Why is that offensive? I am sure everyone who does that tries to help. You can always politely say that you are trying to learn the language, so you swap back.
I just stumbled across your channel. Great stuff. As a danish social worker I've had peripheral contact with "Lær Dansk" as some of my citizens had to learn danish. We found that the schools were ok at teaching them a few "survival" phrases, but they learnt the bulk of their danish at their work place.
Yeaaa I feel a lot with the "they swap to english, when I speak danish to them". I'm a danish person, and I work in customer service. If a person is not very good at danish, they often ask themselves if we can do it in english. Sometimes I do get customers, who insist on wanting to speak danish, even though their danish is, let's be honest, awful. When we struggle through it, with them saying something, and me having no clue what they're trying to say, I offer to switch to english, to make it easier and faster for both of us. Some will insist to continue in danish though, and refuses to switch. Thus a call and issue, that could be solved in 3 minutes, is prolonged to a 20 minut call, cause they struggle to tell what they need, and I struggle to understand them, and have to keep asking them to repeat it, or even spell things out, and then they can't pronounce the letters in danish, so miscommunication on what letter is even being said, etc. etc. etc. So when I switch to english in these cases, and I guess for many other in service jobs, it's not to be rude or offensive. It's to be efficient and help the customer with their problem, without misunderstandings and having to drag it out for much longer, than is needed.
With a slight caveat there. The pronunciation. Only danish people would recognice the pronunciation as "seföli", the rest of the world will hear the "se" in the beginning followed by a bunch of mumbled vowels. :)
Oh boy. German grammar is very complicated, but the Danish pronunciations are very delicate, and the spooky thing is a lot of words have 2,3, and sometimes several meanings. It's definitely confusing to begin with. I did my verbal exam in Danish and got top grade, but even I as a Dane, I still have trouble at times to plug the words in a comprehensive sentence.
selvfølgelig means ofcause hvad means what the e-boks that conrad mentioned is a highly secured state given email, where you receive mail from the danish state about all kinds of stuff and also from some companies regarding financial stuff the Æ letter sounds like a dragged out A, like if you say aaae
"Vel" is literally "well", and sometimes means that - vellidt = well liked. But it has other meanings too. At the end of a question, you're asking the other person to confirm something after you have asked a negative question like "You're not going there, are you?" "Hvad" means "what". A lot of Danish expressions sound rude to Americans, but you just have to learn that they are not meant to be rude. "Tak for sidst" - when you have recently visited someone or they visited you, or you were at their birthday party or something similar, often you would call them a couple of days later and say "Tak for sidst". "Tak for idag" you say when the day is over, like at the end of a work day. haha, compound words - æbleskiver (apple slices) has nothing to do with apples and it's not in slices. Google it to see what they look like and how to make them. Some people really don't want to listen to a foreigner speaking Danish - it's too much of a burden. But sometimes I have asked someone providing a service if we could please use English, because I didn't have the vocabulary in Danish for it.
Well Danish is hard to learn. Even Danes have trouble learning it. 😅 Because we have so many vowel sounds Danish babies in general start talking a couple months later than their Norwegian counterpart. Add thereto the pretty unique “stød” (guttural push), silent or soft letters and the speed and mumbling.
Most Danes speak English just as well as they speak Danish and for them speaking English is just normal and you don't think about it.Even my foreign friends who I actually know well know a lot of Danish. I automatically speak English to them.
We lean english , very early in School . So most danes speak english. ( Well we kind of have too , 😂 don’t we ) and when we switch over. It is actualy to be polite, because we know that it is dificult and Sound terrible. To foriegners 😂😂🇩🇰🇩🇰
danish is a germanic language so germans will have an easier time than most but they're not the closest language. in terms so similarity danish is more akin to swedish or norwegian so they can most of the times understand without learning, they're "siblings" in terms of language while german is more like a cousin. danish isn't that easy at they seem to make it. while the grammar due to being germanic is similar to several other european languages(english included) the words and pronounciations are difficult making it quite difficult to learn overall
It is true that danish is a Germanic language but so are English. English also have plenty of words borrowed from danish so that's not why Germans have an easier time with danish. It's far more likely that it's because danish and German share more words and the linguistic 'melody' due to the heavy influence from 'Germany' in the 18th and 19th centuries. in the beginning of the 18th century German were the main language in much of the upper danish society including the royal circles, theater and churches in major danish cities.
