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Wanted to hear how the Danish
language sounds like?
Click Here to visit an excellent new website that
has
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If
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their is NO BETTER site on the web than right here
http://www.speakdanish.dk
and below.
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Thanks to Tomasz P. Szynalski
that is now possible
Click
Here and you'll love it, thanks Thomasz.
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Danish is
not a hard language to learn or speak, it only
has one
problem, you still have to look around
finding someone who
speaks it.
"just kidding"
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Introduction to the Danish Language
Introduction to the Danish Language
Danish is the official language of
Denmark, Greenland and the Faeroe Islands. Both Greenland
and the Faeroe Islands have their own language too, which
most of the people speak but Danish is used for official
purposes and taught in schools.
Danish is also spoken by 20,000 people
just south of the German border. It goes back to the time
before 1864 when the area belonged to Denmark, and the
Danish minority south of the German border is very keen on
preserving the Danish language. In Icelandic schools, too,
the first foreign language to be taught is Danish. That
serves as a way of communicating with the other
Scandinavian countries.
Danish is not exactly known as one of the
most beautiful languages in the world. Actually, the sound
of Danish always seems to amuse foreigners which gives the
language a certain entertainment value. Foreigners often
characterize Danish as a monotone-like drawl, and many
people say that Danes speak like they have a hot potato in
their mouth. Of course, the Danes themselves find their
language both charming and pretty though they are aware of
the fact that Danish can be difficult to learn for people
from other countries. Because of that, most Danes find it
amusing to test foreigners with the sentence Rødgrød
med fløde (A Danish dessert), because they know that
foreigners are unable to pronounce it. So if you ever
visit Denmark you can be sure that several Danes will test
you on that one.
Danish is characterized as a very flat
language. It is said that people in flat countries speak
with flat accents. As to Denmark this could be true,
because Denmark is indeed a very flat country with its
highest point only 147 m or 482.28 feet.
The written Danish is characterized by a
very strict norm, but the spoken language may vary
considerably in pronunciation. The Danish language has
several dialects even though Denmark is a small country.
The standard language that is called Rigsdansk
originated around Copenhagen, and was originally based on
the sociolect of the upper class of Copenhagen. Almost
every island has its own dialect, which can be difficult
to understand for Danes in other parts of the country.
However, the vast majority of the population speak either
standard Danish or a social variation of it.
The Danish vocabulary is not based upon an
enormous amount of words but it is in principle unlimited,
as new words can freely be formed by means of compounding
or deriving eg. Langtidsplanlægge (Created of three
existing words lang, tid, planlægge, means to plan
long-term). Existing words are simply used to create new
words and as a result of this, the largest Danish
dictionaries contain more than 200,000 words.
If you have a good insight to the Danish
language and speak it should we say "so - so" you now have
an additional option while searching for the correct word
in Danish. With more than 100,000 words and 12,500
expressions where you get to know how exactly the word is
being spelled as well as the correct meaning of the term
itself this information is now available by visiting this
website
Den Danske Ordbog (DDO).
It is available in both
Danish and
English so whatever
language you prefer all you have to do is click on either
Danish or
English and should you
have any questions just ask.... enjoy.
Danish is a language of the Indo-European
family, and it belongs to the North Germanic group
together with Icelandic, Faroese, Norwegian and Swedish.
Historically speaking, Danish is a dialect of a common
Scandinavian language which is known from AD 200. Only
towards AD 1200 did a split become obvious, and many
Viking Age loan words in English, law, window, ill,
loose, die etc. are Scandinavian rather than Danish.
Over the centuries Danish has adopted
thousands of words from foreign languages, especially from
Lower German in the Middle Ages. Since the 17th century a
considerable number of loan words have been taken from
French, and especially in the 20th century many English
words have found their way into the Danish language.
