Can You Pronounce The Main Copenhagen Tourist Attractions?

Learn some important features and rules about Danish pronunciation, as we visit the following tourist attractions (see further down).
If you are learning Danish or just interested in knowing how to pronounce these places, make sure to watch the whole video, and - if you're up to it - try to repeat the sounds I guide you through.
Tivoli
Søerne (the Lakes)
Rådhuspladsen
Rundetårn
Christiania
Strøget
Amalienborg
Nyhavn
Den lille havfrue
Torvehallerne
Kongens Have
I'm sure you will learn a lot, even if you've already studied some Danish.
Enjoy!
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[@mezzanayne]

This is by far the best channel that I've ever found for detailed Danish pronunciations. It's been immensely helpful for my learning. Well done, thank you, and keep up the excellent work.

[@MicsLanguages]

Thank you so much for your kind words, Megan! 😊 Your comment totally made my day. I hope your Danish learning journey is going great 😉 Best, Mic

[@SNeaker328]

This is great! French is to Romance Languages as Danish is to Germanic ones

[@jasonlove8733]

This is hands down the best vlog out there on Danish pronunciation ❤️❤️❤️

[@MicsLanguages]

thank you!

[@user-gt8rm5bv1z]

Thank you for an interesting tour and a very clear explanation of the complex Danish pronunciation. 🙏

[@luraymundo1067]

Another amazing video! MANGE tak! 🙏🙏🙏🙏

[@MicsLanguages]

Jeg er glad for at høre, at du kan lide den 😊

[@tracysztanya5824]

Thank you so much! We are reading Number the Stars in our 7th grade classes, and I had difficulty pronouncing the Danish words. This has helped!

[@johnmiko02]

Excellent work as always. Tak for det.

[@MicsLanguages]

Mange tak for din kommentar!

[@jasonlove8733]

Great explanations!! You explain the pronunciations so detailed and answer all my questions

[@MicsLanguages]

That's great to hear, thank you very much!

[@zzzut]

Your videos are brilliantly done. I just subscribed.

[@MicsLanguages]

Thank you very much!

[@simonedens3723]

Another super video. Mange tak!

[@MicsLanguages]

Selv tak!

[@GypsieSeeker]

Copenhagen is beautiful. Your explanations are crystal clear. Thanks so much!

[@MicsLanguages]

Great to hear. Thanks, Ayrton Senna!

[@elenaviajerangbarcelona8803]

Best one ! Tak

[@heli7452]

Thank`s for this.I just came from Copehagen, my first time in Denmark and loved it! I just had no clue, how the words are pronounced. I speak pretty good Swedish and can read Danish, but the way people pronounce the language remained quite mysterious for me.

[@MicsLanguages]

Great to hear that you loved it and that some of these words have now been demystified 🙂

[@Claire-pj4lw]

Can you do a video about æ and ø sounds? Your videos are amazing, thank you so much!

[@MicsLanguages]

Thank you! And thanks for your suggestion. I'm still not sure about how I will present the different vowel sounds. I'm considering making a paid mini course on vowels at some point. Don't know yet. For now, I probably won't post videos that are specifically about one vowel sound. But my plans might change 🙃

To aqui assistindo o seu vídeo pra aperfeiçoar meu dinamarquês. Hahaha. Legal de mais o seu vídeo, Mic! Vou linka-lo no que eu fiz sobre turismo aqui na Dimamarca. :-)

[@MicsLanguages]

Valeu, Elvis! Faz tempo que eu não olho no teu canal. Aumentou bastante o número de inscritos, hein? Muito bom! Eu sempre indico teu canal quando brasileiros me perguntam sobre a Dinamarca. E fique ligado no meu canal (este aqui) que eu pretendo postar muito mais coisas. Também no Instagram, que eu finalmente aprendi a usar. De repente tenha algo mais que te ajude a aperfeiçoar seu dinamarquês 😉

[@braziliaan]

Tusind tak for det!