@@KurtFrederiksen isn't that french? while english is germanic(from the saxons mainly) it is also celtic(essenitally the origin language) and latin(from the roman occuppation). denmark has little linguistic influence from other languages in comparison being mostly germanic although we have a few loan words from latin and french
@@ludantikasmith2869 French is a later addition to the danish royal court and were never a official language in Denmark. There have been far more German and Russian influence in the Danish royals than French. "while english is germanic(from the saxons mainly) it is also celtic..." This becomes real complicated fast, but as I understand it at the moment the English language have little in common with the Celtic languages in the beginning. Old English (Englisc) came with the Germanic settlers (Angles, Saxons, Jutes (Same people that lived in Jutland, Denmark)) and became the basis for all language development in England from around the 6th and 7th century. This would be mixed up with Latin and some Celtic in the next 400 years or so and around 410 the Roman control over England is broken and it seems like Latin influence fade in favor of another Germanic influx. The cause of this influx seems to be highly debated. Saxons invited to help fight the Picts and Scots seems to the current favorite for reason. This would be the start of the transition from Romano-British to Anglo-Saxon England that met the Nordic vikings around 600-700, who introduced a lot of Old-Norse (Old East Norse - the danish branch, Old West Norse - the Norwegian branch). You find Old West Norse influence dotted around Iceland and Scotland and Old East Norse north of London in Danelaw. To this day you have towns like Darby, Grimsby and Whitby as evidence for the Old East Norse influence on the English language as well as words like anger, birth, cake, egg, hell, and knife. All this should give the English speakers the same access to Danish as the German speakers but, as Sherlock Holmes would say, something else must be afoot. "denmark has little linguistic influence from other languages..." Danish have influences from a surprising number of languages. There's a Slavic root in Danish as well as Baltic. There's a surprising number of Dutch words. When we compare languages, English and German are closer than Danish and German and Danish and Swedish are closer than Danish and Norwegian. In the end it might not be true that Germans have an easier time with Danish as this could be true only for a subset of Germans, namely the North Germans. Germans from Niedersachsen might have a language closer to Danish than Germans from Bayern or Rheinland-Pfalz. This might simply come down to dialects.
Generally there is a lot of Danish vocabulary that is easy at least for an English speaker, compound words that are very logical and many words that are similar to English. Grammar is fairly easy, at least it has fewer rules than German for example, however much like English there are many exceptions to the rules. English speakers often struggle with common and neuter gender nouns as they are just something you have to remember. What really makes Danish hard is pronunciation and rhythm, it's extremely unforgiving, When you say a sentence there are many unimportant words that are said fast and you slow down for the important words but not really extra stress, the words that you slow down on may or may not get a glottal stop inserted and there are no rules for this. If you get either the pronunciation of a word wrong people will be unlikely to understand, if you pronounce every word perfectly but get the rhythm wrong they will likely not understand you. To make it all worse the language changes quickly and is regional, when I moved to Denmark 16 years ago and we would go to Sweden the Swedish would be happy to listen to Danish spoken by my friends and respond in Swedish now they say they struggle to understand the Danes and prefer to switch to English while Danes still understand the Swedish pretty fine.
Simplified ?? no no Sir literal as they mentioned dictionary a book full of words = ord bog word book .. but then again What makes Danish so difficult is that our phonology, our word structure, is so opaque. We tend to swallow the parts of words, and in addition the beginnings of words are also often indistinct because we have so few strong consonant sounds
Many Danes are so proud of their English that they take any opportunity to show off versus French or Spanish speaking people who would adore you if you give their language a try
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Why is that offensive? I am sure everyone who does that tries to help. You can always politely say that you are trying to learn the language, so you swap back.
I just stumbled across your channel. Great stuff.
As a danish social worker I've had peripheral contact with "Lær Dansk" as some of my citizens had to learn danish. We found that the schools were ok at teaching them a few "survival" phrases, but they learnt the bulk of their danish at their work place.
E-Boks is our Electronic mail box . Where We get mail from , the stateoffice, like healthcare system or municipality, and other official places….
Yeaaa I feel a lot with the "they swap to english, when I speak danish to them". I'm a danish person, and I work in customer service. If a person is not very good at danish, they often ask themselves if we can do it in english.
