[LISTENING] As a native Norwegian speaker, can you still understand the news report from this video by only listening to spoken German?

4 comments

1. >*As a native Norwegian speaker, can you still understand the news report from this video by only listening to spoken German?*

   A word here and there, a full sentence just barely.

   [How about you?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBz5aryrbhU)

2. No, I can’t. I understand the occasional word, through my knowledge of both Norwegian and English, but there is no way I’m able to follow and understand most of this.

   It’s somewhat easier when written, and I can usually understand German information signs when visiting Germany, but reading a full German article would be extremely difficult.

   Swedish and Danish, both written and spoken, are absolutely no issue for me. I don’t think I’m especially bad at understanding other languages.

3. Any Norwegian should note some similarities in vocabulary, but how that affects overall comprehension, I’m not sure.

   Many Norwegians (like me) have had German in school as a secondary foreign language, so in theory they should be able to understand some of it. In practice, I’m not sure how much of a difference it makes, as most Norwegians don’t practice German outside of school.

   I would say that combined with the images, I get the gist of it, but the finer points are lost. I’d guess on a total comprehension rate of around 20% on first hearing, but I only listened to the first minute or so.

4. Sort of, but not really. There are too many words I would have to guess the meaning of. With context it is easier, but still mostly guesswork I would say.