This Sound Only Exists In One Language

[@LingoLizard]

Danish phonology is not a joke. It’s a cry for help.

[@kklein]

discuss

[@WannzKaswan]

I agree

[@TeleKiwi]

@@kklein unfortunately there is nothing to discuss as this is factually correct source: it came to me in a dream

[@TheBreadCatt]

@@kklein I mean it might be a little:) But let's not ignore Swedish's cursed /ɧ/, vi har alle lidt fuck'd fonologi okay?:)

[@pluieuwu]

touché

[@lewis9159]

Someone should create a north germanic interlang that combines the Swedish sj-sound, Icelandic voiceless nasals, Norwegian dialectal differences, Danish vowels, stød and blødt d and Faroese skerping. Then no Scandinavian can insult each other because they all speak incomprehensibly.

[@artemetra3262]

this is a horror beyond my comprehension

[@soIzec]

I'm disgusted

[@simontollin2004]

All palletised sounds in falumål needs to be included, and to make it even more icomreprehenceble, all vowal sounds in älvdalska to

[@lohphat]

Isn't that Klingon?

[@2712animefreak]

Don't forget pitch accent and, like, all the vowels.

[@dinnae]

As a native speaker of Limburgish, it was nice to see my language featured online, even if it was only for 5 seconds on a video about Danish. I take what I can get

[@Makkeraad]

Det waas zeker ein sjoeëne verrassing.

[@esbenm6544]

Det var sikkert en sjælden overraskelse

[@leon10tjeLH]

same lol

[@MVHens]

Do you refer to the Belgian and Dutch provinces called 'Limburg' or is there another Limburg out there somewhere?

[@dinnae]

@@MVHens Jao, ich höb 't uuëver Belsj en Hollesj Limburg

[@biji8427]

I remember living in the US as the only danish exhange student, but there being an ocean of norwegians and a handfull of swedes. Norwegians from oslo had no issue understanding me and vice verca, but many other norwegians and most swedes struggled. One swedish kid from lund understood danish, but he is also much more exposed to danish then ur average Stockholmer or whatever. At one point i had the idea of straight up speaking danish without soft Ds and other soft continents, and in an instant i was understood. It was realy weird how, what was for me a tiny, stupid change, was practicaly a difrent language for my norwegian and swedish freinds. For a while i was a lil upset about having to do this, but I came to apreciate the fact that i could always understand them, but they could only understand me when I wanted them to.

[@Kimuyaman]

I saw a video of an Icelandic standup comedian who joked that the only thing more incomprehensible than danish to other Scandinavians is danish as spoken by an Icelander... But it turned out to be much easier to understand than danish because they didn't use any of the wierd danish sounds 😂

[@livedandletdie]

@@Kimuyaman Good old fun video that one... even as a Danish speaker I must say that unless I'm literally speaking in Danish with someone, my comprehension drops to near nil... Undskyld meg men jeg trenger en øl. I mean unless they speak about Alcohol, then I understand completely. I think it's genetic as a Scanian that grew up on hard liquor.

[@blinski1]

I suppose it's like being Polish and dropping all the 'sh', 'ch' and 'zh' sounds that in other Slavic languages are usually just simple 's', 't' and 'r'. Magic of being one language in a group with some funky quirk:)

[@Sgrunterundt]

Yes, it is so wierd. If I speak Danish, but put on a Swedish accent, suddenly the Swedes understand me perfectly.

[@jubmelahtes]

I mean, I'm northern Norwegian I struggle understanding Danish (I'm rarely exposed to it), but danes usually struggle to understand me if both of us can adapt our way of speaking so that the other understand that's a win at least until we learn to understand eachother.

[@ChelleC33]

My poor fiancé. I listened to this video through headphones. He was sitting alongside me with no headphones listening to me whispering weird sounds and wondering if I was having a fit.

[@Some_Kid11]

Lmfao

[@keylime6]

One time I was reciting ipa sounds in my sleep. My brother thought I was summoning a demon

[@Torbjorn6452]

​​​@@keylime6linguistics desise😂

[@animattionscustomstuff]

@@keylime6 curse of the language nerd

[@nymroadonlaptop3185]

​@@keylime6I teared up from laughing xD

[@fariesz6786]

i love how when Danes speak German, they don't sound like they have a foreign accent, they sound like their speech is coloured by a non-existing but truly German dialect instead.

