# Danish: Pronunciation advice



## tuckat

I am from Russia, and I obviously have some sort of accent when I speak English, however people say that it is not bad. However, I have been learning Danish for 2 months now, and my Danish friend tells me that I sound quite bad when I speak to her. The problem is that she does not speak English very well, and honestly I do not speak English very well, so she cannot give me much advice to improve my accent. If anybody could send me some helpful advice about sounding more "Danish" when I speak? Tak skal I have!


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## Alxmrphi

Have you looked here?

I've heard Danish pronunciation is very difficult and not really how the other Nordic languages would say the same word.. that's what an Icelandic friend told me... as they learn Danish as a second language (or did until recently) at school...

Learn Danish (pronunciation part inclused)
Danish "so called" pronunciation
Listen to Danish survival phrases

Someone here also is finding it difficult and people have given help there...
If you're rich you can go on an intensive course to learn 

You're English seems fine by the way!


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## MarX

Hi Tuckat!

Danish pronunciation is quite daunting indeed.

Some tips that may help:

The Danish R is very weak. Often you barely hear it or it even disappears altogether. This is a particular challenge for Russians who generally pronounce their R's clearly.

A, like in English, often sounds more like E.

That's all I could think of for now. HTH & good luck!


MarX


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## tuckat

Thank you!
I was wondering though about the amount of over-pronunciation that happends. People from Denmark, it seems, drop many letters and speak like they are not pronouncing things very clearly. I feel like I must over-pronounce in order to make myself understood, but how much can a drawl or else slur things without sounding bad?


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## hanne

So your problem isn't that it's difficult to understand what you say, just that you sound like a foreigner? Because in the first case you'd have a lot more to worry about .
Danish pronunciation *is* a terrible thing, as it has already been pointed out. Many children who have just learned to read will also pronounce many letters when reading aloud, that they wouldn't pronounce otherwise. Some people still do this as adults.
I think it's better to over-pronounce and be understood, than to slur in the wrong places and not be understood at all - remember we don't slur just to slur, we only slur in the places where it can save time and still keep exactly the necessary level of detail to be perfectly clear and understood! With only 2 months of learning I'm not sure you should worry about this yet .

Finally, I have a Russian colleague who speaks very good Danish, even though she still has some accent after living here for 10 years (as most people would have everywhere). So being Russian doesn't mean that you're "doomed" to have a terrible accent.


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## Alxmrphi

hanne said:


> Finally, I have a Russian colleague who speaks very good Danish, even though she still has some accent after living here for 10 years (as most people would have everywhere). So being Russian doesn't mean that you're "doomed" to have a terrible accent.



Yeah it's like the French, people who are fluent in English and have been for 30/40 years still are identifiably French (in my experience)


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## MarX

tuckat said:


> Thank you!
> I was wondering though about the amount of over-pronunciation that happends. People from Denmark, it seems, drop many letters and speak like they are not pronouncing things very clearly. I feel like I must over-pronounce in order to make myself understood, but how much can a drawl or else slur things without sounding bad?


I've never thought about it, but Danish is one of the few languages where overpronouncing makes you sound "not right".
Notice for example that Swedes also slur a lot when speaking, but when you overpronounce their language, you'd still sound okay. That's not the case in Danish.


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## hanne

Alex_Murphy said:


> Yeah it's like the French, people who are fluent in English and have been for 30/40 years still are identifiably French (in my experience)


Not quite what I meant - just that whenever you learn a new language you'll rarely ever get to sound like a native - mostly you can always be identified as a foreigner. All I wanted to tell tuckat was it's not by definition impossible for a Russian to speak Danish well.

MarX, I'm not sure I understand what you mean. The different between speech and print is probably bigger in Danish than in many other languages, so if you talk like you write you'll be further away from "regular" speech in Danish than otherwise. Is that what you mean by "not right"? Or is there something else to it?


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## MarX

hanne said:


> MarX, I'm not sure I understand what you mean. The different between speech and print is probably bigger in Danish than in many other languages, so if you talk like you write you'll be further away from "regular" speech in Danish than otherwise. Is that what you mean by "not right"? Or is there something else to it?


