Why are you interested in Danish?

Moderator:Mulder-21

User avatar
Johanna
Language Forum Moderator
Posts:6679
Joined:2006-09-17, 18:05
Real Name:Johanna
Gender:female
Location:Lidköping, Westrogothia
Country:SESweden (Sverige)
Re: Why are you interested in Danish?

Postby Johanna » 2015-09-02, 13:27

stordragon wrote:Unfortunately, it looks like Danes use the phrase "at træffe foranstaltninger" much more often than "at tage forholdsregler" :lol: So I bet you would resort to dictionaries from time to time if you are reading some academic writings. :wink:

Defintiely. But it's still not like learning a completely new language, it's more akin to an American having trouble with British vocabulary.

stordragon wrote:Yes but I believe this only applies to *written* communication but NOT to *oral* communication.

I don't believe a normal non-Scanian Swede without adequate trainings in advance will be so quick-minded as to swiftly figure out what such non-cognate individual words mean by the time a Dane has already finished his speech (not to mention the great gap between pronunciation rules of the two languages: everyone knows the pronunciation gap between Danish and Swedish is by far wider than that between Norwegian and Swedish). I would estimate that if it were not for the fact of you being a Västergötlander from southwestern Sweden on the NO-SE border, it could be even harder for you to understand colloquial Danish without any training.

Spoken Danish is a whole other beast, that is very true. And it doesn't really help that I'm from this part of the country when it comes to Danish. It helps me with Norwegian, sure, but it's things like the accent and being able to use three genders instead of two in Bokmål without being completely lost... in other words the things that they didn't get from (mostly middle and upper class 18th and maybe a little 19th century Copenhagen) Danish.

I can't understand normal colloquial Danish at all when spoken, but I can speak to Danes without resorting to English if we both speak clearly and a bit slower than normal. And I have never claimed otherwise, I just don't think that having to do that and having to ask for clarifications or look up a word or two every once in a while means speaking a completely different language. Especially since you can usually pick up the language/variety/whatever by sheer exposure and doing just that without any formal studying at all.

Keep in mind that a lot of Swedes study in Copenhagen without attending any sort of formal class beforehand, and the vast majority do just fine.
Swedish (sv) native; English (en) good; Norwegian (no) read fluently, understand well, speak badly; Danish (dk) read fluently, understand badly, can't speak; Faroese (fo) read some, understand a bit, speak a few sentences; German (de) French (fr) Spanish (es) forgetting; heritage language.

User avatar
stordragon
Posts:467
Joined:2004-10-14, 13:09
Country:CNChina (中国)

Re: Why are you interested in Danish?

Postby stordragon » 2015-09-09, 8:12

Johanna wrote:
stordragon wrote:Unfortunately, it looks like Danes use the phrase "at træffe foranstaltninger" much more often than "at tage forholdsregler" :lol: So I bet you would resort to dictionaries from time to time if you are reading some academic writings. :wink:

Definitely. But it's still not like learning a completely new language, it's more akin to an American having trouble with British vocabulary.

Yeah the same applies to some other language pairs such as Galician/Portuguese and Spanish, or Catalan and Occitan (incl. Auvernhat etc.), Czech/Slovak and Silician, where, though, the difference is still much greater than that between BrE and AmE.

stordragon wrote:Yes but I believe this only applies to *written* communication but NOT to *oral* communication.

I don't believe a normal non-Scanian Swede without adequate trainings in advance will be so quick-minded as to swiftly figure out what such non-cognate individual words mean by the time a Dane has already finished his speech (not to mention the great gap between pronunciation rules of the two languages: everyone knows the pronunciation gap between Danish and Swedish is by far wider than that between Norwegian and Swedish). I would estimate that if it were not for the fact of you being a Västergötlander from southwestern Sweden on the NO-SE border, it could be even harder for you to understand colloquial Danish without any training.

Spoken Danish is a whole other beast, that is very true. And it doesn't really help that I'm from this part of the country when it comes to Danish. It helps me with Norwegian, sure, but it's things like the accent and being able to use three genders instead of two in Bokmål without being completely lost... in other words the things that they didn't get from (mostly middle and upper class 18th and maybe a little 19th century Copenhagen) Danish.

I can't understand normal colloquial Danish at all when spoken, but I can speak to Danes without resorting to English if we both speak clearly and a bit slower than normal. And I have never claimed otherwise, I just don't think that having to do that and having to ask for clarifications or look up a word or two every once in a while means speaking a completely different language. Especially since you can usually pick up the language/variety/whatever by sheer exposure and doing just that without any formal studying at all.


