Canadian here. I always wanted to know how to pronounce my name in Danish. The name is Dalsgaard Pedersen. Of course everyone in my country says “Peterson”. Works well because few people in Canada will say a “t” sound in the middle of a word. So it sounds more like a “d” sound anyway. As I always understood it the “d” in Pedersen spoken in Danish sounds more like a “th” sound in English. Just curious to hear my name spoken by a real Dane.
Hej Mic! Just wanted to thank you for such an outstanding video. It has it all in a simple yet powerful way to get it, which has been a struggle for me since last year. A huge help, and I hope you will continue making videos about how to really learn Danish (I can see that you seem to have stopped). All the best to you!
It is absolutely faszinating how similar many single words are in Danish and German! The difficulty for me as a German and English spreaker is actually to understand Danish as a spoken language.. because of the whole pronounciation, I guess. So interesting! I loved being in Danmark as a child. Beautiful memories.
you've enlightened me about progressive and continuous tenses. this whole time I thought they were interchangeable and meant the same thing. now you've solved a problem with tenses i've been having with several languages for years lol. you are a great teacher, thank you for these vids they've helped reinspire me with learning languages.
Swede here. Always thought the languages are so similar and always understand the spoken Danish up to a degree og 99% in films with Swedish subtitles. Embarrassed when I arrive to Denmark and can't even understand a waiter or someone asking me a question in the street. Absolutely fascinated by the differences in pronunciation. Downloaded Babble. Got stuck immediately on the words: en - (for those of you not knowing Swedish, it is 'en' also) ett ( ett) to (två) tre ( tre) The program on the app just wouldn't accept my pronunciation. I realised there is so much going on pronunciation wise. I might add that I am teaching Swedish for immigrants, as well as French and English. Knowing basic aids to pronunciation is my profession. We say in Sweden that Danish is Swedish spoken with a potatoe in your mouth😅 And then, in your video, you put two big fingers in your mouth to help us pronounce better 😂 😂😂😂😂😂 sooo different. It will take a lot of practise.
Hi Mic, can you help me with a pronunciation question? For example, in the word Bord, in Spanish it sounds like Bo-A. But when it is Bordet, it sounds like Bo-AL (I understand that the final sound is a soft D). But this soft D, which sounds like an L with the tongue down and the tip behind the lower teeth, is it accompanied by any special sound? (AL, EL, IL, OL or UL)
Hi! As you said, bord is more or less Bo-A, but with a stød on the O. When we have the form bordet, we add a soft D. We still continue having the stød as well. We might add an E sound, too, in the form of a schwa, like the last sound in fx taske ordnet.dk/ddo/ordbog?query=taske (so using YOUR terminology, we could say that we add EL) You can hear bordet being pronounced here: forvo.com/search/bordet/da Hope this helps you :)
For people who still can't pronounce it: It is shown as [ð̠˕ˠ] in phonology. The "ð̠˕" is dental approximant. To pronounce it, firstly you need to know what "ð" is. It is the sound that exists in english in words like "the" or "there". But in this "ð̠˕" sound you need to put the tip of your tongue to your teeth but they must not contact with themself but must be too close. Like in your lips when pronouncing english "w". Now you made "ð̠˕" sound. For all soft d sound ([ð̠˕ˠ]) next step is pronounce [ɣ̞]. That sound is similar to french R but it is voiced. It also exists in Arabic, Spanish, Celtic languages etc. To pronounce it you pronounce [k] but instead stopping you need let air flow while holding your tongue like saying [k] and with voice. But you need to pronounce it's approximant form. So do the same thing as you did to "ð̠˕" like english "w". Pronounce both these sounds [ð̠˕][ɣ̞] together at the same time and congrats! You pronounce soft D. I don't speak danish but this sound was easy to pronounce because I know linguistics
Hi! If it were borde (the plural of bord, table) and bore (infinitive, to drill a hole), it would be the same pronunciation. But boret (past tense of bore) has a soft D at the end. If you compare this to bordet (the table), the difference would be that bordet has stød, and boret doesn't. Hope this makes sense 🙂
@@MicsLanguages Hvad der sker, Mic, er, at når du udtaler "bordet", lyder det ikke det samme, som Google Translate siger det (bare dette ord). Mit modersmål er spansk, så jeg lytter til "Pógua". Please Mic, hjælp mig med at vide, hvad den korrekte udtale er, jeg ønsker ikke at starte forkert i denne læring.
