It’s interesting that Danish is usually regarded as an ugly language because of how throaty is it, especially compared to Norwegian and Swedish but sometimes I’ll happen upon someone who finds it beautiful which is a welcome change :)
I am learning Danish and Icelandic and Norse etc, and the pronunciation in Danish is more complicated than I thought, and it’s not just the Danish accent which is not easy to imitate, but also the pronunciation itself, as there are some difficult sounds in Danish, plus all the glottal stops... I cannot even hear a D sound, so I don’t think it’s an actual D sound, and it does sound more like an L to me, so maybe it is an L sound or a half-L sound, I don’t know... So I am not sure what sound to make exactly, and it’s like that in Welsh too, with the LL sound in Welsh, so I don’t know if I have to add an H sound or a SH sound or an S sound to an L sound or something like that to get the right LL sound, so it’s not easy to figure out how to make these sounds, but I wonder how do ppl from Denmark and ppl from Wales learn how to make those sounds when they start talking, and can they just do the sounds by imitating, or does someone explain to them what sounds to make and how to get those sounds... (Danish is actually one of the prettiest languages ever created like Norse / Gothic / Icelandic / Faroese / English / Dutch / Norwegian / Welsh / Breton / Cornish and I want to get the right Danish accent and sounds, despite the difficulty, and I recommend doing the same and learning these gorgeous languages together and practicing Danish pronunciation, even though most learners would rather give up when something seems too complicated!)
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 😅
It's not easy if you are not born in Denmark. But as with most things, it can be learned if you invest energy in it. The French R by the way, is pretty much the same as the Danish R 😉
@@emeskay4527 i found a technique that helps in pronouncing soft d. it's like pronouncing letter L, but instead of the tip of the tongue going up, you place it behind the lower teeth
"It's the actions that really make us who we are" I didn't expect to find philosophy here but that's profound. Also, thank you for the help with Danish pronunciation. My great grandparents were Danish immigrants to USA, but they were more focused on learning English than passing the old language down to their descendants. With your help and dedicated practice time, I can hope to reclaim this part of my heritage in 2022. I'm looking forward to it.
@@Vexarax the soft D is driving me crazy and I'm not studying danish actually. I think soft D isn't that hard to pronounce but it's hard to realize how it's reproduced.
@@denisposcai1102 it's quite similar if you compare the soft d, to the th in english (the th sound in the) for instance bille(d)er is basically the equivalent to "bille(th)er" - hopefully this made sense
I'm a native English speaker, and today I learned that, unless the L is at the start of a word, I always pronounce it like the soft D. I've spent so much time practicing this sound without success, only to realize I've been doing it the whole time. Thank you for this video, it finally put the sound into the context I needed.
It is mind-blowing for a person on the third day of Danish course. One of the hardest things I've ever tried to pronounce. Couldn't stop laughing at my disability to say any of that. 😅Thank you for detailed explanation! So helpful!
I started a Duolingo course of Danish after I was done with German, thought Danish would be easier than German. BUT BOY WAS I WRONG! So far, it's the HARDEST language to pronounce I've ever come across. And it makes me love it more, it is such a challenge. The hardest so far has been this letter D, and you have no idea how useful this video was. I've watched it several times and paused it to practice along. My tounge hurts now. Lol. But I'm getting better at it!!! THANK YOUUU!!!
Hahaha, that's great to hear! Yeah, German pronunciation is a piece of cake! But Danish also isn't too hard. Just need to practice enough ;) Thanks for your message, it made my day 😊
Normally, you'd think it would be impossible to speak and make any sense in any language, with fingers stuck in your mouth. But with Danish that's the only way I can pronounce it correctly xD Truly a special language.
You're right haha 😀 After some time your finger will either stick to your mouth/tongue forever, or your tongue will become used to staying at the right position and the finger will become totally obsolete 😉
@@MicsLanguages Haha ;D Well hopefully for me it's the second option. For now I will stick with the finger however. Thank you for this tip! It's the first time I managed to pronounce this sound
Mic, thank you!! I am a native English speaker and could not for the life of me figure out “the soft d.” It really scared me away from Danish for a while. I will now do the little exercises you outlined.
Thank you very much. At the moment I am focusing on other things. But I want to post many more videos. Hope I'll be able to post with a certain frequency again!
Thank you. Of all the things I've read and watched about the Danish soft D you are the ONLY one to ever mention the 'something' going on in the throat. I was beginning to think I was imagining it but I was sure Danes seemed to kind of constrict the throat a bit when making the soft D. Thank you for saying this.
The throat is often overlooked when it comes to describing how sounds are produced. Maybe this is due to it being difficult to understand and explain what exactly happens down there. I hope the video has helped you to produce the soft D in a good way!
As a brazilian learner and enthusiast of languages, I'm so glad getting to know such a channel like yours, where you coincidentally handle to teach (in one place) three of those I'm studying too! Tusind Tak for det! ;D
Mange tak for din kommentar, Kassio! Ich hoffe, dass du anhand meiner Videos etwas Neues lernst. I'm planning to release lots of videos in the future, so I hope they will be helpful for you. Valeu, e divirta-se aprendendo 😉
I have been teaching myself Danish for a couple months now, and this video was incredibly helpful. I have found the pronunciation to be by far the most difficult aspect of the language, and have been having particular trouble with the soft D. I'm going to implement your suggestions! Thank you again!
1:12 Me after the first two: yeah those don't sound like L at all, what are people talking about? I guess I understand this pretty well. Me after the third: WTH, how is that not an L?
Haha yeah, from my experience in learning other languages, I know what you mean. It's always hard to differentiate something that we have never realized existed before. At least in the beginning. Then, later on, with enough exposure and training, the difference becomes obvious.
I am learning Danish and Icelandic and Norse etc, and the pronunciation in Danish is more complicated than I thought, and it’s not just the Danish accent which is not easy to imitate, but also the pronunciation itself, as there are some difficult sounds in Danish, plus all the glottal stops... I cannot even hear a D sound, so I don’t think it’s an actual D sound, and it does sound more like an L to me, so maybe it is an L sound or a half-L sound, I don’t know... So I am not sure what sound to make exactly, and it’s like that in Welsh too, with the LL sound in Welsh, so I don’t know if I have to add an H sound or a SH sound or an S sound to an L sound or something like that to get the right LL sound, so it’s not easy to figure out how to make these sounds, but I wonder how do ppl from Denmark and ppl from Wales learn how to make those sounds when they start talking, and can they just do the sounds by imitating, or does someone explain to them what sounds to make and how to get those sounds... (Danish is actually one of the prettiest languages ever created like Norse / Gothic / Icelandic / Faroese / English / Dutch / Norwegian / Welsh / Breton / Cornish and I want to get the right Danish accent and sounds, despite the difficulty, and I recommend doing the same and learning these gorgeous languages together and practicing Danish pronunciation, even though most learners would rather give up when something seems too complicated!)
my bf who's from Denmark he speaks danish and English he's trying to teach me danish for when I come to live with him in Denmark he said soft D sounds like English TH but when he says the word I hear L. also r sounds like someone making a disgusted sound 😆 like u just tasted something bad lol
Having a vocal coach & singing training has made learning new sounds in Danish easier for me because vocal training spends a lot of time thinking about tongue placement/palettes/how your throat feels when you make a sound. If you have an interest in learning Danish and singing, I definitely recommend combining those interests!
"funny pronunciation too, but it's doable" - my friend you just described the whole danish language in one sentence 😅 Thanks so much for the video! It really helped. You earned yourself a new subscriber :) I'm looking forward to watching your other danish videos.
Thank you very much! I'm glad the video was helpful, and I hope the other videos will be helpful as well. And it should be doable for you, since you seem to have mastered a very difficult other language. May I ask, what is your channel about? I just see a lot of Japanese symbols and lots of people watching your videos 😉 (I hope I'm not mistaking when I say Japanese - it sounds Japanese to me)
@@MicsLanguages It's actually Korean! But I understand it looks and sounds similar to Japanese at first 😄 My channel is also language related. I mainly teach German in Korean and sometimes Korean in German. Many Koreans struggle to learn proper German as they don't have enough resources for it in their mother tongue. So I am happy to help them, by teaching German in a way that makes sense to a Korean speaker.😊
@@GermanEonni That's great! I wish I could understand some of it. And yeah, the editing of the videos seems very "Korean" (I would have called it Japanese, but sorry, I'm ignorant haha). Actually, my second guess would have been Korean. I watched the movie Parasite a few months ago and I was surprised at how it sounded like Japanese to me. That's probably because I've never heard Korean before. It's definitely not similar to Chinese at all. But enough about my ignorance about Asian languages! I wish you good luck with your Korean adventure and of course also with Danish. If there's anything you struggle with in Danish, let me know! Are you learning Danish seriously, by the way? If so, may I ask why?