[@schlurpie]

my boyfriend says that in speaking danish, you should pronounce the first syllable correctly and let the rest of the word falter 🤣

[@MicsLanguages]

He is not complete wrong here haha 🤔

[@alexignaciomunoz6361]

hej ! the best danish teacher

[@stephenscottbrewer5184]

Very helpful, Mic! Mange tak! Jeg prøver at lære dansk alene. Dine videoer hjælper meget.

[@MicsLanguages]

Hej Stephen! Dejligt at høre, at mine videoer hjælper dig. Og godt at høre, at du lærer dansk alene. Jeg ønsker dig held og lykke!

[@lornamarie5544]

Copenhagen is looking nice. I’m going to have to take a trip there and get this Danish into practice

[@MicsLanguages]

Sounds like a great idea! Hopefully they stop the Corona-craziness so it's possible to travel normally :)

[@leilat.3237]

Mic, I was searching for videos about Copenhagen and I ended up here! And I really love it♥️I almost cry watching all the places, I miss there a lot🥲…Thank you so much for your video!! And…como você fala português😅? Só fiquei curiosa pra saber😁! Se cuida!

[@MicsLanguages]

Hi Leila. Great to hear that you like the video and that you have good memories from CPH. Sobre sua Pergunta: Nós últimos 12 anos morei metade do tempo na DK e outra metade no BR. Agora mesmo estou morando na Bahia :)

[@john-wq4sf]

Dear Mic, very helpful. Great video. How do you pronounce Norrebro? Very many thanks.

[@MicsLanguages]

Thanks! Here you can hear Nørrebro: forvo.com/word/n%C3%B8rrebro/#da Hope this helps :)

[@nsabir1577]

Tak

[@archiethegirl]

It would be great to have a video on pronouncing Danish foods like smørrebrød 😊

[@MicsLanguages]

That's a fantastic idea! It hasn't ever come to my mind, even though it is kind of obvious. Thanks a lot for suggesting it! 😉

[@timb.4902]

Hej Mic - a fantastic overview! Thanks a lot. And how about the mysterious city name itself? We had a layover the day before Christmas Eve 2021 and fell in love with your charming city. The Lego store near Nyhavn was closed (probably due to COVID-19) but we had a blast walking all over! Ever since we came back to the U.S. the name København has been "haunting" me as I am not sure how would the locals pronounce it, as did Amagen Strand station (we heard a nearly unrecognizable, Ahm-strah, on the Metro/Train), followed by Østerport. The language is an absolute riddle and makes French pronunciation a walk in the park - just LOVE it. So, how does one pronounce København??

[@MicsLanguages]

Dear Tim, thanks for your nice comment. Copenhagen is an amazing city. Today the streets were full of bicycles, as yesterday's official Tour de France stage was opened for the public. All the bike riders paired with beautiful sunshine and the city's charme, was a great experience. As to your questions regarding pronunciation, you can always try to consult forvo.com, a site where native speakers pronounce many different words. Here are the links to the place names you were asking about: da.forvo.com/word/k%C3%B8benhavn/#da da.forvo.com/word/amager_strand/#da da.forvo.com/word/%C3%B8sterport/#da Hope this helps :)

[@annelisebreuning]

Thank you for these great videos. My only request is to lower the volume of the music as you say the place name for the first time. Tak!

[@MicsLanguages]

Hi, thanks for your suggestion! I'll think about it next time

[@cheetahjammerplaysaj591]

It’s easy to pronounce to Danish tourist spots well especially Copenhagen, but I still need to work more on my grammar and my pronunciation before I move to Denmark

[@petercoloma8092]

Cool! I'm moving as well. I'm impressed how beautiful all these places are. I can't wait moving there!

[@MicsLanguages]

Cheetah, that's great! Normally people struggle a lot with Danish pronunciation. If you feel that these places are easy to pronounce, you are "ahead" of most people. That's good. The rest will come easily if you put in the due effort.

[@MicsLanguages]

@@petercoloma8092 Good luck!