[@testofplaces]

It’s so odd to hear something so natural to me explained in so much detail. I was shocked by the number 26. I keep forgetting that because a “simple” letter like A can be pronounced in many different ways you have to account for all/most variations.

[@TheSwordofStorms]

I'm pretty sure it's one of the largest vowel inventories in the world! Among languages most people would've heard of (1 million+ speakers let's say), it's probably actually the largest

[@hedgehog3180]

@@TheSwordofStorms People often joke about English hoarding stuff from other languages but all along Danish was here scooping up all the vowel sounds when no one was looking.

[@livedandletdie]

@@TheSwordofStorms Danish and Scanian have the most vowels out of the Nordic Languages. It's not that weird since they're the two closest ones.

[@jesperlett]

I always illustrate this by mentioning the difference between “dør” and “dør”. As in door and I die.

[@majbrittdamsgaard2060]

Hi you. Dane here too. I'm a pedagog and Sprogvejleder (language counselor....?) and we were taught that there could be as many as 30 different vowel sounds (all depending on how liberal an approach one might take) 😆.

[@deviritter5232]

The phase “rød grød med fløde” was used to out German spies during WWII bc there’s no way anyone not born and raised in Denmark can pronounce it.

[@danp8321]

Came here to say this, except I can't say it

[@QuadraticPerplexity]

They could have faked being from Funen though:-)

[@gruilen]

Great, in the Netherlands we used, "Scheveningen" for that.

[@lassemadsen607]

@@QuadraticPerplexity Oh, we can find you out with 'røgged ørred'

[@travisdk84]

wait is that the actual origin? I just thought it was something we made foreigners say to make fun of them. I cant imagine it was useful for very long since we were invaded almost immediately. Dane "Rød grød med fløde" German soldier patrolling the streets "please stop saying that"

[@generalpeter1655]

I'm sitting here, as a dane, impressed by the fact, that you took time and effort to explain the Danish language. Well done. Gold star for you! 🌟

[@FrozenMermaid666]

I am advanced level in Icelandic and Norwegian and upper intermediate level in Norse etc, and the eth sound and the thorn sound are not Z or S sounds, and are in fact just less obvious versions of D and T, and, the reason why some think it’s a Z or an S related sound is, because many tend to exaggerate these sounds when saying English words, which creates some extra whispering sounds or hissing-like sounds, though in Norse and Icelandic it’s usually pronounced in a more tone-down way that’s closer to a D / T sound - the eth sound ð is a less obvious D sound, being an approximant of D, whereas the thorn sound þ is a less obvious T sound, being an approximant of T, but, the soft D in Danish seems more complicated, and none of the speakers of Danish that tried teaching this sound could explain exactly if one is trying to say an L or a D or a mix of D and L to get that exact sound! (By the way, I am actually quite close to advanced level in Norse, and I highly recommend learning Norse and Gothic and Icelandic and Faroese and English and Dutch and Norwegian and Welsh and Breton and Cornish together with Danish as they are equally gorgeous and the prettiest languages ever created that are way too pretty not to know, plus all the ancient Germanic languages should be brought back, and all Germanic languages are and Celtic languages should be included on G translate and Duolingo etc, including the languages that haven’t been officially recognized as a language yet tho they are different languages with different spelling rules, as they are all pretty, so there should be a lot of resources and videos on yt to learn all these Germanic languages and also the Celtic languages!)