Found your video today, and I can tell that it is the best soft D pronunciation video I have ever come across! You are the best! Hope to see more videos coming! Mange tak!!!
Yeah, I know I'm the best 😎 Haha, just kidding. Thank you so much for your comment, you made my day :) I'm still on a bit of a break in the video making, but there'll be a lot more - hopefully good stuff - coming in the future!
This was very well explained and extremely helpful. Really appreciate the ample number of examples and your effort to illustrate the articulation. Thank you!
It's literally like a gentle waterfall cascading off my tongue, or perfectly cooked short rib coming right off the bone. Such a subtle sound-- I'm gonna have to work on this one! Tak for the video, Mic!!!
That's a pretty good explanation without going into too much detail. I'll make sure to share this video next time I meet somebody who has trouble with this sound.
Man, none of my Danish teachers believed me when I told them I was saying "L"s, thank you so much for this. Do you also do Danish reads? I need some supply of Danish videos with Danish subtitles, which are next to impossible to find, and the phrases you did in the beginning were very useful.
Thanks for your comment. I haven't done any videos reading in Danish. But I might consider doing it at some point. Have you had a look at www.dr.dk/drtv/ where you can see real life TV in Danish and subtitles are always available. Normally, the subtitles show pretty much the same as what is said. Watching TV is a great way of improving very quickly 👍
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!
Hej! Thank you so much for your nice comment. I am taking a break from making videos (a loooooong break 😁) but my plan is to get back into making them, hopefully somewhat soon...
Conclusions of Mic’s video 🤗🤞😊 Super useful and easy rules! When to say ‘Soft D’ ? 1 vowels followed by d or dd : hvid, Frede, billeder, sidde, federe, hade, stod, ud, ad sidder (double d would make the pronounciation of vowel shorter ) 2 When we have et in the end of the word : meget, Nettet, vejret, året When Not use ‘soft d’ ? 1 When we have vowel and ds : udsigten , sidse , bedst, tilfreds, udsigten , 2 dt . Just pronounce t sound. midt, hvidt, rødt Let us keep practising together 😎 Few minutes a day 🍀
Thank you very much!! One little correction though: Under "when not to say soft d", number 1, you mention "udsigten". Here we DO say the soft d, as the ds is not in the same syllable (ud-sigt-en). Otherwise, great recap 👌
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
This is by far the best explanation of soft D pronunciation. Thank you for the great video. Im working on this soft D for some time now, i think im getting better. In some words i can do it better than on then on the others, depens on the possition and other letters. Its still not clear to me wheter the tip of the toung should touch the actuall bottom teeth (bones) or should it touch the area beneath bottom teeth, the "skin inside mouth" beneath teeth. Dont know how to call it lol. So far the hardest to pronounce is Krydderi or Krydrede Kartoffelbåde. Jeg håber at blive bedre snart! Tak for lektionen Mic!
Regarding -et at the end of words: Depending on the dialect/accent the D may be pronounced as a soft D, a hard D, or a T, where the soft D is the most common, and the E may have several different pronunciations too. Whether the R in "vejret" is pronounced or silent also depends on the dialect, and the vowel sound in the first syllable may also vary. The official pronunciation of "vejret" is with E as in bed for the first vowel, pronounced R, and -et as schwa-t. This pronunciation exist but is quite rare. The pronunciations mentioned in the video are not the only valid pronunciation of each word, but they are the most common, or at least among the most common.
I should have made clear that there are several ways of pronouncing the sounds, depending on the region the speaker is from. I often forget to mention that there is not one correct way and all the other ways are wrong. Tak for dit indspark :)
I have never ever heard anyone not born in Denmark speak Danish like a Dane. Danes understand English extremely well and speaks it all, maybe sounding a little awkwardly. My advice to everyone in the world if they come to Denmark, there is only only one phrase you will ever need: "Do you speak English?"
Wow, a very efficient way in explaining it! It actually puts some sense into the "Danish is spoken like you have a potato in your mouth" joke. Very minimal tongue and mouth movement involved. I guess Danes could be great ventriloquists! For someone from Balkan, biggest difference is not being able to move your tongue a lot. We flap it around like there's no tomorrow and we annunciate every letter, it's an extremely phonetic language. The soft D reminds me of our ć and đ, which are soft versions of č and dž (č as ch in child and dž as g in George). For č and dž you need to position your tongue in a similar way to L, just a bit further back away from your teeth and push the air over it, and for ć and đ you need to have it down low and "form" the letter with the back of your tongue, while for a soft d in Danish, I feel like you are using the front of your tongue to shape the sound? Any way, to me a 'secret' of Danish seems to be in mouth aerobics above anything else. But I haven't had much contact with it, so I might be completely off.
Yes, Danish involves a lot of mouth acrobatics. The position of the tongue is an important factor in the production of consonants and vowels alike. Often the differences are seemingly small. The sounds from Slavic languages that you mention are difficult to pronounce for many Danes, as they don't exist in Danish. Luckily for me I also grew up with German, and that helps for some of those sounds. That flapping R is still hard for me though, even after more than 10 years of speaking Portuguese, which interestingly enough also has many of that same consonant sounds from Slavic languages. Thanks for your comment, very nice to read :)
@@MicsLanguages my R actually got softer over the years, it does not sound as sharp as it used to and it's bothering the hell out of me... and I use it every day :D
@@MicsLanguages it's ok in words and sentences, but I cannot make that "machine gun" long flapping Rrrrrrrrrrr noise anymore. Not that it's important, but it gets on my nerves
I've been trying my hand at Danish recently, and this video has been a great assistance in letting me understand the tongue-twisting language. I still have a very faint grasp of the soft D pronunciation, but I guess I'll improve. Thanks!
@@MicsLanguages Tak for the wishes! Words and basic grammar are not too much of a problem, it's the pronunciation. Coming from a country (Malaysia) whose language is painfully easy to speak and pronounce, Danish is quite the step up. Ah, the quarantine really does make me do weird things to satisfy my boredom XD. Good luck Mic
@@carlosuzaier5858 The challenge for most people Lear ing Danish lies in its pronunciation. It takes some extra effort than many other languages, but it's doable. But then again, if it's just to find something interesting to do during lockdown, there are probably more empowering things to learn than Danish 😉
Yeah, these two words are only separated by the L vs the soft D. It's a great word for learning to differentiate these two sounds from each other. It's great that you replay it. to really learn it, it takes lots of repetitions. Good luck!
Thank you very much for this video! ☺️ I just started learning Danish and for me as a German this "d" sounded pretty much like an "l", even though I knew it was formed differently. Thank you for your good explanation, I think I got the difference now! Hope it will be good soon! :)
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.
Haha, thanks a lot for taking the time to write this nice comment. There is a huge difference between how modern Danish is pronounced compared to Swedish. For most foreigners, Swedish is way easier to learn than Danish. But as you said, it just takes a lot of practise 😉😁
Mange tak ! I've searched numerous books and document on the web to help me explain how to sound the soft d in Danish, but I never managed to sound it right. This video is very helpful. I taught a bit of Danish at University 28 years ago and am trying to get back at it, but I guess my pronunciation is average. Not to mention the stød ! Except for the very tricky pronunciation, the grammar is very easy - a copy of English. Now, I understand why we, being students, were stupid mocking our teacher from København, when speaking French to us - adjectif sounded like Annabelle because, as I understand it now, he spoke better English than French and sounded a soft d for our hard d...
Thanks for your help! I'm italian and there is not a lot of people who studies danish in Italy at the moment. I imagine that it could be related to some sounds, that are really difficult to find for us. Anyway your video is really helpful, so thank you very much!
Great to hear that my video is helpful. I hope some of the other videos will be helpful as well. And yes, I don't imagine that Danish would be very sought after in Italy. By the way, I am learning a bit of Italian for the moment. I already speak Portuguese and Spanish, so it isn't too hard. Have fun studying Danish!
@@MicsLanguages That's great! I study Spanish and German at the University and when we started Germanic philology, I decided to dedicate a little time to nordic languages too. I think they are really fascinating.
Fantastic, Mic!! I have to practise alot because the Danish soft "d" is really difficult, but not impossible to learn! :-) Please keep up the good work and I can't wait for the next class!
Mic's Languages I think that the best way to learn Danish is to learn the sounds first ('cause it'll take quite a while) and then focus on the grammar. Right?
I'm Eastern European, apart from my mother tongue I can speak English, Russian, Spanish and Catalan, I have also studied German but I'm not fluent in it. When visiting Norway and Sweden I was surprised how rapidly I started to pick up many words and was even able to make sense of some simple sentences. And I think I did pretty well pronuncing the words I could hear or see written. But I'm convinced that I could make more sense of Mandarin Chinese than Danish. This language seems to be very.... "counterintuitive"...
Thanks for the video. I love linguistic and I'd like to able to pronounce the soft D even if I think I'm going to choose Norwegian not Danish. I noticed that the Danish R is like the German one right?
