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Danish pronunciation | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| rexkiu Diglot Newbie Hong Kong Joined 4203 days ago 6 posts - 7 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English Studies: Danish | Message 1 of 5 05 August 2013 at 7:06am | IP Logged |
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I am now studying Danish. Yet I am struggling with its pronunciation.
I think the soft 'd' is the most difficult consonant to be pronounced. People from the internet said that it is similar to the sound of 'th' in English. Yet, I still cannot pronounced it correctly. Therefore, I want to ask how it can be pronounced correctly. On the other hand, I do not quite understand when I should use the weak form of words during speaking. Is there any list of some words that have weak form?? Thank you very much!!! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| gaggilla Tetraglot Newbie Switzerland Joined 5018 days ago 18 posts - 28 votes Speaks: German*, French, English, Romanian Studies: Icelandic, Persian, Hungarian, Danish | Message 2 of 5 05 August 2013 at 11:17am | IP Logged |
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If I remember correctly, a member of this forum (I can't recall who it was, sorry) once explained it in comparision to the English "the": In order to produce the soft D, your tongue has to be at the same position as it is at the end of that word (softly touching your lower front row of teeth from behind). This really helped me, I had been puzzled by this sound as well - now I enjoy it a lot, it's a bit like being too lazy to lift up your tongue!
Concerning your other question, I'm not too sure what weak form you mean - the adjectives? Here, the weak form is used when the adjective is placed between the definite article and the noun (det nye hus) or, in the case of possession, between possessive pronoun/possessor and whatever is possessed (Mettes nye hus). Position is the key here, it's "Huset er nyt" and not "Huset er nye". As far as I know, there is no weak form for adjectives ending on -å (det blå hus etc.) - native speakers, please correct me. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4829 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 3 of 5 05 August 2013 at 1:02pm | IP Logged |
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While it may not necessarily help with the active skill of speaking, something which I
am doing is listening to Danish audiobooks while reading the Danish text, in order to get a better idea of how the sound of the language relates to the written word. It also exposes you to a large amount of input. (I also use English translations). This is still a "work in progress" as far as I am concerned, so I cannot tell you whether "it works" or not, but it seems worth a try, and I enjoy listening to audiobooks. Another approach might be podcasts with transcripts. One source of these is Copenhagencast. The podcasts are a free download, but you pay for the transcripts (quite a modest amount, and well worth it). 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| rexkiu Diglot Newbie Hong Kong Joined 4203 days ago 6 posts - 7 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English Studies: Danish | Message 4 of 5 05 August 2013 at 2:51pm | IP Logged |
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Thank you for all the advice!!
Now, I have a more concrete idea of how to pronounce that consonant. Besides, I am going to read Danish text while I am listening the audio book and reading the English version of the text. Thank you very much!!!!!!!!!! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 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 5 of 5 06 August 2013 at 2:41pm | IP Logged |
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Let's just take the question of the adjectives first:
adjectives with a definite article (which always will be prepositioned when there is an adjective in the nominal phrase) - always ending -e (except a few adjectives like blå, grå) fælleskøn: den store have intetkøn: det store hus plural: de store huse og haver adjectives with an indefinite article (or a number or nothing): fælleskøn: en stor have intetkøn: et stort hus flertal: store huse og haver NB: en blå have (spraypainted?), but et blåt hus (and blå huse og haver) However the wish for a list doesn't point to adjectives, because these rules aren't wordbound - they are syntactical. Methinks the OP had the morphology of the verbs in mind, where each verb actually belongs to one of two groups. The strong verbs are those that mark tempus by changing their root vowel. This is probably the oldest group, and it consists of one or two syllable words and their derivations: at bede, jeg beder, jeg bad, jeg har bedt (to pray, I pray, I prayed, I have prayed) resp. at drikke, jeg drikker, jeg drak, jeg har drukket (I drink, etc.). Sometimes there are other irregularities: "jeg går, jeg gik" (I walk, I went). You have to learn the vowel changes word for word, and almost any verb that hasn't got a verb change is supposed to belong in the other group, which is called the weak verbs (and which also is the only productive group). For the weak verbs the past tense is formed with the ending -(e)de: at svare, jeg svarer, jeg svarede, jeg har svaret (to answer etc). You can't trust that English has the same division line (for instance at svømme, jeg svømmer, jeg svømmede, jeg har svømmet, but to swim, I swim, I swam, I have swum), and there are a few strong verbs that keep the vowel (at løbe, jeg løber, jeg løb, jeg er løbet (to run, etc)), but in general terms you should concentrate on learning the strong verbs and treat anything else like a weak verb with an ending in the past tense). Notice also that "at løbe" uses the auxiliary "to be" because it is a verb of movement. However this has nothing to do with strong vs. weak verbs. As for the soft 'd' you can try the method described earlier in this thread. But if you have problems with this sound in Danish then you should logically have the same problems with the same sound in English, where it is very common. Edited by Iversen on 06 August 2013 at 3:01pm 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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