• yata@sh.itjust.works
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      14 days ago

      Definitely affectation. I suspect the strong German accent is as well. His vocabulary is too good for it.

    • Raiderkev@lemmy.world
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      14 days ago

      I work for a German company. They definitely ja that much. My wife couldn’t believe how many times they said it when I was on a company call with the higher ups the other day.

      • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        14 days ago

        As a non-native English speaker, ages ago I moved to The Netherlands (were they also use “ja” for “yes”) and once I learned Dutch and got used to speak it as much or more than English, I noticed a definite tendency on my English for my “yes” to come out quite “ja”-like (sorta like an “yeah” with a pretty much silent “e”), though granted not as strong as that guy.

        Maybe this is some kind of broader linguistic tendency (non-native English speakers used to a “yes” in a different language that’s pretty close to one of the English words for “yes” - in this case “yeah” - just doing the lazy thing of using the other language word or a softened version of it because English-speakers get it) rather than a German-specific thing.

        I would be curious to hear from Dutch people and people from Scandinavia (if I’m not mistaken most if not all of whose national languages use a “ja” for “yes”) if they tend to do that or not.

    • lenuup@reddthat.com
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      14 days ago

      That’s mostly an affectation. And as a German myself I have to say that his accent is atrociously german.

    • YesButActuallyMaybe@lemmy.ca
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      14 days ago

      That dude is just exaggerating the accent and pandering to get views. He’s trying to be the ‘in Germany we don’t say’-guy but for mericans. Unfortunately he isn’t funny, which caters to the ‘Germans have no humor’ stereotype