# Danish: vandsprøjt står om potterne



## Clemica

Good evening!

I'm translating a Danish article about hunting. The hunters wake up early to go hunting on the moor with their dog:
"Hunden slippes. Vandsprøjt står om potterne, mens den med lange skridt glider ud over myren. Nu og da skimtes den mellem de lave buske bagerst på myren."

Everything is clear to me except "Vandsprøjt står om potterne". I mean, I understand the words but it doesn't make sense to me in that context. What spray of water and what pots are we talking about here? I'd be grateful for your help!


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## Hans Molenslag

My guess is a spelling error. It makes more sense when you read _poterne_ with one t.


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## Clemica

Thank you Hans! I can't believe I was fooled by an extra t


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## Sepia

So much for automatic spell checking.

...

What about "myren" - can anybody tell me if it is pronounced with a long "y" like the insect or with a short "y".


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## Svenke

It's long. If the vowel were short, the word would have been written with a double _r_.


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## Sepia

Svenke said:


> It's long. If the vowel were short, the word would have been written with a double _r_.



Even if you are right, that would not be sufficient as a reason. The word "pater" also has a short but stressed a in the first syllable is still pronounced differently than "patter" which also has a short "a". The same goes for "løber" and "løber" - as a verb and as a noun - take your pick which is which.


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## JonTve

What about this three nouns in Norwegian : bønner, bønder and bønner, which can be eaten?


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## Jens Balling

I never heard the word 'myren' before in my 65-old-native-danish life. Oh yes! about that small laborious animal.
About 'mosen', no.
So I looked it up, - and now I'm one danish word wiser ....


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## bicontinental

Sepia said:


> What about "myren" - can anybody tell me if it is pronounced with a long "y" like the insect or with a short "y".





Sepia said:


> Even if you are right, that would not be sufficient as a reason. The word "pater" also has a short  long but stressed a in the first syllable is still pronounced differently than "patter" which also has a short "a". The same goes for "løber" and "løber" - as a verb and as a noun - take your pick which is which.



Svenke provided the grammatically correct rule to answer your question, Sepia. Therefore, in your pater/patter example there’s a _long_ vowel in the former word and a short in the latter due to the double consonant, i.e

Pa*t*er ~  [ˈpæˀdʌ]
Vs.
Pa*tt*er ~  [ˈpadʌ]

_Note that both words have a stressed first syllable (hovedtryk på første stavelse) but the glottal stop (stød) is only heard in the first word, pater.
_
In your next example, løber (the present tense of the verb to run, at løbe) vs. en løber (the noun, the person running, or a table runner) the vowel is long in either case, i.e. the letter “ø” is pronounced the same way, but the glottal stop is heard only in the verbal form. Both words, however, have a stressed first syllable.

Drengen løber ~ [ˈløˀbʌ]
Den første løber kom i mål ~ [ˈløːbʌ]

Another example, at dele (to share), han deler (he shares) and han har deller (he has love handles). The double consonant in the noun, deller, shortens the vowel, which is long in the verbal forms. All three words have a stressed first syllable but the glottal stop is only present in the finite verbal form.

At dele [ˈdeːlə]
Han deler [ˈdeˀlʌ]
Han har deller [ˈdεlʌ]

Ref: The online dictionary Ordnet.dk has a pronunciation guide that may be helpful.

Bic.



_
_


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## Wilma_Sweden

Thank you for the quick lesson abot Danish pronunciation! Swedish has similar principles, i. e. long wovels go with single consonants and short vowels go with double or multiple consonants, but we have no stød, of course. 

I usually interpret Danish words based on context, similarities with Swedish or prior knowledge, and thought paws from context, but had flower pots somewhere in the back of my mind...


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## Sepia

Look, I know those rules - regardless if Bioc. knows my, probably dialectal pronunciation of "pater".
That still does not answer the question becauuse everything does not quite follow the same rules.

I don't see any rule that tells us that a word like "fyren" (en fyr) is stressed the way it is and thus "myren" (in the sense " moor") would seem similar. And nobody has given an answer to that. And it is not a word that is really used often. The word "myr" pronounced by that model acctually exists, no matter shat rules Svenke refers to, but that is in a different meaning ...


