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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| burntgorilla Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6436 days ago 202 posts - 206 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Danish | Message 1 of 97 15 July 2007 at 10:01am | IP Logged | |||||
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I have decided to learn Danish over the summer, mainly because I have a friend who speaks Danish so I can borrow her if I have problems. I have tried to self study different languages in the past, and find it difficult to keep up if I have absolutely no possibility of speaking the language to anyone and no short term or long term goals besides "being good at it".
So I hope I will do better at Danish. My short term goal is to write a letter to my friend before we go away to university, since she is a good friend. I don't think she can actually read Danish, but it's the thought that counts, eh? So far, this goal seems quite achievable. Long term, I'm not sure. Visiting Denmark would be nice, but I will be studying Spanish and Russian at university for four years, so I am not sure if I'd ever get a chance to go - if I had the time and money I'd better off going to a Russian or Spanish speaking country. Reading novels seems like a good target, but beyond Hans Christian Andersen I don't know any Danish authors. I will think about long-term goals once I have done my short term one, perhaps. The nature of Danish also makes it a bit harder for me to decide. I find it generally easy enough, apart from the pronunciation. I'm not sure if I'd ever really get spoken Danish to a high level, I feel I would always sound quite foreign. I have realised that when it comes to learning languages I focus too much on the written word and reading, and I want to focus more on the spoken word and speaking. I'm not sure that Danish is a good language to use in this case, but maybe I'm exaggerating the difficulty somewhat. I would like a long-term goal of speaking Danish well, but fear that it would require far too much effort and time that could be better spent on other things. But anyway, the log. I am using Teach Yourself Danish so far. While TY products can be questionable sometimes, I really like this course. There's a decent amount of recorded conversations, grammar is generally described well and there's enough material. Out of 18 units I have done six, which is about one a day. This might be a little fast, but I get bored very quickly if I am doing something repeatedly. My current plan is to get to the end of the course in a week or two, and then get a dictionary and start reading newspaper articles and listening to anything I can find online. Any grammar I have come across has been relatively easy, most of all the verbs (especially when compared to Spanish!). I feel that the TY course should give me a fair grounding in all the grammar I will need to read a paper, so it becomes mostly a question of vocabulary. Please correct me if this seems a bit dodgy to you. I will probably get a Danish grammar but I don't want to get bogged down too much in the small points. Today I did unit six, and I'm considering whether to go on and do unit seven as well. It was about the two main characters, George and Alison going on a train and finding a hotel while on a business trip. It covered directions, the perfect tense, reflexive verbs and the imperative. That all of these are in the same unit shows how Danish grammar is quite easy, at least initially. I'm really afraid of suddenly discovering that it is far more complicated than I imagined! I can follow the audio using the transcripts well, and rarely lose my place. I should probably practice my speaking and pronunciation more, I think I am developing something of an "it's too hard, so don't bother" attitude. Perhaps with a bit of determined study I could get a decent enough accent, I don't know. I am not sure how much vocabulary I have so far, but I can follow the dialogs quite well, and each one introduces about ten new words. I have to refer to the dictionary at the back of the book quite often if I have forgotten a word, but the dialogs appear to be quite natural and aren't simplified. I'm not sure what else to write, so I think I'll leave it at that. Unit 7 is tempting me with demonstrative pronouns and modal verbs (I must be such a grammar geek, it's not right), so I might update later. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6695 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 2 of 97 15 July 2007 at 11:20am | IP Logged | |||||
I don't think you have to fear for that. Of course we have a lot of expressions where you have to use for instance a certain preposition instead of another that from a purely logical point of view would serve just as well (just as in English). But you can start worrying about that when you have become an advanced learner, and then you can absorb those expressions through reading and listening instead of learning them by heart now. You will also discover that there is not a clear border between 'strong' and 'weak' verbs (those that form past tense etc. through wowel changes are said to be strong), so even if you use the wrong form you will still be understood, - it just sounds a bit weird. I'll give you an exemple: one of the most beloved TV programs in recent times was called "Ugen der gak" (the week that wunt). Any error you might commit will drown in the stream of mangled Danish that we produce ourselves just for fun. Your worst problem will be our rapid and slurry pronunciation when we speak among ourselves. But just ask people to speak s l ow l y a n d d i s t i n c t l y ( = "l-a-n-g-s-o-m-t og t-y-d-e-l-i-g-t" ), and then you will discover that Danish can be pronounced in a clear and distinct way that is not nearly as impossible to predict from the orthography as English is. Edited by Iversen on 15 July 2007 at 11:37am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| burntgorilla Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6436 days ago 202 posts - 206 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Danish | Message 3 of 97 15 July 2007 at 5:55pm | IP Logged | |||||
