Simple Danish Newsletter #24

Hi friends,

We hope you are having a great summer so far 😊 We are back from our vacation, which this year took us to both Norway and Sweden.

Linguistically, it was quite an interesting vacation, as we got to observe a number of “False Friends” in action. False friends are words that look the same or similar in both languages, but that mean different things. An example is “Frokost”, which means “Lunch” in Danish, but means “Breakfast” in both Swedish and Norwegian.

However, despite the differences, the three languages are extremely similar. So it begs the question; Do Danes understand Swedish and Norwegian? (And what about the other way around?).

In written language the answer is easy: It is a big yes.

I am going to estimate that 90% or more of Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian is identical on paper, and you will have no trouble understanding either language written down.

There are a few false friends to watch out for, and the number systems are famously different (the danish one being the odd one out=, but other than that you will easily understand most, and the rest you can infer from context.

In that sense learning any of the three languages really is a 3-for-1 kind of deal.

The spoken languages are a different story, and a big part of the problem is Danish…

As you are well aware Danes do not really pronounce words the way they are written. This means that Swedes and Norwegians might have more problems understanding you than you have understanding them.

I am not going to lie and say that all Danes understand Swedish and Norwegian perfectly. I know many who don’t understand the languages due to the slight differences in pronunciation, intonation, and vocabulary. This leads to situations where Scandinavians end up speaking English to each other.

In my experience, what has helped a lot with understanding the spoken language is exposure. Listening to Swedish and Norwegian has helped a lot, and in fact, in School we have some mandatory exposure to the other languages for exactly this reason. We’ll link to some of our favourite Swedish and Norwegian sources below if you want to check them out.

So how much do Sedes and Norwegians understand of Danish?

On our vacation this year we did a bit of an experiment and spoke purely Danish for a while to see what would happen.

Checking into a hotel? Ordering stuff in a restaurant? Shopping for clothes? Small-talk about dogs? They understood our Danish no problem.

The only problem we had was in Sweden, when we needed to get our bicycles on board a bus.

See, we cycled around Gotland in Sweden this vacation, and when we were going back to Copenhagen, we needed to get our bikes from Oskarshamn to a city where we could jump aboard an Öresundstog back home. This was pretty crucial as we already had the tickets for the train.

However, when the bus arrived it was already carrying one bicycle on the back; which is a problem because Swedish busses can carry a max of two bicycles and it is a first come, first serve basis. I ineffectively tried convincing the bus-driver to let us carry one bike inside the bus, and the other on the back, so as to not leave one of us stranded. And here my Danish kind of fell short. I tried asking if there was anything else we could do but to no avail. I then switched to English, and we got the idea to try shoving the bike in with all the luggage under the bus. In the end, we made it to our train with our bikes but with a little less Scandinavian-pride than before.

After this vacation I can truly say: You are in luck. By learning Danish, the hard part is over. If you ever decide to add another Scandinavian language to the top, you will have no problem picking them up.

In the meantime, simply exposing yourself to a bit of Swedish and Norwegian can take you far: Far enough to get by in both countries using only Danish, at least until you need to get a bike onboard a Swedish bus.

❤️ Our Favourite Things

Norwegian Comedy we like watching:

Norwegian comedy duo, Ylvis. You might know them already, from their viral song The Fox (What does the Fox say) which is in itself, quite the creation, but a lot of their other comedy is also worth watching. I have personally watched a lot of their talkshow “I kveld med YLVIS” which features sketches and pranks.

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Danish/Swedish TV series you can watch

The Danish/Swedish TV series Broen from 2011. The film features a lot of both Danish and Swedish, but I think it is worth watching regardles of the language. It is a “Nordic Noir” crime-series where you follow the joint-police work carried out between the police in Malmø and Copenhagen after a dead body is discovered exactly half-way between Denmark and Sweden on Øresundsbroen (the bridge that connects Denmark and Sweden).

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Idiom of the Week: Når man taler om solen, så skinner den.

Literally: When you talk about the sun, it shines.

Danes often use this expression when talking about the weather (which is often) and the sun then appears unexpectedly.However, it is mostly used in a similar (but more positive) way to the English phrase :”speak of the devil,”

Example:

Your colleague Jimmy is late for work, and you are talking about him.

A) Hey, ved du om Jimmy er syg i dag?

B) Nej, jeg har ikke hørt noget fra ham.

Jimmy enters the room

A) Når man taler om solen…

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Word of the week: Vaskebjørn

Literally: Washing bear.

This is the danish word for racoon. It is not some deep, beautiful Danish phrase, I just think it is cute the racoon is named Washing bear in Danish. It probably gets the name from the fact that racoons tend to wash their food before eating, which led to this cute video of a racoon trying to eat cotton-candy (which is just known as Candyfloss in Denmark).

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That’s all we had for you for this week. Feel free to reply to this email with comments, suggestions or questions, as we read and reply to all emails 😊

Best regards,

Antonina & Rasmus

Denmark&Me