[@peterappel9154]

Thanks for this series. Your recommendations are very helpfull. When I learned Danish (many years ago), I first thought this language is some kind of "german light" because grammar is very easy compared to german and many words are closely related. So it was easy to read danish texts after short time. This is in total contrast to spoken danish. For a german it first sounds like chinese backwards and it takes a lot of practise to understand and speak danish. What makes things even more complicated is the fact, that in this small country there are surprisingly many different dialects, which for a foreigner sound very different. For me the danish in Tøndern sounds almost like a different language compared to Copenhagen dialect.

[@MicsLanguages]

Thanks for your comment! I am glad that Danish is my native language, as I otherwise would have to make a lot of effort to learn it well. The pronunciation is definitely not easy!

[@androidfarmer8863]

Wonderful videos - we just got back from a week in your beautiful and fascinating city. Before going, I tried to follow a language program (Mango) which tried to spell things phonetically. It was VERY far off. I am still not convinced that the "English" spellings / descriptions are necessarily as I would spell them to allow me to pronounce things correctly. For example, Strøget = Stroughyel. (where you don't really pronounce the L) :) I would love to return one day, so I will probably start watching more of these videos....

[@MicsLanguages]

Hi! Thanks for your nice comment. I'm glad you enjoyed København! And I agree, that pronunciation from Mango for the word strøget is really ugly. I wonder if other people would prefer having that "creative" transcription to not having any at all. I hope for you that you can visit CPH again some time 😉

[@kathybrady4033]

En rigtig god tur!!

[@MicsLanguages]

Tak Kathy! Ja, det var dengang man stadig kunne bevæge sig frit rundt i verden 🙂 Det føles som om det er flere hundrede år siden 😕

[@frienjie7148]

8:45 nyhavn _NU-HOWN_ thank you for this!! 😃

[@PauloHenrique-qj1wu]

Olá. Tudo bem? (: Como te contratar para ter aulas particulares de Inglês?

[@MRLDsxn]

You are cool clever bro ^^

[@TatianaRacheva]

How does æ function in Danish? It it like one of the a sounds or something different? I think the rule with hav vs have is the closed vs. open syllable, like in English. The open syllable vowel is pronounced (most of the time - ironically, the English “have” is an exception to that rule) as in the dictionary. The silent “e” usually serves to make the previous syllable open. It seems that a similar process is under way in Danish. If I’m not mistaken, in Norwegian, it’s the double vs. single consonant that controls the length/quality of the preceding vowel

[@MicsLanguages]

The A has one of three sounds. The words hav & have are good examples for showing these 3 sounds. "have = garden" has the long a sound, like A in the alphabet "hav = imperative form and have = infinitive form of to have" most of the time is pronounced with a short A sound, as in English hat and cat, but it can also be pronounced with the long alphabet A sound. "hav = ocean" has the most open vowel, the same A as in Italian & Spanish, and it forms a diphtong with the V, which is pronounced like an U more or less. The vowel Æ most of the time has a different sound from these three. The same sound it has in the alphabet. But it can also have the first A sound that I mentioned here, often when in conjunction with an R. For example ræv, kræsen, desværre. Danish also has the rule of a double consonant making the preceding vowel short. Example: hane = rooster has a long A (1st sound) and the female name Hanne has a short A (the second sound I mentioned in this comment)

[@user-bh4vp7bv5y]

Oh man, i miss my favourite city in the world so much 😭

[@MicsLanguages]

CPH is a great city. Did you live there before?

