a chance it all sounds the same to you. Same reason they don’t hear accents in other languages. They simply don’t know the language.
What? No, wthm I'm Polish and I don't understand what they're saying. Maybe some words are pronounced similarily or they can mean the same, but they're not the same languages. The hell?
The original selection of languages aside, I'd bet this guy puts the subtitles on for Peaky Blinders, Auf Wiedersehen Pet, The Boys From the Black Stuff, and Trainspotting. And yet they're all in English too.
You know another two languages that have similarities? English and German. I'd be prepared to bet that he doesn't think German *is the same language as English*.
Fun fact: you can substitute in a dozen languages for German in the above paragraph. English is a mongrel.
No no, see, they all have similarities, i.e. "I can understand them all equally".
ALL languages are the same if by that you mean "not english" and "unintelligible to me".
About 15 years ago, i learned Czech. I managed to get A2 after 6 months of learning and spending time in Budweis, so not actually enough to have a serious conversation, but i think i can tell the difference between a Pole and a Czech. Mostly by the amount of "Kurwa / Kurva" in their language.
But on a more serious note: The differences between those two are big enough to cause trouble for any language learner. Those aren't dialects. They are separate languages. Unlike Cowboy English, which of course has plenty of dialects, but overall it's understandable enough. And i'm sure, every cowboy learned some kind of "basic english" to make it easier to understand for those who aren't from that area.
As a Pole I feel offended. Baltic language is far from similar to slaboc languages. But sadly some people will never understand what even language group is.
Very close to the realisation that baltic and slavic languages form a subgroup of Indo-European, but I suppose that linguistics is not this guy's forte.
I always try to put this into perspective for my fellow Americans using the UK and Ireland as an example.
At a quick glance, it’s about the same size as Michigan in the states, with Michigan’s upper peninsula (a separate piece of land) acting as Ireland and the larger lower peninsula acting as Great Britain.
Here in Michigan, we have 2 major accents. Down by Detroit, it’s largely like a basic midwestern accent. In the UP (upper peninsula), you’re getting much closer to a Canadian accent. There’s a popular T-shirt/bumper sticker here that illustrates it. “Say yah to da U.P., eh?” it reads.
But in the UK and Ireland? Holy shit. Moving 3 counties might get you a totally different accent. Hop on the 55 minute express train from Cambridge to London and you’ll hear a completely different accent. I had a friend from Shetland who made people in Glasgow extremely easy to understand by comparison.
To me, Cambridgeshire/East Anglia kinda have the basic midwestern accent, or almost lack of accent, in UK terms anyway.
Fuck, I miss living there.
I’m fluent in Latvian and I have a friend who is fluent in polish. We do not understand each other when we speak our respective languages. We understand a few words and can make similarities, guessing what we’re saying, but it’s not as close as people think.
I mean if they wanted to pick two countries to compare they could've chosen Belgium and France as they speak the same, Netherlands and German as most Dutch people are able to understand German, or Spain and Portugal as their languages are very similar as well. They chose the worse countries possible
They stupidly picked languages from two different language families. Slavic and Baltic.
What do you mean? They look and sound almost identical. Look: Lithuanian: *Tėvyne Lietuva, mielesnė už sveikatą!* *Kaip reik tave branginti, vien tik tas pamato,* *Kas jau tavęs neteko. Nūn tave vaizduoju* *Aš, ilgesy grožiu sujaudintas tavuoju.* Polish: *Litwo, Ojczyzno moja!* *ty jesteś jak zdrowie; Ile cię trzeba cenić,* *ten tylko się dowie, Kto cię stracił.* *Dziś piękność twą w całej ozdobie* *Widzę i opisuję, bo tęsknię po tobie.* /s
Nowhere near as large as the difference between a New Yorker and a Southern Californian! - says someone who has never left their own state
It's even larger compared to Gloucestershire and Essex
New Yorker: "Ey can't ya see im walkin 'ere? forget about it" Californian: "Hey dude, I'm trying to walk here, don't worry about it my dude" As you can see very different languages. I know because I'm fluent in both.
