Danish Language Blog

A hare [ha-a] jumping mysteriously across the street in front of you.  A ræv (fox) stealing your sausages at the beach barbecue party. A pindsvin (hedgehog) going for a moonlit stroll. As urban as Denmark is, the country has a lot of wildlife. 🙂 The Vikings believed in Ratatosk, an egern [e-yern] (squirrel) that was…

Hvad arbejder ud med? (What’s your job?) Many people enjoy talking about their job, and Danes are no exception! 🙂 Gear up the conversation with some work-related vocabulary – and don’t be put off by the ocassional brok (complainings), which is often just a way to vent some Danish irony… – Jeg er tjener /…

Beklager, jeg taler ikke engelsk! (Sorry, I don’t speak English!) Although I normally wouldn’t recommend lying, the previous phrase might come handy if you’re a beginner & want to practice your dansk! 🙂 Otherwise there is a big probability (!) that the Danes you meet will answer you in their excellent English… Let’s talk about…

Without a physical body, learning Danish would be kind of hard. Not only do we use our tongue and lips to pronounce words – we also use our lunger (lungs) to breathe while we speak, our ears to listen, our hands to explain stuff… Let’s look at kroppen (the body). There’s a nice children’s song…

Hvordan ser han/hun ud? (How does he/she look like?) You might not carry around photos of everyone you know in din mobil (your mobile phone), so now and then you’ll need ord (words) to describe somebody’s udseende (appearance, literally ”out-looking”). Høj, lav, stor, kraftig, lille, tyk, tynd (tall, short, big, strongly built, small, thick/stout, thin)…

Jeg glæder mig i denne tid – nu falder julesneen hvid – så ved jeg, Julen kommer. (I’m happy in this season – now the Christmas snow is falling white – then I know, Christmas is coming.) So begins Peters Jul (Peter’s Christmas), an old children’s book that still colours the way Danes view Christmas……

Asking about somebody’s fødselsdag [FOSLsdaay] (birthday) might not be the first thing you do. Still, when the topic does pop up, it’s good to be prepared! 🙂 Otherwise, the knowledge of how to say datoer (dates) could come handy when planning … dates. Hvornår har du fødselsdag? Or, if you’re talking to ”you guys”: Hvornår…