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AlOlaf Danskdeutsch Challenge Log

  Tags: Danish | Norwegian | German
 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log Post Reply
74 messages over 10 pages: 1 2 3 4 57 ... 6 ... 9 10 Next >>
AlOlaf
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5145 days ago

491 posts - 617 votes 
Speaks: English*, GermanC2
Studies: Danish

 
 Message 41 of 74
30 September 2015 at 6:02am | IP Logged 
Week 23

I regret insinuating that learning to speak Danish is akin to being dragged around like a rag doll and pummeled crapless. That was an exaggeration. Danish is a delightful language. There's absolutely nothing intrinsically malevolent about it, and it has never, to my knowledge, inflicted bodily injury on anyone. And just because a book entitled "Convincingly Danish-sounding Native English Speakers I Have Known" would likely be the thinnest volume ever written, it doesn't necessarily follow that learning to speak Danish is any harder for an adult Anglophone than, say, solving a Rubik's Cube blindfolded or riding a Cape buffalo.

Yesterday I got some swell new DVD documentary boxed sets from Denmark. There's one about the German occupation during WWII, one about Copenhagen, one about Jutland, one about life on the farm, one about industry and a single DVD about Århus. None have subtitles, but I don't suppose that'll hurt me any. I've watched the first disc from the one about the occupation, and there's tons of historical footage I've never seen before. I can't understand all the narration, but I think I'm getting most of it. I also got Klovn: The Movie. It has English subtitles, so I'll wait and watch that with my girlfriend. She likes Danish entertainment almost as much as I do.

I had to work on Saturday, and my cat developed some weird bladder problem on Sunday, so I got very little recording done. Hopefully I'll do better next week.

Hours recorded in the last week, with total hours in parentheses:

Danish: 3.5 (151.3)

German: 0 (10.2)

Combined hours to date: 161.5

1 person has voted this message useful



AlOlaf
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5145 days ago

491 posts - 617 votes 
Speaks: English*, GermanC2
Studies: Danish

 
 Message 42 of 74
07 October 2015 at 5:49pm | IP Logged 

Week 24

I checked my online debit card statement last week, and it looked like the Danish company I got my new DVDs from was trying to charge me for them three times. This proved not to be the case, but finding that out for sure necessitated a bit of real-life target language communication.

I used a form on the company's website to send them two emails. When I sent the first, I didn't have the invoice numbers in question, so I had to send this follow-up the next day:


Hej, det ser ud til, at beløbet er ved at blive trukket fra mit kreditkort tre gange. Jeg har sendt en mail til jer i går den 30.09.15, men dengang havde jeg ikke frakturanumrene. Dem har jeg nu. Jeg håber, at I kan rette fejlen.


And here's the response:

Hej Allen
Vi kan kun se beløbet er blevet trukket en gang fra din konto, måske de andre to bare er reservationer fordi vi ikke har kunne hæve beløbet på din konto de gange vi har forsøgt? :)
Beløbet er i hvert fald blevet trukket på din konto, og bliver ikke trukket mere end én gang.

Med venlig hilsen

Winnie


Wow. A smiley emoticon from a customer service person. These Danes must be fine folks.

Hours recorded in the last week, with total hours in parentheses:

Danish: 8.6 (159.9)

German: 0 (10.2)

Combined hours to date: 170.1
1 person has voted this message useful



AlOlaf
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5145 days ago

491 posts - 617 votes 
Speaks: English*, GermanC2
Studies: Danish

 
 Message 43 of 74
25 October 2015 at 5:26pm | IP Logged 
Serious concerns in real life have brought my challenge to a standstill. I had planned to make a video at the end of the year to see if I'd made progress in Danish, but the situation could get worse, so I'm doing it now.

Video
3 persons have voted this message useful





Iversen
Super Polyglot
Moderator
Denmark
berejst.dk
Joined 6700 days ago

9078 posts - 16473 votes 
Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan
Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 44 of 74
26 October 2015 at 2:08pm | IP Logged 
Congratulations. Your Danish is excellent. Of course I can hear that you have some other background, but I wouldn't be able to guess that your native language is English - the diphtongs that give away most Anglophones when they speak any other language are not a problem for you. The only thing I noticed which could be pushed a bit further is your r-sound - you say it slightly closer to the middle of the mouth than we do.

By the way, I ate "øllebrød" in my childhood, but wouldn't touch the stuff now. And "højt belagt smørrebrød" is something neither I nor my family have ever fancied - some Danes do, but most of the time we just eat our "rugbrød" with one or two things on top of the butter or whatever other spread they use - things like cheese (ordinary or melted), ham, sliced sausace, marmelade or 'salads' of some kind. Most Danes also eat a nasty thing called "leverpostej", but even the thought of that produce would make me loose my appetite.
3 persons have voted this message useful





jeff_lindqvist
Diglot
Moderator
SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 6906 days ago

4250 posts - 5711 votes 
Speaks: Swedish*, English
Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 45 of 74
26 October 2015 at 6:51pm | IP Logged 
Wow, impressive. Iversen can judge your accent better than I, but to me you sound Danish (and not like somebody who happens to utter words from the Danish language in the right order). Well done.

Edited by jeff_lindqvist on 27 October 2015 at 7:13pm

2 persons have voted this message useful



AlOlaf
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5145 days ago

491 posts - 617 votes 
Speaks: English*, GermanC2
Studies: Danish

 
 Message 46 of 74
26 October 2015 at 10:39pm | IP Logged 
@Iversen and jeff_lindqvist:

I really appreciate your feedback. I'll start paying more attention to my r sounds.
1 person has voted this message useful





Fasulye
Heptaglot
Winner TAC 2012
Moderator
Germany
fasulyespolyglotblog
Joined 5844 days ago

5460 posts - 6006 votes 
1 sounds
Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto
Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 47 of 74
28 October 2015 at 5:12pm | IP Logged 
Hej AlOlaf,

Tak for videoen! Det lyder virkeligt dansk. Du taler hurtigt, så kan jeg ikke forstå så
godt, men udtalen lyder fin.

Fasulye
1 person has voted this message useful



AlOlaf
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5145 days ago

491 posts - 617 votes 
Speaks: English*, GermanC2
Studies: Danish

 
 Message 48 of 74
29 October 2015 at 7:33pm | IP Logged 
Mange tak, Fasulye! Jeg er meget glad for, at du kan lide den.


2 persons have voted this message useful



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