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Top 5 Challenges for Adults to learn Danish!!
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- Опубліковано 17 сер 2024
- Miranda talks about the Top 5 challenges she's had learning Danish having moved to Denmark as an adult.
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7:40 what your friend probably asked you is a very common morning greeting: "Did you sleep well?" - Har du sovet godt?
If they're saying it fast, what you probably heard was "hardu soed godt?" neglecting the crucial "v" and "t" sounds in "sovet", and replacing it with a soft d sound. On top of probably not really differentiating a lot between the o and e sounds if they're from Jylland. So what you end up with is basically just a singular "sooehh" sound to a foreigner.
Greetings and phrases which we're used to saying alot, we naturally pronounce fast and loose without emphasizing, or just straight up neglecting consonants. I imagine that's probably the most challenging part of learning danish, and the only way to really improve at it, is listening to it spoken a lot in the real world. Your danish teacher is likely not going to deliberately pronounce words the "wrong" (fast) way. I would make the suggestion that you select a bunch of common danish phrases and have your teacher / danish friends pronounce them deliberately loosely, so you get a feel for the pattern in which consonants and sounds get left out.
Never be afraid to ask us to slow down, and/or repeat, or ask for a translation, I work with aa bunch of people that are all learning danish, and I actually enjoy helping them along a bit, with a translation, or teaching them expressions, and often also some background on the words, if I know it, etymology often really help putting words into a wider context. Also overpronouncing difficult sounds, like sticking your tongue out way too much to practice the soft d, can often be helpful. or in your case, cheat and use the th sound from english. But anyways, I can definitely hear the progress you all make over time, progress is progress, even if it's not as fast as you would have wished :)
Subtitles: I have noticed the difference between the Danish way of using subtitles and UK/American way of using subtitles and that is we translate the meaning of what is being said where in English they translate everything which gives you an overflow of texting which rapidly changes and all you do is reading instead of watching a movie. I prefer the Danish way cause you have time to watch what goes on … . It comes with years of experience in translating cause a lot of what we watch is foreign. Especially if it’s a language you don’t understand.
I will also say, with Danish subtitles, if it’s a movie that is also translated verbally, like any of the first five Harry Potter movies, the Subtitles are made to match/translate the what is being said in the original English, while the Danish Audio can’t alway do that due to lip flaps and synchronisation.
The lack of the latter technical part of painfully obvious/evident in live-action kids movies, because kids don’t really notice or care about that.
But if we’re talking Danish movies with subtitles in Danish too, I think then it’s going for those subtitles aimed at deaf people or people who are hard of hearing. Because, to my knowledge, those are supposed to have the actual spoken words in there, as well as environmental sounds and such.
Like the English ones we also get from jokes and memes where a subtitle for instance says “[cries in Spanish]” or “[Speaks Spanish]”, because those subtitles aren’t meant to translate things per se, in that way, but provide the aforementioned disabled a way to view the movie as immersive as possible compared to what the rest of us already get from it.
I do not agree. I often wonder where those making the translation leran English? They are often directly wrong and don't get the deeper meaning.
It is often the sam with german subtitles. Russian is worse and thet are even bad from time to time from Swedish.
That why we never have subtitles in our home. Which is sad, since it means no Ftench or Italian movies in our family.
I simply have no pation with the rewriting of dialogs.
Being a Dane I know a lot of foreigners living here. There is a lot of difference in how quickly they learn Danish.
The most successful learner I know is a man from France. He moved here for a job, and immediately started taking language classes. About half a year later he began insisting that we talk in danish, although it was still easier to communicate with him in English. Shortly after he married a Dane who did not speak French, so they talked danish to each other. About two years later he was so fluent in danish that nobody could hear it was not his first language. No accent at all, but he was clearly speaking a Copenhagen dialect. I remember him complaining about the tests needed to get his Danish citizenship being way to hard. But he passed, and is now a danish citizen.
Speaking a language in daily life is the best way to learn it. But because most Danes are so fluent in English it is tempting to just speak English in daily life instead. If you really want to learn the language you have to insist communicate in it, even if you are not yet fluent.
My Russian girlfriend had really good experiences with KISS language school in Copenhagen. That and child tv programs, old movies (you know back in the old days where actors would actually pronounce the words instead of mumbling and/or swallowing the endings), Matador etc.
You are so right about undertekster not matching the spoken words, it's even annoying to Danes 😉 have a nice day ❤
My favourite one is still a movie we watched in English with Danish subtitles and the main character swore... the subtitles "lort i lommen"
We still laugh about that and it has become a regular when something annoys us 😂
@@LitzysDelight that's truly on another level 😂 what movie, if I may ask?
@@lagoni8741 hahah I honestly don't even remember anymore. Think it was back in 2009 but that phrase just stuck with us 😆
Maybe you already know this, but when I learned English way back I used Gyldendals Røde Ordbøger both in English-Danish and wise versa. They were very helpful with a lot of the problems I encountered in my process, among other things abbreviations :)
Vice versa
Whether an intended joke or not, it's kinda adorable that you confess having a big problem with "underteskter" (spelling mistake ;) ...and no sane dane cares). On the serious side, perhaps consider this approach? The key is obviously speaking a lot of danish with danes on a daily basis. But that is hard. So hang out a lot with your best danish friend(s) and strike a deal. Everything practical ("are you hungry?", "where are the forks?", "sorry I am late") is in danish. Slow and simple. Jokes, irony, ambiguous wordplays etc. are in english so that the relationship stays fun/exciting for both. Robotic conversation is a killer but survivable for shorter periods. As *your* danish evolves, you start to inject the more playful/interesting stuff in danish. Trip in your shoelaces and you go "typisk mig"), etc. This has worked for me (dane) and "internationals" and pretty soon everything is in danish; the thing snowballs and only sporadic translations of certain words are needed. Just suggesting...
