[LAC-Tech]

Really? I read German (not at a very high level anymore admittedly), and I find that while Old English is closer to German than modern English is, I would still say a deep knowledge of Modern English helps me more, and that most things have be learned frlm scratch.

Like does Dutch have anything like "cƿæð"? Or "Hlaford"? Or "soð"? "þeah þe"?

I know Dutch should be a little closer to Old English than German, but if you truly can pick up words like that leaning on Dutch, maybe I should learn to read it. (I can read the 1000 Old English sentence pretty well).

[cmrdporcupine]

As a native English speaker who also knows some German and has studied some Anglo-Saxon... I'd say the High German sound shift can really mess up hearing Anglo-Saxon for German speakers but reading it is easier than it might be for a modern English speaker...

The orthography of Anglo-Saxon can make it look easier to read for a modern German or Dutch speaker, but to actually hear it could be confusing. Specifically around the words written with the past tense marker "ge" -- or other words using "ge", which is pronounced like modern English "ye" (hence English 'yester[day]' instead of German 'gestern'), not hard "ge" like in modern high German.

And yes Dutch (or modern Low Saxon dialects or Frisian) could be closer but the orthography is very different and also Anglo-Saxon had a palette closer to the front of the mouth than the back like Dutch.

Also other West Germanic (and North) languages lost the dental fricatives ("thorn" (þ) and "eth" (ð)) while English (and Icelandic) kept it. And Anglo Saxon used them heavily. Old Franconian and Old Saxon had this sound, too, but lost it (hence "the" vs der/die/das etc)

[LAC-Tech]

I dont think reading will be much easier. A modern English speaker - assuming he is well read, will know things like "sooth", "quoth", "art thou", "ere", "sayeth"... I feel knowing this stuff helps me a lot more than cognates of high german "schön" or "wohnen".

Actually knowing Tolkien well has been helpful because the way he writes is very anglo-saxon, not so even his word choices but just the rhythm or syntax.

But yeah I went into Old English thinking it would be more like German, but really it is much more like English than people think IMO.