That is all quite reassuring, thank you. The course hasn't quite got on to strong/weak verbs, although it has of course mentioned how some verbs have endings in the past tense, some change vowel, some have both etc. It usually just states that some words take this ending, while others take this ending, without giving any way of telling what takes what. It does the same with plural endings. I'm guessing that there is no real rules or way of telling? It would require a fair bit of extra learning for each new word, since you need to learn the associated endings, but then English is no different. Perhaps you get a feel for what sounds right? I did unit seven of the course this evening. In it, I did my first translation to Danish of a full passage, and I also listened to one of the "Comprehension" parts first without looking at the transcription. I think this is what I was actually meant to do from the start, but I always ended up reading the transcription. I was surprised to discover that I understood a fair bit of what was said; enough at least to answer three true/false questions. Word order is beginning to get a little more complicated, particularly with inversions - I'm not sure what happens when there are adverbs or pronouns - but it seems manageable. Since you mentioned prepositions I have been noticing them more, and I find på a bit odd. In some expressions it seems to be left hanging, like in "klæde sig på". It doesn't appear to refer to anything. One of the quirks in the language, I guess. Edited by burntgorilla on 15 July 2007 at 5:55pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| burntgorilla Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6436 days ago 202 posts - 206 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Danish | Message 4 of 97 16 July 2007 at 8:50am | IP Logged | |||||
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I did unit eight today. I have finished the first CD, of two, which gives me a nice feeling of progression. I have started paying more attention to listening, so now I listen to each dialog twice, go through the transcript and the vocabulary so that I understand it, listen with the transcript and then again without, so see how much more I understand. It might sound long but each one is only about a minute long, so it's easy enough. I think it takes about an hour and a half to do a unit properly. I might go back through the earlier units and revise the dialogs. I have noticed that they are gradually getting longer, this also makes me feel like I'm making progress.
Today's unit was about hotel bookings and renting a car, which is useless to me but contains some useful grammar. Comparative adjectives don't seem too bad, especially when the irregulars are very close to English. It is also interesting that Danish does not use definitive articles for things such as professions or nationalities - it is just "hun er dansker," for example. English seems to be the only language that does, out of the ones that I know a little about. Is this a feature in German-based languages in general? I know the Romance languages don't have it, but I'm wondering why Danish doesn't and English does, given that they have a common root. A few things are giving me problems. I find adjectives hard to keep up with, mostly because I muddle the rules for indefinite nouns with those for definite nouns, so I'm adding "e"s in the wrong place and that kind of thing. I hope a bit of revision and practice should clarify it for me. Den/det/der is also a bit tricky. Sometimes one of those is used when I would expect another, and I'm not sure why I would use "der" over "som" in some cases. I know "der" is only used as the subject, but are they otherwise interchangeable? Lastly, this is almost totally unrelated to the course, but one of the dialogs raised an interesting point for me. The main character, George, has a Danish mother and an English father, and when he was 19 he went over to Denmark for a while, which was when he really improved his Danish. His wife, Alison, complains that he is different in Denmark. He explains that he feels like two different people. I didn't fully understand what he said, but I think it was that being brought up in two different cultures causes him to almost have different personalities in each, due to differences in the countries. I can understand a natively bilingual person feeling a bit like a mix of two different cultures, but I was wondering if they felt like a different person when they went from one of the countries to the other. Just some random thoughts, I hoped there would be someone on here who would have experience of this. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| burntgorilla Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6436 days ago 202 posts - 206 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Danish | Message 5 of 97 17 July 2007 at 4:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Unit 9 done today. I'm now half way through, which feels good. I'm getting a little impatient to get through the course and then start doing other things. But I want to wait until I have finished the TY course before moving on. I have ordered a dictionary and a grammar, so I'll read through the grammar and then start reading online newspapers with the dictionary. I think that should be within my reach. And then I'll have a look around for Danish audiobooks that I can use with the English to work on listening. I'm sure there's Danish forums or folders on forums that I can use some time to practice writing.
Today's unit was about a visit to a summer house in Mols. Some of the vocabulary is a little odd - I'm not sure why I'd need to use "pigsty" any time soon - but it was an interesting unit, since I learned a little more about Danish culture. It mentioned that the "Molbos" are/were often mocked for their stupidity by other Danes, and there was a little amusing story, which are apparently quite common. While reading the story I noticed that for the first time I didn't have to analyse every word and see what's happening grammatically with each word. But I think that was because the particular section had a few words that were very similar to English. Adverbs were explained, as well as a few random bits such as words like "grow" and "very" in negative sentences. The passive voice was mentioned but not really explained at all, and the explanation doesn't appear to unit 15, which seems a little odd to me. I think it is just for recognition at this stage. Adverbs of place are intriguing, as they have versions for position and motion. It's interesting to see how other languages make distinctions that your own does not. I also spent a little while trying to pronounce "rødgrød med fløde", as a point of interest. I didn't do very well. Being honest, I don't think I could say that Danish is a language that is pleasing to the ear. It is ok apart from sounds such as the one in "uge". To an English ear it is a bit odd. Speaking of pronunciation, I am beginning to understand Iversen's point a bit better. Danish pronunciation might bear little resemblance to the spelling, but it does so in a regular way. I can predict the pronunciation of words quite well, but I need to invest more time in learning the various vowels. English seems much more random in comparison. Edited by burntgorilla on 17 July 2007 at 5:01pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| burntgorilla Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6436 days ago 202 posts - 206 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Danish | Message 6 of 97 18 July 2007 at 1:04pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Unit 10 today, mostly vocabulary about families, and a few colours. Word order is still getting to me, particularly when there are auxiliary verbs. I think the "har" or "er" always go with the past participle, but I'm not sure.