[@FrozenMermaid666]

By the way, how does a native speaker of Danish learn how to do the soft D sound when first learning how to speak Danish, or does one explain this sound to him, because it’s not one of the regular sounds that one would naturally make by imitating the consonants and vowels that one hears, and sounds that are more unusual and only in one language aren’t so easy to make, or at least it isn’t easy for one to figure out exactly what that sound is and how to make it, like, is it truly an L or is it a D or is it a mix of L and D (does one try to say L or D or a mix of L and D to get the exact sound) etc, like, I am very confused, but I want to get the right sounds and improve my Danish pronunciation and accent, so I am trying to find the right info re what this sound truly is, as sometimes it sounds like a D-based sound tho other times when others pronounce the same word it sounds like an L-based sound! (It’s not like the sound itself is not easy to make, it’s more like, trying to figure out what sound one is supposed to make that is the difficult part, because no one could explain properly if one is supposed to say an L or a D or a mix of D and L to get the exact sound, because I am not so convinced that the proper Danish sound is made by just trying to say L, because it does feel like there might be some D-based sound in there too when hearing vocal samples that sound like proper Danish pronunciation, for example, when saying hedder, it does feel more like a D-based sound, so maybe natives also add some D sound to that L without consciously realizing it, at least in certain words, I don’t know...)

[@generalpeter1655]

@@FrozenMermaid666 I honestly think that is so cool that you went ahead and wrote all of that, because of your interest in language. That’s so fricking awesome 😄 You have a point tho. I don’t actually remember “how” I learned to the special “the” sound. When I try to explain, I just tell people to take that very first sound in “the”, and then use it in a word, like the word you mentioned “hedder”. But really ain’t that easy to explain. I wish you a fun time working on it tho, and have a good one! 😄

[@FrozenMermaid666]

So it is okay to assume that it is a D approximant or an ð approximant and not really an L-based sound as some ppl say? To me, it sounds like this sound is an even less obvious version of the eth sound, the eth sound itself being a less obvious version of the D sound, so, when I hear a normal D it sounds like a full and clear D sound, and when I hear an eth it’s like around sixty to eighty percent of the D sound maybe, that’s kind of slightly shadowed by some airiness / breathy sound, depending on how exaggerated it is, and, when I hear this soft D in Danish in the word hedder it feels to me like 30 to 38 percent of a D sound maybe or an even more ‘dilute’ version of the eth sound... So, am I hearing / perceiving it right?

[@jesperlykkeberg7438]

​@@FrozenMermaid666 The Danish soft -d (-ð) is nothing like the L. Unlike the L-sound the soft -d (-ð) can be uttered perfectly without the tongue ever reaching the upper teeth or upper mouth. Actually your tongue should lie on the backside of your lower teeth all the way through the pallette of vowels. The fastest way to learned it is probably if you say "other" without the last "-er" syllable. You are getting very close when you realize that you can actually keep your tongue STUCK on the backside of your LOWER teeth (and away from the upper teeth or upper mouth in order to avoid any friction). When you got it, try to make glottal stops such as "oth´er" (utter - the animal, and the name of a Danish smalltown Odder). Then (still with your tongue behind your lower teeth) try to alter between all non-gliding vowels: ooð (out), eeð, aað, etc. Then try to make glottal stops with short non-gliding vowels, such as "aa´ð" (meaning "the A") and "oo´ð" (meaning "the U") Then you try to put consonants in the front: bad (meaning "bath" but still pronounced like the oth-syllable of "other" ), fad, sted, med, mad, hvad,. And with glottal stops (stød): fed (fe´ð), flad (fla´ð), klud (klu´ð), ned (ne´ð), rod (ro´ð), brød (brö´ð), sød (sö´ð). Finally you try with long vowels: meget (maaarð), narret (naaarð), gade (gaaað), glade (glaaað), skide (skeeeð), spade (spaaað), etc. etc. You can listen to the Danish pronunciations on Google Translate.

[@Addy1987]

Hi I'm Icelandic and living in Denmark. The symbol you showed for soft d, ð is an actual letter in our icelandic alphabet. I imagine that the reason this sound exists in danish is a remnant from old norse. The sound used in the, thor, thunder is also an actual letter in Icelandic þ. Those sounds are very similar but þ can never be in the end of a word and ð can never be in the start of a word. The word for "it" in icelandic is "það" using both of those letters :D but yeah the soft d in danish is less frictional as in icelandic we actually use the tip of our tongue and the upper teeth to make the sound but not in danish, but the danish language is generally less frictional :)

[@spellandshield]

You are truly blessed.

