{"id":418,"date":"2012-03-08T16:20:01","date_gmt":"2012-03-08T16:20:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/?p=418"},"modified":"2012-03-08T16:25:21","modified_gmt":"2012-03-08T16:25:21","slug":"liking-things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/2012\/03\/08\/liking-things\/","title":{"rendered":"Liking Things"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Having touched the slimy subject of swearing<\/a>, it\u2019s now time for us to return to some of the more \u201dtasteful\u201d aspects of learning Danish<\/a>. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

The poet Halfdan Rasmussen, who has been mentioned earlier<\/a>, once wrote a children\u2019s poem about liking things<\/span>, as seen from a child\u2019s perspective. Fittingly enough, it concludes with the line:<\/p>\n

Jeg kan nemlig li at li.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Loose translation: \u201dI just like liking\u201d.<\/p>\n

The odd thing about the Danish version of\u00a0to like<\/em>\u00a0is that it is a compound (consisting of several parts, like to be able to<\/em> in English). Your dictionary says at kunne lide<\/strong>. At a very literal level that means \u2019to be able to like\u2019, but it really just means to like<\/em>. Only the kunne<\/strong>\u00a0(to be able to, to \u201dcan\u201d, as in Yes we can!<\/em>) part is inflected:<\/p>\n

Jeg kan lide at synge.<\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I like singing.<\/em>
\nKan du lide at sv\u00f8mme?<\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Do you like swimming?<\/em>
\nHun kan lide hunde.<\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0 She likes dogs.<\/em>
\nHun kunne ikke lide katte.<\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0She didn\u2019t like cats.<\/em>
\nHun har aldrig kunnet lide jordb\u00e6r<\/span>.<\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0She\u2019s never liked (eating) strawberries<\/span>.<\/em><\/p>\n

In fact, if you remove the \u201dlide at\u201d part from the first two phrases, you end up with sentences saying that you\u2019re capable of doing something:<\/span><\/p>\n

Jeg kan synge.<\/strong> I can sing.<\/span>
\nKan du sv\u00f8mme?<\/strong> Can you swim?<\/span><\/p>\n

As Danes love vowels, the \u201dde\u201d in lide\u00a0<\/strong>is usually chopped off\u00a0in the spoken language, and even the kan<\/strong> may lose its n<\/em>. So, if you want to say to someone that you like her or him, the most native way of saying it would be<\/p>\n

Jeg ka\u2019 li\u2019 dig!<\/strong> [ya ka lee dieh] \u00a0 \u00a0I like you!<\/em><\/p>\n

Other ways of expressing \u201dliking\u201d include<\/p>\n

Jeg holder (meget) af ham.<\/strong> \u00a0 \u00a0 I like him (a lot).\/He means a lot to me.<\/em>
\nJeg holder af mennesker. \u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong>I like people.<\/em>
\nHvad synes du om mit nye slips? \u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong> How do you like my new tie?<\/em>
\nJeg synes godt om det.<\/strong> \u00a0 \u00a0 I like it indeed.<\/em>
\nJeg er vild med sushi.<\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I\u2019m crazy about sushi.<\/em><\/p>\n

Of course, you may also slip into<\/p>\n

Jeg elsker sushi!<\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0 I lo-o-ove sushi!<\/em><\/p>\n

Most likely, though, the Danes around you will think you\u2019re an American who\u2019s just learnt Danish\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Having touched the slimy subject of swearing, it\u2019s now time for us to return to some of the more \u201dtasteful\u201d aspects of learning Danish. \ud83d\ude09 The poet Halfdan Rasmussen, who has been mentioned earlier, once wrote a children\u2019s poem about liking things, as seen from a child\u2019s perspective. Fittingly enough, it concludes with the line…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":419,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[6,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-418","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-grammar","category-vocabulary"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":421,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418\/revisions\/421"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}