@jkeys7182 Nu husker jeg ikke hvordan jeg siger bordet i denne video. Men Google Translate siger det med et meget markant stød. Det kan være derfor at det lyder anderledes end når jeg siger det. Google translate er som regel rigtig god til at udtale dansk. Det er meget sjældent at det siger noget forkert. Du kan godt stole på Google Translate 🙂
French TV asked Jonas how to pronounce his name, which he then did, and apparently to some non-danes, it sounded different from how many danes they'd heard pronounced it. Could you explain why Jonas' pronunciation would sound different to other commonly heard danish pronunciations? Dialect? (i'm personally guessing there's a difference from TV danish or Copenhagen Danish) Fast/Casual speaking? stuff like that?
Well I didn't know it had a name, but this special thing Danish people do with their throat and their breath is the reason I fell in love with their language. Stød! It gives a unique mix of softness and roughness. Still, is this video, I hear it less than I did in some TV series where I tried to imitate what the characters where saying, without being able to quite put my finger on the strange phonatory thing that was going on. Thank you for the explanation!
Thank you! Glad the video taught you what stød is. I don't have a super strong one. There are regional differences, in some places it's as if there is almost no stød at all.
Whether you pronounce midword Rs or RRs followed by a vowel as a consonant or a vowel highly depends on the dialect. An example could be the word "irriterende". The "irri" bit can be pronounced as either "ee-uh-ee"(the Rs combined makes "uh", "ee-ree"( the Rs combined makes "r") or "ee-uh-ree"(the first R makes uh" and the second R makes "r") and the "re" can be pronounced as either "uh" or "ruh". Just among what like to call the Standard Danish Dialects (Eastern Jutland, Mid Funen and Eastern Zealand) you will find all 6 combinations (3 choices for "irri" and 2 choices for "re"). When I say Standard Danish Dialects i mean the dialects which varies only slighty form true Standard Danish, (which actually isn't spoken by anyone, except for maybe a few people that are overly nerdy about pronunciation).
thanks for this. one of the earliest speech exercises in Duolingo is “jeg hedder Frede, hvad hedder du” and i was ready to give up right then & there 😅
I spent a year in Denmark as an exchange student, a long time ago. I never mastered this, neither in pronunciation nor in listening. To be honest, I couldn't hear the difference then, nor can I now. I just hear the same word repeated twice. I just understood from context, and I assumed others understood me from context as well. There are many vowels that sound IDENTICAL to non-danish natives as well. Again, context was key in those situations. There are many English words that are spelled differently and mean different things, but that sound IDENTICAL. Again, context is key. If you're a student of Danish, or any other language, don't tie yourself in knots trying to get these things right, just try to communicate and others will understand you from context.
Can you please make a video of the colors? I'm learning danish on Duolingo. It's my best friend's language as she's from Danmark, and I plan on visiting her someday. 🥰
I had a friend, an American, who was learning Danish in Denmark. He said, "you can't let them know you're an English speaker. Pretend you're from Armenia or some such place".
Well, you covered the "rd", saying that you just pronounce the "r" - but then my ears don't hear the "r" after that - so is it "go" or "gor?" And it sounded like the "e" is either skipped "Ving-go" or can be added "Ving-e-go". Which do you prefer or is more common? Our American announcers are brutalizing the cyclists names. BTW, it would be EXTREMELY helpful to hear Jonas pronounce his name, himself! Thanks.
The language is cool, but with all due respect it can't be called hard. Yes, in comparison to most European languages the pronunciation is tricky, but it's not uncommon for many "Eastern" languages. Of course Danish vowel system is remarkable though. However, I believe English phonetics and spelling is much harder, albeit English pronunciation is more "forgiving". 90% of foreigners speak horrible English, yet they are understood. I appreciate your approach to teaching btw.
Little side note about the genitive. There is no genitive for personal pronouns, we use the dative or another construction instead. "sein" is a possessive pronoun and they can have all four cases so nominative, genitive, dative and accusative. "sein, seinen, seinem, etc..."
I don't get why people don't hear it, especially Germans. You literally have the very same sound in German, it's all over your language. It's also quite common in many other languages, and in Arabic it's even an independent separate consonant.