This is actually a very good suggestion. It's not a sprint, it's a marathon. Don't burn yourself out in the beginning but find your own pace to make sure you make it to the end
I understand your frustrations, Miranda 😫
As a foster mom of 5 asylum-seeking refugees, all 'my boys' came to DK, as teens and had to learn fast!
Faster than most, bc some were illiterate in their own language.
and they didn't have a hard grasp of english; outside of 'music language' to aid them.
1st month, every communication was through an interpretor
2nd & 3rd month, for those that could a little English, translate & help the ones that didn't...stuff as many Danish words, as possible, into a day,
and of course, a translator
4th month, only Danish and a translator (for Kommune and/or Government papirs)
5th month, only Danish
ALL of them speak Danish, most without an accent, they all have top positions in companies or have their own businesses and all have passed their Danish nationality tests!
I couldn't be prouder of them and for them, too
bc they have staked their claim and grabbed their new life, with a passion.
They all agree that I was a tough, no nonsense mom...threw them into the language fire, umpteen times during those first years 🤣 but...I knew what was waiting for them and needed to make things work!
Glad that your story is different Miranda, you'll get there 💗
hello from Hundested 🌸 ❄️
You are one cool mom! Godt gået mor!
Var det syriske flygtninge drenge? Dem mødte jeg en del af som børnebibliotekar. De var super seje og flittige.
@@lilly6766 Tak! 😃
Nej, de var fra Afghanistan, Iran, Serbien og Bosnien..en blandning af trosretninger, som fandt et fællesskab, hjemme hos mig og min familie
Tldr: er en medhjælper til at udskifte den etnisk danske befolkning
En trunte, der ikke fatter hvad der foregår.
oooooo my God, congratulation. Gratulerer til en fantastisk jobb og alt du gjøre for denne barna. Stor,stor klem og respekt
I have a friend from Wales that is learning danish and I have to remind myself to speak danish to him everytime. Honestly I get the frustration. Also I was really hard for me to remind myself not to switch to english, because I've know this friend for years and we've always spoken to eachother in english.
Also with the accents/dialects it's even hard for some danes to understand each other. Like I'm from Jylland and I've noticed over the years that it's become more common for tv-programmes to put subtitles on danish programmes, if the danish is from Jylland. But I get it. Some dialects are hard to understand. If I visit some of my family in the most rural and southern part of Jylland, it can be a bit hard for me to understand what they are saying - especially if they speak really fast.
A small tip for learning danish - (I know this might be a bit weird), but watch danish children's tv shows.
It's great for learning basics, pronunciations, dialects etc. Also try watching the news - they are trained to speak in "Rigs dansk", so that most can understand them.
This is something I did, when I taught myself german. Lots and lots of news/childrens shows. I even watched The Simpsons in German and the English on a different channel.
I've had colleagues that taught themselves Danish watching Bamse og Kylling together with their kids.
Bamse isn't necessarily known for his perfect Danish, but it does well for practice 🙂 have to start somewhere.
When I went to live in the Netherlands I started reading comic books in Dutch. Simple language, good for starting.
Dearest Miranda.
Your willingness to learn everything Danish, is super duper fantastic! This is why we want Americans and other Westerners to come here, instead of the very, very costly Arabs and Somalis. Thank you for being so positive about Denmark! Hugs from Copenhagen.
Learning new phonemes as an adult is very difficult since you lose the ability to even hear things out side what your used to pick up on. The brain continually optimizes for energy usage but as a consequence you lose these general abilities. I have always thought it strange that language teaching doesn't focus on making sure that young people learn to pronounce all the phonemes of the 10 largest languages on the globe, if they did it would only be a few dozen words but it would enable them to learn the full language later in life with much more ease.
First of all, you are doing great. My best tip would be to speak mostly danish with Maya, that will also make Josh hear some danish every day and make you all three become better everyday
3:45 On my first job we had ALOT of abbreviations. So many that I had to ask my boss about them. He smiled and handed me a 14-PAGE document with special abbreviations used in the office. That was in 2000 mind you. The list have gotten longer by now.
i lived in Denmark my whole life and i still have a hard time with the Abbreviations, so you're not alone. i've learned alot of them overtime, but there's still alot where i have to guess what it stands for.
Maybe a tip could be to watch older Danish movies and tv shows.. the tempo is much slower... some of our princess have learned the danish language by watching Matador - an old show from late 70's. Its series about Denmark in the 30's and 40's. You can add on Danish subtitles.
My wife had the same frustrations when she was learning Danish. I agree it's difficult to the point of excruciating, but my only advice is to don't speak English as much as possible. Watch the Danish programs you can rewind/re-watch until you get the correct interpretation of what's being said.
An additional frustration: because she is a redhead everyone assumed she was Danish, so when she spoke Danish with a heavy accent, people would look at her like she had some mental disability.
Stay strong and keep it up!