Great to hear that you also love linguistics. Norwegian and Danish are both good choices :) And yes, the R is the same in DK and Germany. In some southern parts of Germany they have a rolled R though, like in Slavic and romance languages (except French, which also has this Danish R)
@@MicsLanguages I live in northern France at the Belgian border so I can speak some Dutch with the Flemish accent. In Flanders the R is rolled so I won't have any problem with Norwegian haha. The Flemish soft G was pretty easy to learn but the soft D is something else😬 moreover Norwegian seems to be between Danish and Swedish in the Scandinavian continuum
It seems like this is actually somewhat similar to what we call the dark L in English, though without the thing in the back of the throat. The L in "feeling" has the tongue touching the palate, but at the end of a syllable, such as "hall" or "pull," it doesn't touch. My grandfather's grandfather came from Flensburg, now Germany, but it was originally part of Denmark. My DNA ancestry account is constantly getting updated, and the most recent results showed a greater percentage of Danish/Swedish heritage than previously, so I thought I would just check what Danish is like. It's wild, but I love it! Some things are strikingly similar to English, such as hej and god dag. I hope to visit someday!
I think it's a great idea to learn a bit about your heritage. After all it's a part of you, even though it's a bit remote. Have fun with it, and thanks for the comment!
Hej Mic! Tak for alle dine videoer - denne er meget hjælpsomme! Okay, now I'll switch to English because I don't know if what I just wrote in Danish is correct! I had an idea: how about a video on pronouncing the Danish alphabet? I didn't see a video by you, and I think it would be fantastisk if you made one! You have a true gift for teaching. I've been learning Danish for about 8 months now (just off-and-on self-study using an app), and I think a stronger foundation on the pronunciation of the letters would be most useful. When I decided to learn a new language, I didn't want to choose French, Spanish, German, Italian or any of the other widely spoken languages because, well, they're more common - spoken by tens (or even hundreds) of millions of people worldwide. So Danish floated to the top and fit my requirement that I learn a language that is difficult, unusual, melodic, and that instantly makes me more interesting because I know (some of) it. I love learning Danish, but don't worry, I don't plan to visit Denmark and dazzle the locals with my mastery of the language; I'm learning only for my own enrichment. And besides, I know that a non-native speaker of Danish will never sound like a native (well, except I've read that most Danes think Crown Princess Mary's Danish is excellent). Anyway, how about the alphabet?
Hi there! Thanks for your nice comment. First of all, you are right in that it's almost impossible to get a native accent (unless you are still a child) for a non-native person. Crown princess Mary's Danish is very good, but it's still easy to hear on her vowels that she is not Danish. I have seen a few pronunciation geniuses in my life as a Danish instructor though, but they are very few. Your idea about the alphabet is a good one. I'll put it on my list. Right now I'm actually taking a little break from recording videos, but when I'm back, I might make a video about the alphabet. Your choice of learning Danish is a good choice. I myself am also intrigued by doing things that are "uncommon" and difficult. I wish you lots of fun and success on your Danish journey!
As a northern mexican (spanish speaker) we do use some heavy r's and heavier "rr"'s the trick with the tongue down really did it for me, but now My tongue feels weird and sore like fighting old muscle memory haha, grat vídeo! Mange tak!
I didn't hear a difference in the consonant for any of the minimal pairs. I can't do many minimal pairs in English, either... I'm not sure if I should try in Danish. :P Although Danish might well be easier than English, come to think of it... Huh, I never put my tongue up for an 'L'! So maybe my 'L' would work? Even if my 'L' and 'soft D' sound the same, though, it's still very useful to know when a soft D appears! So thanks for including that. Edit: Ah, I was mistaken! I do put my tongue up for an 'L' if it's at the beginning of a syllable! So I guess in Danish for the 'L' I should do that at the end of syllables too, and for the 'soft D' I should just do my normal 'L'! (I am Dutch, by the way)
Yeah exactly, the same L you use in the beginning of words, in Danish it is very clearly articulated when it is in the end of a word. More so than in many other languages. For the soft D, yeah, your normal L might work, but I haven't heard it, so can't be sure 🤔
Hej Mic, Thank you SO MUCH for your video. I have been trying to learn Danish for a couple of years (on and off) and nowhere did I find the soft d even mentioned. Suddenly it all makes so much more sense! I have been running around in circles shouting "yes, yes, yes" aftre watching the video. Thanks again!
Gostaria de agradecer a excelente aula! Estou tentando aprender dinamarquês por causa do meu cunhado. Fiquei muito feliz em ver que tu gostas de português. Acho uma língua muito bonita também.
Olá! Com certeza, portugués é super lindo. Todas as variedades de português. No início, quando comecei a aprender português (faz uns 10 anos e pouco), eu não gostava muito do português de Portugal. Mas hoje acho bonito também 🇵🇹🙂
As an Swede I’ve always been fascinated by the Danish languages and how the potato in the mouth actually works in real life. 😉 My imitation of it slowly but surely built up enough speed that it is just stupid enough for me not to learn it for real.
Watched "Borgen" in Danish without unterstanding one word. Made me want to learn Danish. Haven't had such difficulties with pronunciation since I tried to learn Khmer (which actually sounds similar 🙂
@@MicsLanguages Luckily is right. Of course many of my fellow Americans do not! Just ask our British cousins. :) Seriously....i do want to learn either Danish or Norwegian. I just love the culture(s).
Thank you sooo much for this video. I am a german learning danish and my teutonic tongue hates those soft d's. This video help a lot with my understanding
I've been searching for a video about this mysterious consonant. Thanks to you, I know the difference, though I'm not any closer to being able to pronounce it!
What worked for me is to pronounce a word with 'th' sound first, noting the tongue motion and position. Then pronounce the word again in the same way, but use a sound closer to 'L' than 'th'. When learning most languages, always start with what you already know and modify it instead of starting from scratch.
It does still sounds like a "l" to me, even with those examples. But I think I come close by trying to say "l" but instead of touching my gum with the tip of my tongue, I touch (or almost touch) the gum with the middle of my tongue. So basically like you said in the vid, the tip of the tounge goes down. I've also seen danes sticking out their tounge for the soft d, but maybe that's only for of it comes at the end of a word, like rød or brød... 🤔
Sticking out the tongue also works. In fact, I am able to pronounce the soft D with all kinds of different tongue positions. But what seems to be the most reliable way, especially for beginners, is with the tongue down. Good luck with getting better and better!
Great content! I was an exchanger in Denmark years ago and didn't have a clear view of the difference between these sounds in Danish. Thank you a keep going!
Hi Mic. Your channel and content is pretty amazing and well explained. The way you did it on this video was the best ever. Could you please upload more Danish videos? Specially about the silent letters. Thanks in advance.
Hi! Thank you so much! I do my best to make good videos, really glad you liked this one. I will start making new videos very soon. Thank you for your suggestion about the silent letters 👍🙂
Mic, although I still get very annoyed by the Danish pronunciation, you are by far the best content producer on this subject that I've seen so far! You actually make me want to go back to learn Danish at full steam again, this video is very encouraging in which to me is the most annoying part of Danish, which is this "D" thing. Tak!
Oh man, that's a great compliment to receive. Helping a person find the motivation to do something instead of not doing it is a marvelous achievement in my opinion :) Thank you, Alfred!
@@MicsLanguages thanks to your video and one from Wanna Learn Danish, I'm now very confident about the soft D. I striped the videos and followed them over and over again for the past 2 days - I'm not sure about being able to communicate yet, but now I'm empowered to move forward with Danish. The soft D was always the barrier that would let me down. Thanks again! - Btw I'm a Brazilian living in Copenhagen, so if you need something in Portuguese, lemme know :)
Watched your amazing videos from Yesterday evening. To be honest, just decided to learn Danish from 10th, Jan, 2020. But Really feel it is soooooooooooooooooooooooo difficult! Especially the “werid” Pronounciations 😭 I even have the fear in my heart. So, how could I have the motivation for Learning Danish? 😨 But, after watching your videos from Yesterday, Suddenly had the great interest on Learning Danish 😃 So for the first time, I got up at 5:30 am today , then kept learning your videos again 🤗 Strongly recommend that please produce the video about R sound! Tusind Tak! Thank you so much!