The historical changes in vocabulary were
to a large extent brought about by external factors such
as Christian missionaries in the Viking Age, trade links
with Hanseatic merchants, immigration by north German
artisans and noble families in the Middle Ages, the
Lutheran Reformation in the 16th century, and since then a
broad cultural contact with the modern international
prestige languages. These were first German and French and
from the end of the 19th century mainly English. The whole
of this western European cultural milieu has constantly
adopted words from the "dead" languages, Latin and Greek.
Under the same external influences, Danish, Norwegian and
Swedish have in all essential aspects undergone a parallel
development.
As many foreigners will know, the
differences between the Danish, Norwegian and Swedish
vocabulary are not great. The languages are to a large
extent mutually intelligible. Danes, Norwegians and Swedes
can converse in their native tongues, though they indeed
sound very different for most foreigners. However, the
Danish language has changed more than any of the other
Scandinavian languages. The language has been - and still
is - influenced by international loan words to a greater
extent than Swedish and Norwegian, and therefore the rules
for the spelling have often changed.
Generally, native speakers of one of the
three languages have little trouble dealing with the
written versions in other languages. Especially written
Danish and Norwegian can be difficult to separate, some
sentences are even absolutely identical.
Even though the three languages are very
alike, the population in the three countries often focus
on the differences. The Danish soft d’s and g’s cause
amusement among Swedes and Norwegians, but their
pronunciation sounds funny and over-articulated to the
Danes too.
Danish is written in the Roman alphabet.
The biggest difference between the American and the Danish
alphabet is that the Danish alphabet has three additional
letters - æ, ø and å - totally 29 letters. Since 1948, the
alphabet has been expanded with the Swedish and Norwegian
letter å. The spelling reform of 1948 also abolished the
practice of beginning all nouns with a capital letter.
The letters æ, ø and å come in this order
as the last three letters of the alphabet and they are all
vowels. The pronunciation can be confusing, but a good way
of remembering how they should sound is: for æ as
with e in egg; for ø as with i in first; for
å as with o in lord.
The letters æ, ø and å are only found in
Danish and Norwegian, so if you find a sentence with these
three letters there is a good chance that it is a Danish
text.
The å entered the Danish alphabet in 1948,
and was meant to replace the double-a. However, the
double-a is still to be found in written Danish. Double-a
is precisely the same as å, so don’t look for Aabenraa in
the beginning of the dictionary, as you will then be
searching in vain.
But what is the difference between å and
aa and why are towns like Aalborg and Århus often spelt
both ways? Today it is a question of spelling conventions,
Aalborg insists on using the double-a even on road signs
whereas Århus insists on using the å.
It is now year 2001 and things are
changing so YOU WILL find that the way the use of the å
was used in the old days is not necessary the way things
are anymore.
The proper usage of å versus aa is
according to Retskrivningsbogen (The Danish
dictionary of orthography):
The letter å was substituted for aa in
1948 as the token symbol for the å sound, but it is
still possible to use both in Danish personal names and
places, but not in other words.
The correct use is å but you should
follow the way the named person uses it.
Some places like Aalborg and Aabenraa have
strong local traditions for replacing the å with the aa,
and these should be followed. It can also be important to
remember that the capitalization of the double-a when it
starts a sentence is Aa, not AA.
Besides the æ, ø and å the most important
things worth knowing about the Danish alphabet is that the
letters c, q, w, x and z are only used in loan words as
for instance check, zoo, weekend, and that the
letters v and w are treated as being the same.
Therefore many Danes have difficulties in
the pronunciation of these two letters in English.
Some of the major characteristics of
Danish pronunciation is that the Danish r has to be
fetched from deep below the tonsils and, as somebody would
say, it requires special muscles. The reduction of
unstressed vowels and the glottal stop are also
characteristic features.
The glottal stop (stød) may be difficult
for non-Danish speakers to imitate and does not in fact
exist in the pronunciation of the language in many regions
of Denmark. However, it is important to pronounce the
glottal stop because otherwise words may be misunderstood.