Lol this is such a contradictory statement.. just like the following:

http://www.nordiska.uu.se/utbildning/vi ... ka/forsta/

"Giver det overhovedet mening at tale om nordiske nabosprog i forbindelse med dansk, (on the one hand, they say) som beviseligt opfattes som meget svært at forstå af mange svenskere? Er det hele ikke bare en gang romantisk pladder? Ja, det kan man jo overveje, (but on the other hand, they say) men indtil videre forsøger man at udnytte den faktor at de nordiske sprog er så nært beslægtede at man ved en meget lille anstrengelse faktisk kan kommunikere med hinanden ved at tale sit modersmål."

How come? Lol

Keep in mind that a lot of Swedes study in Copenhagen without attending any sort of formal class beforehand, and the vast majority do just fine.


I do really wonder how, when a Dane says "nogen er parat til at gøre noget" to a Swede, the latter can understand that it means "någon är beredd att göra något", or when a Swede says "jag ska sluta röka" (instead of "jag ska hålla upp med at röka), a Dane can easily get the meaning "jeg vil holde op med at ryge". Is it really that easy to understand, even if the verb "at slutte" could mean "to terminate" in some regional dialects? (Østsjællandsk? Bornholmsk? Apparently no?)

Plus, the positions of particles in phrasal verbs behave so differently in the two languages, when the "patient" (as opposed to "agent") of an action is a pronoun. Take this one as an example: You can say "Har du försökt stänga av och sätta den igen?" Where the particles "av" and "på" precedes the pronoun "den", which is totally unimaginable in Danish and Bokmål.. I do wonder how a Swede can get accustomed of such nuances when he or she talks to a Dane in Copenhagen.

Btw, there are so many verb pairs like "at begynde" (loanword from low German "beginnen"?) vs. "att börja" (which is more archaic, comparable to the Faroese/Icelandic verb "at byrja/að byrja"), and "at spørge" (archaic) vs. "att fråga" (probably loanword from low German "tu freegje/te frage etc."), it's really difficult to imagine that even the mutual literal intelligibility can be juxtaposed to that between BrE and AmE. :nope:
人生得意须尽欢,莫使金樽空对月。
Hvat krevst fyri at kunnast við aðrar mentanir? Tað er fyrst og fremst teirra mál!(á føroyskum)
Dovddan earenoamážit beroštumi suoma-ugrálaš giellajoavkku dutkamuššii.(davvisámegillii)
Būtina imtis neatidėliotinų priemonių nykstančioms kalboms apsaugoti nuo išnykimo;nes kalbinė įvairovė,mano nuomone,yra ne mažiau svarbi nei biologinė!(lietuviškai)

User avatar
Johanna
Language Forum Moderator
Posts:6679
Joined:2006-09-17, 18:05
Real Name:Johanna
Gender:female
Location:Lidköping, Westrogothia
Country:SESweden (Sverige)

Re: Why are you interested in Danish?

Postby Johanna » 2015-09-12, 16:06

stordragon wrote:
Johanna wrote:I can't understand normal colloquial Danish at all when spoken, but I can speak to Danes without resorting to English if we both speak clearly and a bit slower than normal.

Lol this is such a contradictory statement..

Nope, it's not contradictory given that the main problem for the average Swede is how the Danish phonology works, it's simply too hard to make out what Danes say if they don't slow down and enunciate their words very carefully even if they keep to words and expressions that are completely transparent for a Swede.

And I've heard that they have a similar problem with how we talk, not to mention that if you need to rely on context for a few things it's nice to give your brain an extra moment or so to make the connections.

stordragon wrote:I do really wonder how, when a Dane says "nogen er parat til at gøre noget" to a Swede, the latter can understand that it means "någon är beredd att göra något", or when a Swede says "jag ska sluta röka" (instead of "jag ska hålla upp med at röka), a Dane can easily get the meaning "jeg vil holde op med at ryge". Is it really that easy to understand, even if the verb "at slutte" could mean "to terminate" in some regional dialects? (Østsjællandsk? Bornholmsk? Apparently no?)

From context the former would be pretty easy to understand for most yes, in isolation not so much, And I have no idea how easy it is for a Dane to understand att sluta, you'd have to ask them. All I know is that I have never ever had to resort to English when communicating with a Dane in writing, and I haven't had to ask for clarifications or looking words up in a dictionary very often either.

stordragon wrote:Plus, the positions of particles in phrasal verbs behave so differently in the two languages, when the "patient" (as opposed to "agent") of an action is a pronoun. Take this one as an example: You can say "Har du försökt stänga av och sätta den igen?" Where the particles "av" and "på" precedes the pronoun "den", which is totally unimaginable in Danish and Bokmål.. I do wonder how a Swede can get accustomed of such nuances when he or she talks to a Dane in Copenhagen.