Thank you sooo much fir your nice comments! Congratulations on deciding to learn Danish! I believe that it is always a good idea to learn the language of the place where somebody lives, at least if it is for some years or more. And learning new languages always makes us more intelligent! Good to hear that you get up at 5:30 to learn Danish. Getting up early is amazing, gives a clearness of thought and a kind of peace in my opinion. About the difficulty of learning Danish, you're right, it's not one of the easiest languages to learn, especially because of its pronunciation. But if you see yourself as already speaking Danish fluently (in the future), you will have a big advantage. Our mind is strong, and we can control it so that it does what we want from it. Acquiring a positive mindset makes (almost) anything possible. 😉🧘♂️💪
Thank you! A video on the stød is a good idea and it's already on my list. But it's not an easy one, so don't know when it's going to happen. But now it is ranking higher on my list than before your comment
This is a really great video, you explain it so well, I've been living in Denmark for 10months now and I've never been able to pronounce the soft d. I'm gonna try now with the fingers....I've gotta get my tongue round this🤣
So is the soft d like the velarized l (dark l) that appears in English (usually appears as "ll at the end of a word i.e. all, full, mull, bowl, null, toll, gull) There are exceptions with some words like coal and bowl.
I never realised there were different L sounds in English (and I'm English!). I tried out saying 'bowl' (also 'ball)' then 'null', and - yes - the tongue is in very different places. I get the feeling that the tongue is somehow flatter to achieve the Danish soft D than when saying the English dark L? It then makes perfect sense for Mic to use the fingers on the tongue method :)
Good video, this is one of the hardest phonetics to get your head around as a foreigner, I guess if you're Danish, its the easiest way to hear if someone is a foreigner or not. Do you know if the Danish soft D is a cognate [maybe thats not the right word to use] of the Icelandic/Norse "Eth" [Ð ð] ? It's always something I thought seemed very similarly applied, especially when I first took a deep look at Icelandic
Thank you for this. I started danish on duolingo and they just threw it at me and I couldn’t make heads or tails of it this help me start to understand and be able to try to pronounce it better.
Many people find Danish difficult, mainly because of the pronunciation. But challenges are a good thing 🙂 I wish you good luck and focus on this journey!
I can sometimes tell the difference between the L and soft D, but it just depends on the word. I think one of the complications is that, in English (at least in American English), we actually do pronounce L with the tongue against the bottom teeth (unlike, say, German), so it generates a similar sound. The English L is pronounced farther back in the throat than it is in German as well. The soft D seems to be a combination of the English and German L - tongue against the bottom teeth but pronounced in the front of the mouth instead of the throat. Other sources seem to suggest shoving the tongue forward into the teeth and arching it a bit during the soft D also. Anyway, I enjoyed the video, and it's always nice to find more resources on Danish (they seem to be somewhat scarce!).
Thanks for your comment! First of all, it is correct that the Danish soft D can also be pronounced with the tongue pointing to the front, in between the teeth. But for learning to pronounce the sound, the trick with touching the bottom teeth makes it easier, at least in my experience with my students. As to the different L sounds, are you sure that Americans really do pronounce it with the tongue touching the bottom teeth? That would be totally mind blowing to me, as I am in no way able to produce an L sound with the tongue touching the bottom teeth. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on that.
@@MicsLanguages I was indeed mistaken. When I make an English L sound, my tongue does press behind my upper teeth. I think I got confused because my tongue also touches the bottom teeth a little bit at the same time depending on how forcefully I say the L. From there, I reinforced my own idea when I was testing it by keeping my tongue low, haha. When I say a German L, I tend to put my tongue a bit farther back on the palette instead of the teeth, but I'm not a native German speaker, so maybe that's just a habit I formed to force myself to make the sound in the front of my mouth instead of my throat. Thanks for the feedback. Thinking through this actually helped me quite a bit to realize the differences between these sounds.
@@riflemanm16a2 Great! What you are saying about the German L sounds correct. The tongue is on the palate, a bit back, not touching the (upper) teeth. From what you write, it seems like you speak German at a good level. Are you trying to also become fluent in Danish or are you just interested in knowing more about the language? Thanks for your comments :)
@@MicsLanguages I have been learning German on and off since 2002, but I've made a push to really learn it this year. My proficiency is probably only B1 or so. I took an interest in Danish a few months ago because I was watching Forbrydelsen, and I started to pick up some of the words and notice words in common with German. I am interested in learning to speak and read the language, but I have been scared of developing bad habits since the pronunciation is so difficult (not necessarily difficult to *say* but difficult to match the sound with the text), especially since learning resources are harder to come by for Danish than other "larger" languages. The dropping of sounds (and sometimes whole words!) in speech and pronunciation not matching the written form really make me empathize with English learners!
@@riflemanm16a2 Yeah exactly, English and Danish are very similar in this regard (and also in many ways grammar wise). But for some reason, learners of English often seem to have less difficulty in coping with this irregularity in pronunciation than learners of Danish do. Probably because there is so much English out there, in form of music, movies etc. as well as learning resources. Watching Danish series like Forbrydelsen is great for learning. Most Danes nowadays are fluent in English, probably some of the most proficient non-native speakers of English compared to the rest of the world, and that is mainly due to the fact that Denmark, together with Sweden and other smaller countries, subtitle all TV content, instead of using dubbing. Great that you decided to amp up your German and Danish skills. Good luck with learning!
Danish, the great mystery of all linguistics. How can a language be both beautiful and such a nightmare at the same time?
Haha, that way it at least isn't boring 😉
@@MicsLanguages 😄
It’s interesting that Danish is usually regarded as an ugly language because of how throaty is it, especially compared to Norwegian and Swedish but sometimes I’ll happen upon someone who finds it beautiful which is a welcome change :)
I find it beautiful.
I speak spanish and I dont know how to do it 😭😭😭😭
Omg, i spent like 30 minutes trying to pronounce this while I was in the subway, everyone was staring at me lol but I finally made it! Thanks!!!
Great, that's the spirit! With that degree of perseverance you are gonna get far 😉
Never give up 👍
That’s so impressive. I feel inspired to make a fool of myself on a train whilst improving at a language.
did you end up learning the language?
I am learning Danish and Icelandic and Norse etc, and the pronunciation in Danish is more complicated than I thought, and it’s not just the Danish accent which is not easy to imitate, but also the pronunciation itself, as there are some difficult sounds in Danish, plus all the glottal stops... I cannot even hear a D sound, so I don’t think it’s an actual D sound, and it does sound more like an L to me, so maybe it is an L sound or a half-L sound, I don’t know... So I am not sure what sound to make exactly, and it’s like that in Welsh too, with the LL sound in Welsh, so I don’t know if I have to add an H sound or a SH sound or an S sound to an L sound or something like that to get the right LL sound, so it’s not easy to figure out how to make these sounds, but I wonder how do ppl from Denmark and ppl from Wales learn how to make those sounds when they start talking, and can they just do the sounds by imitating, or does someone explain to them what sounds to make and how to get those sounds... (Danish is actually one of the prettiest languages ever created like Norse / Gothic / Icelandic / Faroese / English / Dutch / Norwegian / Welsh / Breton / Cornish and I want to get the right Danish accent and sounds, despite the difficulty, and I recommend doing the same and learning these gorgeous languages together and practicing Danish pronunciation, even though most learners would rather give up when something seems too complicated!)
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 😅
this letter makes me really cry.... it's more difficult than french R or dutch G 😭😭😭😭
It's not easy if you are not born in Denmark. But as with most things, it can be learned if you invest energy in it.
The French R by the way, is pretty much the same as the Danish R 😉
can i suggest something for the next video? the glottal stop or stød. i have a hard time knowing when to use it
Chela Sanchez I can pronounce french r and Dutch g but the Danish d is the hardest I just can’t :(
@@emeskay4527 i found a technique that helps in pronouncing soft d. it's like pronouncing letter L, but instead of the tip of the tongue going up, you place it behind the lower teeth
Chela Sanchez that’s what he said in the video it’s still hard for me haha
"It's the actions that really make us who we are"
I didn't expect to find philosophy here but that's profound.
Also, thank you for the help with Danish pronunciation. My great grandparents were Danish immigrants to USA, but they were more focused on learning English than passing the old language down to their descendants. With your help and dedicated practice time, I can hope to reclaim this part of my heritage in 2022. I'm looking forward to it.
Perfect, I wish you success and fun re-owning some of your heritage 😉
Tak! Trying to teach myself Danish, and soft d is definitely one of the hardest pronunciations.
Hej! Hvis du arbejder hårdt nok, skal du nok lære det 😉
@@Vexarax the soft D is driving me crazy and I'm not studying danish actually. I think soft D isn't that hard to pronounce but it's hard to realize how it's reproduced.
@@denisposcai1102 it's quite similar if you compare the soft d, to the th in english (the th sound in the) for instance bille(d)er is basically the equivalent to "bille(th)er" - hopefully this made sense
Mic's Languages, ja, der jeg var mindre trodsede jeg at danmark var det eneste land i hele verden og jeg viste ikke hvad engelsk var xD
@Mics languages just came across your channel..and I really needed this..😊.Mange tak for helping us learn your language. blessings.
I'm a native English speaker, and today I learned that, unless the L is at the start of a word, I always pronounce it like the soft D. I've spent so much time practicing this sound without success, only to realize I've been doing it the whole time. Thank you for this video, it finally put the sound into the context I needed.