[@mannclanuk]

Hejsa Mik, just love your videos, especially those that help with Danish pronunciation. May I ask if you can advise on the pronunciation of 'ag' in various words but especially as 'bag', most seem to be pronounced as the English 'ow' eg: baghaven, bagsiden, baglæns and many more BUT some seem to be pronounced as the English 'ay' eg: bagved, bagfra, bagtil, bagefter (NB: I may well be incorrect in this assumption, please correct me if so). Is there any clear rule or convention applied or not? MvH Stewart

[@mannclanuk]

Oops! Apologies for misspelling your name MIC 🙄

[@MicsLanguages]

Hej Stewart, thanks for this great question. First of all, you are totally right in how these words are pronounced. But whether the latter words (bagved etc.) are really pronounced like "ay" in English would depend on the English accent that we're talking about. Probably more true about some British accents and less so for American English. As to rules about when bag is pronounced "ow" and when "ay", I would say the following: As a default it is pronounced "ay". This is also true when bag is linked with a preposition (ved, fra etc. are all prepositions). When bag is combined with other words, for example nouns like have (garden), it turns into the "ow" sound. Does this answer your question? 🙂

[@mannclanuk]

@@MicsLanguages Hej, Mic, tusind tak for din hjælp. I will feel much more confident with my pronunciation now, thanks to your detailed explanation. 😄.

[@user-dd4tf4zk1q]

My First time to Pronounce Christiania after watching your video 😂😃

[@MicsLanguages]

Good to hear!

[@Voidnomore]

Hej hej

[@massakr]

Thanks Mr. Mentalist

[@MicsLanguages]

I beg your pardon! 😮 Why Mr Mentalist?

[@massakr]

@@MicsLanguages To me you kinda look like the main character from that TV series, Simon Baker 😉. I really appreciate your videos. They help a lot with learning danish.

[@MicsLanguages]

@@massakr I've never heard that one. Thank you, I guess 🤔😀 I didn't know about the existence of that TV series. Thanks for opening my horizon a bit. And great to hear that my videos are helpful to you 😎

[@mroldnewbie]

"Frue" is yet another word in Danish with a pitch change (in the modern version). I wonder how that change happened. It's funny to listen to old tv news in Danish, where the pronunciation was much more like the written form, without pitch change. You show this pitch phenomenon in many of your videos. I only knew of the way we say "det er" which becomes "dee" with a pitch change, as it has been described with IPA incl. the final tone rise. Apparently it's a modern pronunciation, but few people seems to be aware of the pitch change.

[@MicsLanguages]

I guess you're right that there has been a pitch change. I've never really thought about that. But now, thinking about old Danish TV, the modern pitch wasn't there in the same way in the old days. We do it especially in words that end in -e. And the change probably happened somewhere around the 1970s. Now the big majority of Danes is using the modern pitch. I am in the process of making a new video, or actual several videos, on the "stød". When you compare the basic form of most adjectives with the e-form, you cna clearly hear that modern pitch in the e-form (which has no stød), but not in the basic form (which for most adjectives has stød). It's interesting to delve into one's native language and learn about lots of phenomena that I've never really been aware of :)

[@RobbieBackpacking]

10:26 Impressive, you didn't even flinch!

[@MicsLanguages]

Haha, yeah I remember that day as if it were yesterday. I had a similar experience several years back when I allowed a bee to walk all over my upper body (without t-shirt) and face for what seemed to be 10 minutes. That was extremely creepy, but also rewarding, as I've since then never been afraid of these guys again 😎

[@eduardobraivein8496]

Mic, if you're fluent in Danish, can you also understand Norwegian and Swedish?

[@MicsLanguages]

Good question. Most young Danes who haven't had much contact to those two languages struggle a lot to understand them. You will often hear young Danish and Norwegian/Swedish people communicate in English. But the written language is pretty easy to understand, especially of you put in the effort to learn the few words that are totally different.

[@ole7146]

I, as a Dane, would say it's all down to the dialect of Norwegian/Swedish. Southern and eastern Norwegian dialects are quite easy to comprehend, some of them basically sounds as "broken Danish" whilst the Western and Northern dialects are much more pitchy and dialectical. Swedish more or less sounds as a Dane with a very, very bad cold or in other words, it's a quite nasal language.

[@user-kl1op6ty5x]

May i ask How do you pronounce et added at the end of a noun for the definite form For example, et barn -> barnet Is it a soft d sound or a t sound

[@MicsLanguages]

Of course, you may ask anything! It's always pronounced as a soft d sound.

