Lær Dansk! - Learn Danish!

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benjamino59
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Lær Dansk! - Learn Danish!

Post by benjamino59 »

Lær Dansk - Learn Danish

I've been working on a language course for Danish of a couple of days, and now the first lesson's finished!

Lektion 1 - Lesson 1

Fonologi - Phonology

The vowels in Danish is a mess, so I've just let the IPA follow each word.

Danish uses the same alphabet as English, just added the letters Æ, Ø and Å.

C, Q, W, X and Z is only used very rarely in loan words.

Stød

Stød is a sound exclusive to Danish. I've used ˀ after a syllable to represent, that it has stød. It's a kind of stress, however it's almost like you're shooting the syllable out of your mouth. Only a few words are "false friends", such as mand [manˀ], meaning man, and man [man], which is a pronoun meaning "people in general" (we'll come back to that in a future lesson).
Stød can be a lot different in the different dialects, and a few places they don't even use it!

Dialog - Dialogue

Read the text below, while trying to see if you can recognize any of the words.

Hej!
Hej!
Jeg hedder Maja. Hvad hedder du?
Jeg hedder Mads. Hvor bor du?
Jeg bor i Odense. Hvor bor du?
Jeg bor i København.
Farvel!
Farvel!

IPA

hɑj
hɑj
jɑj heðɐ mɑia. vað heðə du?
jɑj heðɐ mas. vʌ: boɐ du?
jɑj boɐ i oðənsə. vʌ: boɐ du?
jɑj boɐ i købənhaʊn.
fʌvɛl
fʌvɛl

Ordliste til teksten - Word list for the text

hej [hɑj] - hi, goodbye*
jeg [jɑj] - I
hedde [heðə] - be called, be named (about people)
hvad [vað] - what
du [du] - you (singular)
bo [bo] - live (somewhere)
i - in
Odense [oðənsə] - the third biggest city in Denmark
København [købənhaʊn] - Copenhagen, Denmark's capital
farvel [fʌvɛl] - goodbye*
hvor [vʌ:] - where

*Both hej and farvel can be used when saying goodbye. Some people even use hej hej!. Farvel is a tiny bit more formal than the other two, however all three can be used in all situations.

Grammatik - Grammar

The basic word order is SVO.

Verbs aren't conjungated by person - only time. Verbs usually end in an -e in infinitive, however the last letter can be something else, such as in bo.

To form the present tense, just add an an -r to the infinitive.

Example:

at løbe - to run
jeg løber - I run

at elske - to love
jeg elsker - I love

at bo - to live (somewhere)
jeg bor - I live (somewhere)

Pronunciation tip! In infinitive, the -e ending is pronounced [ə], and the -er ending in present is pronounced [ɐ].

That means, that løbe is pronounced [løbə] and løber is pronounced [løbɐ].

At være [vaɐ] means to be, and it's an irregular verb. Its present tense is er [aɐ] (the two sounds kind of melt together to one sound).

Ordliste - Word list

mand [man] - man
kvinde [kvenə] - woman
barn [bɑ:n] - child
dreng [drɑ:ŋˀ]- boy
pige [piə] - girl
tale [ta:lə] - speak, talk
lære [lɛːɐ] - learn
dansk [dansg] - Danish*
Danmark [danmɑ:g] - Denmark
løbe [løbə] - run
elske [ɛlsgə] - (to) love
være [vaɐ] - be
er [aɐ] (almost just [a]) - am, is, are
hund [hunˀ] - dog
kat [kad] - cat
hun [hun] - she
han [han] - he
gammel [gɑməl] - old

*small note: In Danish, names of languages are written in lowercase, such as in dansk, engelsk, tysk...

Øvelser - Exercises

1. Translate the following to English:
-Jeg hedder Mads.
-Hun er gammel.
-Han elsker at løbe.

2. Translate the following to Danish:
-I speak Danish.
-Hi!
-I live in Denmark.

3. Write a short text in Danish like this:

Hi!
My name's _________, and I live in __________.
Goodbye!



Lesson two will be up in a few days! [:D]
Last edited by benjamino59 on 04 Oct 2013 19:26, edited 1 time in total.
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kanejam
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Re: Lær Dansk! - Learn Danish!

Post by kanejam »

I've never bothered with Danish because the stød scares me, and now I've just learnt that the orthography is almost as bad as English [D;]

I think [hɑi:] implies the vowels are in hiatus with the second one long [hɑ.i:]; I'm going to guess and say it's more like [hɑːi̯] and [jɑːi̯], unless you want to use a diphthong bar.
Spoiler:
-Jeg hedder Mads. - My name is Matt.
-Hun er gammel. - She is old
-Han elsker at løbe. - He loves to run.