[@snailmessia]

Danish -- some one wrote -- sounds like a cry for help. I am Danish and I very much agree. If it was up to me, I'd reset the language and either replace with Norwegian or Icelandic, oooooor a reconstructed old Norse. Danish has become a mess, and if you know the language well enough, you can hear that about 70% of people do not know how to speak it. The endings are horrible and people run over them with something like "whananablah" well, not quite but you get the idea :) We had too much German and French introduced, and these days, people mix in so much English it makes me want to slap them, and in RL conversations, I repeat the words in Danish or plain ignore them. I rather speak Norwegian though

[@KibyNykraft]

English "that" is the same word as icelandic "það" but they are used slightly differently. It was also used in norse. My guess is that "it" appeared as a simplified version. Thereafter that and it became two almost different meanings. ð as a letter also appears in the north lappish /dävvisämigiela but with a softer touch than in icelandic, actually much more like the danish d in fløde but not that sleepy

[@KibyNykraft]

@@snailmessia You will change your mind if you live in many parts of Norway and speak to 4 different age groups, and read new newspaper articles (full of errors). Norwegian is very much a complete mess. We don't even have a formalized written language to agree on, we have bokmål and nynorsk. Finnish and icelandic are perfectly logical and systematic, but have very difficult accents to say the least if you are not a native speaker. Swedish is actually the winner. Rather systematic, and floats well. Well, it may seem to feminine for some, and the southern dialects too brutal instead :) :)

[@snailmessia]

@@KibyNykraft I have had 3 Norwegian girlfriends, from Oslo to Tromsø, been to so many different places, talked with a lot of peope, I prefer Tromsø :P I like how harsh or brash they can be

[@kaiwangle5003]

I'm absolutely shocked no one has made the joke about how in order to speak Danish you have to move the soft D backwards in your mouth?

[@katethegoat7507]

I wanna learn danish now

[@livedandletdie]

All you need to Speak Danish is to choke on a potato. I mean I can speak Danish..

[@initialyeet3951]

Hahaha

[@bobseeee]

to speak danish you have to move the soft D backwards in your mouth!

[@TestarossaF110]

@@katethegoat7507 😳 (same 🫡)

[@worryworm]

As a swede who has lived in Denmark for nearly 15 years, and is a fluent speaker, I can say that I still have problems with the difference between u and o, and a and æ, when spelling things out. It has definitely been a challenge to adapt my use of my muscles to speaking Danish. But I feel richer for it.

[@Toby8700]

im 16 and have spoken danish all my life, but i still have problems with difference letters sounding the same when im spelling things

[@shadowheartart3898]

My recent german teacher, who is from south Germany, will say æble-æ when we talk about spelling a word. She has trouble with æ/a

[@acb5245]

Jeg forstå svensk og norsk, taler faktisk norsk. Det at mestre Æ, Ø og Å samt det bløde D, gør det lettere for os at forstå og tale andre sprog. Det er ret bemærkelsesværdigt. Vi taler også senere end andre børn i særdeleshed, i de andre skandinaviske lande. Det er også et interessant fænomen.

[@kristoffersweden8000]

There are no differences between U and O... or between A, E and Æ, change my mind. I have tested it on collegues and my Danish girlfriend and she nor any other Dane i have met notice when i say "E" in words with "Æ". (With some exceptions)

[@yllehiskat]

As a swede who has lived in Denmark for nearly 15 years, and is a fluent speaker. Those two statements dont go together.. Please explain.

[@Yan_Alkovic]

I am a fan of Danish specifically because of blødt d. That consonant is so precious to me and I love it with every fiber of my being, so thank you for explaining it so everyone can bask in its majesty!

[@kennethschneider6064]

Actually the soft d is just like the "th" sound in English. Spanish also has the sound in ex. "de nada". It's not really that unique.

[@Yan_Alkovic]

@@kennethschneider6064 It's not. It's a velarized laminal alveolar approximant, not an interdental fricative or approximant.

[@supercaptinpanda6787]

@@kennethschneider6064 it's really not the same sound at all. Honestly, as a non-native danish speaker the soft-d sounded more like an "L" and a "th". Due to that, when my danish boyfriend said words in English like "the" it would sound like "le" to me. Also, the d in spanish is different from the d in English in the way that it's pronounced more towards the teeth but it doesn't sound like a "th" at all.