It is mind-blowing for a person on the third day of Danish course. One of the hardest things I've ever tried to pronounce. Couldn't stop laughing at my disability to say any of that. 😅Thank you for detailed explanation! So helpful!
I started a Duolingo course of Danish after I was done with German, thought Danish would be easier than German. BUT BOY WAS I WRONG! So far, it's the HARDEST language to pronounce I've ever come across. And it makes me love it more, it is such a challenge. The hardest so far has been this letter D, and you have no idea how useful this video was. I've watched it several times and paused it to practice along. My tounge hurts now. Lol. But I'm getting better at it!!! THANK YOUUU!!!
Hahaha, that's great to hear! Yeah, German pronunciation is a piece of cake! But Danish also isn't too hard. Just need to practice enough ;)
Thanks for your message, it made my day 😊
Normally, you'd think it would be impossible to speak and make any sense in any language, with fingers stuck in your mouth. But with Danish that's the only way I can pronounce it correctly xD Truly a special language.
You're right haha 😀
After some time your finger will either stick to your mouth/tongue forever, or your tongue will become used to staying at the right position and the finger will become totally obsolete 😉
@@MicsLanguages Haha ;D Well hopefully for me it's the second option. For now I will stick with the finger however. Thank you for this tip! It's the first time I managed to pronounce this sound
@@93pan1c Great, I'm happy to hear that. Thank you for letting me know that my video had an impact :)
He’s a great Danish teacher, and a philosopher at the end!
Thank you! 😊
Mic, thank you!! I am a native English speaker and could not for the life of me figure out “the soft d.” It really scared me away from Danish for a while. I will now do the little exercises you outlined.
I noticed you stopped posting and I'm sad. I'm trying to learn Danish without courses for no reason at all and your channel is awesome!
Thank you very much. At the moment I am focusing on other things. But I want to post many more videos. Hope I'll be able to post with a certain frequency again!
Thank you. Of all the things I've read and watched about the Danish soft D you are the ONLY one to ever mention the 'something' going on in the throat. I was beginning to think I was imagining it but I was sure Danes seemed to kind of constrict the throat a bit when making the soft D. Thank you for saying this.
The throat is often overlooked when it comes to describing how sounds are produced. Maybe this is due to it being difficult to understand and explain what exactly happens down there.
I hope the video has helped you to produce the soft D in a good way!
One of the most comprehensive videos that I've found on youtube. Tusind tak, mic!
Det er jeg glad for at høre. Mange tak for din besked!
As a brazilian learner and enthusiast of languages, I'm so glad getting to know such a channel like yours, where you coincidentally handle to teach (in one place) three of those I'm studying too! Tusind Tak for det! ;D
Mange tak for din kommentar, Kassio!
Ich hoffe, dass du anhand meiner Videos etwas Neues lernst.
I'm planning to release lots of videos in the future, so I hope they will be helpful for you.
Valeu, e divirta-se aprendendo 😉
Wow! Ich kann es kaum erwarten die nächsten Videos zu sehen! Muito obrigado pela receptividade em seu canal! ;)
I have been teaching myself Danish for a couple months now, and this video was incredibly helpful. I have found the pronunciation to be by far the most difficult aspect of the language, and have been having particular trouble with the soft D. I'm going to implement your suggestions! Thank you again!
Great, happy to help. The pronunciation is what most people struggle with indeed. But I believe you can reach your goals 😉
1:12
Me after the first two: yeah those don't sound like L at all, what are people talking about? I guess I understand this pretty well.
Me after the third: WTH, how is that not an L?
Haha yeah, from my experience in learning other languages, I know what you mean.
It's always hard to differentiate something that we have never realized existed before.
At least in the beginning. Then, later on, with enough exposure and training, the difference becomes obvious.
I am learning Danish and Icelandic and Norse etc, and the pronunciation in Danish is more complicated than I thought, and it’s not just the Danish accent which is not easy to imitate, but also the pronunciation itself, as there are some difficult sounds in Danish, plus all the glottal stops... I cannot even hear a D sound, so I don’t think it’s an actual D sound, and it does sound more like an L to me, so maybe it is an L sound or a half-L sound, I don’t know... So I am not sure what sound to make exactly, and it’s like that in Welsh too, with the LL sound in Welsh, so I don’t know if I have to add an H sound or a SH sound or an S sound to an L sound or something like that to get the right LL sound, so it’s not easy to figure out how to make these sounds, but I wonder how do ppl from Denmark and ppl from Wales learn how to make those sounds when they start talking, and can they just do the sounds by imitating, or does someone explain to them what sounds to make and how to get those sounds... (Danish is actually one of the prettiest languages ever created like Norse / Gothic / Icelandic / Faroese / English / Dutch / Norwegian / Welsh / Breton / Cornish and I want to get the right Danish accent and sounds, despite the difficulty, and I recommend doing the same and learning these gorgeous languages together and practicing Danish pronunciation, even though most learners would rather give up when something seems too complicated!)
So a soft D is like trying to pronounce "l" while a doctor is pushing down your tongue with a tongue depressor...😅
Yeah that would be a way of doing it 🤔
All I got was my gag reflex, lol. :-(
my bf who's from Denmark he speaks danish and English he's trying to teach me danish for when I come to live with him in Denmark he said soft D sounds like English TH but when he says the word I hear L. also r sounds like someone making a disgusted sound 😆 like u just tasted something bad lol
Having a vocal coach & singing training has made learning new sounds in Danish easier for me because vocal training spends a lot of time thinking about tongue placement/palettes/how your throat feels when you make a sound. If you have an interest in learning Danish and singing, I definitely recommend combining those interests!
Stor tak, Mic! That helps me a lot with the soft d. One of the hardest parts of speaking Danish.
That's great. Have fun!
"funny pronunciation too, but it's doable" - my friend you just described the whole danish language in one sentence 😅
Thanks so much for the video! It really helped. You earned yourself a new subscriber :)
I'm looking forward to watching your other danish videos.
Thank you very much!
I'm glad the video was helpful, and I hope the other videos will be helpful as well.
And it should be doable for you, since you seem to have mastered a very difficult other language.
May I ask, what is your channel about? I just see a lot of Japanese symbols and lots of people watching your videos 😉
(I hope I'm not mistaking when I say Japanese - it sounds Japanese to me)
@@MicsLanguages It's actually Korean! But I understand it looks and sounds similar to Japanese at first 😄
My channel is also language related. I mainly teach German in Korean and sometimes Korean in German.
Many Koreans struggle to learn proper German as they don't have enough resources for it in their mother tongue. So I am happy to help them, by teaching German in a way that makes sense to a Korean speaker.😊
@@GermanEonni That's great! I wish I could understand some of it. And yeah, the editing of the videos seems very "Korean" (I would have called it Japanese, but sorry, I'm ignorant haha). Actually, my second guess would have been Korean. I watched the movie Parasite a few months ago and I was surprised at how it sounded like Japanese to me. That's probably because I've never heard Korean before. It's definitely not similar to Chinese at all.
But enough about my ignorance about Asian languages!
I wish you good luck with your Korean adventure and of course also with Danish. If there's anything you struggle with in Danish, let me know! Are you learning Danish seriously, by the way? If so, may I ask why?
"The R is not pronounced, the J is not pronounced"
me sobbing: ............ Y
lol
The pronunciation of these two letters suddenly makes me happy that German is my native language
When the end says "you can do it" thank you mic I am so stressed
Found your video today, and I can tell that it is the best soft D pronunciation video I have ever come across! You are the best! Hope to see more videos coming! Mange tak!!!
Yeah, I know I'm the best 😎 Haha, just kidding.
Thank you so much for your comment, you made my day :)
I'm still on a bit of a break in the video making, but there'll be a lot more - hopefully good stuff - coming in the future!
This was very well explained and extremely helpful. Really appreciate the ample number of examples and your effort to illustrate the articulation. Thank you!
Thank you very much for your message!
My first danish class ever. Excellent! Mange tak!!!
It's literally like a gentle waterfall cascading off my tongue, or perfectly cooked short rib coming right off the bone. Such a subtle sound-- I'm gonna have to work on this one! Tak for the video, Mic!!!
You're welcome. May your short rib be a treat, and may your waterfall give you lot's of beautiful experiences! 😉
You’re videos are the best. Thank you
That's a pretty good explanation without going into too much detail. I'll make sure to share this video next time I meet somebody who has trouble with this sound.
“It’s our actions that define who we are” thank you Mic for reminding me to not just say I’m gonna learn Danish, but to actually do it 😳😅
Perfect, let's act!! 😀
I can hear the huge difference between 2:56 that does occur in fast speech in my American Accent. Typically in middle and coda positions.
Man, none of my Danish teachers believed me when I told them I was saying "L"s, thank you so much for this.
