Germanic languages from the easist to the most difficult

Leasnam   Thu Jan 15, 2009 9:59 pm GMT
<<PRESENT TENSES
I buy
I'm buying >>

Yup.
And also: I do buy

FUTURE TENSES
I will/shall buy
I'm buying
I'm going to buy
I'll be buying

Also: I'm going to be buying

<<PAST TENSES
I have bought
I bought
I have been buying
I had bought
I had been bought >>

Also: I did buy, I was buying, I had been buying, etc.

English has a lot.
12345   Thu Jan 15, 2009 10:43 pm GMT
PRESENT TENSES
I buy - Ik koop
I'm buying - Ik ben aan het kopen

FUTURE TENSES
I will/shall buy - Ik zal kopen
I'm buying - Ik koop
I'm going to buy - Ik ga kopen
I'll be buying - Ben ik aan het kopen

PAST TENSES
I have bought - Ik heb gekocht
I bought - Ik kocht
I have been buying - Ik heb wezen kopen
I had bought - Ik had gekocht
I had been bought - Ik had wezen kopen
12345   Thu Jan 15, 2009 11:18 pm GMT
Last one is not correct :(.
Ik had gekocht geweest... I think..

Than Leasnam:

I'm going to be buying - Not sure, but I think that means something like this: Ik ga om te kopen.


I do buy - Officially not correct, but you hear it more and more in the speaking language here.. Ik doe kopen

I did buy - Same as above, Ik deed kopen

I was buying - Ik was aan het kopen

I had been buying - Ik had wezen kopen
Leasnam   Thu Jan 15, 2009 11:28 pm GMT
<<I do buy - Officially not correct, but you hear it more and more in the speaking language here.. Ik doe kopen

I did buy - Same as above, Ik deed kopen
>>

Really?? Wow, that is awesome!

Wij zijn meer en meer als zustertalen
12345   Fri Jan 16, 2009 12:16 am GMT
«Really?? Wow, that is awesome!

Wij zijn meer en meer als zustertalen »
I think it's especially because English has become a very important language here. Also we don't dub movies in cinemas and on television but we subtitle them.
The last cause you could give that Amsterdam, our capital, has more foreign than Dutch inhabitants and because of that English might be the main language in Amsterdam within ten years. I think the first Germanic languages that will die are Afrikaans, Dutch and Low-Saxon. Frisian will remain because the Frisians are very proud of their culture and language.
Shrey   Fri Jan 16, 2009 1:18 am GMT
Tabulator, I don't know where you got such a ridiculous scale, but I can assure you that Afrikaans is not so easy.

Afrikaans and Dutch are in fact quite hard (Afrikaans being harder than Dutch) due to complex syntax and morphology. The grammar is also quite hard but not as hard as German (and they also have only 2 genders).

Swedish and Norwegian are on the same plane in terms of difficulty (Norwegian being easier to speak to it's less ambiguous pronunciation and tones) and their grammar is also quite easy in many instances (For eg. they don't conjugate verbs so the verb forms for each tense remain the same). However, their gender and article system is a bit complex and the syntax like someone mentioned, is much harder than English. Moreover, the biggest problem is to understand the two languages. These are tonal languages and so it's hard to distinguish independent words, as it sounds like they're combining all the words to make a one loooong word. Thus mastery of such a language and their tones takes a lot more effort than learning or speaking English.

Danish is said to be slightly harder than Swedish and Norwegian. Danish having a ridiculously hard pronunciation (As they don't sound out all the letters). The grammar again is comparable to that of Swedish and Norwegian (more related to Norwegian).

Frisian, according to many speakers of the language, is said to be slightly easier than Dutch but definitely harder than the Scandinavian languages (more specifically the Western Germanic languages). It's closest relative is Dutch. So when assigning a rating, it can be either between Danish or Dutch or between Dutch and German.