For example le´ver (with a glottal stop) means
liver, whereas lever (without a glottal stop) means
to live. The glottal stop is produced by a sudden
contraction of the expiration muscles. If the vowel of the
syllable in question is long, the glottal stop occurs at
the end of the vowel. If the vowel is short the glottal
stop is pronounced before the following consonant. In a
syllable with a short vowel and a voiceless consonant
there is no glottal stop.
The Danish orthography is principally
conservative and only partly conforms to present day
pronunciation. In for instance ligge (to lie),
skylle (to rinse) and mund (mouth) the i, y and
u represent a sound corresponding to e, ø and å, while the
same vowel sign in kigge (to look), skylde
(to owe), and hund (dog) is pronounced as it is
written.
The written sequences ld and nd in which d
can be silent, always indicate a preceding short vowel as
for instance in bold (ball) and vind (wind)
Danish is rich in vowels. The 9 vowel
letters represent 16 different vocalic sounds; for
instance in sal (hall), salt (salt) and
saks ( scissors) the letter a stands for three
different pronunciations. In addition there are several
diphthongs e.g. [aj] as in leje (to hire) and
lege (to play).
Few consonants are voiced; even [b,d,g]
are unvoiced. Moreover, the particular sound of Danish is
partly due to stød, a near-closing of the vocal
chords which occurs regularly in specific word types, for
instance in monosyllables like tab [ta´b]
(loss) and fugl [fu´l] (bird)
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Sounds of the Danish Letters
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| Danish Letters
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Appr. US Equivalent
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| Vowels |
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| a |
sounds like e in egg |
| or |
sounds like sound between a in ban and a in barn but without the r sound |
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| e |
sounds like a in ache but very short |
| or |
sounds like a shortened ee in see |
| or |
sounds like e in open |
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| i |
sounds like a sound between e in egg and i in ill |
| or |
sounds like e in see |
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| o |
sounds like o in old |
| or |
sounds like a in cap |
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| u |
similar to oo on booth |
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| y |
sounds like ew in few but with lips more rounded |
| or |
similar to German ö |
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| æ |
sounds like a in ache but very short |
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| ø |
similar to German ö sounds like e in let pronounced with lips tightly
rounded |
| or |
similar to ir in bird but without the r and with lips more rounded |
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| å |
sounds like au in caught |
| or |
sounds like o in old |
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| Consonants |
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| b |
as b in bit when final or between vowels as w in win |
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| c |
before a consonant, a, o or u as k in kit, elsewhere as in set |
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| d |
when final or between vowels similar to th in this elsewhere as d in dig.
After l, n or r or before t or s it is rarely pron. |
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| f |
as f in fit |
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| g |
as g in get, after vowels it is rarely pronounced. Between vowels and at
the end of a syllable as a softened g in get. As in some foreign loan words as s in
vision. |
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| h |
silent before j and v.
Elsewhere as h in his. |
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| j |
as y in yet |
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| k |
as k in kit. Between vowels ands at the end of a syllable as g in get |
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| l |
as l in lip |
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| m |
as m in meet |
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| n |
as n in no |
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| p |
as p in pan. Between vowels and at the end of a syllable as b in bit |
|
| q |
similar to English |
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| r |
at the beginning of a word or after a consonant sounds like a strong
guttural h, the Spanish j in Jose or as the French r in rue.
Elsewhere between vowels or before a consonant it often becomes part of the vowel sound or
is lost |
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| s |
as s in sit |
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| t |
as t in tin. Between vowels and at the end of a syllable as d in do. In
final position similar to th in this |
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| v |
when final sounds like oo in boot.
Elsewhere as v in van |
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| w |
as v in van |
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| x |
as x in taxi |
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| z |
as s in sun |
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Grammar
Within the Germanic languages there are two grammatical traits that are peculiar to
Scandinavian, namely the enclitic definite article e.g. dag-en (the day) år-et
(the year) dage-ne (the days), år-ene (the years), and the passive form of
the verbs, e.g. føl-es (is/are felt).