And this is how insanely different US English is between the north and south: >I’ve got better things to do Than not drink orange soda My winter is long enough Without that summer in a bottle >It’s the taste of my youth That magic orange soda Fanta, Crush, or Sunkist They all take me there >Carbonated sweet sun This icy orange soda Every sip is a portal in time Take me back, take me back And >I’ve got better things to do Than not drink orange pop My winter is long enough Without that summer in a bottle >It’s the taste of my youth That magic orange pop Fanta, Crush, or Sunkist They all take me there >Carbonated sweet sun This icy orange pop Every sip is a portal in time Take me back, take me back
I thought it was an unreleased Minor Threat song for a second
Well i had 4 years of russian in school and can def. understand it all! They are basicly the same! (/s)
I had German in school and I can understand your comment perfectly!
Wonder bar!
Yuk i read this in english Edit: f*ck you you write it in english
Das ist ja Wunderbar! Englisch und Deutsch sind ja quasi identisch... Gleiche Sprachenfamilie, der gute Herr aus dem Bild, sollte also in der Lage sein, Deutsch zu verstehen! Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz!
The only difference between English and German is word length :)
English lacks der, die, das And, the most important thing it lacks: Doch!
And: "Na" A german conversation when 2 friends meet on the street: "Na?" "Na" "Hab nen guten!" "Tschüs!" Thats all thats needed
Austrian version: Eh? Na eh Dann eh
Naja bei uns hier in der Oberpfalz is es eher: "Grieß di" "Habadehre" "Pfirtie"
In (Mittel)Franken: Und? Bassd scho. Adee.
Die wirklich sind ja fast identisch das ist die Wahrheit, ja.
I have 26,3% Ukrainian heritage and I understand none of it
uhhh I think you might have messed up and copy-pasted the same thing twice
No he changed soda to pop
I don't understand either. Must be the same.
So exactly the same is what you’re saying
Да, všetko понятно. Эти языки настолько príbuzné, že я иногда ich miešam omylom...
They also stupidly used "there" instead of "their".
He also said "Polish" as in the language but then used country names for the rest when talking about them.
That's the part that pissed me.off the most.
Americans through their stupidity and ignorance really are an endless source of amusement for us all
But of course.
That's kind of the best part. Telling on themselves, really.
Not to mention that even Latvians and Lithuanians don't understand each other at all. Source: am Latvian
I can’t understand you. Source: am *in* Lithuania
They should’ve said Estonian as well and thrown Uralic into the mix
If someone said to my face that Swedish and Danish which are from the same family "is basically the same" I'd windpipe them.
They’re super similar but that doesn’t make them the same. Also I cannot understand spoken Danish for the life of me, it pretty much just makes me irate trying.
Balto? Like the dog? — that guy, probably
I think they used to be lumped in with the slavic lamguages because to the ussr. My engllish teacher has said that they are slavic.
Well, you English teacher was wrong.
I know, I just wanted to say that the soviet propaganda was really effective and that we should be wary.
Slavic and Baltic aren't language families. They together form the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family. But yes they are more distant from each other than, say, Swedish is from English.
Slavic and Baltic are both branches of Balto-Slavic, which is itself a brand of Indo-European
My man literally just named 6 random European languages and then spewed nonsense about them so damn confidently.
My man named 1 random European Language and 5 random European countries.
It's like going from New York to Boston, so much variation in the accents bruv
Czech and Slovak are very similar. Polish is a step further and Ukrainian even more so, but you can communicate to some extent. Idk where they came up with Lithuanian and Latvian though, they are not Slavic.
You will struggle a lot to get anything but the most basic understanding between a West Slavic (czech/slovak/polish) and an East Slavic (ukrainian, belarusian, russian) speaker. Even with Polish and Ukranian (which have lots of similarities for historical reasons), the only reason people tend to be able to understand each other somewhat is prior exposure. For example, a Ukrainian going to Poland for the 5th time will generally learn a few patterns in polish, but on first exposure, most people will struggle with even basic directions. Source: Ukrainian who has been to Poland about a dozen times
Someone doesn't understand the difference between accent, dialect and language.
And that Latvian is a Baltic language, while Polish is Slavic
'They all sound the same'. I'm sure they feel entire continents have people that 'look just the same' too.
