Learning similar languages can be quizzical for a number of reasons. Here’s a quick glimpse into some incredibly common words in English, Norwegian, Swedish, and Dutch. Notice how the Norwegian, Swedish, and Dutch ones are pronounced:
English |
Norwegian |
Swedish |
Dutch |
| yes | ja (“ya”) | ja (“ya”) | ja (“ya”) |
| no | nei (“nye”) | nej (“nay”) | nee (“nay”) |
| I | jeg (“yiy”) | jag (“ya”) | ik |
| me | meg (“my”) | mig (“may”) | me (“muh”) |
| me (stressed) | meg (“my”) | mig (“may”) | mij (“may”, “my”) |
| you (nominative) | du | du | je (“yuh”) |
| you (nominative, stressed) | du | du | jij (“yay”, “yiy”) |
| you (objective) | deg (“dye”) | dig (“day”) | je (“yuh”) |
| you (objective, stressed) | deg (“dye”) | dig (“day”) | jou (“yow”) |
| it | den, det (“deh”) | den, det (“deh”) | het |
Additionally, “je” (“zhuh”) in French means “I”, but, from the chart above, we can see that “je” in Dutch is “you”. This confused me a little until Dutch and French developed their own separate identities in my head! As a bonus, when you say “ya” in Japanese, it means “no”, despite meaning “yes” in a ton of European languages.