LANGUAGE NOTES.
❝Danish and the Alphabet❞
As you might expect, Danish is the language of the Danes. It is both a Nordic and Germanic language, and rather than bore everyone with the details of that, here is the relevant bit: it is very close to English. It sounds nothing alike, but you know how people say English has Germanic roots? Yeah, you're looking at them. Danish grammar is very close to English, and is the source of many English words from the Viking days. They don't sound a thing alike, but if you know how to recognize a few Danish words, or are comparing them side by side, it's definitely a language where you go "oh, I see that" as an English speaker.
Danish has a 29 letter alphabet, although 5 of them (C, Q, W, X, and Z) are only used with foreign loanwords. Of the remaining 24, three aren't found in English: å, æ, and ø.
Å is the most modern letter. It's basically an abbreviation: it came into use in the 1940s as a replacement for "aa." So in Danish, you'll see both aa and å, especially when it comes to names. Most famously, the city of Århus has Aarhus University.
It is pronounced, well, "aa," which in Danish sounds like "oh."
Despite how it looks, æ is not a shortening for ae, although they do sound a bit alike. Æ sounds like "eh" or "e" as in "egg." If you do take it as a+e, then it makes sense-aey isn't a bad prononciation of it.
In some words it sounds more like an e than in others, but it varies.
Weirdly enough, at least for me, ø is the hardest of the three to pronounce. It sounds a bit like "u" or "eu," but can change around in context. A lot. Ridiculously. If you open your mouth to say "oh," and then try to say it without moving any part of your mouth, tongue, or throat? That's pretty much the sound of ø.
Danish also occasionally uses additional letters such as ö/ü, but they're fairly rare and usually picked up from foreign countries, so we won't bother with them. Here is a wonderful spoken guide to the alphabet for the curious, but just for fun here is a partial alphabet (remember-this is a rough guide, not a How To Speak Danish lesson):
A can sound like a short or long a depending on words. It's worth noting that a long a is definitely stretched out-not just ah but aah. If the A comes before N, it sounds like E. Like in English, it can change sound a lot depending on words, from a hard a to a long a to ae to e.
D is another complicated one. It's usually dropped, especially at the ends of words. If it's before T, it's just very soft. Pretty much unless a word starts with a D, drop it.
J is always pronounced Y. So the most common Danish greeting, hej, is actually pronounced a hell of a lot like hey.
G … don't even bother with G. If you see one, nine times out of ten, it's swallowed and ignored. Jeg, the word for I, sounds like yai. It is not for nothing Danes are said to speak in their throats. At the end of words, G sometimes sounds like K. But seriously, it's usually dropped. Norge, Norway, is approximately said Noor.
H is dropped if it's before a V or J. Are you noticing a pattern yet? Danes don't pronounce things.
R this is the worst letter. aeyr is the best way I can approximate it, although it can also be more of a rolling rr at times. It's just impossible to pronounce, and Danes often seem to delight in forcing people to try. If it is after a vowel, it's dropped, unless it's a different syllable. It's also dropped if it's between vowels, and counter-intuitively enough, if you see a word with two rs (like narre)? Drop them both.
❝Grammar and Sentences❞
As stated before, Danish grammar tends to be fairly close to English-not enough that you can just use English grammar, but enough that, well, it's very close. The basic form is, like English, [ subject ] [ verb ] [ object ]. The place where it changes from English is with adjectives, which is generally [ subject ] [ verb ] [ adjective ] [ object ]. He writes always letters, for example-or, he writes never letters, to use the negative.
This is also where the Danish comma comes into play-Danes are often free and liberal with comma use, and you see it most often in the middle of sentences: commas divide the subject-verb-adjective from the object. So, "He writes always, letters"/"He writes never, letters."
Word forms tend to be pretty consistent: -en detonates definite forms: man/mand = the man/manden. Plurals are usually detonated with -er: woman/kvinde = women/kvinder. There are more exceptions to that one but again, this is just a rough guide. Definite plurals are usually shown with -ne/-rne: kvinderne is "the women."
As for tenses: -er/-r is the present tense, -ede is the past tense, -et is completed past tense. As always there are exceptions but keeping it simple. Jeg er angriber/Jeg blev angrebet/Jeg angreb: I am attacking, I was attacking, I attacked.
The counting system just makes no sense so we aren't going to touch it at all, but here are some simple sentences and phrases for example purposes:
Mit navm er _____. My name is _____.
Jeg taler ikke dansk. I do not speak Danish. (literally: I speak not Danish)
Jeg taler engelsk. I speak English.
Fordi geg er dansker! Because I am a Dane! (literally: Because I am Dane)
Jeg ved ikke. I don't know. (literally: I know not.)
I will add more some other day, when I do not need to sleep! But hopefully even these few examples show what I mean by similar grammar!