Yes. That's what I meant. If someone overpronounces Danish, s/he'd sound quite unnatural, because not even newscasters or (native) careful readers would do that.


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## tuckat

Sorry, one last question!
I realize that the stød (glottal stop?) is very common in spoken Danish, (there is no such thing in Russian OR English, so this was a bit tricky to learn to produce...) and I know the BASIC rules for the the presence/absence of the stød, but it gets very confusing when speaking to remember where EXACTLY a stød will go or if it will be lost (for example, I believe the word "dansk" holds a stød on the "n," whereas the word "danske" holds no stød.) Is this something that could potentially cause problems with understanding, or is it not something to be spending as much time as I am trying to master?
And also, for example, the verb "at holde af" contains no stød, but when one says "Jeg holder af..." the "l" in "holder" seems to have a stød. Am I mistaken, or are there some verbs that add a stød in some places?


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## hanne

There are some words which are distinguished only by stød, but usually the meaning will be clear from the context, so I'd say you don't need to worry too much. There are also dialects which don't have stød at all. However if you want to sound "right" you should start thinking about stød eventually...

Generally, stød doesn't belong to the "general word"/meaning/whatever-it's-called as such - it will often change with inflection ('en gud' (a god) has no stød, but 'guden' (the god) does have it, 'at holde' hasn't, but 'holder' has, while in 'holder af' I think I'd move the stød to 'af'). Danish wikipedia tries to list some rules, but ends up listing loads of exceptions as well...

PS. I'm usually better at using this horrible language than I am at explaining it - I guess that shows


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## Alxmrphi

hanne said:


> PS. I'm usually better at using this horrible language than I am at explaining it - I guess that shows



It's quite strange, I'm just used to assuming you're a native English speaker now, then when I see "Danish" in the corner I keep remembering.... 
Norse languages are very tricky anyway, very hard to explain!


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## hanne

Alex_Murphy said:


> It's quite strange, I'm just used to assuming you're a native English speaker now


Hehe, I take that as a compliment - thank you .

Are the Scandinavian languages really harder to explain than other languages? I suppose they may have a worse lack of grammatic rules. Explaining pronounciation in print is bound to be difficult though.


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## MarX

tuckat said:


> Sorry, one last question!
> I realize that the stød (glottal stop?) is very common in spoken Danish, (there is no such thing in Russian OR English, so this was a bit tricky to learn to produce...) and I know the BASIC rules for the the presence/absence of the stød, but it gets very confusing when speaking to remember where EXACTLY a stød will go or if it will be lost (for example, I believe the word "dansk" holds a stød on the "n," whereas the word "danske" holds no stød.) Is this something that could potentially cause problems with understanding, or is it not something to be spending as much time as I am trying to master?
> And also, for example, the verb "at holde af" contains no stød, but when one says "Jeg holder af..." the "l" in "holder" seems to have a stød. Am I mistaken, or are there some verbs that add a stød in some places?


I agree with Hanne. You needn't worry about the stöd (excuse the font).
Not only does it vary regionally, but also generationally and socially, or at least that's what I read.
Btw, English does have a stöd. Just take the word "it". There's a stöd just before the T. Certain accents in England use it very frequently, and some (American) comedians try to imitate British accent by speaking snatchily/choppily, among others.


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## Geoscan

MarX said:


> I agree with Hanne. You needn't worry about the stöd (excuse the font).
> Not only does it vary regionally, but also generationally and socially, or at least that's what I read.
> Btw, English does have a stöd. Just take the word "it". There's a stöd just before the T. Certain accents in England use it very frequently, and some (American) comedians try to imitate British accent by speaking snatchily/choppily, among others.



I was born in NE England and our dialect has the stød too..  Actually, a lot of our words in general are of Scandinavian origin..  When I was a little boy, my mother (who is from Copenhagen originally) used to tell me to pretend there was a Cockney 'T' before or after certain letters..  I think the hardest letter to pronounce in Danish for a foreigner is the soft 'd'..  Almost sounds like a muffled 'l'..


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