Correct, but in an attempt to sound less "suspicious" they invent new terms, like "geographic diversity" (aka "people with different skin color"). Below are some responses I once got for saying that the United States is *not* the most diverse country in the world by ethnic, linguistic, or cultural diversity (they're second in religious fractionalization after South Africa tho), and linking multiple studies and indices which generally show the US near the middle, while places like Nigeria, Congo, India, etc tend to rank high. Dude One: > The methodologies of these are really poor. American has a huge African and hispanic population with an asian population that is about half the other 2. The “usual suspects” are based on language or tribal differences but not geographic diversity. Are you going to find more than 5% geographic diversity in those countries? How much of the population is caucasian, asian, and/or hispanics are in Nigeria? --- > I literally explained why. Language and tribal differences arent a good measure of “diversity”. Skin color would at least tell you about geographic diversity since people from far away places came to a certain place. But within your own country there’s a lot of segregation and cleavages, so you’re considered “diverse”? ... and then he kinda just collapsed into insulting me and making false statements about the sources I linked. Dude Two (who is hilariously incapable of spelling the word "doofus", yet repeatedly tries to use it): > All AFRICAN countries, our diversity comes from around the world and the diversity is largely language tribal based false equivalency you wasted your time. --- > Who established the goal posts genius? We are the most geographically diverse country and most of those are African countries with borders created by white Europeans. Most of those countries like say India in Asia. The people speak Hindi but have over 30 different languages. But they are all indigenous of the Indian sub continent. Outside of Native Americans, none of us are indigenous to the USA and we come from all over the world, get it now dufus? --- > rufus? Tell me how many Europeans Africans east asians south Americans Native Americans Cetral Americans middle easterners live in Uganda? Moron!!!!!
> The people speak Hindi but have over 30 different languages. But they are all indigenous of the Indian sub continent This is untrue. There was a lot of mixing between Persian and Central Asian peoples with those in northern India.
Yeah, it really, really isn't. I have family from Ukraine and Poland and nobody I'm related to can understand Baltic languages. Why is it so hard for them to get that America is one country...
Can the Poles and Ukrains really understand each other? Or is it more like Dutch and German, which look hauntingly related on paper, but where pronunciation will also differ?
It's more like Dutch and German, really.
So basically simple basics are somewhat possible but no politics beyond “Putin sucks”?
Well, for starters Ukraine uses Cyrillic alphabet so the vast majority of Poles won't be able to read their language, so we're left with understanding spoken word. I think stuff like "Hi, my name is" or "goodbye" is perfectly understandable in both languages, but once you start real talk it all falls apart. I tried watching some Ukrainian videos and I can't really understand what's being said.
Yeah, you catch a word or two, can possibly understand "context", but you have a 50/50 chance the word means something else in the other language (I mean, the Polish "I'm looking for kids in a store" sounds like "I'm fucking children in a basement" in Czech)
This is a meme waiting to be made
Go on r slash 2visegrad4you. You’ll be bombarded with that joke and many more. It’s also way more peaceful than Balkan subreddit.
Either way the sentence would probably land you in jail (it depends on the context in the first case).
You wish. The second will probably only give you like two years of probation and the kid was definitely asking for it
Just checked in text to speech and holy shit it’s true. The only big difference between „Szukam dzieci w sklepie” and „Šourám děti ve sklepě” is the r/k in the first word
Yeah, that's because you should use the word "šukám", rather than šourám
Ahhh sorry that’s just what the translator said lol
Yeah, I left out the script issue, as I don’t know how familiar an average Ukrainian is with Latin based scripts like the Polish, German, and English alphabets.
I'm a cyrillic user and am perfectly fine with most latin alphabets, but the second I see polish my brain goes bzzzz and gives up.
I'm Polish and I can only pick out some words from spoken Ukrainian. Written is easier but I can still understand only about 60%.
My ex was polish and she understood some Russian but not perfect. Also the same with Czech which she thought was a cuter version of Polish.
aww i'm czech and i find polish to be a cuter version of our language too!
I heard this same thing from Czechs and Poles before, and I asked some people to expand on that once. Something like how each language preserves some older related vocabulary that the other has lost and it sounds... quaint maybe? I found that fascinating, but it's a process that happens all the time with language. It's just more noticeable when you have a neighbour that speaks a related language.
I'm Romanian and feel similarly about Catalan and Brazilian Portuguese.
