Why do Northern Europeans have a better knowledge of English than Southern Europeans...

Why do Northern Europeans have a better knowledge of English than Southern Europeans, even though English is a Latin language like French and Spanish?

Other urls found in this thread:

sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121127094111.htm
youtube.com/watch?v=4OqdMc4vVPY
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift
twitter.com/SFWRedditGifs

Because spanish is spoken by 550 millions.

We neednt ur barbarian language

English isn't a Latin language.
In fact, on the subject of this rather poor quality thread, there's a fringe theory going about lately that English descends from Old Norse rather than from Ingvaeonic, based on the conclusions from the OP (that Northerners have such an easy time learning it).
sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121127094111.htm

uhh I live in the USA. Why would I need your language?

And you're speaking English RIGHT NOW

Have you heard how German or Dutch sounds?

It sounds nothing like English.

>We neednt ur barbarian language
Very good post in English

less material in the native language

German also doesn't really sound all that much like Dutch, unless you're incredibly drunk.

Well, ..

Have = heb
you = jou (je / jij)
heard = ge- hoord
how = hoe
German = Germaans (Duits)
or = of
it = 't (het)
thing = ding
like / as = als
English = Engels

Because we're smart.
Like it or not, English is the world language.

You is actually the formal form of you in English. So in Dutch:

you = u

Instead of nothing (no thing) we say niets.
Which would be the plural of not in English. "nots"

>even though English is a Latin language

just stop

>Why would I need your language?
Millions of Americans already speak Spanish as their mother tongue.

>english is a latin language

Just barely

not = niet
nothing = niets (plural)

ANECDOTAL BUT if theres on language that looks most similar to english to me(native) it's dutch

ops caps*

(I know you're trolling DISCLAIMER)

For someone with a Germanic mother tongue it looks really retarded when you claim English is a Latin language. Just saying.

because northerners are ameriboos
they copy us in everything
of course they speak our language

that's a tricky stat. chicanos' first language is english

>admits he knows the OP is trolling
>still falls for it
of course english is latin. just saying

>Old Norse

Norway was based back it the days youtube.com/watch?v=4OqdMc4vVPY

like actually does exist in Dutch desu. Only we start it with ge-.

Ge - lijk = equal

Which is where the word like comes from.

>even though English is a Latin language like French and Spanish

Every linguist ever disagrees, my friend.

This has to be b8

I thought the "English is a latin language" part was ironic

I think international languages tend to eliminate or greatly influence other languages closely related to them.

Semitic Aramaic eliminated Hebrew (Jews spoke Aramaic and only used Hebrew as a liturgical language), eliminated Punic/Phoenician, and it also eliminated Akkadian.

Later, Arab did the same.
But the people who spoke considerably different languages, like the Persians, didnt change their language to Aramaic or Arabic.

It may be thay English is doing to Dutch, German and Scandinavian languages, what Aramaic and Arabic did to the other semitic languages when they became lingua francas.

French didnt eliminate Spanish when it became the lingua Franca in the 1700s, but it did give us a lot of gallicisms.

>even though English is a Latin language like French and Spanish?
lmao

no really the germanic languages, especially dutch imo, shares a lot of similarities with english.

This.

In other Germanic languages many words are used differently. As their usage evolved slightly differently.
And in English you often have a very strict word order, while you can vary a lot with the word order in other Germanic languages.
This confuses the anglos who try to understand it. Because it indeed sounds unfamiliar, because they would never use the words in the same fashion.

>english is a latin language
latin is 30% of english only, of wich its mostly french words, and french evolved to not pronounce words the way they are written just like english
most "latin" romance languages are italian, spanish and portuguese, followed by french and romanian in that order

the french kept the gaellic pronunciation when they learnt latin in roman times, wich is why they pronounce things that way.

the english just willingly fucked up their sensical germanic pronuncation in favor of whats now modern english
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Vowel_Shift

Plus a lot of words that are latin or French in English also exist in Dutch and German.
Sometimes new words are invented and just get adopted by all languages.

this is meme thread

I was going to say this, the French loanwords we have are pretty much in use everywhere, there's a few common ones but most of that 30% pie Slice is technical jargon

For example a basic sentence like this cannot be understood:

Ik wil dat hebben voor mijn verjaardag.
I will that having for mine foryearday.

interesting, I didn't knew that.
Which I'm jealous of english though is the fact that for many words they get a free synonym from french

birthday = ge-boortedag

Is just silly in Dutch. We don't celebrate our birth. We celebrate a year has passed.

let me guess
"i want that for me once a year"
celebrating a year being alive seems more logical than celebrating a birth from many years ago imo

>ge-boortedag
that sounds german. i forgot what it is like geburstag or something like that

Yeah, "want" is "will" in Dutch.
And instead of "will" we say "shall".

I want to have that for my birthday. God wills it.

It's funny because I can read a sentence in Spanish and completely understand it without a translation

I can't do the same with German

>English is a Latin language

English is Germanic with a bunch of French words thrown in

>English is a Latin language
No, the ceasars are my ancestors, not yours.

nothing wrong with an anecdote :)

ok OURS, how is that

Hail Caesar

*smacks lips*