I recently (Oct 2023) heard Maya speaking Danish and I went like Wow! She certainly has improved to an extent that I'd classify her as a true bilingual. Not only does she speak two languages, but it's on a daily basis - I imagine that Maya speaks Danish in School and when she's back in your house, she swaps to English. Next is that she has learned both langs not by choise (interest) but because of the environment - her living conditions. Finally: you got rigti' right!
We have quite strong dialects even I who's born in the middle of Jutland can really struggle if a real south jutlander puts on his strongest dialect and speaks just a bit fast, and I even understand German quite well.
Subtitles often don't match the translation because the phrases are translated either to make a wordplay work in Danish too, or because it's a more common way to convey the same meaning in Danish.
When you meet mismatching Danish subtitles on Danish language content it's often because it was scripted and the person ends up using another way to say the same (like the live broadcast of the queen's new year's speech). It can also happen if the person on screen speaks dialect, like if a jutlander says træls it may say irriterende in the subtitles, just to make it match 'official danish'.
The officially recognised abbreviations can be found in any red dictionary from Gyldendal. It's when slang or dialects get directly texted as said that apostrophes start rollin' same as with English; if I say "he's there" does that mean "he is there" or "he was there"? In that sense English can actually be worse than Danish.
Everybody speaks English, and personally I'll be very guilty of switching to English easily... One example is how little confidence I have in my abilities to understand Swedish, so I'd ask if we can continue in English to avoid misunderstandings.
Also, Danes are not super used to foreign accents, unlike English where you're used to hear people from around the world speaking the language. So, when you test your language (insistingly) on a Dane be the same patient the other way around... I once misheard Bornholm as Bon Bon when said by a Chinese... Took me a while to figure out what a bon-bon-chicken was... Sugary?
Anyway, to round off this wall of text, I believe that I read somewhere that Danish is the fastest spoken Nordic language. So don't feel bad about asking people to talk slower.
Edit: sorry about my English btw. I just changed transmission to broadcast, you can probably figure out why I did such a silly mistake.
Edit 2: by the way, don't be afraid of PD3, it's mainly about your understanding not your fluency or pronunciation. PD3 gives access to education in Danish and that's where the focus is.
As both a Dane and language nerd myself, I find a lot of these things super interesting.
And being online a lot, talking with people, mainly from the U.S, but also some from Mexico and other places in the world, I’ve kinda ‘realised’ something.
I think a pretty common struggle for foreigners, or native English speakers, when learning Danish, that we notice, is the pronunciation of our very guttural Rs, as well as our Js. With the Js the struggle mainly seem to be becoming in English J usually has, what I’d call, a strong D sound to it (you native English speakers love that D with your Js for some reason 😜). Our Js are usually soft and more akin to your Y sound.
What I found/find very interesting too, is that if we take Spanish for example, going from that to Danish, should be, in theory, much easier than from English to Danish.
Because in Spanish those ‘hard’ sounds are already utilised quite a bit.
Ironically, their J makes (or tend to make) the same sound as our Guttural Rs, while the/their Ñ is pronounced as N followed by our J sound.
This is very evident in the word, and pepper, Jalapeño.
It starts out with ‘raspy’ or guttural exhale/R from the throat, and then goes as expected until you get to the Ñ, which makes it go njo, or, if using ‘English Spelling’ “n-yo” (with a short/soft O of course).
every Dane: Danish is easy to learn!
every non Dane: this language is gonna take for ever to learn!
1 advice is to be out where there's other Danes and just to listen to the language coz little by little u start to understand them and if u talk Danish on top of that it goes even faster
Just think of Danish ( + the very similar Norwegian (95 %) & Swedish (85 %) ) as a parallel and strangely familiar world of an older simplified "English" without the peculiar use of "do" and "-ing" with verb tenses.
Once you realise that "half" of the basic words in Danish are (very) similar to their English counterparts within certain predictable sound shifts at the most, it becomes a lot easier to remember them - and the same thing goes for several grammatical features at the basic level.
Learning English from a Danish perspective it was often like being taught things you already "mysteriously" knew in advance - without knowing it 😉
No it is not.
My daughter, har a rtue danish girl friend in children garden, who had all problem with the pronunciation.
They ask of it was ok to use our daughters status as a multilingual girl, to get fundings for speech teacher for that friend.
Secondly we all, or most all make so many common eroors in our uses of our own languages.
Like 'ligge', 'lægge', 'lå'.
This is surely not making it easier for others.
Not to coming into the diferent meanings of 'for' & 'får'
"Far, får får får?" "Nej, får får ikke får, får får lam!" 🤪
I love your honesty :) I think alot of danes would be glad to talk danish to you if you insist! True about the english.. I hate my accens :) but vocabulary is great.
Etymology-nerding: I have heard (not completely confirmed) that towns ending with "-rød", f.eks. HILLERØD, ALLERØD, SØLLERØD, osv. comes from the word "rydning" which means clearance, dvs. "skov-rydning" to make room for... well, Hillerød, Allerød, and Søllerød. Also, I used 3 abbreviations in this brief post just to be annoying, but I used them correctly :-)
Mere interessant er rup, drup og strup.
Tip from a language teacher: listen/watch the same program several times over, with or without subtexts. When you get to the point of being really familiar with the content, you will start connecting sound with meaning. You will also be able to memorize some "chunks" of language that you use repeatedly, such as "on the other hand", or "although I agree with you" - things we say quickly and run the words together. You memorize that as a chunk. Eventually you have so many chunks to deploy that you are no longer translating in your head.