As you might expect, Danish is the language of the Danes. It is both a Nordic and Germanic language, and rather than bore everyone with the details of that, here is the relevant bit: it is very close to English. It sounds nothing alike, but you know how people say English has Germanic roots? Yeah, you're looking at them. Danish grammar is very close to English, and is the source of many English words from the Viking days. They don't sound a thing alike, but if you know how to recognize a few Danish words, or are comparing them side by side, it's definitely a language where you go "oh, I see that" as an English speaker.
Danish has a 29 letter alphabet, although 5 of them (C, Q, W, X, and Z) are only used with foreign loanwords. Of the remaining 24, three aren't found in English: å, æ, and ø.
Å is the most modern letter. It's basically an abbreviation: it came into use in the 1940s as a replacement for "aa." So in Danish, you'll see both aa and å, especially when it comes to names. Most famously, the city of Århus has Aarhus University.
It is pronounced, well, "aa," which in Danish sounds like "oh."
Despite how it looks, æ is not a shortening for ae, although they do sound a bit alike. Æ sounds like "eh" or "e" as in "egg." If you do take it as a+e, then it makes sense-aey isn't a bad prononciation of it.
In some words it sounds more like an e than in others, but it varies.
Weirdly enough, at least for me, ø is the hardest of the three to pronounce. It sounds a bit like "u" or "eu," but can change around in context. A lot. Ridiculously. If you open your mouth to say "oh," and then try to say it without moving any part of your mouth, tongue, or throat? That's pretty much the sound of ø.
Danish also occasionally uses additional letters such as ö/ü, but they're fairly rare and usually picked up from foreign countries, so we won't bother with them. Here is a wonderful spoken guide to the alphabet for the curious, but just for fun here is a partial alphabet (remember-this is a rough guide, not a How To Speak Danish lesson):
A can sound like a short or long a depending on words. It's worth noting that a long a is definitely stretched out-not just ah but aah. If the A comes before N, it sounds like E. Like in English, it can change sound a lot depending on words, from a hard a to a long a to ae to e.
D is another complicated one. It's usually dropped, especially at the ends of words. If it's before T, it's just very soft. Pretty much unless a word starts with a D, drop it.
J is always pronounced Y. So the most common Danish greeting, hej, is actually pronounced a hell of a lot like hey.
G … don't even bother with G. If you see one, nine times out of ten, it's swallowed and ignored. Jeg, the word for I, sounds like yai. It is not for nothing Danes are said to speak in their throats. At the end of words, G sometimes sounds like K. But seriously, it's usually dropped. Norge, Norway, is approximately said Noor.
H is dropped if it's before a V or J. Are you noticing a pattern yet? Danes don't pronounce things.
R this is the worst letter. aeyr is the best way I can approximate it, although it can also be more of a rolling rr at times. It's just impossible to pronounce, and Danes often seem to delight in forcing people to try. If it is after a vowel, it's dropped, unless it's a different syllable. It's also dropped if it's between vowels, and counter-intuitively enough, if you see a word with two rs (like narre)? Drop them both.
❝Grammar and Sentences❞
As stated before, Danish grammar tends to be fairly close to English-not enough that you can just use English grammar, but enough that, well, it's very close. The basic form is, like English, [ subject ] [ verb ] [ object ]. The place where it changes from English is with adjectives, which is generally [ subject ] [ verb ] [ adjective ] [ object ]. He writes always letters, for example-or, he writes never letters, to use the negative.
This is also where the Danish comma comes into play-Danes are often free and liberal with comma use, and you see it most often in the middle of sentences: commas divide the subject-verb-adjective from the object. So, "He writes always, letters"/"He writes never, letters."
Word forms tend to be pretty consistent: -en detonates definite forms: man/mand = the man/manden. Plurals are usually detonated with -er: woman/kvinde = women/kvinder. There are more exceptions to that one but again, this is just a rough guide. Definite plurals are usually shown with -ne/-rne: kvinderne is "the women."
As for tenses: -er/-r is the present tense, -ede is the past tense, -et is completed past tense. As always there are exceptions but keeping it simple. Jeg er angriber/Jeg blev angrebet/Jeg angreb: I am attacking, I was attacking, I attacked.
The counting system just makes no sense so we aren't going to touch it at all, but here are some simple sentences and phrases for example purposes:
Mit navm er _____. My name is _____.
Jeg taler ikke dansk. I do not speak Danish. (literally: I speak not Danish)
Jeg taler engelsk. I speak English.
Fordi geg er dansker! Because I am a Dane! (literally: Because I am Dane)
Jeg ved ikke. I don't know. (literally: I know not.)
I will add more some other day, when I do not need to sleep! But hopefully even these few examples show what I mean by similar grammar!