# Danish: following the conversation...



## arwena

Hello guys,

Please help me with such an expression: "*Following* our phone conversation I would like to invite you etc.". 

(...) vores telefonsamtale inviteres du hermed til (etc.)

I cannot find a formal/business version for "following".

I would mostly appreciate your help and comments.

MVH,
Arwena


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## solregn

This might not be a perfect translation, but it sounds alright in my ears :
_
I forlængelse af vores telefonsamtale, vil jeg hermed invitere deg til...
_


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## hanne

> I forlængelse af vores telefonsamtale, vil jeg hermed invitere dig til...


Agree.


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## arwena

Mange tak


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## Sepia

hanne said:


> Agree.



I do not quite buy that.

I fortsaettelse af vor telefonsamtale 

would be the normal expression.


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## hanne

Sepia said:


> I fortsættelse af vor telefonsamtale


Forlængelse sounds better to me.
Google gives it as a tie... 54-56


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## tru-life

i would also use in " i forlængelse af".

Sounds much better.


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## Sepia

hanne said:


> Forlængelse sounds better to me.
> Google gives it as a tie... 54-56


 

This is the kind of argument I never really understand - sounds better, fine. What if it does not express what you really want to say? You are not extending the conversation - du forlaenger ikke telefonsamtalen - rather than continuing the communication that began with the phone call - fortsaetter korrespondencen paa anden vis eller paa et senere tidspunkt. 

Besides, "i fortsaettelse af telefonsamtalen ..." is one of the expressions that are so common that in those days when they still used short hand they had a two or three character abreviation for all those words.


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## hanne

"sounds better" is to me another (shorter) way of saying something along the lines of: "sounds more familiar, sounds more correct, is what I'd expect to see in a letter from the bank, the other version looks to me like somebody was trying to use fancy language, and didn't quite get it right".

What it really "expresses" - well, it's a fixed expression, so it expresses what it always does by convention "we had a phone conversation, and we talked about this piece of paper, and now I'm sending it to you".



> You are not extending the conversation - du forlaenger ikke telefonsamtalen - rather than continuing the communication that began with the phone call - fortsaetter korrespondencen paa anden vis eller paa et senere tidspunkt


No, the conversation is not continuing - continuing implies to me that we'll be picking up the phone and talking again. But as an extension to what we were talking about, here's that document that I promised you, as an "appendix" to the conversation. (and then we may not talk ever again).
To me it is still more of an "extension" to our conversation than a "continuation" of it.


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## nrocco1

Ordbog over Det danske sprog has them as almost synonyms:

"i forlængelse af noget" a) sådan at noget gøres længere el. kommer umiddelbart efter i tid el. rum; ; b) (ofø) som konsekvens el. naturlig følge af;

"i fortsættelse af" som en konkret el. tidsmæssig fortsættelse af; jf forlængelse .

(seen on sproget.dk)

I would say that forlængelse makes more sense in the context, seeing that the meaning is "a natural consequense of" rather that "time-wise continuation".

Neel


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