:lol:

That thing is so easy that I can't even grasp how in the world you'd think it was a problem :shock:

The same goes for using different suffixes, like kærlighed vs kärlek for example, they have very similar functions so while words that use a different one might sound a little funny, it's nothing that hinders communication.

stordragon wrote:Btw, there are so many verb pairs like "at begynde" (loanword from low German "beginnen"?) vs. "att börja" (which is more archaic, comparable to the Faroese/Icelandic verb "at byrja/að byrja"), and "at spørge" (archaic) vs. "att fråga" (probably loanword from low German "tu freegje/te frage etc."), it's really difficult to imagine that even the mutual literal intelligibility can be juxtaposed to that between BrE and AmE. :nope:

Yeah, those two exist in Swedish too, the first is att begynna, the second att spörja, they are old-fashioned but they still exist. This is a very common situation actually, where you've got a few overlapping synonyms for something in both languages, it's just that which of those synonyms you use the most differ between them.

And no, I don't think it's on the same level when it comes to the written language, mostly because the spelling differences between BrE and AmE are pretty minor while they're not between Swedish and Danish so that's an extra threshold. Still, when it comes to vocabulary and usage, I've seen plenty of Americans struggle with British English, while the opposite seems to be less common..
Swedish (sv) native; English (en) good; Norwegian (no) read fluently, understand well, speak badly; Danish (dk) read fluently, understand badly, can't speak; Faroese (fo) read some, understand a bit, speak a few sentences; German (de) French (fr) Spanish (es) forgetting; heritage language.

User avatar
stordragon
Posts:467
Joined:2004-10-14, 13:09
Country:CNChina (中国)

Re: Why are you interested in Danish?

Postby stordragon » 2016-07-21, 8:03

Thanks Johanna, I got your point, very informative:-)

One more question:

http://www.norden.org/da/aktuelt/nyhede ... andespraak

Danska och svenska. Grannspråk eller främmandespråk?

Obesvarad svensk kärlek?
Bara 5 % av de danska ungdomarna är i Sverige en gång per månad. Det är stor skillnad jämfört de svenska. 21 % besöker Danmark en gång per månad, men det är till och med färre än innan Öresundsbron fanns. Vid en liknande undersökning för tretton år sedan, besökte drygt 35 % av svenska ungdomar Danmark en gång i månaden.

Det finns en vilja bland de svenska ungdomarna att lära sig tala danska. 66 % kan tänka sig det, medan intresset från den danska sidan är betydligt svalare. 67 % av danska ungdomar kan inte tänka sig att lära sig tala svenska. Ungdomarna talar engelska när de ses.

Forskarna avslutar sin rapport med att tiden kanske är mogen för att tala om danska och svenska som främmandespråk, men språk som är lätta att lära på grund av sina likheter. Rapporten ska diskuteras vid en konferens om framtidens dansk-svenska språkförståelse i Lund den 15 november. I panelen finns bland andra två nordiska parlamentariker, Karen Ellermann och Hans Wallmark.

Do you or does anyone know why? Why is there such a huge difference? :hmm:

Do you really consider the two languages to be the so-called nabosprog/grannspråk, as opposed to fremmedsprog/ främmande språk?? From an emotional perspective or from a linguitic perspective?

What do the Norwegians think about these nuances? Are there differences between different regions of Norway, say, trøndersktalende (whose mother tongue is closely related to jamtsk or Jamtlandic in Sweden) might tend to look upon std. Swedish as a "nabo språk", while people from some other regions along the southwestern coast don't think so?
人生得意须尽欢,莫使金樽空对月。
Hvat krevst fyri at kunnast við aðrar mentanir? Tað er fyrst og fremst teirra mál!(á føroyskum)
Dovddan earenoamážit beroštumi suoma-ugrálaš giellajoavkku dutkamuššii.(davvisámegillii)
Būtina imtis neatidėliotinų priemonių nykstančioms kalboms apsaugoti nuo išnykimo;nes kalbinė įvairovė,mano nuomone,yra ne mažiau svarbi nei biologinė!(lietuviškai)

User avatar
stordragon
Posts:467
Joined:2004-10-14, 13:09
Country:CNChina (中国)

Re: Why are you interested in Danish?