[@kennethschneider6064]

@@supercaptinpanda6787 if you say "Fløde" / Cream in danish, it's exactly that sound. Or "Hede" / plain, "Fede" / "fat", "glide" / slide, "sidde" / sit, then "de" ind the end sounds like "the"

[@LCaaroe]

@@kennethschneider6064 Maybe "th" and soft "d" sound the same if you pronounce "the" with a Danish accent ;) It's just as he says in the video, you say "th" with your tongue and your teeth, but tongue does not touch the teeth during soft "d"

[@essentialpunk]

As a norwegian, I expected so many things you said to be a setup for a punchline, and was prepared to laugh at the cost of danes. Very suspensful video.

[@Stelphy876]

1:29 if you go back in time Livonia used to be a Danish colony.

[@JTLichdeceit]

As a Danish person, I've tried to explain the soft d to many people online. And it's weird how such a little and simple sound for me to make can be so confusing to everyone else. Great video!

[@fex144]

It is our pass code to know who is a real human - and who is so inferior, so sub-par that they can't even say dog in Danish.

[@1Kapuchu100]

I usually use "It's the 'Th' in 'The' and 'Those'" as a shorthand. It's the closest equivalent non-natives really have.

[@sonictheheadshock756]

​@@fex144 hund sounds like hound

[@Realcanadianmoose]

@@fex144 it is like the websites that needs proof that you are human this is proof if you are human because everyone knows Danes are the only right species and we use this as our verification to see if they can make the soft d

[@GummieI]

Indeed, it is so small and simple infact, that you don't even thinking about the fact you are even making it

[@pluieuwu]

i tried pronouncing it and it made my tongue twist in a way it does NOT like 😂 i did end up getting it close enough in the end but holy hell i have to elaborate so much movement to get there to the point i genuinely wonder how danish babies managed to replicate this sound... anyway, great video as always!! 💜

[@pluieuwu]

after some more attempts i managed to reproduce it consistently with considerably less effort... it's still one helluvan exotic sound tho and thats ngl based and rad as hell

[@TheBreadCatt]

I mean it's only hard because you're not used to making it. If you break basically sound down (except like schwa) they're "elaborate", because if you moved your tongue (or your lips or constricted or loosened throat or opened or closed your soft palate etc) you'd be making a different sound! It's actually much harder for young Danish children to get the many vowels right though:) (Trecca et al. 2021)

[@TheBreadCatt]

Ah, I see you managed to reproduce it with less effort:) But yeah, exotic is a very good descriptor for this sound!

[@lukkamr]

Its a wonder danish even exists 💀

[@TheSilverwing999]

Danish babies are actually slightly slower in speech development than babies of other languages. They quickly make up for it though and reach the same level in no time

[@hibob66a17]

As a half dane I always knew that the soft d was weird, but I didn't know how complicated it was or that it was unique

[@SourceBTS]

Half Dan Rasmussen?

[@hibob66a17]

@@SourceBTS sorry missed the e at the end of dane also not a Rasmussen

[@Wishbone1977]

@@hibob66a17 Halfdan Rasmussen is a famous Danish poet, mostly known for writing a children's ABC.

[@dasuta5047]

​@@SourceBTS 300 iq

[@VelkanAngels]

An easy way to explain how to make the soft D (to people who can speak English, anyway) is to say the "th" part in words like "bathe", "the", "there" etc, but without letting your tongue touch the roof of your mouth or your (upper) front teeth xP. Of course the sound isn't used in Danish as it is in those English examples, but it does produce the same sound in the uh... isolated sense or whatever. Bah, I shouldn't write comments at 2:45 am...

[@mloru29]

This video is incredible helpful!!! Thank you so much !!! As a Spanish (Spain) person learning Danish 2 years now, is the first time that I can see why many things does not even make sense when you learn this language. They don’t really have “rules” for make the language and many things you need to learn with using them (like the “et” - “en” for the articles when you make a phrase…). This really helps me to understand more the language and how to pronounce correctly. Again: THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! 🙌🏻❤

[@troelspeterroland6998]

Well, all languages have rules because otherwise humans would not be able to use them. But they also have exceptions because languages tend to have several mutually competing regularities. But this is the case in all languages of the world, also Spanish.

