{"id":521,"date":"2012-05-11T09:35:31","date_gmt":"2012-05-11T09:35:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/?p=521"},"modified":"2017-03-09T18:47:36","modified_gmt":"2017-03-09T18:47:36","slug":"soft-ds-are-not-hard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/2012\/05\/11\/soft-ds-are-not-hard\/","title":{"rendered":"Soft D’s Are Not Hard"},"content":{"rendered":"

If there was a Miss Denmark contest for sounds of speech, the soft D<\/span> (bl\u00f8dt D<\/strong>) would run off with the gold medal. Danes love asking foreigners to pronounce the phrase<\/p>\n

r\u00f8dgr\u00f8d med fl\u00f8de<\/strong> (which, as you may remember<\/span><\/a>, means \u201dred fruit pudding with cream\u201d)<\/span>. That\u2019s four of the difficult ladies, lined up with exotic \u00d8\u2019s and R\u2019s in-between.<\/p>\n

Well, they aren\u2019t that<\/em> difficult\u2026 We Danes like to think that our language is harder than it is \u2013 it is a way of keeping it for ourselves, I guess. \ud83d\ude09
\nBut really \u2013 if you can say the soft \u2019th\u2019 sound of English mother<\/em>, you can pronounce the soft D of Danish. They are both kinds of soft D\u2019s, the difference is that in English, the tip of your tongue touches your teeth. In Danish, it should be a little bit more retracted.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a tip: Put your fingers in your mouth, with the nails touching the back of your upper front teeth (make sure you\u2019ve got clean hands!) Now say the English word mother<\/em>. Notice how your tongue strives to reach your teeth\u2026 Now remove your hand, and try to repeat the word as if your fingers were still there\u2026 If you\u2019re lucky, you\u2019ll catch a soft D with no teeth contact, and if you\u2019re even more lucky, it\u2019ll sound like Danish! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

To many foreigners, the soft D of Danish sounds like an L. I\u2019ve had pupils who pronounced the word Gud<\/strong> (God) like gul<\/strong> (yellow). If you listen carefully, you\u2019ll hear that there is a world of difference\u2026<\/p>\n

The soft D only appears after vowels, as in mad<\/strong> \u2019food\u2019, gade<\/strong> \u2019street\u2019, g\u00f8dning<\/strong> \u2019fertilizer\u2019. In most other positions, the letter \u2019D\u2019 is pronounced as in English: dyr<\/strong> \u2019animal\u2019, dreng<\/strong> \u2019boy\u2019. After \u2019L\u2019, \u2019R\u2019, \u2019N\u2019 and in front of \u2019S\u2019 and \u2019T\u2019, the letter \u2019D\u2019 is usually not pronounced at all: vild<\/strong> [vil] \u2019wild\u2019, jord<\/strong> [yo\u1d52\u02b3] \u2019earth\u2019, land<\/strong> [lan] \u2019country\u2019, plads<\/strong> [plas] \u2019place\u2019, fedt!<\/strong> [fet] \u2019cool!\u2019 (literally: fat!).<\/p>\n