Sometimes I do get customers, who insist on wanting to speak danish, even though their danish is, let's be honest, awful. When we struggle through it, with them saying something, and me having no clue what they're trying to say, I offer to switch to english, to make it easier and faster for both of us.
Some will insist to continue in danish though, and refuses to switch. Thus a call and issue, that could be solved in 3 minutes, is prolonged to a 20 minut call, cause they struggle to tell what they need, and I struggle to understand them, and have to keep asking them to repeat it, or even spell things out, and then they can't pronounce the letters in danish, so miscommunication on what letter is even being said, etc. etc. etc.
So when I switch to english in these cases, and I guess for many other in service jobs, it's not to be rude or offensive. It's to be efficient and help the customer with their problem, without misunderstandings and having to drag it out for much longer, than is needed.
Norwegian and Danish are more similar than Swedish and Norwegian are.
In writing yes. And also perhaps in theory. But when it comes to pronunciation, norwegian and swedish are much much closer.
"Selvfølgelig" (pronounced "seføli" ) means "of course" or "obviously".
With a slight caveat there. The pronunciation. Only danish people would recognice the pronunciation as "seföli", the rest of the world will hear the "se" in the beginning followed by a bunch of mumbled vowels. :)
Oh boy. German grammar is very complicated, but the Danish pronunciations are very delicate, and the spooky thing is a lot of words have 2,3, and sometimes several meanings. It's definitely confusing to begin with. I did my verbal exam in Danish and got top grade, but even I as a Dane, I still have trouble at times to plug the words in a comprehensive sentence.
him with the red hair He is today a stand-up comedian in Denmark so sometimes comes on television
selvfølgelig means ofcause
hvad means what
the e-boks that conrad mentioned is a highly secured state given email, where you receive mail from the danish state about all kinds of stuff and also from some companies regarding financial stuff
the Æ letter sounds like a dragged out A, like if you say aaae
"Vel" is literally "well", and sometimes means that - vellidt = well liked. But it has other meanings too. At the end of a question, you're asking the other person to confirm something after you have asked a negative question like "You're not going there, are you?"
"Hvad" means "what". A lot of Danish expressions sound rude to Americans, but you just have to learn that they are not meant to be rude.
"Tak for sidst" - when you have recently visited someone or they visited you, or you were at their birthday party or something similar, often you would call them a couple of days later and say "Tak for sidst".
"Tak for idag" you say when the day is over, like at the end of a work day.
haha, compound words - æbleskiver (apple slices) has nothing to do with apples and it's not in slices. Google it to see what they look like and how to make them.
Some people really don't want to listen to a foreigner speaking Danish - it's too much of a burden. But sometimes I have asked someone providing a service if we could please use English, because I didn't have the vocabulary in Danish for it.
One idiom we have in Denmark, is "Det er ligesom LEGO" (do i need to translate, LEGO is danish btw.)
Well Danish is hard to learn. Even Danes have trouble learning it. 😅 Because we have so many vowel sounds Danish babies in general start talking a couple months later than their Norwegian counterpart. Add thereto the pretty unique “stød” (guttural push), silent or soft letters and the speed and mumbling.
Most Danes speak English just as well as they speak Danish and for them speaking English is just normal and you don't think about it.Even my foreign friends who I actually know well know a lot of Danish. I automatically speak English to them.
Or Swedish and Danish and Norwegian.
English is just a Danish dialect
All Hail our ancient Danish overlords 🇬🇧 😂
The Norweigian vowels you are talking about mispronouciating are actually Danish vowels (ø and æ). Norway used to be part of Denmark.
sludder
e-boks is official letters from tax i.e.
We lean english , very early in School . So most danes speak english. ( Well we kind of have too , 😂 don’t we ) and when we switch over. It is actualy to be polite, because we know that it is dificult and Sound terrible. To foriegners 😂😂🇩🇰🇩🇰
"Selvfølgelig" means "Of course"
danish is a germanic language so germans will have an easier time than most but they're not the closest language. in terms so similarity danish is more akin to swedish or norwegian so they can most of the times understand without learning, they're "siblings" in terms of language while german is more like a cousin. danish isn't that easy at they seem to make it. while the grammar due to being germanic is similar to several other european languages(english included) the words and pronounciations are difficult making it quite difficult to learn overall
It is true that danish is a Germanic language but so are English. English also have plenty of words borrowed from danish so that's not why Germans have an easier time with danish. It's far more likely that it's because danish and German share more words and the linguistic 'melody' due to the heavy influence from 'Germany' in the 18th and 19th centuries.
in the beginning of the 18th century German were the main language in much of the upper danish society including the royal circles, theater and churches in major danish cities.