[@user-kl1op6ty5x]

@@MicsLanguages Thank you so much!!! I really appreciate your help

[@MicsLanguages]

@@user-kl1op6ty5x You're welcome. Let me know if you have any other question!

[@LittleImpaler]

Den lille havfrue ist das die kleine Meerjungfrau auf Dänisch?

[@MicsLanguages]

Ganz genau!

[@bomilvang]

Very interesting video Mic! Gosh, (modern) Danish is close to hopeless :-) BTW, as a native Danish speaker I disagree on your pronunciation of the first vowel in Christiania: I would say it like in Christina, not like in Kresten

[@MicsLanguages]

Hi Bo. Yeah, the Danish language has experienced some big changes in recent decades. As to Christiania, now I think about it, there are many people saying it with I as in Christina. But I don't think I'm the only one saying it with I as in Christian. Or am I? 🤔

[@stefanogrillo6040]

Tivoli sounds italian place name

[@servetkarakoyun359]

You are so sympathetic and handsome

[@MicsLanguages]

Thank you very much!

[@kyliewise16]

jeg savne danmark:( raahuspladsen made me cryy

[@robertjamestaylor9261]

12:52 ooooh, so Danes ARE aware of how it should be pronounced in any common sense language and then choose to pronounce it the tricky way. On the side note, polish is my native language, it has its own reputation, but once you know the letters and sounds you will never have to guess how to pronounce any word, it is pronounced exactly how it's written, letter by letter. In Danish? Who knows? Skip letters, pronounce letters that are not there, change the sound of one letter into another, roll 3-4 letters into one letter sound, anything can happen lol

[@MicsLanguages]

Haha. Anything can happen. That's kind of true. Sad for non-native speakers. But there actually are lots of rules for how to pronounce different letter combinations, so once you've learned those (native speakers learn them intuitively, not explicitly, you will only have to guess once in a while. Good luck 😉😁

[@LMoneL]

Hmm I'm danish (from Copenhagen) and always pronounce the first "i" in Christiania as I pronounce the other "I"'s in the name (ee sound in english). Not like an "æ" sound like you do it in this video.

[@MicsLanguages]

Yeah you're right, I was kind of not in my right mind when I did the recording 🙄

[@LittleImpaler]

Fantastisches Video, Mic. Menge tak. I think the Danes could slow down a bit when they talk. They speak as if the world is going to end right this minute. There's no need to talk as fast as they do. Also, they need to move their month when they talk. This mumbling thing they do is a really bad habit. It's like someone saying "um" too many times.

[@MicsLanguages]

We Danes are efficient with our time. 😋

[@Onbehaard]

Jeg savner København... Jeg ved slet ikke, hvornår jeg kan besøge der igen.

[@MicsLanguages]

Ja situationen er lidt problematisk i hele verden lige nu. Jeg håber det bliver bedre! En lille rettelse: Det er bedre, hvis du siger: Jeg ved slet ikke, hvornår jeg kan tage derhen igen 🙂

[@fritmore]

finally i wont sound like a doofus ... 'where do we meet?' ' &^%&*#'

[@BolnoyBratchny]

Danish is impossible

[@brassen]

Bora galera, brazucas: Tíu.li - Róu.rrus.pléssn - Rune.tón - Crés.djê.nia - É.mê.lien.bó - Den.mák - Nü.rráun* - Den-Lil-rréu.fruu - Tóu.rré.la.ne - Couns.rréu *só o "y" do Nyhavn que não tem jeito, precisa fazer biquinho sim!

[@MicsLanguages]

Kkk, esse foi muito bom! Mas dá próxima vez não esquece de marcar a sílaba tónica. Se não, acho que várias dessas não vão ser entendidas pelos dinamarqueses. E também, como vai conseguir que a pessoa fale o R inicial em Rådhuspladsen e Rundetårn corretamente e não como H? Vai ter que afinar esse negócio 😁 Mas ao mesmo tempo já tá muito boa a primeira versão!