Question to native speakers of Dutch and German: how much can you understand each others' languages?

[Mortimer]

I'm not native German but I grew up as if I'm a native speaker because I had from start German as native language in school and English as foreign language and I don't understand the Dutch only some words

[The Lawspeaker]

The commonalities are probably much more between the Netherlands and West/Northern Germany. Not so with the Boarisch dialects.

[Maintenance]

The commonalities are probably much more between the Netherlands and West/Northern Germany. Not so with the Boarisch dialects.

Which language do you think is the closest to Scandinavian languages of the 2?

[The Lawspeaker]

Which language do you think is the closest to Scandinavian languages of the 2?

Dutch. Definitely Dutch. The spelling has made it easier for us to learn Scandinavian languages like Norwegian and Danish.

[Maintenance]

Dutch. Definitely Dutch. The spelling has made it easier for us to learn Scandinavian languages like Norwegian and Danish.

Interesting, i haven't really paid attention to the Dutch language that much, as a fluent Swedish speaker i understand quite a bit of German and been exposed to it much more due to older ww2 movies and such.

There is quite a few Dutch people who moved to northern Sweden to feel more free and closer to nature, My mom used to live in a village in the north which only had 55 people living there, the only shop and source of gas is owned by a Dutch family who live on the top floor of the shop, i know some people they knew also moved up to a different village a few miles away, i think there is a total of 25-30 Dutch people in that area, they are quite spread out due to the location which is quite far from any smaller city.