Today was the first time that I didn't enjoy the unit. I found myself getting frustrated more than anything. I think this is a combination of a few things: my CD player has some problem with the CDs and keeps trying to skip on to any other CDs in it. This is really annoying when I am trying to listen to the dialogs. The units themselves are becoming longer - unit 10 took me a good hour and a half to do. I'm thinking of perhaps spreading it over the day, but I'm not sure how effective that would be. Lastly, I think the initial excitement of learning a new language has begun to wear off. I'm seeing that Danish will require as much work as any other language and that, although the grammar is simple compared to other languages, it still has its tricky points. I have only been studying Danish for eight days and I think I have made a lot of progress in those days, so it wouldn't hurt to slow down a bit. The problem then is that I get bored doing the same unit for longer than a day, I want to get on and learn the next bit. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| burntgorilla Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6436 days ago 202 posts - 206 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Danish | Message 7 of 97 20 July 2007 at 10:31am | IP Logged | |||||
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I took a break from the course yesterday. I think a little break now and then helps. Last night I was with my Danish-speaking friend, and I said about five words to her, which she understand and replied to. So that's my first conversation in Danish with a native speaker! I'm quite pleased with that, even if it was very very short. I hate it when you're presented with an opportunity to show what you've learned and everything but the most simplistic sentences go out of your head. She can also say "rødgrød med fløde" perfectly. That is the kind of thing I'll get bloody minded about and practice repeatedly until I get it.
I messed around on a couple of websites teaching Danish that I found, and had an interesting little lesson about the Vikings. I could understand the passage quite well grammatically, but obviously I need to learn lots of vocab. I've ordered a dictionary and grammar book, so hopefully they'll be there soon. I hope the switch from TY to those isn't too great. Speaking of TY, I did unit 11 today. Quite a boring unit, to be honest, a rather random account of a lost mother, and then lots on ordinal numbers. I hate doing numbers and dates and things, I just find it dull. Admittedly useful, but also rather dull. Tomorrow's lesson is about a language course and looks quite interesting, with some useful grammar points. So that is something to look forward to. I'm noticing that Danish often has two words for something that is expressed in one word in English, and so you have to notice subtleties of meaning that you'd usually ignore. But it allows greater precision, so in the long run it'll be useful. I also found a podcast on iTunes, which teaches little phrases such as "I like to move it, move it" and other random things. It's quite amusing. I have a week left in the TY course, if I do a unit every day. I think reading and writing should be okay once I've moved on from the course, but I'm not sure how I'll get listening practice in. Any suggestions are welcome. I might try out shadowing or something like that. I think speaking is well beyond me for a while. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| burntgorilla Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6436 days ago 202 posts - 206 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Danish | Message 8 of 97 23 July 2007 at 5:31am | IP Logged | |||||
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I took Saturday off and did no units, chiefly because my copy of Harry Potter had arrived. :) I read it in one day, so now it's out of the way. I'd highly recommend it, by the way, I don't think you could call it a child's book any more. My grammar also arrived on Saturday, I am waiting for the dictionary still. The grammar is Routledge's Essential Grammar, and I'm thinking that I might have been better off getting the bigger one. This grammar doesn't really provide a lot of explanation, but there are lots of examples. I'm used to my Spanish grammar having big paragraphs of commentary and things. Perhaps it is just the nature of the book, I'm sure I'll find it useful anyway. Since I'm starting university in October, I only really need something to do me until then. Once I'm at uni they will have copies of the fuller grammars that I can refer to.
On Sunday I had friends over, so I had to rush unit 12 slightly. It introduced the gerund form and also a bit more on irregular comparative adjectives, as well as a bit of other stuff that I can't remember. I find the different verbs "to know" confusing. I think you would only use "jeg ved" at the start of a clause, in front of a comma, but I'm not sure of "jeg kan" and the other one which I've unfortunately forgotten. I think one is to know someone, to be familiar with something, whereas the other is to have knowledge of something. Perhaps like the saber/conocer distinction in Spanish? Looking ahead to the unit I'll do today, there's a lot more reading in it than the earlier chapters. I like this. I naturally like reading and grammar and that kind of thing, and I have to force myself to focus on other parts of learning. I am wondering whether I should work against or with my natural desire. I intend to go through the dialogs once I have finished the course and shadow them all, as well as to listen to them. But what I really enjoy is the reading aspect, and I'm afraid that I'll put too much emphasis on that and neglect the other parts of the language. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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