That is such a great tip! I have started watching Matador so I will go back and do that - M
@@TravelinYoung that's a great place to start because the speech is slightly slower than modern day speech, but be aware that getting too used to old-timey Danish will not help you with modern-day Danish. Get your basic comprehension in, and then move on to more modern shows that you enjoy. Another good tip is using songs and poetry. You say you are a mimic - excellent. Find a few Danish songs you enjoy, learn the lyrics and imitate the heck out of the singers. It teaches you natural phrasing which you can use when you speak. I learned a lot of my english from Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash in precisely that way. Still have scads of Dylan lyrics stashed in my head.
The ironic part is that danish undertekster are pretty easy to understand for Swedes but the spoken language isn’t for many.
But at least you could potentially learn to speak Danish well and understand it within 3 months or so, since the vocabulary is essentially 85 % the same as that of Swedish as well as most of the grammatical structure - so it's mainly a question of tuning in and picking up a few new words and expressions here and there and learning which words that have quite different meanings in the other language or don't exist (any longer), even though you would naturally expect them to.
@@Bjowolf2 yeah. For sure. The biggest hurdle though is the difference in sounds. But three months would be plenty of time for sure.
I admire you guys for the effort
The Danish language is insane to pronounce and we know it, don't worry. I am a linguist so I am almost painfully aware of all the tidbits and facts around why and how it came to be like this (etymology and language history yay :D ), but most people know and will understand and be helpful, hopefully :)
It is the vowels that kill you. In Danish there is about 30 distinct vowel sounds. That is the most vowel sounds out of any language on earth (save for one that is spoken by about 3000 people and is insane o.o) and about twice as much as the average amount of vowel sounds for languages in general. English has below the average corresponding to about 1/3 the amount as Danish. The problem for foreigners is that it is not just a new language, it is learning sounds they have never had to pronounce before and in some cases might never even have heard of. What happens when a language has this many vowel sounds is that all the soft sounds (remember, the vowels are the ones you can sing 8D) kinda mix together and forces anyone who speaks at a normal pace to cut off half of the word which of course only makes it more difficult to follow.
What I am trying to say is, don't beat yourself up about it, it really is not weird that you find it hard, even as a person with an ear for language, so to speak.
You're right there. And the sounds not commonly used in English will be hard to learn to pronounce.
Add to that, they may be written with new and unfamiliar letters, making it even more confusing.
I think it was the late Prince Henrik who once lamented the fact that it was impossible to know the difference between ræv and røv 😅
I'm so happy I learned Danish from birth 🤣
My British friend set his mind to really learning Danish after a couple of failed attempts. So he made a rule to only speak Danish when he is out and about. Super hard beginnings. But with a super large payoff. Now he speaks it about as well as you can without being born here.
I'm very much like Josh, I'm not a natural language learner. My frustration with the language schools are that they're trying to teach you to pass the tests (as quickly a possible, because they get paid by the Kommune when you pass), not necessarily to speak Danish. I'm learning and speaking more Danish by speaking with the lorry drivers I deal with at work than I have been at school. You talk about Jylland accent, come spend some time with the very South of Jylland speakers, you'll get a proper education 😂.
Sønderjysk is a language of it's own 😉 (Mixed with German )
@@Donnah1979 absolutely! Moyne! (I have no idea how to spell it, but I know it answers many sentences!)
Don’t forget that even Danish nationals take 15-16 years to get the right ‘linking’ between oral and proper written Danish….only at leaving 10th class would most people be proficient in written Danish……..you are making a gallant effort which is highly commendable.
Thank you, Miranda, for such a lovely video! It is nice to see an US immigrant making a true effort to learn the language of the country they now call home. I get a bit sad when I read in the forums for Denmark, Sweden and Norway that you do not need to learn the local language because everyone speaks English. I completely understand this if you are a tourist or someone who will be there for a very short period of time, but when you see comments like "I've been here X amount of years and I only use English because X language is too hard to learn", I feel sad and disappointed. My friend sucks at learning languages, but he went to Korea for work and he ended up staying there for two years and now he speaks fairly descent conversational Korean. All languages can be hard or can be easy, motivation is key to continue your progress. You might never have a native like accent or speak without mistakes, but you will be able to watch the news or talk to your friends and experience everything differently.
Thank you! its been challenging to keep up since getting my new job but I do really want to reach fluency at some point. I always feel bad that everyone has to speak English on my behalf.
A lot of english words are actually danish/old norse words from the influence in England in the viking age. Words like knife=kniv, window=vindue, house=hus and so on.
When I first came to Denmark back in the early 80's, not many Danes could speak English or if they could they were nervous to use it.
Danes started to feel more comfortable with English when the tv companies started to import English spoken TV series and of course later with schooling and the internet everyone should be able to speak English.
It is a difficult languege to learn. But look at the bright side. Approx 1/3 af the english language originates from Old Norse (vikings language). A couple of words you would think originates from english but comes from Old Norse (and there by danish): Weekend, Window, teenager and the list goes on. 🙂
That was actually why I rambled on a bit about the history of the English lnguage. I left out that the reason for bringing that up is that English started out in life basically as a dialect of Old Norse. If you listen to a recitation of Beowulf it sounds VERY similar to Danish. It was that way until 1066 when English started being heavily influenced by French and German after William the Conqueror became king. Danish, however, has changed little. There’s a reason scandi languages are called Proto Germanic.