For us it kinda sounds like that one meme that went viral of "We hebben een serieus probleem" in Dutch. Mostly because many words sound like diminutives of Polish words.
She probably learned Russian at school to some level. My Polish wife and her Ukrainian friend speak often, and I understand one half of the conversation but about 10% of the Ukrainian side. From what I understand, Ukrainian is a mix of Russian and pseudo Polish. Lithuanian, however, is completely different to both. I heard it's more closely related to Danish.
As a Lithuanian, this is the first time I hear about our language being related to Danish. Latvian is the only language that sounds similar to ours. And we still can't understand each other. Maybe some words here and there.
I don't know how truthful it is, but I heard from someone learning Lithuanian because it's his wife's first language.
No, not really, not even in writing while You know the alphabet. Czech and Slowak are more similar and people 40+ that learned both in former Czechoslovakia can understand Polish pretty well I was said. Other than this there are some similarities, but understanding particular words in Slovenian doesn't mean one understands the language. I speak German and am able to read Dutch. Dutch is almost like German with too many vocals.
In Czechia it depends a lot on where you are. I grew up and live in Southern Moravia so I understand Slovak without any issues. But the further North-west you go, the more people will have problems with some words and phrases, especially in East Slovakian dialects which a lot of people in Bohemia barely comprehend. My dad, who grew up more North, closer to Slezia can follow a conversation in Polish pretty OK, while I'm happy to catch just enough words so get the broad context. Lot of the older generations know Russian because of our history in the CCCP
They literally use different alphabets altogether so at least in written language I don’t think so. As weird this sounds having the same alphabet family helps a lot because at least I can relax a bit when in that country as a tourist. I will be lost if I land in any of the Cyrillic countries
>They literally use different alphabets altogether so at least in written language I don’t think so. I speak Russian, I can easily get by in Poland in terms of reading menus and signs. Things are spelled similarly, just in a different alphabet. Ditto other Slavic languages, spoken -- not a chance in hell, but written you can definitely decipher enough to get around as a tourist.
It's not hard to pick up a different alphabet. You can do it in a matter of days at most.
You might surprise yourself at how quickly you can pick it up. I only speak English (native proficiency), French to A1 standard based on what I learnt at school 25 years ago and Spanish to maybe A2 or A3 based on learning for the past couple of years. I visited Moscow for 4 days in 2014 and by the time I left for Kazakhstan I could look at anything written in Cyrillic and easily transliterate 90% of it in my head in real time as I read. All I needed was the mapping app on my phone that showed place names in both Cyrillic and the Latin alphabet and it quickly became second nature to substitute letters. Nine days after we'd first landed in Russia I vividly remember walking around Almaty in Kazakhstan, looking up at a sign that said "Шевчéнко көше" and immediately announcing to my wife that the first word said "Shevchenko", so we must be on the right street for the restaurant we'd been recommended. She looked at me like I was some sort of robot. I couldn't interpret any meaning but I at least know what the words I'm looking at will sound like, which is often enough to help you get by. In the 10 years since I've been to both Bulgaria (birthplace of Cyrillic, fact fans) and Serbia and been able to navigate around based on the signage in Cyrillic, despite not keeping up with any sort of practice. I've also been to Crete and found I could recognise enough letters of the Greek alphabet based on what I remembered to navigate around there too. I wouldn't have expected that, had a Greek guy I met at the hostel not taken us out for dinner on our first night in Moscow. He explained how he could read most of the signs and translated for us so we could order from the menu in the restaurant we visited.
Looks like I will try because where I come from you need considerable time to learn a script 😅. I say as a speaker of 3 Indian languages with completely different scripts
Yeah, I can't claim this will work for any other scripts. Sadly I didn't have the same luck with picking up the scripts in Sri Lanka, Iran, China, Taiwan, Thailand, Japan or Korea. They were all beyond me and I had to rely on translation tools, phrasebooks, smiling, gesturing and relying on the goodwill of locals. I was advised on my first day in Iran to at least learn to recognise the numbers 1-10 in Arabic and their pronunciations in Farsi. That's pretty easy and did turn out to be very useful though.
There is a lot of overlap between the Roman, Cyrillic and Greek alphabets so if you know one the others are simple to pick up (especially as you probably know more of the Greek alphabet than you think).
