{"id":882,"date":"2013-02-20T13:24:43","date_gmt":"2013-02-20T13:24:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/?p=882"},"modified":"2013-02-20T13:28:32","modified_gmt":"2013-02-20T13:28:32","slug":"how-to-hiccup-like-a-dane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/2013\/02\/20\/how-to-hiccup-like-a-dane\/","title":{"rendered":"How to hiccup like a Dane\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"dog\"<\/a>

Don\u2019t cough while talking about females! (Hun = she, hund = dog\u2026)<\/p><\/div>\n

https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/30\/2013\/02\/stoed.mp3<\/a><\/audio>
\nA non-Dane once left a Danish language course in Copenhagen just a wee bit\u00a0frustreret<\/strong>\u00a0(frustrated): How was he ever going to learn a language where you didn\u2019t know whether you were crying\u00a0mor!<\/strong>\u00a0(mother!) or\u00a0mord!\u00a0<\/strong>(murder!)?<\/p>\n

However, there\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0a difference between the two words (and it\u2019s not the d, which in this case is silent<\/a>)! The first one is pronounced, more or less, like the last syllable of \u201damour<\/em>\u201d. The second word sounds identical,\u00a0except<\/em>\u00a0that Danes, while saying it, make a little hiccup sound down their throat. That\u2019s the\u00a0st\u00f8d<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 the famous devil in Danish pronunciation\u2026<\/p>\n

Et st\u00f8d<\/strong>\u00a0means \u201da thrust\u201d. You\u2019ve got the same sound in English, between the \u201duh\u201d and the \u201doh\u201d of\u00a0uh-oh!<\/em>\u00a0(Say the word slowly, and notice how your vocal chords clash.) If you speak Cockney, the sound is very frequent, like in\u00a0butter<\/em>, \u201dbu\u2019er\u201d.<\/p>\n

A rule of thumb: Whenever an (accented) word has only one syllable, and does not contain a short vowel (as in\u00a0tak<\/strong>,\u00a0top<\/strong>\u00a0or\u00a0tit<\/strong>), it probably has\u00a0st\u00f8d<\/strong>:
\nmand<\/strong>\u00a0[man],\u00a0vand<\/strong>\u00a0[van],\u00a0ild<\/strong>\u00a0[il],\u00a0jord<\/strong>\u00a0[yor],\u00a0ro<\/strong>,\u00a0hus<\/strong>,\u00a0bil<\/strong>,\u00a0vind<\/strong>\u00a0[ven],\u00a0h\u00e5nd\u00a0<\/strong>[hon],
\nmund<\/strong>\u00a0[mawn],\u00a0hund<\/strong>\u00a0[hoon],\u00a0ged<\/strong>\u00a0[geth],\u00a0lang<\/strong>,\u00a0grim<\/strong>,\u00a0p\u00e6n<\/strong>,\u00a0stor<\/strong>,\u00a0bl\u00e5<\/strong>,\u00a0r\u00f8d<\/strong>\u2026
\n(Man, water, fire, earth, rest, house, car, wind, hand, mouth, dog, goat, long, ugly, nice, big, blue, red\u2026)<\/em>
\nTry coughing slightly as you say each of these words. That should bring you close! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Sometimes even two syllable words have\u00a0st\u00f8d<\/strong>. That\u2019s because these words originally had only one syllable.\u00a0Manden<\/strong>\u00a0(the man) comes from\u00a0mand<\/strong>+en<\/strong>. Therefore, it is still pronounced with a\u00a0st\u00f8d<\/strong>\u00a0on the first syllable. Many verbs also have\u00a0st\u00f8d<\/strong>\u00a0on their first syllable in the present tense:\u00a0jeg l\u00f8ber<\/strong>\u00a0(I run),\u00a0vi l\u00e6ser<\/strong>\u00a0(we\u2019re reading),\u00a0kommer du?<\/strong>\u00a0(do you come?) (Once upon a time, these words must have been more like \u201dl\u00f8br\u201d, \u201dl\u00e6sr\u201d and \u201dkomr\u201d.)<\/p>\n

If you find all this confusing, don\u2019t worry. Achieving a good pronunciation of Danish comes from speaking with Danes. Leaving out the\u00a0st\u00f8d<\/strong>\u00a0entirely is much better than spending time worrying about it! Remember, it is only a soft \u201dahem\u201d sound that comes with some Danish words. Many foreign students of Danish pronounce their\u00a0st\u00f8d<\/strong>\u00a0way too harshly (making Danish sound more like Arabic or Hebrew). You shouldn\u2019t try to imitate puking, as people sometimes do when they make fun of Danish\u2026 \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Small list of words where the st\u00f8d actually does make a difference<\/h2>\n

Without\u00a0st\u00f8d<\/strong>\u00a0\u2022 With\u00a0st\u00f8d<\/strong><\/h4>\n

mor<\/strong>\u00a0mother<\/em>\u00a0\u2022\u00a0mord<\/strong> murder<\/em><\/p>\n

hun<\/strong>\u00a0she<\/em>\u00a0\u2022\u00a0hund<\/strong>\u00a0dog<\/em><\/p>\n

man<\/strong>\u00a0one, you<\/em>\u00a0\u2022\u00a0mand<\/strong>\u00a0man<\/em><\/p>\n

en l\u00e6ser<\/strong>\u00a0a reader<\/em>\u00a0\u2022\u00a0hun l\u00e6ser<\/strong>\u00a0she\u2019s reading<\/em><\/p>\n

en anden<\/strong>\u00a0another one<\/em>\u00a0\u2022\u00a0anden<\/strong>\u00a0the duck<\/em><\/p>\n

hej<\/strong> hi<\/em>\u00a0\u2022\u00a0haj<\/strong>\u00a0shark<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

A non-Dane once left a Danish language course in Copenhagen just a wee bit\u00a0frustreret\u00a0(frustrated): How was he ever going to learn a language where you didn\u2019t know whether you were crying\u00a0mor!\u00a0(mother!) or\u00a0mord!\u00a0(murder!)? However, there\u00a0is\u00a0a difference between the two words (and it\u2019s not the d, which in this case is silent)! The first one is pronounced…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":1431,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[269708,238018],"class_list":["post-882","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-cockney","tag-stod"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882","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=882"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":889,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882\/revisions\/889"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}