[@Kvadraten376]

A fourth thing that is weird with Danish is the use of “r” after vowels and especially the many -ere endings, like “videre” People always mention “rødgrød med fløde” but for me a much more difficult one is saying “røgede ørreder” (smoked trouts).

[@robinharwood5044]

I’m glad that you didn’t make any jokes about Danish phonology, and took it very seriously. That is extremely difficult for a Swede, and I commend you on your restraint. I lived in Sweden and Denmark for some years, teaching English. In Sweden I taught so that Swedes could improve their second language, and in Denmark to free them from the misery of their first.

[@stevenschilizzi4104]

Ha ha! That’s a good one!

[@Keira15true]

Thank you for your sacrifice.

[@SadMatte]

You make it sound like we are in pain when speaking 😂 Trust me, we're okay, you just wouldn't understand if you're foreign

[@Keira15true]

@@SadMatte i reject this statement. I am in fact. Not okay. Release me from my danish language and the difficulty it is to understand my fellow danes gluttural noises. (Im joking lmao but fo real, heeeelp lol)

[@robinharwood5044]

@@SadMatte I think you are very brave to bear your plight so cheerfully.

[@Ra1d_danois]

You can't make a video about the danish soft d, without the classic phrase "Rød grød med fløde"

[@Graatand]

“…var min yndlingsføde, da jeg var på ølejr i Ølgod.”

[@TerencePetersenAjbro]

Flöde means something entirely different in Swedish (thread, flow), so much fun with false friends. After 8 years in Sweden I am beginning to mix the two languages much to the amusement of my Danish children!

[@MrAstrojensen]

@@TerencePetersenAjbro But it’s pronounced markedly different in Swedish, where the D in "flöde" (flow) is NOT soft, unlike in the Danish "fløde" (cream).

[@TerencePetersenAjbro]

@@MrAstrojensen I know.

[@srensen3081]

@@Graatand nej, bare nej

[@lptotheskull]

Wow... I just recently started learning Danish on Duolingo, I remember hearing this sound for the first time and thinking "What am I getting myself into?" Guess I was right to be scared lol

[@seneca983]

At least the grammar is relatively simple.

[@SadMatte]

@@seneca983 Danish grammar is really based

[@Ch4pp13]

@@seneca983 Compared to our southern neighbours, it's heavenly. Saying "I brought you that thing you wanted from the store" shouldn't mean diving into the grammatical rulebook just to get it right.

[@hassegreiner9675]

Many foreigners tend to substitute the soft-d with an L but try not to. I think the best way to learn it is to isolate the sound and keep saying it a thousand times: ed, ed, ed, ed, ed, ...

[@jikoos]

good luck!

[@TheaSvendsen]

What fun to randomly come across this video as a Dane :D I had no idea that my language was so effed up. Very interesting and thorough explanations, though. I really enjoyed that.

[@kennethjanczak4900]

Long live the dificult danish language. Thanks for taking the time to make the video and share it...

[@rolandropnack4370]

To my german ears, Danish sounds very cozy, with music in it like you are always reciting a poem with a warm smile. Just "hyggelig". To pronounce it correctly, I suppose that first shot in the morning, the "Morn Snaps" helps. 😉

[@huginnn3002]

this has gotta be the cutest description of my language i’ve ever heard, hats off to you

[@dlf4542]

No one has ever said that abput my language. I love you

[@peterc.1618]

@@dlf4542 So when you get up in the morning, do you think, "I'll wear this striped shirt, I wonder which dialect would go well with it"?

[@friedagaseb8575]

yeah this is a nice change from disgusting ugly weird potato sounding language

[@SimplyConeh]

@@peterc.1618 When you speak to your family, do you speak the same way as you do to friends or colleagues? It might not be the norm, but I speak in different accents when speaking with people with different accents - if they are from Jutland, I take on some of that accent, the same with Zealand. I may have my own accent hidden somewhere deep down, but I've never heard it myself.