If you're from Scotland or familiar with Scots, there are many words they use that are virtually identical to the Danish, child for instance, Scots use the word barn when talking about children.
That's not true. Weekend and teenager do not come from Old Norse. Window does though.
@@TravelinYoung it's worth noting that William the Conqueror was a descendant of the vikings. Prior to the Norman's arrival much of Britain had been under viking rule or heavily influenced by the vikings. There were a lot of vikings that came to Britain and settled, integrating and marrying into the Saxon and Gaelic communities. You can see with the names of towns and cities in Britain their heritage. Towns that end with 'by' have had a nordic influence, those that end in 'chester cester' have had a roman influence.
@@raindropsneverfall Uge på old norse is vika og end er ja, end. Teenager er sammensat at teen og ager = teenager. Så ordene stammer alle fra old norse.
I know I am joining the conversation kinda late, but abbreviations can sometimes be looked up online, in online danish dictionaries. If you for example wanted to know what "bl.a." means, you could search "bl.a ordbog" (b.la. dictionary) or "bl.a. ordnet" (b.la. wordnet - which is a quality danish dictionary). Of course this method is only usable sometimes, but sometimes are sometimes, and they happen ^_^
Hi, i totally agree with you. Im from The Netherlands and reading + writing Danish is not so very difficult (a lot of English, Deutsch, Germanic and even some Dutch/Frisian). Talking is more difficult, but understanding.....Ouch its very difficult. Accents, talk inmouth, sticking words together and talk very quick ...and that all together. That makes it very difficult.
I think the best bet on learning Danish through television is likely watching older movies - 1960 -1980s timeframe. The language is often a lot clearer and there's much less influence from English.
I have mentioned it before - find some older Danish bands and find their lyrics - and sing in Danish ..
And watch the Matador series with Danish subtitles.
Tror gamle Larsen numre, vil være gode.
@@persimonsen8792 Eller Dodo and the Dodos, måske Shu-bi-dua
@@steenbronkegmail1 +1 Shu-bi-dua
Looking forward to your next 5 min video in danish. 💃
Very cool! Nice job with learning Danish :)
Nice job Mandy!
For try it on Tuesday, you should try Sevablødda from Bornholm.
Bilka has it now 😜
Don't worry about understanding Jydsk, especially Synderjydsk. Not a lot of people from Copenhagen and about understands what they say ;) I watched a movie from there, and I needed to have subtitles to understand anything! :) It's like a completely different language
I remember when learning English, I spent the longest time trying to figure out what "c'mon" means. I get it now =)
Sorry for my english ;-)
I love watching videos with you, Miranda! You sound so honest, when saying things, that are on your mind.
The alphabet and the sounds DO match, and we have strict rules for spelling/pronouncing - based on both the sounds of the letters, and the sounds of combined letters.
But yes; they differ from the rules in english...
Some of the consonants have more than one sound linked to them (like g, j and d), and each vowel has multiple sounds. The sound of a vowel is determined by the letter(s), that follow.
A very helpful tool is 'vokaltrappen' (the stair of vowels) and the rules linked to that.
Enjoying the study of languages and logic, you'll love learning the rules - if you can find someone, who can teach them in detail. O:-)
You will however find, not all our words follow the rules. Over the years, we have borrowed words from other countries, keeping their spelling. To us, it makes it difficult to learn to read and write those words. Words like 'pendant', 'mayonnaise', 'computer' etc.
- and it was SO difficult to learn english in writing in school - because of the different sounds, the letters make :-D
Jeg skrev dette på engelsk, da der er en del, der følger med her på kanalen, der ikke er i Danmark og ikke forstår dansk.
Hvis det kun var dig, jeg skrev til (Miranda), ville det hele være skrevet på dansk.
Du er kommet langt allerede. Det er en fornøjelse at høre dine refleksioner over sproget!
Fellow mimicks unite! Argh, it's so nice to hear that there are others out there. I think you're right in that we definitely have it easier learning proper intonation in other languages. The downside, I feel, is that I often find myself mimicking the accent of the person I'm speaking to, which gets really weird when I speak English. I've had embarassing moments at meetings where I spoke to people with both UK dialects and US dialects, and people were wondering so hard why I sounded differently speaking to their Brittish colleagues, from when I spoke to the people from the U.S.
Also, shout-out from a fellow etymology nerd! I love languages and learning about how they evolved and continue to do so
Osv. Is short for "og så videre" and is directly translated to: "and so on"
Awesome of you really trying to learn Danish. Thumbs up!
I have been an expat in Thailand for 10 years. And I have learned some things about my own language.
Learning to read and write Thai is really hard, but I was surprised to see how everything literally was written as it spoken.
In Denmark you have this going for you:
The same alphabet (dont complain about æ, ø and å please, it's just 3 letters)
But: Yes, You see it brilliantly! Our pronounciation when spoken is ridiculous compared to when written. I could give you endless examples (de, det, osv.). We pretty much learned in school that "written Danish" and "spoken Danish" are two different languages.
But2: We have all nouns in two categories, which can be really hard to remember if you are not familiar to it (Sweden also has two, German has 3 for example). Do you find this hard to learn? (in English there is only one; Danish, en stol, et bord osv)
Do you think this is hard? Thx for all your videos, I have watched pretty much all of them.