Do you also do Danish reads? I need some supply of Danish videos with Danish subtitles, which are next to impossible to find, and the phrases you did in the beginning were very useful.
Thanks for your comment.
I haven't done any videos reading in Danish. But I might consider doing it at some point.
Have you had a look at www.dr.dk/drtv/
where you can see real life TV in Danish and subtitles are always available. Normally, the subtitles show pretty much the same as what is said.
Watching TV is a great way of improving very quickly 👍
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!
Hej! Thank you so much for your nice comment. I am taking a break from making videos (a loooooong break 😁) but my plan is to get back into making them, hopefully somewhat soon...
Conclusions of Mic’s video 🤗🤞😊
Super useful and easy rules!
When to say ‘Soft D’ ?
1 vowels followed by d or dd :
hvid, Frede, billeder, sidde, federe, hade, stod, ud, ad
sidder (double d would make the pronounciation of vowel shorter )
2 When we have et in the end of the word :
meget, Nettet, vejret, året
When Not use ‘soft d’ ?
1 When we have vowel and ds :
udsigten , sidse , bedst, tilfreds, udsigten ,
2 dt . Just pronounce t sound.
midt, hvidt, rødt
Let us keep practising together 😎 Few minutes a day 🍀
Thank you very much!!
One little correction though: Under "when not to say soft d", number 1, you mention "udsigten". Here we DO say the soft d, as the ds is not in the same syllable (ud-sigt-en). Otherwise, great recap 👌
@@MicsLanguages Thank you so much for your teaching!
Looking forward to your new Danish videos 👏👍
As someone who has been struggling to learn Danish this was of great help. Thanks!
Thanks, man! Clear and useful.
excellent sir
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
It's an alveolar approximant. Hence the underline
I'm laughing out of pure joy. This is the most useful video I've seen in a while.
Wow, that's a great thing to hear. Thank you! 😊
thank you so much for making this! the soft d is what i've struggled with the most in learning danish, this video really helps a lot :)
Thanks a lot, I appreciate knowing that I made a useful video :)
Really useful video, Thanks! The transitions between the letter L and the soft D are still hard for me but im sure over time it will improve.
Yes it will. Just keep at it and you'll get good results !
This is by far the best explanation of soft D pronunciation. Thank you for the great video. Im working on this soft D for some time now, i think im getting better. In some words i can do it better than on then on the others, depens on the possition and other letters.
Its still not clear to me wheter the tip of the toung should touch the actuall bottom teeth (bones) or should it touch the area beneath bottom teeth, the "skin inside mouth" beneath teeth. Dont know how to call it lol.
So far the hardest to pronounce is Krydderi or Krydrede Kartoffelbåde.
Jeg håber at blive bedre snart! Tak for lektionen Mic!
Ur goofy pfp made me almost smack my phone
This is the 5th video I watched and I finally got it. Mange tak!
Regarding -et at the end of words: Depending on the dialect/accent the D may be pronounced as a soft D, a hard D, or a T, where the soft D is the most common, and the E may have several different pronunciations too.
Whether the R in "vejret" is pronounced or silent also depends on the dialect, and the vowel sound in the first syllable may also vary.
The official pronunciation of "vejret" is with E as in bed for the first vowel, pronounced R, and -et as schwa-t. This pronunciation exist but is quite rare.
The pronunciations mentioned in the video are not the only valid pronunciation of each word, but they are the most common, or at least among the most common.
I should have made clear that there are several ways of pronouncing the sounds, depending on the region the speaker is from.
I often forget to mention that there is not one correct way and all the other ways are wrong.
Tak for dit indspark :)
I have never ever heard anyone not born in Denmark speak Danish like a Dane. Danes understand English extremely well and speaks it all, maybe sounding a little awkwardly. My advice to everyone in the world if they come to Denmark, there is only only one phrase you will ever need: "Do you speak English?"
Wow, a very efficient way in explaining it! It actually puts some sense into the "Danish is spoken like you have a potato in your mouth" joke. Very minimal tongue and mouth movement involved. I guess Danes could be great ventriloquists! For someone from Balkan, biggest difference is not being able to move your tongue a lot. We flap it around like there's no tomorrow and we annunciate every letter, it's an extremely phonetic language.
The soft D reminds me of our ć and đ, which are soft versions of č and dž (č as ch in child and dž as g in George). For č and dž you need to position your tongue in a similar way to L, just a bit further back away from your teeth and push the air over it, and for ć and đ you need to have it down low and "form" the letter with the back of your tongue, while for a soft d in Danish, I feel like you are using the front of your tongue to shape the sound? Any way, to me a 'secret' of Danish seems to be in mouth aerobics above anything else. But I haven't had much contact with it, so I might be completely off.
Yes, Danish involves a lot of mouth acrobatics. The position of the tongue is an important factor in the production of consonants and vowels alike. Often the differences are seemingly small.
The sounds from Slavic languages that you mention are difficult to pronounce for many Danes, as they don't exist in Danish. Luckily for me I also grew up with German, and that helps for some of those sounds. That flapping R is still hard for me though, even after more than 10 years of speaking Portuguese, which interestingly enough also has many of that same consonant sounds from Slavic languages.
Thanks for your comment, very nice to read :)
@@MicsLanguages my R actually got softer over the years, it does not sound as sharp as it used to and it's bothering the hell out of me... and I use it every day :D
Is your native language deteriorating? Even though you use it every day? Maybe it's just your perception, and others won't notice anything odd 🤔
@@MicsLanguages it's ok in words and sentences, but I cannot make that "machine gun" long flapping Rrrrrrrrrrr noise anymore. Not that it's important, but it gets on my nerves
Very well explained,thanks for the clarification.
I've been trying my hand at Danish recently, and this video has been a great assistance in letting me understand the tongue-twisting language. I still have a very faint grasp of the soft D pronunciation, but I guess I'll improve. Thanks!
Thanks, Carlos! Good luck!
@@MicsLanguages Tak for the wishes! Words and basic grammar are not too much of a problem, it's the pronunciation. Coming from a country (Malaysia) whose language is painfully easy to speak and pronounce, Danish is quite the step up. Ah, the quarantine really does make me do weird things to satisfy my boredom XD. Good luck Mic
@@carlosuzaier5858 The challenge for most people Lear ing Danish lies in its pronunciation. It takes some extra effort than many other languages, but it's doable.
But then again, if it's just to find something interesting to do during lockdown, there are probably more empowering things to learn than Danish 😉
Cracks me up. Some (not all) of the examples l / d sound virtually the same to me!
stod and stol are so similar it blows my mind. i keep replaying that part and its so hard to tell what is really the key difference.
Yeah, these two words are only separated by the L vs the soft D. It's a great word for learning to differentiate these two sounds from each other.
It's great that you replay it. to really learn it, it takes lots of repetitions. Good luck!
Thank you very much for this video! ☺️ I just started learning Danish and for me as a German this "d" sounded pretty much like an "l", even though I knew it was formed differently. Thank you for your good explanation, I think I got the difference now! Hope it will be good soon! :)
I'm glad you found the video helpful. Thanks a lot for taking your time to write me :)
Viel Spaß beim Lernen! ;)
Mic's Languages Dankeschön! ☺️
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.
Haha, thanks a lot for taking the time to write this nice comment. There is a huge difference between how modern Danish is pronounced compared to Swedish. For most foreigners, Swedish is way easier to learn than Danish.
But as you said, it just takes a lot of practise 😉😁
This is a very helpful explanation with showing the tongue position and everything. Thank you so much!
Excellent material Mic! Thanks
the Best video for Danish Pronounciation!
Thank you so much!
Looking forward to more of your Danish videos 😍😍
Thank you very much. I do my best, glad you like it 😎
Mange tak ! I've searched numerous books and document on the web to help me explain how to sound the soft d in Danish, but I never managed to sound it right. This video is very helpful. I taught a bit of Danish at University 28 years ago and am trying to get back at it, but I guess my pronunciation is average. Not to mention the stød ! Except for the very tricky pronunciation, the grammar is very easy - a copy of English. Now, I understand why we, being students, were stupid mocking our teacher from København, when speaking French to us - adjectif sounded like Annabelle because, as I understand it now, he spoke better English than French and sounded a soft d for our hard d...
Thanks for your help! I'm italian and there is not a lot of people who studies danish in Italy at the moment. I imagine that it could be related to some sounds, that are really difficult to find for us. Anyway your video is really helpful, so thank you very much!
Great to hear that my video is helpful. I hope some of the other videos will be helpful as well.
And yes, I don't imagine that Danish would be very sought after in Italy. By the way, I am learning a bit of Italian for the moment. I already speak Portuguese and Spanish, so it isn't too hard.
Have fun studying Danish!
@@MicsLanguages That's great! I study Spanish and German at the University and
when we started Germanic philology, I decided to dedicate a little time to nordic languages too. I think they are really fascinating.
