Is German mutually intelligible with any language?
  • Grace_R March 2012
    I know Danes, Norwegians, and Swedes can talk to each other in their own languages because Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish are mutually intelligible.  Is German mutually intelligible with any language?
  • Heike March 2012
    That's a really great question, Grace, and my first instinct would be to say: "Of course, it's mutually intelligible with Austrian and Swiss-German. But of course, Austrian and Swiss-German are rather German dialects than different languages like Danish, Norwegian and Swedish are.

    I would say, Dutch and German (which is called "Deutsch" in German :-) is pretty close and we can definitely communicate with each other if we speak slowly!


  • Grace_R March 2012

    Das ist interessant.  Deutschland is neben der Niederlande.  Are these sentences correct?


    Do you find it easier to read than listen to Dutch?

  • Heike March 2012
    Yes, it is much easier to read a newspaper - eine Zeitung - in Dutch than to listen to the radio :-)

    Here is a gentle correction of your sentence:

    "Deutschland ist neben den Niederlanden." the other sentence was "perfekt"!! The preposition "neben" invokes the Dativ :-) does it make sense?
Add a Comment