Danish has the definite article at the end of the word: a man = en mand,
the man = manden. Adjectives and pronouns are inflected according to
gender e.g. stor, stor-t (big), nogen (someone), noget (something)
Nouns: Danish nouns have two genders; common gender (fælleskøn) e.g. en
dag, dagen (a day, the day) and neuter gender (intetkøn) e.g. et år, året (a
year, the year). The words for a and an are en for common gender nouns and et
for neuter nouns. Most nouns have only one gender, but some can have both without changing
the nouns meaning e.g. en cirkus, et cirkus (a circus), but sometimes a different
gender indicates a different meaning of a word e.g. vår - en (spring), vår -
et (bedclothes). The plural of nouns is expressed in four different ways, by adding
-e, -r, -er or no ending; dag-e (days), uge-r (weeks), måned-er
(months) and år (years - zero ending).
Pronouns: The Danish personal pronouns are as follows:
I
you (informal)
(formal)
he
she
it
we
you
they
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jeg
du
De
han
hun
den/det
vi
I / De
de
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Adjectives agree in gender and number with the noun they modify. For singular nouns
nothing is added to the adjective with common nouns, but -t is added to the adjective with
neuter nouns.
en stor bil
bilen er stor
et stort hus
huset er stort
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a big car
the car is big
a big house
the house is big
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For plural nouns -e is added to the adjective:
store biler
bilerne er store
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big cars
the cars are big
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Verbs in the present tense do not change according to person. The present tense
ending for all persons is -r. In the past tense there are two groups of verbs. One group
adds -ede in the past tense and -et in the present perfect tense.
jeg boede
jeg har boet
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I lived
I have lived
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The other group adds -te in the past tense and -t in the present perfect.
jeg købte
jeg har købt
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I bought
I have bought
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To negate any verb the word ikke is placed after the verb in simple verb forms,
and after the auxiliary verb in the present perfect tence.
han har skrevet
han har ikke skrevet
han skrev
han skrev ikke
|
he has written
he hasn’t written
he wrote
he didn’t write
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A Small Dictionary for Fun
Everyday expressions:
Welcome
Hello
Good
morning
Good day
See you
Yes
No
Please
Thank you
Of course
Maybe
Beautiful
I’m fine
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Velkommen
Hej
Godmorgen
Goddag
Vi ses
Ja
Nej
Vil du være så venlig at...
Tak
Selvfølgelig
Måske
Smuk
Jeg har det fint
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Introductions:
My name is
What is your name?
Pleased to meet you
How are you?
Where are you from?
I’m from the USA
Do you speak English?
Do you understand?
Excuse meSorry
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Jeg hedder
Hvad hedder du?
Det var hyggeligt at mødes
Hvordan har du det?
Hvor kommer du fra?
Jeg kommer fra USA
Taler du engelsk
Forstår du det?
Undskyld mig
Undskyld
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Other expressions:
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Congratulations
I love you
Happy New Year
Help
Language
Mailbox
Merry Christmas
Sweetheart
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Tillykke
Jeg elsker dig
Godt Nytår
Hjælp
Sprog
Postkasse
Glædelig Jul
Skat (which also means sales tax)
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Time
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What time is it?
At noon
At midnight
A second
A minute
An hour
It’s one o’clock
It’s half past one
It’s ten to one
It’s ten past one
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Hvad er klokken?
Klokken tolv middag
Ved midnatstid
Et sekund
Et minut
En time
Klokken er et
Klokken er halv to
Klokken er ti minutter i et
Klokken er ti minutter over et |
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Days of the week
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Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
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Mandag
Tirsdag
Onsdag
Torsdag
Fredag
Lørdag
Søndag
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Months of the year
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January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
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Januar
Februar
Marts
April
Maj
Juni
Juli
August
September
Oktober
November
December
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