@@francesca853 That sounds great! Have fun with your studies!
Very good! Thank you! Estava esperando muito por aulas suas de Dinamarquês. Acompanho o seu outro canal "Mic Rasmussen".
Muito bom, Adson. Obrigado pelo seu comentário!
Boa sorte com seu canal ;)
Fantastic, Mic!! I have to practise alot because the Danish soft "d" is really difficult, but not impossible to learn! :-) Please keep up the good work and I can't wait for the next class!
Thank you so much for your message, Ana! I'll try to keep it up.
Have fun practicing the soft d. Make it yours! ;)
Mic's Languages I think that the best way to learn Danish is to learn the sounds first ('cause it'll take quite a while) and then focus on the grammar. Right?
I'm Eastern European, apart from my mother tongue I can speak English, Russian, Spanish and Catalan, I have also studied German but I'm not fluent in it.
When visiting Norway and Sweden I was surprised how rapidly I started to pick up many words and was even able to make sense of some simple sentences. And I think I did pretty well pronuncing the words I could hear or see written.
But I'm convinced that I could make more sense of Mandarin Chinese than Danish. This language seems to be very.... "counterintuitive"...
У меня так болит челюсть и горло после этой мягкой д. Убейте
Thanks for the video. I love linguistic and I'd like to able to pronounce the soft D even if I think I'm going to choose Norwegian not Danish. I noticed that the Danish R is like the German one right?
Great to hear that you also love linguistics. Norwegian and Danish are both good choices :)
And yes, the R is the same in DK and Germany. In some southern parts of Germany they have a rolled R though, like in Slavic and romance languages (except French, which also has this Danish R)
@@MicsLanguages I live in northern France at the Belgian border so I can speak some Dutch with the Flemish accent. In Flanders the R is rolled so I won't have any problem with Norwegian haha. The Flemish soft G was pretty easy to learn but the soft D is something else😬 moreover Norwegian seems to be between Danish and Swedish in the Scandinavian continuum
German seems to me easier as Danish,but yeah they are closed .
Den her video hjælp mig meget! Mange tak!
Super, det er jeg glad for at høre! Tak for din kommentar :)
It seems like this is actually somewhat similar to what we call the dark L in English, though without the thing in the back of the throat. The L in "feeling" has the tongue touching the palate, but at the end of a syllable, such as "hall" or "pull," it doesn't touch. My grandfather's grandfather came from Flensburg, now Germany, but it was originally part of Denmark. My DNA ancestry account is constantly getting updated, and the most recent results showed a greater percentage of Danish/Swedish heritage than previously, so I thought I would just check what Danish is like. It's wild, but I love it! Some things are strikingly similar to English, such as hej and god dag. I hope to visit someday!
I think it's a great idea to learn a bit about your heritage. After all it's a part of you, even though it's a bit remote. Have fun with it, and thanks for the comment!
Hej Mic! Tak for alle dine videoer - denne er meget hjælpsomme! Okay, now I'll switch to English because I don't know if what I just wrote in Danish is correct! I had an idea: how about a video on pronouncing the Danish alphabet? I didn't see a video by you, and I think it would be fantastisk if you made one! You have a true gift for teaching. I've been learning Danish for about 8 months now (just off-and-on self-study using an app), and I think a stronger foundation on the pronunciation of the letters would be most useful. When I decided to learn a new language, I didn't want to choose French, Spanish, German, Italian or any of the other widely spoken languages because, well, they're more common - spoken by tens (or even hundreds) of millions of people worldwide. So Danish floated to the top and fit my requirement that I learn a language that is difficult, unusual, melodic, and that instantly makes me more interesting because I know (some of) it. I love learning Danish, but don't worry, I don't plan to visit Denmark and dazzle the locals with my mastery of the language; I'm learning only for my own enrichment. And besides, I know that a non-native speaker of Danish will never sound like a native (well, except I've read that most Danes think Crown Princess Mary's Danish is excellent). Anyway, how about the alphabet?
Hi there! Thanks for your nice comment. First of all, you are right in that it's almost impossible to get a native accent (unless you are still a child) for a non-native person. Crown princess Mary's Danish is very good, but it's still easy to hear on her vowels that she is not Danish. I have seen a few pronunciation geniuses in my life as a Danish instructor though, but they are very few.
Your idea about the alphabet is a good one. I'll put it on my list. Right now I'm actually taking a little break from recording videos, but when I'm back, I might make a video about the alphabet.
Your choice of learning Danish is a good choice. I myself am also intrigued by doing things that are "uncommon" and difficult.
I wish you lots of fun and success on your Danish journey!
As a northern mexican (spanish speaker) we do use some heavy r's and heavier "rr"'s the trick with the tongue down really did it for me, but now My tongue feels weird and sore like fighting old muscle memory haha, grat vídeo! Mange tak!
I didn't hear a difference in the consonant for any of the minimal pairs.
I can't do many minimal pairs in English, either... I'm not sure if I should try in Danish. :P Although Danish might well be easier than English, come to think of it...
Huh, I never put my tongue up for an 'L'! So maybe my 'L' would work?
Even if my 'L' and 'soft D' sound the same, though, it's still very useful to know when a soft D appears! So thanks for including that.
Edit: Ah, I was mistaken! I do put my tongue up for an 'L' if it's at the beginning of a syllable! So I guess in Danish for the 'L' I should do that at the end of syllables too, and for the 'soft D' I should just do my normal 'L'! (I am Dutch, by the way)
Yeah exactly, the same L you use in the beginning of words, in Danish it is very clearly articulated when it is in the end of a word. More so than in many other languages. For the soft D, yeah, your normal L might work, but I haven't heard it, so can't be sure 🤔
Hej Mic, Thank you SO MUCH for your video. I have been trying to learn Danish for a couple of years (on and off) and nowhere did I find the soft d even mentioned. Suddenly it all makes so much more sense! I have been running around in circles shouting "yes, yes, yes" aftre watching the video. Thanks again!
Hi Andreas, great to hear that the video was useful! I wish you strength and fun studying Danish!
[ð̠˕ˠ]
Gostaria de agradecer a excelente aula! Estou tentando aprender dinamarquês por causa do meu cunhado. Fiquei muito feliz em ver que tu gostas de português. Acho uma língua muito bonita também.
Olá! Com certeza, portugués é super lindo. Todas as variedades de português. No início, quando comecei a aprender português (faz uns 10 anos e pouco), eu não gostava muito do português de Portugal. Mas hoje acho bonito também 🇵🇹🙂
As an Swede I’ve always been fascinated by the Danish languages and how the potato in the mouth actually works in real life. 😉
My imitation of it slowly but surely built up enough speed that it is just stupid enough for me not to learn it for real.
ahahah Jag skall flytta till Jyllands snart och det skrämmer mig det fina uttalet.. men man vänjer sig nog....
@@gorgioarmanioso151 frygt ej min ven, tager du langt nok vest på bliver det bløde d til et j... Som i "majs"
...
Or vänjer.
Watched "Borgen" in Danish without unterstanding one word. Made me want to learn Danish. Haven't had such difficulties with pronunciation since I tried to learn Khmer (which actually sounds similar 🙂
Yeah it's not an easy task. But you can do it!
You're brilliant! I'm not smart enough for Danish...all respect to you have learned it!
Thanks. But luckily most people learn their native language 🙂
@@MicsLanguages Luckily is right. Of course many of my fellow Americans do not! Just ask our British cousins. :)
Seriously....i do want to learn either Danish or Norwegian. I just love the culture(s).
Thank you for these tips.
You're welcome :)
Thank you very much Mr mic，you just help me a lot to pronounce the hardest sound of Danish.
Perfect!
Thank you sooo much for this video. I am a german learning danish and my teutonic tongue hates those soft d's. This video help a lot with my understanding
I've been searching for a video about this mysterious consonant. Thanks to you, I know the difference, though I'm not any closer to being able to pronounce it!
Great to know that you now know the difference. So now it's time for practicing it :)
What worked for me is to pronounce a word with 'th' sound first, noting the tongue motion and position. Then pronounce the word again in the same way, but use a sound closer to 'L' than 'th'. When learning most languages, always start with what you already know and modify it instead of starting from scratch.
That soft d has the same spelling as "ğ" in Turkish lol. Thanks for the great video!
It does still sounds like a "l" to me, even with those examples. But I think I come close by trying to say "l" but instead of touching my gum with the tip of my tongue, I touch (or almost touch) the gum with the middle of my tongue. So basically like you said in the vid, the tip of the tounge goes down.
I've also seen danes sticking out their tounge for the soft d, but maybe that's only for of it comes at the end of a word, like rød or brød... 🤔
Sticking out the tongue also works. In fact, I am able to pronounce the soft D with all kinds of different tongue positions. But what seems to be the most reliable way, especially for beginners, is with the tongue down.