Get Retskrivningsordbogen as app! It’s a dictionary solely for orthography (ie. no explanations) except that abbreviations are explained well here!
Having to help my Kids learn to read and write Danish, really taught me how wierd and hard our language is. You have my sympathy.
Now I am dyslexic, so it took me a long time to understand that ALL Danish vowels are pronounced differently than in English, so it is very important to learn the whole set of vowels as it is pronounced in Danish, before you as a foreigner try to read and pronounce Danish words
Tal dit bedste "dårlige" dansk til danskerene, de vil elske dig for at prøve og vil hjælpe dig med at blive bedre 🙂
It's lovely getting to the point where you can now understand little sentences like this without hitting the translate button. I'm like Josh, learning Danish has been so hard.
Nej.
Hi, I understand what you experience even do I live in Norway as a Hungarian, the written language it is similar but the spoken language is milestone apart ;) For US and non-Scandinavian residents to understand better why it is so hard the Danish will help a lot if next time when you are making a voice recording of the same text in Swedish , Norwegian and Danish ( they are almost the same but when you try to pronounce them the Swedish and Norwegian are easy but than the Danish is the nutcracker :):):)
Some years ago I moved from my birth area in south Sealand to my now wife near Cph. And she claims than when we may drive down, my language changes to to my former accent during that!
That is soooo funny. What was hard for me living in Ohio was all your abbreviations. Cool.
I'm totally with you on Danish class. In the school I went to, they had constant rotations. So for my first lesson, I landed sort of mid-year into the basic class. Then at the end of my 1st lesson, the teacher decided that, considering my education level and my speed of picking things up (my girlfriend had already taught me a bit), I should immediately move on to advanced class. I managed to delay that a little bit, but after only 3 lessons I was moved. As a consequence, I still have trouble with the basics... mixing up numbers, not knowing the meaning of some basic words, and not able to tell what time it is. Oh and I felt so sorry for the teacher in advanced class. He had to deal with so many different levels of students all in one class, and kept getting new students through the year. Anyway, I passed my PD3 exam now, and once you have that, you can just keep learning by yourself.
As for Danes speaking English to you: Yes that happens quite a bit, but thankfully there are also quite a few that keep talking Danish to you. There are countries where they would not even do that!
I've met so many english speakers who ended up speaking dan-glish not danish .That's such an easy hole to sink into.
Eddie Szweda has some funny takes on the Danish language and its spot on :) Its the common things, like a Fynbo, you would say "Det ved jeg ikke", but the shortning and speed of it will make it sound like "Det ved Jette" we have a lot of stuff if spoken locally will be pronounced as a one letter word.
And a guy from Lolland would say “jæ’vee’ikk’de” (jeg ved ikke det) pronounced as one word.
I get there is a difference in Danish between how we say words and write them... But it is still funny coming from someone who is a native English speaker. (ahem... Tough, though, thorough, through, throughout, thought, taught, trough, touch, torch (also... read and read, lead and lead)) 😅😅
Great insight into how to learn Danish
We know that you are struggling with the language.
Wow that a challenge Danish is...
Thanks for sharing your thoughts with all of us 👍😀
OSV. Does mean etc. Directly translated it says: Og så videre (and so on)
The difference in undertekst is also because a limit of written words in the lines... the undertekst has to fit in time when the person speak in a program.
just keep going you can do it
You are doing good.
This should be helpfull (Oversigt over forkortelser - Grafisk Litteratur)
På mange lydbogs tjenester kan du både høre og læse bøger - samtidig... Jeg bruger selv Mofibo.
On many of the audiobok services you can both listen to and read books - simultaneously… personaly i'm using Mofibo. 😊
Hej! there is about 170 known phonetics in the known languages in the world, to speak fluent danish, you have to master 140 of them. that is why danes have it easy learning foreing languages
Nå da da. Det er første gang, at jeg har hørt nogen sige, at folk fra Jylland taler hurtigt 🙂. Sjællænderne beskylder os altid for at tale langsomt.
Jow, de er sgu'tte for hurtige, dem selv! 😆
Ja vi tænk i stilhed, og fylder ikke op med ikk'😁
Også ved vi at Københavner ikke særligt godt forstår Dansk😁
The first English abbreviation that stumped me was POW - it was long before the internet existed, and took some time to figure out.
In order for subtitles to be useful they should not translate every single word (I have had this problem with Chinese movies with English subtitles) but give a condensed version that makes it possible to actually see the moving pictures before they disappear.
Until absolutism became the way Denmark was ruled (from 1660) people wrote as they pleased and pretty much in the way they spoke. But the publishing of the first dictionary "locked" the written language and made it develop much slower that the spoken.
abbreviations is hard for danes too, i remember doing danish tests in school, like the ones that are supposed to show you your level, and i usually aced the whole thing except for the part with abbreviations, fuck those
Everything before morning coffee, could just as well be in chineese no matter whether you are danish or not ;-)
Actually Runes were still used on Bornholm, till 1300.
There are actually a handful of excellent videos on UA-cam. Such as - learn Danish in 30 minutes, 3 hours, 5 days, etc. Take a look at them might be useful. I have used google translation from Danish to English to write this comment. Translation is easy and understandable. Enjoy videos -:)
English abbreviations are a lot more systematic with capital letters representing different words and single word abbreviations having just one capital letter. Danish in comparison is the wild west.