[@Freya-010]

Ladies, gentlemen and people of all ages! I present to you: The most elaborate and elegant version of a Swede who just got payed by advertisers to make fun of the Danish language. This is a perfect example of Nordic banter, but taken to absolute high levels of ‘stonks’ On a deferent note: Good video, as a native speaker of the Nordic’s local ‘throat condition’ I appreciate the dedication to not poke fun at our very beautiful sounds that we have spent decades developing for the specific purpose of making our neighbors roll over and scream. If we can no longer plague our neighbors with a hostile military, then at least we know that all our money spent on free education isn’t wasted, as we can still annoy our neighbors by making them question why they associate with us Danes. 😁

[@Hgoenge81]

Svensk er kun et fattigt ord 😉🇩🇰

[@Toby8700]

mostly sweden

[@danielandersen2759]

We could plague them with a hostile military, couldn't we. A small Skåne-takeover, nobody is gonna notice.

[@SIC647]

​@@danielandersen2759No no, we are just silently rehabitating it, shhhhh.

[@SIC647]

Just to complicate things, this sound has countless variations in Danish dialects; actually a tell-tale sign of which dialect people speak. I come from the Storstrøm area, and the soft d is almost unnoticeable, or mute on the southern islands, like in fynsk. My mom likes to tell the story about how when she started to learn to read and write, she was very confused as to why [gae] had a silent d in it. It was gade.

[@noahforsbergclausen3823]

I've noticed that people from Amager make most of their d's by putting their teeth very hard against their front teeth, unlike most copenhageners i meet, maybe that's also why everyone i know from growing up makes their "blødt d" by putting their toungue over the bottom teeth

[@atlas16198]

Ham der u på den båå der

[@SoulessStranger]

As a foreigner living in Denmark and learning Danish I get around the soft D in spoken Danish by smuggling in a bit muffled L, and even though it is far from perfect it gets the meaning across.

[@nocrab]

Even some natives have shades of L in their soft D pronunciations too :D

[@TrondArneAusdal]

There is a famous Norwegian joke on the Danish language, where two Danes meet but cant understand each other (Kamelåse) They speak different languages. Also: A linguist once said that that is a possibility. For instance, these four words used to have four different pronounciation - Kage (cake) - Kegge (Keg) Kjære (Dear) - Kjerre (wagon). now they're pronounced the same. And a linguist listening to an anonymous caller could guess their age with a +- ten year difference. The language is changing so rapidly. Maybe an idea for a video: Could it happen that people who understand each other (Same language, dialects, rapid change etc, for example Norwegian, Danish and Swedish), suddenly don't understand each other anymore?

[@mrgrendar281]

Only the milkman wants to keep it as it is. 😂

[@lostan3505]

That's so cool, I didn't know that Danish had such complicated phonology. Great video

[@brianonscript]

One characteristic of the Danish soft d that hasn't been mentioned is that it is lateralized. Speakers of other languages often hear it as an l because of this. But the Danish soft d is not a true lateral consonant like l - it is only lateralized, meaning that there is a slight contraction of the tongue to allow some lateral airflow without blocking central airflow as in a true lateral consonant.

[@wilhelmseleorningcniht9410]

I've not ever heard anything at all about it being laterialised. I actually often hear the opposite and it's the fact English has a velarised allophone of L that causes it to sound like a dark L to English ears, and it's specifically not lateralised

[@SevenTheMisgiven]

When I use a soft L, the Danes say I have good pronunciation and they sometimes don't even hear it. So there is that. It's not a true L but it's the most similar out of all sounds a *human* can make. The tongue is placed only slightly different as well but the explanation of pushing your tongue out causes it to become the letter L even more. It's certainly a lot better explanation one can come up with *by themselves* rather than insisting it's a letter D even though it has no relationship with any letter D in any language. Including Danish itself. And when Danish dialects completely swallow the sound or replace it with a letter J, I think the explanation where it's the letter L makes more sense than completely disagreeing with it and accepting dialects where the sound has no relationship with the Danish soft *d* at all anymore. But as a Dutchman that's just my 2 cents. Personally I think the Danes just like the discussion and they simply don't *want* to agree because they are overly proud and stubborn of their language. Hence the dialects that *completely* move away from this altogether.

