Here's a breakdown:
* Indo-European: This is a large language family that includes many of the languages spoken in Europe, as well as some in Asia and parts of the Americas.
* Indo-European branches: Within Indo-European, there are many branches, like Germanic, Romance, Slavic, and Celtic. These branches represent distinct groups of languages that share a common ancestor.
* Germanic and Slavic branches: Both Germanic and Slavic belong to the Indo-European family, but they are distinct branches. This means they share a distant common ancestor with other Indo-European languages, but they diverged a long time ago and developed their own unique characteristics.
Therefore, while Germanic and Slavic languages have a common origin, they are not directly related in the way that English and German are.
Think of it like this: Imagine a family tree. Indo-European is the great-grandparent, Germanic and Slavic are cousins, and English and German are siblings.