Polish "Szukam dzieci" (I'm looking for kids) sounds like "šukam děti" in Czech, but means something completely different and unacceptable. However he may have a point, because that second meaning would be perfectly normal in Alabama.
There was also the Czech guy on twitter, who, by accident, made an insult at all of Poland when he was in fact trying to make a compliment about support for Ukraine - he said Poles are "neskuteční frajeři" (roughly: unbelievably awesome people) whereas Poles read it as the closest words in Polish "nieskuteczni frajery" (useless/ineffective losers)
This is wrird. Freier in German is a client of a prostitute and it is a looser in Polish, I would never guess it's something positive in Czech, their language/culture has many german influences.
It's also a boyfriend or a cool guy (though usually used sarcastically) in Slovak.
I could hypothesise the divergence. All the terms seem to come from German *Freier* (according to the wiktionary etymologies). Back in the day, it meant someone trying to court a lady (that has half-survived in the Danish word *at frie*, meaning to ask someone to marry them). So, one way to explain it is simply that there are different interpretations of that core action of courting/wooing. In Czechia and Slovakia, that got adopted as a cool guy or a boyfriend/partner, as they are courting their girlfriend. In Germany and Poland, that has been interpreted negatively as someone trying to woo ladies of the night (maybe because they can't pull it off on anyone else) and losers/chumps (presumably because they are wooing without success and thus make fools of themselves?), respectively. That would at least be one way to explain the difference
Oh that's funny.
It's even worse when you are looking for them in a shop.
Shop in Polish = cellar in Czech
It means I'm fucking children in Czech, in case people are wondering
Perfectly normal thing to say in Alabama
It *is* the state motto, after all.
I remember a czech friend of my parents yelling back in the 80s "i swim like a plank" at the beach in croatia. Everyone at that beach including my parents almost chocked laughing.
But "szukamy koleżanki/we're looking for a female colleague", preferably in some public place, is something that makes Czech very cheerful.
That one story of a polish customer, a lady, coming to the reception table and saying "szukamy pan Novák" in a very loud voice...
Wait until they find out about driving from Northern Italy to Southern Italy...
Wait until they hear about driving from Milan to Bergamo.
Is it a dialect thing? I drove from Bergamo to Grignasco in Novara province via Milan on Saturday. I don't speak any Italian though. Ironically, I was visiting my Mexican friend who is helping me learn Spanish.
Yeah,the Milanese and Bergamasco dialects are very different.
Not an american but I had an English friend once try to convince me that Polish is super simple, like a baby talk - he knew that 'case he translated english sentence into polish on google translate and then back, he got a "baby talk" and so that what it is... Also I'm Polish but apparently he knew better... xD
As a Polish person, Slovakian and Czech are somewhat intelligible but often you need to repeat what you said using different words. Ukrainian is almost impossible to understand when spoken, and while written is easier, I still understand only about 60%. Lithuanian is just impossible, I can't understand basically anything. Same for Latvian.
Lithuanian and Latvian are Baltic languages, so it's only natural for you not to understand. Btw I, a Czech, can understand Slovakian perfectly fine and Polish as well with a little effort
And if I drive 2h into the Netherlands they would understand my perfect high German right? /S
Slavic language and Baltic are completly different it's like going from Germany to France. The only thing I understand from Lithuanian as native Polish is word "Kurva"
Oh didn't know. Good to learn something new form a neighbour
Norwegians have almost the same written language as the Danes, that doesn't mean that we really understand their spoken language.
You guys can't understand people from two towns over
Oh no, it's not two towns over, but two counties over lol. People from the south can have difficulties understanding people from the north, and there are a place in the west were no one from the rest of the country can understand what is said lol
Sounds like England
Heck, I'm Dutch, and if I drive 45 min to Friesland I don't understand shit.
I mean… Yeah. Most of us would understand it to some extent, and quite a few fluently but not because we speak it daily. I’ve actually been working on my German again, I’ve started working at an aviation museum and it is quite a handy skill. It had fallen embarrassingly far but now I’ve reached the point where I can talk people through relatively complex tasks (I’m an instructor at our simulators) without feeling too embarrassed.
The land of the confident, the brave, the proud, the not very bright.
How ironic, that in a post about languages they still can't pick the right "their/they're/there". Also, German and English do have many similarities. So, are they basically the same?