-I speak Danish. -Jeg taler Dansk
-Hi! - Hej!
-I live in Denmark. - Jeg bor i Danmark

Hej! Jeg hedder kanejam. Jeg bor i Auckland. Farvel!
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CMunk
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Re: Lær Dansk! - Learn Danish!

Post by CMunk »

Hate to be a nitpicker, but being a native speaker of Danish, and having had some lessons of phonetics, I see some faults in your phonetic transcriptions:
benjamino59 wrote:Stød
[...] mand [man], meaning man, and man [manˀ], which is a pronoun meaning "people in general" [...]
It's the other way around: mand is pronounced [manˀ] and means 'man'; man is pronounced [man] and means 'people in general'.
benjamino59 wrote:Dialog - Dialogue
[...]
IPA

[...] hɑi: jɑi: [...]
It is pronounced [hɑj] and [jɑj] and they are quite short. Hej is shorter than the English hi.
benjamino59 wrote:[...] masˀ [...]
Mads cannot have stød as the vowel is short and the following consonant is not a liquid or nasal.
benjamino59 wrote:[...] iˀ [...]
I is only ever pronounced with stød when used as an adverb, not when used as a preposition. "Hvad er der i maden?" [ˈvað æɐ̯ d̥ɑ i ˈmæːˀðən] (What's in the food?) "Hvad er der i?" [ˈvað æɐ̯ d̥ɑ ˈiːˀ] (What's in (it)?)

I don't blame you. Stød is a really hard concept, and it changes with the context. There are no fixed rules for when words gain or lose stød. And as you mentioned dialect is also a factor, and maybe we don't speak the same dialect (I am from around Copenhagen), but I think my corrections are pretty universal for Danish.

Good job spreading the Danish language! Keep it up :)
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benjamino59
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Re: Lær Dansk! - Learn Danish!

Post by benjamino59 »

CMunk wrote:Hate to be a nitpicker, but being a native speaker of Danish, and having had some lessons of phonetics, I see some faults in your phonetic transcriptions:
benjamino59 wrote:Stød
[...] mand [man], meaning man, and man [manˀ], which is a pronoun meaning "people in general" [...]
It's the other way around: mand is pronounced [manˀ] and means 'man'; man is pronounced [man] and means 'people in general'.
benjamino59 wrote:Dialog - Dialogue
[...]
IPA

[...] hɑi: jɑi: [...]
It is pronounced [hɑj] and [jɑj] and they are quite short. Hej is shorter than the English hi.
benjamino59 wrote:[...] masˀ [...]
Mads cannot have stød as the vowel is short and the following consonant is not a liquid or nasal.
benjamino59 wrote:[...] iˀ [...]
I is only ever pronounced with stød when used as an adverb, not when used as a preposition. "Hvad er der i maden?" [ˈvað æɐ̯ d̥ɑ i ˈmæːˀðən] (What's in the food?) "Hvad er der i?" [ˈvað æɐ̯ d̥ɑ ˈiːˀ] (What's in (it)?)
I'm not too familar with IPA, so thanks for correcting me [:D]
CMunk wrote: I don't blame you. Stød is a really hard concept, and it changes with the context. There are no fixed rules for when words gain or lose stød. And as you mentioned dialect is also a factor, and maybe we don't speak the same dialect (I am from around Copenhagen), but I think my corrections are pretty universal for Danish.
Dialect is a big factor, and I'm from Århus, so we speak different dialects. However, I always have problems figuring out whether or not a word has stød, so you're probably right.
Spoiler:
-Jeg hedder Mads. - My name is Matt.
-Hun er gammel. - She is old
-Han elsker at løbe. - He loves to run.

-I speak Danish. -Jeg taler Dansk
-Hi! - Hej!
-I live in Denmark. - Jeg bor i Danmark

Hej! Jeg hedder kanejam. Jeg bor i Auckland. Farvel!
Almost right. Names of languages are written in lowercase in Danish, so the sentence should be "Jeg taler dansk.", not "Jeg taler Dansk". Also, your name should be with capital letters, so it's "Kanejam", not "kanejam".
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kanejam
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Re: Lær Dansk! - Learn Danish!

Post by kanejam »

I'll write dansk with the lowercase but I'll leave my nick because it doesn't start with a capital letter.
benjamino59
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Re: Lær Dansk! - Learn Danish!

Post by benjamino59 »

Lektion 2 - Lesson 2

Grammatik - Grammar

In Danish, there's two genders for nouns: common (fælleskøn, f) and neuter (intetkøn/neutrum, n).