I don't know how good it is, but if you are watching stuff on tv2 or dr there should be subticels on texttv or txt for short on the remote, can't remeber the number code for putting it on
Danish is hard. I'm not saying it isn't. But as with everything else your progress comes from practice. So probably the biggest obstacle is speaking English with Danes since that's usually a lot easier for everyone. Convincing yourselves and your friends/acquaintances to speak Danish together is super tough but necessary if you want to become proficient. As someone else mentioned using a language learning app might also help you along. That way you can practice at your own pace.
LOL! I sympathise! Being a lingo buff myself, I didn't expect a challenge when I went to Skopelos, Greece. But boy oh boy. Different alphabet, different (VERY different phonetics) and so engrossed in their culture. That being said, do not dispair. I hear you on the "everybody speaks English" issue, but you will get there in the end. A friend of mine and I took it upon ourselves to speak only Italian during our last week at Milan: Every time one of us spoke a Danish word, we would pop 100 lire into a glass jar ... which, incidentally, got big and fat very, very fast. ;-) Yet, it helped ... it helped loads, so I'm passing on this method to you. If you can afford it. ;-)
Lire? - I thought Italy changed to Euro some... What was it? The year 2000? Do they still use Lire?
@@larsdahl5528 That's right! Make me feel old! ;-P This happened at looooooong time ago.
@@hw-art What are 100 Lire worth today?
I have been to Italy, myself. However, it is many years ago by now. (Before 2000), I remember we had piles of 1000 Lire banknotes, and such one was worth 6 DKR at that time.
@@larsdahl5528 I have no idea. I think, at the time (1996) 100 lire were appr. DKK 1, but today it is probably a moot point as the currency doesn't exist anymore. One could exchange the lire one had for a time after the introduction of EURO, but I don't think that is possible today.
@@hw-art Yes, the good old days with the lire in Italy, where they often didn't have enough coins for change in the shops, so that they would offer you chewing gum, caramels or chocolate bits in return instead.
The rumour said that it was because the metal of the various coins was worth more than the value they represented, so that some people would make a business out of melting down the coins and then sell the metal instead. 🙄😂
You're doing so well. I sugest that you could watch Danish childrens programs without subs.
"Har du sovet godt?" - Did you sleep well :)
Great video and topic 😊 The danish language is for sure hard for many to learn, especially because of the pronunciation.
I think the "speking english"-one is by far the worst for learning a language, because it's too easy to just switch. My fiance and I do that all the time at home, when im trying to make him practise danish - and I will be the first one to switch to english because its just easier and it is not good 😅
I really like that you pronounce our parts in Denmark as they are Jylland / Fyn / Sjælland not Juttland /Funen / Zealand 👍 other "travle channels" could learn from this, really big + in my book 👍
That's interesting about the history, I thought it was bc of the German we eventually mixed in there.
I am Danish and live in Sweden. Some year when I was at a school and English speakers from USA they learned Danish in 5-6 months
What problems does Josh have with learning the Danish language? Is it that he needs more time or is it things he does not understand?
Does he want to have some skype time to speak about the problems and resolve them?
Otherwise you could use Babbel app to learn Danish as a complement to the classes you take to learn Danish.
i think its sooo impressive that you care so much for learning danish :) i know the languge is hard! :S i have read somewhere that our children are ranked amongst the lowest, when it comes to learninger ones birth language ( modersmål). compared to childre around the world, the danes are fare behinde, a kid at age 5 five in english has so many more words than a danish kid at age 5, 6 and 7!!. it becuas our language IS HARD! :) ofcours thoes numbers plain out over time and age, but it just indicates that the danish (sprog) takes time, even if your born into it! :D
i reconize what you are saying about wanna talk in english when a person i struggling at the languge :S its just to be helpfull ^^¨ but i see now that maybe i shuld try asking before i switch to english :)
Tv3(+), used to be, dont know if they still are, very bad at subtitles on English movies, to the point that some words be translate to the opposite of what was say, having a whole movie's plot be change, even having a scene where 2 people are talking to each other look like they are just saying random lines that don't connect to anything els.
With the undertekster i totally agree! They translate completly different from whats been Said in english. Lucky for them i know what they say in english. But sad for Those kids learning by watching TV. 😅 im always like “no.. thats not what that person just Said” to the TV 😂
I Denmark we have æøå so most people think they are are hard to pronounce. Ofc æøå are difficult but easier because there is so much focus on those letters. The real test i actually u and y. Much harder for a Dane to understad is those are not pronounced correct.
Det er en udfordring at det danske skriftsprog er så anderledes fra det talte sprog. Men den altoverskyggende udfordring ved at lære dansk er, som du nævner, udtalen. Den første udfordring er der danske fonemer. Altså de lyde sproget er sammensat af. Nogle af dem er meget anderledes end de engelske fonemer. Så når jeg f.eks. bruger et blødt d i "gade", vil en engelsksproget typisk høre og selv udtale det som "gale". At høre forskellen på y, u og i lydene er et andet eksempel.
Det næste som gør dansk udtale svær er stød (glottal stop). Jeg har hørt det beskrevet som et element intet sprog behøver. Det bliver ikke nemmere at høre hvad der bliver sagt, når taleren slet det halve af ordene. Den gode nyhed er, at stødgrænsen går lidt ned gennem landet, så ikke alle danskere taler med stød. Den dårlige nyhed er at i vor på den forkerte side af landet. Alle i jeres omgivelser taler med stød. Så det er en del nemmere at blive god til dansk udtale hvis man bor i Jylland.