Good luck with getting better and better!
🇩🇰Det er sgu lidt sjovt og se engelske folk lære dansk 🇩🇰🇺🇸it's damn fun to watch english people learn danish🇺🇸 P.S. is Danish and loves your videos
SUPER !!! THANK YOU FOR NICE AND CLEVER EXPLANATION!!!
thats really helpful! thank you Mic
Great content! I was an exchanger in Denmark years ago and didn't have a clear view of the difference between these sounds in Danish. Thank you a keep going!
Hi Mic. Your channel and content is pretty amazing and well explained.
The way you did it on this video was the best ever.
Could you please upload more Danish videos?
Specially about the silent letters.
Thanks in advance.
Hi! Thank you so much! I do my best to make good videos, really glad you liked this one.
I will start making new videos very soon.
Thank you for your suggestion about the silent letters 👍🙂
Mic, although I still get very annoyed by the Danish pronunciation, you are by far the best content producer on this subject that I've seen so far! You actually make me want to go back to learn Danish at full steam again, this video is very encouraging in which to me is the most annoying part of Danish, which is this "D" thing. Tak!
Oh man, that's a great compliment to receive. Helping a person find the motivation to do something instead of not doing it is a marvelous achievement in my opinion :)
Thank you, Alfred!
@@MicsLanguages thanks to your video and one from Wanna Learn Danish, I'm now very confident about the soft D. I striped the videos and followed them over and over again for the past 2 days - I'm not sure about being able to communicate yet, but now I'm empowered to move forward with Danish. The soft D was always the barrier that would let me down. Thanks again! - Btw I'm a Brazilian living in Copenhagen, so if you need something in Portuguese, lemme know :)
Thank you very much, Alfred! Also feel free to let me know if there are any specific things regarding Danish :)
Watched your amazing videos from Yesterday evening.
To be honest, just decided to learn Danish from 10th, Jan, 2020.
But Really feel it is soooooooooooooooooooooooo difficult! Especially the “werid” Pronounciations 😭
I even have the fear in my heart.
So, how could I have the motivation for Learning Danish? 😨
But, after watching your videos from Yesterday, Suddenly had the great interest on Learning Danish 😃
So for the first time, I got up at 5:30 am today , then kept learning your videos again 🤗
Strongly recommend that please produce the video about R sound!
Tusind Tak!
Thank you so much!
Thank you sooo much fir your nice comments!
Congratulations on deciding to learn Danish! I believe that it is always a good idea to learn the language of the place where somebody lives, at least if it is for some years or more.
And learning new languages always makes us more intelligent!
Good to hear that you get up at 5:30 to learn Danish. Getting up early is amazing, gives a clearness of thought and a kind of peace in my opinion.
About the difficulty of learning Danish, you're right, it's not one of the easiest languages to learn, especially because of its pronunciation. But if you see yourself as already speaking Danish fluently (in the future), you will have a big advantage. Our mind is strong, and we can control it so that it does what we want from it. Acquiring a positive mindset makes (almost) anything possible. 😉🧘♂️💪
@@MicsLanguages Thank you so much for your words which has given me a lot of encouragements!
Amazing video the danish pronunciantion is a constant struggle!!
Can you make a video on the stød?
Thank you!
A video on the stød is a good idea and it's already on my list. But it's not an easy one, so don't know when it's going to happen. But now it is ranking higher on my list than before your comment
Tiago, I've made a video on the stød. And more are coming. th-cam.com/video/6_ZPmiwN4T4/w-d-xo.html
This is a really great video, you explain it so well, I've been living in Denmark for 10months now and I've never been able to pronounce the soft d. I'm gonna try now with the fingers....I've gotta get my tongue round this🤣
Thank you very much!
You can do it, I believe in you 👍😉
[ð̠˕ˠ] this explains it exactly
So is the soft d like the velarized l (dark l) that appears in English (usually appears as "ll at the end of a word i.e. all, full, mull, bowl, null, toll, gull) There are exceptions with some words like coal and bowl.
I never realised there were different L sounds in English (and I'm English!). I tried out saying 'bowl' (also 'ball)' then 'null', and - yes - the tongue is in very different places. I get the feeling that the tongue is somehow flatter to achieve the Danish soft D than when saying the English dark L? It then makes perfect sense for Mic to use the fingers on the tongue method :)
I like this life advice at the end, I will give that like for actualizing on my intentions! Heck yeah!
Good video, this is one of the hardest phonetics to get your head around as a foreigner, I guess if you're Danish, its the easiest way to hear if someone is a foreigner or not.
Do you know if the Danish soft D is a cognate [maybe thats not the right word to use] of the Icelandic/Norse "Eth" [Ð ð] ? It's always something I thought seemed very similarly applied, especially when I first took a deep look at Icelandic
Hi! I'm sorry my knowledge of Icelandic is not good enough to respond this question.
really good thank you
Thank you for this. I started danish on duolingo and they just threw it at me and I couldn’t make heads or tails of it this help me start to understand and be able to try to pronounce it better.
Thank you!! Very helpful
Thanks for this video, i've been really enjoying learning Danish, but I've been finding this so difficult.
Many people find Danish difficult, mainly because of the pronunciation. But challenges are a good thing 🙂
I wish you good luck and focus on this journey!
It's not working but I am working... Man it is hard. Is it like a th in "with" but the tongue should be retracted a bit??
Oh my god you've made this suddenly so clear. I thought it was impossible, thank you so much!
Wow, thank you so much for your uplifting comment! 😊👍
I can sometimes tell the difference between the L and soft D, but it just depends on the word. I think one of the complications is that, in English (at least in American English), we actually do pronounce L with the tongue against the bottom teeth (unlike, say, German), so it generates a similar sound. The English L is pronounced farther back in the throat than it is in German as well. The soft D seems to be a combination of the English and German L - tongue against the bottom teeth but pronounced in the front of the mouth instead of the throat. Other sources seem to suggest shoving the tongue forward into the teeth and arching it a bit during the soft D also.
Anyway, I enjoyed the video, and it's always nice to find more resources on Danish (they seem to be somewhat scarce!).
Thanks for your comment! First of all, it is correct that the Danish soft D can also be pronounced with the tongue pointing to the front, in between the teeth. But for learning to pronounce the sound, the trick with touching the bottom teeth makes it easier, at least in my experience with my students.
As to the different L sounds, are you sure that Americans really do pronounce it with the tongue touching the bottom teeth? That would be totally mind blowing to me, as I am in no way able to produce an L sound with the tongue touching the bottom teeth.
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on that.
@@MicsLanguages I was indeed mistaken. When I make an English L sound, my tongue does press behind my upper teeth. I think I got confused because my tongue also touches the bottom teeth a little bit at the same time depending on how forcefully I say the L. From there, I reinforced my own idea when I was testing it by keeping my tongue low, haha. When I say a German L, I tend to put my tongue a bit farther back on the palette instead of the teeth, but I'm not a native German speaker, so maybe that's just a habit I formed to force myself to make the sound in the front of my mouth instead of my throat.
Thanks for the feedback. Thinking through this actually helped me quite a bit to realize the differences between these sounds.
@@riflemanm16a2 Great!
What you are saying about the German L sounds correct. The tongue is on the palate, a bit back, not touching the (upper) teeth.
From what you write, it seems like you speak German at a good level.
Are you trying to also become fluent in Danish or are you just interested in knowing more about the language?
Thanks for your comments :)
@@MicsLanguages I have been learning German on and off since 2002, but I've made a push to really learn it this year. My proficiency is probably only B1 or so.
I took an interest in Danish a few months ago because I was watching Forbrydelsen, and I started to pick up some of the words and notice words in common with German. I am interested in learning to speak and read the language, but I have been scared of developing bad habits since the pronunciation is so difficult (not necessarily difficult to *say* but difficult to match the sound with the text), especially since learning resources are harder to come by for Danish than other "larger" languages. The dropping of sounds (and sometimes whole words!) in speech and pronunciation not matching the written form really make me empathize with English learners!
@@riflemanm16a2 Yeah exactly, English and Danish are very similar in this regard (and also in many ways grammar wise).
But for some reason, learners of English often seem to have less difficulty in coping with this irregularity in pronunciation than learners of Danish do.
Probably because there is so much English out there, in form of music, movies etc. as well as learning resources.
Watching Danish series like Forbrydelsen is great for learning.
Most Danes nowadays are fluent in English, probably some of the most proficient non-native speakers of English compared to the rest of the world, and that is mainly due to the fact that Denmark, together with Sweden and other smaller countries, subtitle all TV content, instead of using dubbing.
Great that you decided to amp up your German and Danish skills.
Good luck with learning!
Dansk er meget svært at udtale riktigt! Mange tak for lektionen!
Tak for din kommentar. Held og lykke med at forbedre din udtale!
You're the best thanks for your help.
Thank you!