Being Polite in Danish Posted by Bjørn A. Bojesen on Apr 26, 2015
”Two fries and a cheeseburger!” If you hear someone saying this, they might be a forgetful Dane. Danish, you see, has no proper word for please. This has given birth to the idea that Danes are less høflig (courteous, polite) than other people. Well, actually, Danish has various ways of expressing høflighed (courteousness): • tak…
Going short Posted by Bjørn A. Bojesen on Mar 31, 2015
OMG! OK, it’s forkortelse (abbreviation) time. LOL. 🙂 BTW, YOLO, so let’s get down to it: osv. = og så videre = ”and so further” = etc.: De købte is, chokolade osv. (They bought ice-cream, chokolate etc.) m.m. = med mere = ”with more”: Der var øl m.m. (There was beer and other stuff.) m.fl. = med flere…
The coolest bus commercial in Denmark Posted by Bjørn A. Bojesen on Mar 14, 2015
Denne uge [DENNeh oo] (this week) I’d like to share with you a fabulous reklame (commercial) that’s currently making a lot of people laugh in danske biografer (Danish cinemas). It’s called Passageren [passaSHARE-unh] (The Passenger) or Bussen 2 [boosn TOH] (The Bus 2), as it’s the sequel to the 2012 hit commercial Bussen. In case…
Big and Small Posted by Bjørn A. Bojesen on Feb 28, 2015
Vi har hvad vi skal ha’, af både stort og småt! (We’ve got what we need, of both big and small!) Danish ”national oldie popdreng (pop boy)” Kim Larsen sings in one of his classic hits. I guess it’s still true that people in Denmark have got all the material ting (things) they need, but…
Danish pick-up lines Posted by Bjørn A. Bojesen on Feb 14, 2015
It’s that time of year again! Thanks to our great kærlighed (love) for American traditions, many Danish par (couples) are buying hinanden (each other) blomster (flowers), chokolade [SHOcko-lathe], biografbilletter (cinema tickets) to ”50 Shades of Grey” and what not to celebrate Valentinsdag. But what about all those people who haven’t got a kæreste (girlfriend/boyfriend), an…
Snow Words Posted by Bjørn A. Bojesen on Jan 30, 2015
Det sner! (It’s snowing!) The last week or so, temperatures have been dropping all over Danmark. Many places finally got a bit of sne (snow). The region where I live – Midtjylland (Central Jutland) – looked like a postkort (postcard) this weekend, with people playing in the snow and even skiing! 🙂 Today there are…
Talking about the future Posted by Bjørn A. Bojesen on Jan 8, 2015
2015 is upon us, so I thought it would be a great idea to look a bit ahead – grammatically speaking, that is! As you may be aware, verbs in Spanish and Esperanto and many other languages have a distinct future tense (yo cantaré/mi kantos = I’ll sing). In English, we’ve got to make compound…