Icelandic and Faroese I agree, are the hardest on the scale because they've retained most of their ancient features (Cases, endings, complex grammar, tenses etc.)
Castor   Fri Jan 16, 2009 1:32 am GMT
<<Frisian, ... It's closest relative is Dutch. So when assigning a rating, it can be either between Danish or Dutch or between Dutch and German.
>>

Frisian's closest relative is ENGLISH/SCOTS
tabulator   Fri Jan 16, 2009 2:55 am GMT
<<Tabulator, I don't know where you got such a ridiculous scale, but I can assure you that Afrikaans is not so easy>>

This was just the average ranking given to each language in the prior posts. I may have made some computational errors, though.
Bloke   Fri Jan 16, 2009 9:35 am GMT
"Afrikaans and Dutch are in fact quite hard (Afrikaans being harder than Dutch) due to complex syntax and morphology. The grammar is also quite hard but not as hard as German (and they also have only 2 genders)."

Afrikaans has no genders. It's actually quite a lot easier than Dutch. There's only one way to form the past tense; "is" is used with all pronouns instead of ben, bent, zijn, etc.
12345   Fri Jan 16, 2009 11:12 am GMT
To me Afrikaans is just simplified Dutch with double negative. And it's grammar looks a lot like English. I can read Afrikaans without any problem.
12345   Fri Jan 16, 2009 11:13 am GMT
«Frisian's closest relative is ENGLISH/SCOTS »

No, Low-Saxon.
Guest   Fri Jan 16, 2009 11:28 am GMT
So English is the easiest Germanic language.
Leasnam   Fri Jan 16, 2009 9:18 pm GMT
<<«Frisian's closest relative is ENGLISH/SCOTS »
No, Low-Saxon. >>

Actually, Frisian is closer to English than Low Saxon.

The order of closeness to English is as follows:
Scots
Frisian Dialects
Low Saxon (Platt & Nedersaksisch)
Dutch
German varieties
Scandinavian languages

English/Scots and Frisian share in their particular development of Germanic 'ai' and 'au' sounds, as well as in complete loss of nasals before 's', 'f', 'th' etc. and share in complete or partial palatization of germanic 'k' and 'g' to 'ch' and 'j' (Eng 'y') before front vowels.

Low Saxon however is a very close relative, where not all of these developments have taken place or have done so only partially.
Leasnam   Fri Jan 16, 2009 10:01 pm GMT
How could I forget Afrikaans

The order of closeness to English is as follows:
Scots
Frisian Dialects
Low Saxon (Platt & Nedersaksisch)
Dutch/Afrikaans
German varieties
Scandinavian languages
12345   Sat Jan 17, 2009 1:15 am GMT
«Actually, Frisian is closer to English than Low Saxon.

The order of closeness to English is as follows:
Scots
Frisian Dialects
Low Saxon (Platt & Nedersaksisch)
Dutch
German varieties
Scandinavian languages

English/Scots and Frisian share in their particular development of Germanic 'ai' and 'au' sounds, as well as in complete loss of nasals before 's', 'f', 'th' etc. and share in complete or partial palatization of germanic 'k' and 'g' to 'ch' and 'j' (Eng 'y') before front vowels.

Low Saxon however is a very close relative, where not all of these developments have taken place or have done so only partially. »
Maybe I thought that then because I live 5km from the border of Fryslân. And for the people to the east we 'sound' Frisian, but to the people in Frisia we sound 'Gronings (low saxon dialect).
They say: We think we can understand you but it's not Frisian. Or the other way around.

Like all the 'ai' sounds in Eastern-Groningen, like nait (not), or gain, have become niet and gien (like a Dutch sound between ie and short i). Gien is gjin in Frisian. I seriously live on the border between Frisian and Low-Saxon. Also the ui sound is different. In eastern groningen it's like a Dutch 'oe' boetn, buiten (outside)
Here it's 'uu' buutn
Frisian it's 'oe' again.. Bûte I think..

There are some differences in personal pronoun tho
Dutch - Frisian - English - My dialect
ik ik I ik
jij do you doe/du
hij hy he er/ur (short Dutch sounding u)
zij sy she sie
het it it it
wij wy we wie
jullie jimme you jim
U Jo you joe
zij sy they sie

Possesive
Mijn myn my mien
jouw dyn your dien
zijn syn his sien
haar har her heur (sounds like English her)
ons/onze ús/uzes our oans/oanse
jullie jim your jim
uw jim your joen
hun har their hun