@@KurtFrederiksen isn't that french? while english is germanic(from the saxons mainly) it is also celtic(essenitally the origin language) and latin(from the roman occuppation). denmark has little linguistic influence from other languages in comparison being mostly germanic although we have a few loan words from latin and french
@@ludantikasmith2869 French is a later addition to the danish royal court and were never a official language in Denmark. There have been far more German and Russian influence in the Danish royals than French.
"while english is germanic(from the saxons mainly) it is also celtic..." This becomes real complicated fast, but as I understand it at the moment the English language have little in common with the Celtic languages in the beginning. Old English (Englisc) came with the Germanic settlers (Angles, Saxons, Jutes (Same people that lived in Jutland, Denmark)) and became the basis for all language development in England from around the 6th and 7th century. This would be mixed up with Latin and some Celtic in the next 400 years or so and around 410 the Roman control over England is broken and it seems like Latin influence fade in favor of another Germanic influx. The cause of this influx seems to be highly debated. Saxons invited to help fight the Picts and Scots seems to the current favorite for reason.
This would be the start of the transition from Romano-British to Anglo-Saxon England that met the Nordic vikings around 600-700, who introduced a lot of Old-Norse (Old East Norse - the danish branch, Old West Norse - the Norwegian branch). You find Old West Norse influence dotted around Iceland and Scotland and Old East Norse north of London in Danelaw. To this day you have towns like Darby, Grimsby and Whitby as evidence for the Old East Norse influence on the English language as well as words like anger, birth, cake, egg, hell, and knife.
All this should give the English speakers the same access to Danish as the German speakers but, as Sherlock Holmes would say, something else must be afoot.
"denmark has little linguistic influence from other languages..." Danish have influences from a surprising number of languages. There's a Slavic root in Danish as well as Baltic. There's a surprising number of Dutch words. When we compare languages, English and German are closer than Danish and German and Danish and Swedish are closer than Danish and Norwegian.
In the end it might not be true that Germans have an easier time with Danish as this could be true only for a subset of Germans, namely the North Germans. Germans from Niedersachsen might have a language closer to Danish than Germans from Bayern or Rheinland-Pfalz. This might simply come down to dialects.
Selvfølgelig means Of course
Generally there is a lot of Danish vocabulary that is easy at least for an English speaker, compound words that are very logical and many words that are similar to English. Grammar is fairly easy, at least it has fewer rules than German for example, however much like English there are many exceptions to the rules. English speakers often struggle with common and neuter gender nouns as they are just something you have to remember. What really makes Danish hard is pronunciation and rhythm, it's extremely unforgiving, When you say a sentence there are many unimportant words that are said fast and you slow down for the important words but not really extra stress, the words that you slow down on may or may not get a glottal stop inserted and there are no rules for this. If you get either the pronunciation of a word wrong people will be unlikely to understand, if you pronounce every word perfectly but get the rhythm wrong they will likely not understand you. To make it all worse the language changes quickly and is regional, when I moved to Denmark 16 years ago and we would go to Sweden the Swedish would be happy to listen to Danish spoken by my friends and respond in Swedish now they say they struggle to understand the Danes and prefer to switch to English while Danes still understand the Swedish pretty fine.
..it`s all about pressure distribution
selvfølgelig = of course..
The problem with danish is that it is difficult to pronounce and the written language is far from the spoken.
If you want to hear how hard Danish is to pronounce, try Google Translate
Be carefull thinking that no one understands. I have been embarresed af few times
Simplified ?? no no Sir literal as they mentioned dictionary a book full of words = ord bog word book .. but then again What makes Danish so difficult is that our phonology, our word structure, is so opaque. We tend to swallow the parts of words, and in addition the beginnings of words are also often indistinct because we have so few strong consonant sounds
Kamelåså
Hvad betyder det på dansk ? fjeldabe.
Now you just ordered 1000 liters of milk.
Norwegian is easier to learn than danish
English speaking percieve r as l
Many Danes are so proud of their English that they take any opportunity to show off versus French or Spanish speaking people who would adore you if you give their language a try