Postby stordragon » 2016-07-28, 7:38

人生得意须尽欢,莫使金樽空对月。
Hvat krevst fyri at kunnast við aðrar mentanir? Tað er fyrst og fremst teirra mál!(á føroyskum)
Dovddan earenoamážit beroštumi suoma-ugrálaš giellajoavkku dutkamuššii.(davvisámegillii)
Būtina imtis neatidėliotinų priemonių nykstančioms kalboms apsaugoti nuo išnykimo;nes kalbinė įvairovė,mano nuomone,yra ne mažiau svarbi nei biologinė!(lietuviškai)

User avatar
Johanna
Language Forum Moderator
Posts:6679
Joined:2006-09-17, 18:05
Real Name:Johanna
Gender:female
Location:Lidköping, Westrogothia
Country:SESweden (Sverige)

Re: Why are you interested in Danish?

Postby Johanna » 2016-09-24, 16:48

stordragon wrote:Thanks Johanna, I got your point, very informative:-)

Don't mention it :)

stordragon wrote: http://www.norden.org/da/aktuelt/nyhede ... andespraak

Do you or does anyone know why? Why is there such a huge difference? :hmm:

There's a very good reason, and that is called "a capital", or maybe "a major city".

Copenhagen is the core of the Øresund region, and being what it is, I'm pretty sure that not that many of its inhabitants visit Helsingør, Holbæk or even Roskilde either. That was the point of creating that region really, making Malmö a part of a metropolitan area that rivals Stockholm, instead of remaining a separate large but still provincial town.

And sure, there may be fewer visits now, but at least up until the border controls were introduced, people commuting over the strait (usually from Scania to Copenhagen) went up a lot with the bridge, and lots of Danes moved east while retaining their jobs since prices are cheaper in and around Malmö (pretty much same but in SEK rather than DKK, and considering that the DKK's normal value is between 1.20 and 1.30 SEK...)

Also, 20 years ago, Swedes went to Copenhagen the way modern people go to London or Paris after the rise of low-fare airlines. Sure, Kastrup is the local international airport when you live in the Øresund region*, but I doubt that anyone flying out from there would think of it as actually visiting Denmark.

And of course the Danes living in Copenhagen don't feel the need to learn Swedish, they're the ones with the upper hand after all. It's not like they want to learn traditional Danish dialects either, they'd probably complain even more if someone refused to switch from Sønderjysk to Standard Danish than if a Swede just went the slower-and-more-enunciated route. Swedes living in the region would greatly enhance their career choices if they knew Danish on the other hand.

Or maybe I should say that Scanians would if they knew Standard Danish, since even though most people in that province these days speak a regional version of Standard Swedish, it's heavily influenced by the traditional dialects of the province, and many out in the country still speak them. Those traditional dialects are East Danish, like in Bornholm, but they are just not that close to Modern Standard Danish, so even though said dialects are historically and linguistically Danish, the written standard they know is Swedish, and their spoken language is equally useless in both Stockholm and Copenhagen.

stordragon wrote:Do you really consider the two languages to be the so-called nabosprog/grannspråk, as opposed to fremmedsprog/ främmande språk?? From an emotional perspective or from a linguitic perspective?

From a practical perspective I definitely consider the written parts the same language but different standards.

Spoken... Let's put it this way, my sister had a half-Danish boyfriend and visited his family in the Aalborg area a lot, and learnt to understand it more or less perfectly from those visits without having to actually study it. She's an ordinary person when it comes to learning languages, not a language nerd like me, nor someone who picks them up extra easily.

So yeah, it's still a grannspråk, even though it is starting to toe the line thanks to its (from my perspective) crazy phonetics.

--------------------------------------------------

* And beyond, I live 430 km from that airport (by road), 290 km from the border of Scania, and even though Arlanda (largest airport in Sweden) is "only" 360 km or so away, it's more annoying and expensive to get to.

stordragon wrote:What do the Norwegians think about these nuances? Are there differences between different regions of Norway, say, trøndersktalende (whose mother tongue is closely related to jamtsk or Jamtlandic in Sweden) might tend to look upon std. Swedish as a "nabo språk", while people from some other regions along the southwestern coast don't think so?

From a Swedish perspective on Norwegian, it's the same language pretty much. At least, if Norwegian is allowed to call itself one language, then Swedish should be invited to the party.

I mean, if "how" can be korleis, koss, kordan, hossen, hoss, hvordan and åssen, why not include hurdan and hur in there too?
Swedish (sv) native; English (en) good; Norwegian (no) read fluently, understand well, speak badly; Danish (dk) read fluently, understand badly, can't speak; Faroese (fo) read some, understand a bit, speak a few sentences; German (de) French (fr) Spanish (es) forgetting; heritage language.


Return to “Danish (Dansk)”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 3 guests