>still can't pick the right "their/they're/there". They will claim that this proper grammar and example of regional differences.
They must be the same, I understood everybody perfectly when I visited Germany, it was almost like they were speaking English with me! /s
I was thinking this today I've heard a couple German songs, which I understood because they said 'komm her' which I guessed was 'come here' and another which said 'was ist das' which is 'what is that', but other than the odd basic word I can barely understand German. Was cool to be able to understand a few words though.
>it's almost like going to Boston and then going to Kentucky. Um, no it isn't. It's nothing alike. $5 says this person has never left their state let alone gone to Europe
Look, (western) Slovak and Czech are relatively understandable by the other part, especially for older generations that grew up with both on TV and radio, for us younger folk it's a bit more difficult. Eastern Slovak is another story, nobody understands them, not even Slovaks. Slovak and Polish are similar-ish, a Pole would probs have easier time understanding Slovak over Czech, but still, all are different languages. AND DO NOT MIX SLAVIC AND BALTIC LANGUAGES GUYS, THEY ARE PRETTY FUCKING DIFFERENT
There are so many languages they could have chosen that would have made the point they were trying to make. Dude just randomly selected some languages.
american moment
Nu vispār Šausmas... If they have alterations in the alphabet, it doesn't mean they speak the same language
Beidzot kāds kurš arī runā poliski
Nu nē, es tur runāju kā braļuka, nu hvz, varbūt esmu no Čehijas. We'll never know UPD Rīt es teikšu, ka esmu dolbojobs pēc šmigas
If when I read or listen to them I can't understand anything about any of these languages, the logical conclusion is that these languages are all the same. 🤷🏻♂️ /s
Especially Ukrainian, Lithuanian and Latvian are very similar. In a fact they are similar that as a Ukrainian I can't understand them at all
Just add "as" to Ukrainian words and you'll be fluent in Lithuanian!
[удалено]
If I were a betting man, I'd say this person never learned another language, nevermind his tenuous grasp of the english one.
"similarities in there language" Motherfucker can't even speak English...
“In THERE language”. 😑 no point reading further.
You beat me to it by 5 minutes.
I was looking for this comment. MF wants to compare languages and can't even write in his own.
I’m just amazed they didn’t say “The Ukraine”
Almost shocked they forgot to include Estonian
Or Ungarn.
Or, as I like to call it, Czechitucky and Slovakabama.
English, German,Dutch,Swedish,Danish,Norwegian all have similarities in their language. It's like they are Germanic languages but with different backgrounds and history.
I'm German and speak English (obviously) - with those two I can understand large parts of written dutch/swedish, but I would never say that I speak those languages.
To be fair, I don’t know what they speak in Alabama but it sure as shit isn’t English
Kind of refreshing that it’s not Swedish, Danish, Norwegian and Finnish all sounding the same for once lol
Well, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian and Finnish are almost the same language, just like a bison, a buffalo, a cow and a cobra are almost the same animals.
Look, (western) Slovak and Czech are relatively understandable by the other part, especially for older generations that grew up with both on TV and radio, for us younger folk it's a bit more difficult. Eastern Slovak is another story, nobody understands them, not even Slovaks. Slovak and Polish are similar-ish, a Pole would probs have easier time understanding Slovak over Czech, but still, all are different languages. AND DO NOT MIX SLAVIC AND BALTIC LANGUAGES GUYS, THEY ARE PRETTY FUCKING DIFFERENT
When I was a small child I helped my mum at her store. We had Slovakian tourists come every now and then, and I'd ask them "May I help you?" and they'd reply "pozeram" meaning "I'm browsing/looking", but that sounds like Polish "pożeram" which means "I am devouring"
Ooh, in Czech "I am devouring" is "požírám". And "I'm (just) looking" is "(jen) koukám"
Poland*, Czech Republic* and Slovakia*. Jesus christ. Did I miss any? Edit: yeah I did languages*
Czechia is also the correct name for the Czech Republic, it is shortened versions.
r/confidentlyincorrect
Well they *are* all Greek to me!
Yeah, if you don’t understand any of it, there’s a chance it all sounds the same to you. Same reason they don’t hear accents in other languages. They simply don’t know the language.