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## bicontinental

Sepia said:


> What about "myren" - can anybody tell me *if it is pronounced with a long "y" like the insect or with a short "y"*.





Sepia said:


> That still does not answer the question becauuse everything does not quite follow the same rules.



Sepia, your original question, as quoted here, was about the long vs. the short vowel which Svenke immediately answered, providing the grammatical rule. There are exceptions to this rule the same way there are exceptions to essentially every other rule in Danish grammar, but in this particular case the rule holds.



> I don't see any rule that tells us *that a word like "fyren" (en fyr) is stressed* the way it is and thus "myren" (in the sense " moor") would seem similar. *And nobody has given an answer to that*.



That's because this is now a question about the stress/the main accent…(hoved)trykket…which is different from your first question about vowel length. The general rule is that words of Danish origin have the accent on the first syllable. Exceptions are words with the prefixes ge-, be-, for- e.g. ge’bærde, be’færde, for’færde and words with the suffixes -ig and -lig, which often have a stressed second syllable. The so-called loanwords are usually pronounced according to the accent pattern of their original language. And there will be exceptions also to these rules.
Ref: Accent (tryk) - Wikipedia, den frie encyklopædi

In sum, in your first example pater/patter both have a stressed first syllable in keeping with the rules outlined above and different vowel lengths, the latter based on the presence or absence of a double consonant.

Fyr (a guy) and myr (both an insect and a moor) have a long vowel in front of a single consonant (which is not doubled in the definite form, fyren, myren) and they have the accent (hovedtryk) on the first (and only!) syllable. [Additionally, they are both pronounced with a glottal stop, as follows,]

(En flink) fyr [ˈfyɐ̯ˀ],
(En) myr  [ˈmyɐ̯ˀ]



Wilma_Sweden said:


> ....thought paws from context, but had flower pots somewhere in the back of my mind...


Yes, it's amazing how the addition of one consonant to a word can conjure up interesting images!

 Bic.


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## Sepia

bicontinental said:


> Sepia, your original question, as quoted here, was about the long vs. the short vowel which Svenke immediately answered, providing the grammatical rule. There are exceptions to this rule the same way there are exceptions to essentially every other rule in Danish grammar, but in this particular case the rule holds.
> 
> 
> 
> That's because this is now a question about the stress/the main accent…(hoved)trykket…which is different from your first question about vowel length. The general rule is that words of Danish origin have the accent on the first syllable. Exceptions are words with the prefixes ge-, be-, for- e.g. ge’bærde, be’færde, for’færde and words with the suffixes -ig and -lig, which often have a stressed second syllable. The so-called loanwords are usually pronounced according to the accent pattern of their original language. And there will be exceptions also to these rules.
> Ref: Accent (tryk) - Wikipedia, den frie encyklopædi
> 
> In sum, in your first example pater/patter both have a stressed first syllable in keeping with the rules outlined above and different vowel lengths, the latter based on the presence or absence of a double consonant.
> 
> Fyr (a guy) and myr (both an insect and a moor) have a long vowel in front of a single consonant (which is not doubled in the definite form, fyren, myren) and they have the accent (hovedtryk) on the first (and only!) syllable. [Additionally, they are both pronounced with a glottal stop, as follows,]
> 
> (En flink) fyr [ˈfyɐ̯ˀ],
> (En) myr  [ˈmyɐ̯ˀ]
> 
> 
> Yes, it's amazing how the addition of one consonant to a word can conjure up interesting images!
> 
> Bic.




I really start wondering what dialect of Danish you are referring to. It is not one that I ever came across.


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## bicontinental

Sepia said:


> I really start wondering what dialect of Danish you are referring to. It is not one that I ever came across.



This is so-called standard Danish, _østdansk rigsmålsudtale_, used in the online dictionary I referenced above:


bicontinental said:


> Ref: The online dictionary Ordnet.dk has a pronunciation guide that may be helpful.


...by,
© Det Danske Sprog- og Litteraturselskab | Udgives med støtte fra Carlsbergfondet, Augustinus Fonden og Kulturministeriet


Myr: myr,2 — Den Danske Ordbog


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