# Danish: I am Israeli, and I'll be staying in China for two and a half months



## iyavor

Hello to all of the nice Danish people using this forum!

I'm going to be staying in a Danish-run hostel and I wanted to have a few basic Danish phrases to use. Could anyone help out?

Of course- I'm talking about spoken, colloquial Danish, and I know none 

1. I am Israeli, and I'll be staying in China for two and a half months. 

2. Thank you for your offer, I won't be attending services. As it happens, I'm Jewish. 

3. I only eat vegetarian food that contains no animal products. 
4. My Danish is very poor. I have never been to Denmark! 


Thanks to all contributors!


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## tru-life

iyavor said:


> Hello to all of the nice Danish people using this forum!
> 
> I'm going to be staying in a Danish-run hostel and I wanted to have a few basic Danish phrases to use. Could anyone help out?
> 
> Of course- I'm talking about spoken, colloquial Danish, and I know none
> 
> 1. I am Israeli, and I'll be staying in China for two and a half months.
> *Jeg er israeler og jeg skal være her i kina i to og en halv måned.*
> 
> 2. Thank you for your offer, I won't be attending services. As it happens, I'm Jewish.
> 
> 3. I only eat vegetarian food that contains no animal products.
> *Jeg er vegetar, Jeg spiser kun retter der ikke indeholder animalske produkter*
> 
> 4. My Danish is very poor. I have never been to Denmark!
> *Jeg taler dårligt dansk. Jeg har aldrig været i Danmark før.*
> 
> Thanks to all contributors!


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## iyavor

thanks trulife for your help!

Can anyone translate the second phrase for me? 

Thank you. 

Also- does anyone know of a good Danish pronunciation guide?

Ilan...


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## Andreas_Jensen

"Thank you for your offer, I won't be attending services. As it happens, I'm Jewish."

Tak for dit/Deres/jeres tilbud, jeg skal ikke være med til gudstjeneste, da jeg er jøde.

(dit: informal, Deres: formal singular, jeres: plural) 

I rephrased the sentence a bit, since "as it happens" didn't quite agree with me  It now simply says "as I am Jewish (Jew)". Hope you don't mind. And I assume that you mean a religious service, right?

Danish pronunciation is not for the faint hearted, I must say... I don't know of any decent guides. My experience is that you have to hear it to really get it. Of course there are some general rules that you might find out there on the Internet or just by hanging around this place...  I don't have time to get into it now, sorry...


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## Fantasma

A little note: No one uses 'Deres' anymore, really. That sounds old and outdated, but might be used in extremely formal correspondence, which again is not too common in Danish.

With regards to pronunciation, I would have to agree with Andreas. Learning Danish pronunciation is about as easy as crossing the Atlantic Ocean with one hand tied behind your back. You would have to hear it and get a feeling of it before you would have any real chance to learn Danish. Furthermore, just to complicate matters even more, there's a significant difference between how Danish is written and how it's spoken.


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## Andreas_Jensen

"A little note: No one uses 'Deres' anymore, really. That sounds old and outdated, but might be used in extremely formal correspondence, which again is not too common in Danish."

That's completely true, compared to other languages ours isn't an especially polite one. It didn't occur to me that we are "special" in that sense. In general you can be informal with almost anyone and get away with it


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## Fantasma

Andreas_Jensen said:


> "A little note: No one uses 'Deres' anymore, really. That sounds old and outdated, but might be used in extremely formal correspondence, which again is not too common in Danish."
> 
> That's completely true, compared to other languages ours isn't an especially polite one. It didn't occur to me that we are "special" in that sense. In general you can be informal with almost anyone and get away with it



Exactly. I've probably only heard 'Deres' being used in modern Danish films that have a tendency to be using a language that is not in existence.


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## pcongre

iyavor said:


> does anyone know of a good Danish pronunciation guide?



Here you can hear how a handful of sounds are pronounced: http://www.speakdanish.dk/html/t_pronunciation_index.htm
And especially if you have any experience with IPA symbols, you should check out this page as well:
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/danish.htm


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## a beer-slurping Viking

Tak for jeres, jeres is the good word...


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## MIODRAG

Andreas_Jensen said:


> "A little note: No one uses 'Deres' anymore, really. That sounds old and outdated, but might be used in extremely formal correspondence, which again is not too common in Danish."
> 
> That's completely true, compared to other languages ours isn't an especially polite one. It didn't occur to me that we are "special" in that sense. In general you can be informal with almost anyone and get away with it




Are you saying you'd adress  Dronning Margrethe as "du"? -- A hoodloom like prince Joachim probably, but her too?


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## Andreas_Jensen

MIODRAG said:


> Are you saying you'd adress Dronning Margrethe as "du"? -- A hoodloom like prince Joachim probably, but her too?


 
The royal family is addressed using "De" and "Deres", but recently I heard (on the news) Princess Mary being addressed as "du" by a journalist, which I found odd, but in the room in question no-one seemed to mind much...


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