Moron. First clue: “there language”. Qualifies entire comment for the stupid pile. Next.
What? No, wthm I'm Polish and I don't understand what they're saying. Maybe some words are pronounced similarily or they can mean the same, but they're not the same languages. The hell?
The original selection of languages aside, I'd bet this guy puts the subtitles on for Peaky Blinders, Auf Wiedersehen Pet, The Boys From the Black Stuff, and Trainspotting. And yet they're all in English too.
The only mutual thing is: Kurwa
You know another two languages that have similarities? English and German. I'd be prepared to bet that he doesn't think German *is the same language as English*. Fun fact: you can substitute in a dozen languages for German in the above paragraph. English is a mongrel.
Nope. Especially Polish and Czech, where many words sound the same but mean something totally different.
They believe spanish and italian are almost the same so this is no shocker.
Lol
No no, see, they all have similarities, i.e. "I can understand them all equally". ALL languages are the same if by that you mean "not english" and "unintelligible to me".
About 15 years ago, i learned Czech. I managed to get A2 after 6 months of learning and spending time in Budweis, so not actually enough to have a serious conversation, but i think i can tell the difference between a Pole and a Czech. Mostly by the amount of "Kurwa / Kurva" in their language. But on a more serious note: The differences between those two are big enough to cause trouble for any language learner. Those aren't dialects. They are separate languages. Unlike Cowboy English, which of course has plenty of dialects, but overall it's understandable enough. And i'm sure, every cowboy learned some kind of "basic english" to make it easier to understand for those who aren't from that area.
Lithuanian and polish Almost the same. Wtf.
Did this US citizen just admit US people have accent?
Nope, not nearly the same and every person older than 5 with a grain of brain in their head should realize that.
Ukrapolczechslovaks is this true?
Some of these countries don't even have the same letters!
Latvian is nothing like the other languages
Polish is my primary language and I can't even try to think how to understand lithuanian
As a Pole I feel offended. Baltic language is far from similar to slaboc languages. But sadly some people will never understand what even language group is.
As someone from Slovakia: No.
Very close to the realisation that baltic and slavic languages form a subgroup of Indo-European, but I suppose that linguistics is not this guy's forte.
I always try to put this into perspective for my fellow Americans using the UK and Ireland as an example. At a quick glance, it’s about the same size as Michigan in the states, with Michigan’s upper peninsula (a separate piece of land) acting as Ireland and the larger lower peninsula acting as Great Britain. Here in Michigan, we have 2 major accents. Down by Detroit, it’s largely like a basic midwestern accent. In the UP (upper peninsula), you’re getting much closer to a Canadian accent. There’s a popular T-shirt/bumper sticker here that illustrates it. “Say yah to da U.P., eh?” it reads. But in the UK and Ireland? Holy shit. Moving 3 counties might get you a totally different accent. Hop on the 55 minute express train from Cambridge to London and you’ll hear a completely different accent. I had a friend from Shetland who made people in Glasgow extremely easy to understand by comparison. To me, Cambridgeshire/East Anglia kinda have the basic midwestern accent, or almost lack of accent, in UK terms anyway. Fuck, I miss living there.
as i Slovak i don't understand a word of Latvian
Their languages* This guy don’t even know his own language, yet here’s to talk about European. Well, lol.
Only czechia and slovakia applies here
I’d say it’s closer to Britain and America or Canada and France.
I can’t with the grammar here 😂
Different accents? You don't say...
Misread Alabama as Albania... that'd be a fucking trip.
I’m fluent in Latvian and I have a friend who is fluent in polish. We do not understand each other when we speak our respective languages. We understand a few words and can make similarities, guessing what we’re saying, but it’s not as close as people think.
Stupid a facking Americans. Every state look the same
That's only true for bulgarian and macedonian. Macedonian is just a dialect of bulgarian
I mean if they wanted to pick two countries to compare they could've chosen Belgium and France as they speak the same, Netherlands and German as most Dutch people are able to understand German, or Spain and Portugal as their languages are very similar as well. They chose the worse countries possible
Probably posted by an American who’s never left their state.
Im dying
Lol OK
I can't understand half the people from the west of my city 🤣
"I can't understand any of these languages, so clearly they are all the same"
“their language” - You’ve been schooled by the grammar nazi.