From now on, I'll add the gender for nouns in word lists.

The indefinite article (a/an) for common gender is en [en], and the one for neuter is et [ed].

To form the definite form, you add en/et to the end of the word.

Example:

en mand = a man
manden = the man

et bord = a table
bordet = the table

If the word already ends in -e only n/t is added.

Example:

et æble = an apple
æblet = the apple

If the word ends in a consonant and the last syllable has a short vowel, the consonant is doubled when adding -en/-et.

Example:

en kat = a cat
katten = the cat

et hotel = a hotel
hotellet = the hotel

But!

en bil = a car
bilen = the car

Bil is pronounced [bi:l], with a long sound, so the consonant is not doubled.

Pronunciation tip! The -en ending is pronounced [ən], and the -et ending is pronounced [əð].

Dialog - Dialogue

Mads: Hej!
Maja: Hej!
Mads: Hvor gammel er du, Maja?
Maja: Jeg er tyve, og jeg studerer på universitetet.
Mads: Ok, jeg er femogtyve. Hvad studerer du?
Maja: Psykologi. Hvad arbejder du som?
Mads: Jeg er gymnasielærer.
Maja: I hvilke fag?
Mads: Kinesisk og design.

IPA

hɑj
hɑj
vʌ: gaməl aɐ du, mɑia?
jɑj aɐ tyʊə, ɒʊ jɑj sdudeɒ pɔ univaɒsitedəð.
okɔ, jaj aɐ fəmɒʊtyʊə. vað sdudeɒ du?
sygologi. vað ɒ:bɒɪdɒ du sɒm?
jaj aɒ gymnasjəlɛɒ.
i velgə faj?
kinesisg ɒʊ desɑɪn.

Ordliste til teksten - Word list for the text

tyve [tyʊə] - twenty
og [ɒʊ] - and
studere [sdudeɒ] - (to) study
på [pɔ] - on, at
ok [okɔ] or [ɔʊkɛɪ] - okay (it can also be spelled okay in Danish)
femogtyve [fəmɒʊtyʊə] - twenty five
psykologi (f) [sygologi] - psychology
arbejde [ɒ:bɒɪdə] - (to) work
som [sɒm] - as, like, which, who...
gymnasielærer [gymnasjəlɛɒ] - high school teacher
hvilke [velgə] - which
fag (n) [faj] - subject
kinesisk [kinesisg] - Chinese
design (n) [desɑɪn] - design


Oversættelse - Translation:

Matthew: Hi!
Maya: Hi!
Matthew: How old are you, Maya?
Maya: I'm twenty, and I'm studying at the university.
Matthew: Okay, I'm twenty five. What are you studying?
Maya: Psychology. What do you do for a living?
Matthew: I'm a high school teacher.
Maya: In which subjects?
Matthew: Chinese and design.

Verbs:

Time to learn two new, very important verbs: have and blive!

Have [haʊə] means have, and its present form is har [ha:].

Blive [bliʊə] means become, and its present form is bliver [bliʊɐ].

Normally Danish is SVO, however, when asking questions, it's changed to VSO.

Example:

jeg taler kinesisk - I speak Chinese.
taler jeg kinesisk? - do I speak Chinese?

Ordliste - Word list

student (f) [sdudɛnd] - student
elev (f) [eleʊ] - pupil
lærer (f) [lɛɐ] - teacher
læge (f) [lɛə] - doctor
direktør (f) [diʌgtøɐ] - director
lingvist (f) [liŋvisd] - linguist
skole (f) [sgolə] - school
gymnasie (n) [gymnaɕə] - high school
rig [ʁeə] - rich
engelsk [eŋəlsg] - English
tysk [tysg] - German
fransk [fʁɑnsg] - French
japansk [japansg] - Japanese
arabisk [ɑʁɑbisg] - Arabic
spansk [sbansg] - Spanish
tale [talə] - speak


Exercises:

1. Translate the following to English:
-Han taler tysk.
-Kvinden studerer japansk og dansk.
-Direktøren er rig

2. Translate the following to Danish:
-Do you speak English?
-The school is old.
-The student speaks Spanish.

3. Write in Danish what you (or someone else) do for a living, and what languages you speak.
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dh3537
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Re: Lær Dansk! - Learn Danish!

Post by dh3537 »

Exercises:
Spoiler:
1. He speaks German.
2. The woman studies Japanese and Danish
3. The director is rich.

1. Taler du engelsk?
2. Skolen er gammel.
3. Studenten taler spansk.

Jeg er student og jeg studerer matematik i skolen. Jeg taler engelsk, kinesisk, og norsk.
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