Det er svært. Og for mange er det ikke vigtigt. Men der er dele af det danske tillidsfællesskab man først rigtig får adgang til, når man taler sproget.
you are not a fool I thin it cool that you want to learn Danish I am here to want to help you👍🏻🇩🇰😊 Regards Michael from Jutland
I would LOVE to teach you guys Danish! I've said it before in your comments lol.
I am a big fan of a good old dictionary and lots of repetition! It's how I learned English, that and D&D computer games etc.
I taught Danish and English as a volunteer to middle eastern women many years ago
The problem isn't the latin letters, the problem is that about 70% of Danes are amazingly bad at Danish, I kid you not, I even hear people on the news I want to fire, simply for having such poor Danish skills.
6:38 thats one of the hardest things even for us danes. Accents we have so many and if you look at the accent "Sønderjysk" which is the accent that most people in danish part of Schleswig Holstein (Southern Denmark/Northern Germany) compared to the accent we speak in Copenhagen it is way different and most people primarly people from Copenhagen has a hard time understanding what they says (Not the other way around as the danish you learn in school are closer to what we speak in Copenhagen than south jutland) | "Rigsdansk" is accually one of if not the least spoken version of danish and is also the version that we are supposed to learn in school but normally we learn either the version of danish that is spoken in Copenhagen (Which is the one that most understand as it is the most normal version in public service) or the version of danish spoken in Aarhus (2nd largest city in Denmark).
And sorry if that messege was a bit bad writen both grammer vice and with me writing the same thing many times my mind has just gone in holiday mode as it is winter holidays for me (In Denmark the winterholidays or vinterferien is either in week 7 (Most common in eastern Denmark not sure of western Denmark) or 8)
Hello Miranda. Tak for jeres gode videoer. Måske en god ide: Hvis I ikke allerede gør det, så prøv at gøre det til en vane at tale dansk hjemme også. :-)
I love you for wanting to learn and use our language and never ever feel a fool for trying to speak Danish. It the receiver that´s the fool if they make you feel bad about it. And yeah the majority here speaks English well and I fully understand the reasoning of falling back into using it, but trust me as a native Dane we love the effort put into learning our ways. Yes it takes time but that´s just how it is. And yes we start learning English at a young age but even then we find it hard to learn and takes many years just to form proper sentences and hold a conversation. What goes for the Subtitles, I so agree and it´s kinda the same reason most Danes don´t like them because they simple don´t translate proper and thereby are just a nail in your eye on the screen that blocks the content instead. And last but not least let me just excuse my fellow country men for speaking fast :D We know it and tend to forget from time to time :D Have a nice day.
I'm a cashier at a bigger store and I often come across people who doesn't speak Danish, some not at all. I always start out speaking Danish to them, but if it's clear there's no understanding I switch to English. Sometimes If I'm in doubt, I say the amount of money they need to pay first in Danish and then in English for instans(fx of f.eks in Danish) "Det bliver ethundrede-og-halvtreds, one-hundred-and-fifty" I don't know it that helps any with the understanding, for people who, like you, are learning the language, but it makes me feel like I'm doing something to help them at least.
In Norway we actually speak the Dansih written language, the Dansih just gurgle it.
I understand the abbreviation problem, but I find that English has a lot of abbreviations as well, like ect and ie and lots more. Also I have some problems with understanding some US dialects, especially with African-American people from the deep south 😉
I study languages as well, mainly Classical Greek, but from there in my freetime, Danish as well. And I've realised just how much of an outlier Danish is. I think it is in the top 10 or 20 hardest languages to learn? It's crazy.
But I wanted more to comment on the pace of classes. I think actually that's a Danish culture thing, because maybe apart from the Folkeskole, both Gymnasium and University is /so/ fast-paced.
Thank you for your input and insight :).
Har du sovet godt? :D
You are right, it is crazy with the dialects in Denmark. I can get inside a car, drive for three hours to Sønderjylland, and I practically won't be able to understand a single sentence they are saying. That is a huge difference from USA, where you can take a flight for six hours, and it's still pretty much the same. I mean, sure there's a difference between how somebody speaks american in New Jersey compared to a southern bell. But it's all very easily understood. Denmark is a mess when it comes to language. I would say however, that once you can speak danish fully, it is also quite exciting to run into weird dialects. A nice little challenge every time. Question: have you guys spoken to people from Bornholm? Quite a special dialect.
"bl.a." means among other things, mostly. The thing is we actually have two sayings that could get turned into this exact abbreviation. So, in danish there are two phrases: "Blandt andet" and "blandt andre", and they are both abbreviated into "bl.a." haha :D We sure don't make it easy, do we?
So, if you are asking "will there be salad at the dinner?", then the answer could be "blandt andet".
If you ask "is Bob coming over for the dinner?", the answer could be "blandt andre". The latter means "among others" whereas the first one means "among other things". Yet, in written language they have the same abbreviation. What can I say....WE ARE SORRY! You are such a good sport for not giving up though :)
...actually "osv" translates to "and so on". Pretty directly and correctly as well. Because in danish we also use "etc." which means etcetera. Don't ask me why we changed the rest of the latin language into danish, but kept that one. :D
This is a TLA.
Three letter abbreviation 😂