Danish Language Blog

Har du fået nogle fine julegaver? (Have you got some nice Xmas presents?) With the festive days fresh in mind, the time has come to look at the perfect tense. Have you ever thought about the perfect tense? It’s used to talk about a span of time that includes both the present moment and the…

I dag strømmer folk til butikkerne for at købe billige varer. (Today, people are flocking to the shops to buy cheap goods.) It’s Black Friday – a tradition recently imported from the US. Yet, despite all the shopping, miljøet (the environment) is a hot topic in Denmark, and Danish people are making efforts to live…

Much to the frustration of new language learners, words can rarely be translated directly between two languages. Shades of meaning vary, and when you look in an ordbog [orbow] (dictionary), you just might get lost in lists of alternatives… Sometimes, a Danish word has several English translations. Other times, it’s the other way around. YES…

Så er det efterår! (Then it’s autumn!) Before the sofa swallows you, here is a reminder to keep moving… Man kan bevæge sig på mange forskellige måder. (One can move in many different ways.) Legs and feet make it possible at gå, at løbe, at hoppe, at sparke (to walk, to run, to jump, to…

Although this is an apolitical blog, it’s hard to ignore that there has been a lot of talk about Denmark this month – or rather about Greenland. Without going into politics (which I’ll leave for others), I thought this might be a decent moment to re-highlight the Danish-Greenlandic connections a bit. 🙂 In 2019, Grønland…

Hvor er det varmt i dag! (How hot it is today!) Like many other European countries, Denmark was recently hit by a hedebølge [hethebolyeh] (heatwave) with temperaturer exceeding 30 grader (°C). Fortunately, Danes have many remedies to cool down – one of them being the sød og syrlig (sweet and freshly sour) dessert known as…

As a Danish-learner recently pointed out to me, ”to think” is tricky in Danish – especially if English is your first language. Look in a dictionary, and you’ll find at least three different translations: at tænke, at tro, at synes. The thing is, even in English ”to think” is a wide concept with many shades…