[@brianonscript]

​@@wilhelmseleorningcniht9410 It is frustratingly difficult to find any studies on the actual articulation of the Danish soft d. Chloe Brotherton & Aleese Block's "Soft d in Danish: Acoustic characteristics and issues in transcription" (2020) relies on spectrograms, for instance, though they tease that they might conduct ultrasound and palatography studies. Insofar as the literature mentions the l-like quality of the Danish soft d, it is in terms of the acoustics. Luciano Canepari's "Danish Pronunciation" (2020) describes it as "a voiced lateralized dental approximant", but there is no mention of an articulatory study that led to this conclusion so make of that what you will. So I admit that the claim that the Danish soft d is pronounced with a lateralized articulation has only one scholarly source to back it up that I know of, though it sounded plausible enough for me to repeat it here. It would be good to have an actual articulatory study to back it up, but it makes intuitive sense that the peculiar way that Danish lenited the d involved lateralization which is why people often mishear it as an l-sound. To make sure we're on the same page, by lateralization I mean a change in the articulatory posture to allow for some lateral airflow around the tongue, without quite becoming a true lateral consonant where the central airflow is blocked.

[@majbrittdamsgaard2060]

​@@SevenTheMisgiven Hi there. There is a study called The puzzle of Danish. They've said that Danes don't need to hear everything you say in order to understand or 'hear' what you are saying. Apparently or brain works differently then that off Norwegian speakers (Bokmål. The language that comes closed to that of Danish). To be fair - I believe that it was tested in a group with a lot of noise and not in a conversation one-on-one. But still - maybe it explains why you think we're full of it...? Best wishes 🍀

[@acedepth]

Thank you for keeping this video about this very serious throat disease as a Dane myself I really do appreciate your proffesionalism

[@norskovv]

im southern danish and speak a mix of ris dansk (standard danish) and sønderjysk (southern danish) and a lot of words in sønderjysk make the b kinda soft. so lets say apple (æble) the b would end up being kinda like a v instead of the normal b. you could literally almost make up an entire sentence only using æ, ø, and å in sønderjysk. fx, æ er u æ ø i å (jeg er ude på øen i åen, i am out on the island in the stream). very fun.

[@jbank7547]

2:42 That's funny. I'm Danish, and when making this sound I push my tongue into the tip of my lower teeth.

[@stopmotion2650]

It is interesting that you compare the Danish soft D to the sound of "z" or "th" in English. A lot of Danish speakers struggle a lot with those two sounds when learning English, and you will hear many older people pronouncing the "th" sound as a soft D

[@aweqaweq]

Older Danes in my family pronounce "th" as "s". "Thank you" becomes "Sank you".

[@mariotheundying]

I think i do that as a Spanish speaker

[@SIC647]

Or even as a hard d: The becoming De. My grandparents did that: "I dink I will go to de house".

[@esbenm6544]

It is hardly comparable. We're talking a problem for some 4th graders vs something that is never learned by anyone.

[@peterfireflylund]

@@aweqaweq yep. Newsreaders would often talk about "Satcher" when I was a child.

[@rursus8354]

Glottal stops are seldom "clean" like a groan (stön), take a look at Dr Geoff Lindsey's Hard Attack: How English is getting more "choppy". Most of the glottal stop that he demonstrates are pretty "soft", if it is instead considered a voiced glottal fricative (see the English Wikipedia), that sound is pretty common, in fact it often occurs in the Swedish pronunciation "Johan".

[@enricobianchi4499]

there's actually a sound that i dont remember the exact name of (creaky epiglottal approximant?) which is closer to the lax allophone of a glottal stop than the voiced h, which i dont think appears much in english because it's an extremely loud sound for it to be a marginal feature

[@lamMeTV]

I WAS ABLE TO REPRODUCE THE SOUND This video is awesome

[@kerriganqueenofblades7128]

It’s funny to hear someone talk so in-depth about a sound that seems so simple to me, but I do appreciate the walkthrough, I learned a lot about my own language lol

[@LWT1331]

It brings me endless amusement how funny people find my language. Talking to them and seeing the look on their faces.... priceless.

[@gabrielpacheco6383]

Thank you so much for making this video! I've been trying to teach myself Danish on Duolingo since September of 2022 and have always been stumped regarding the pronunciation of that soft d sound, especially in words like "edderkop", "aftensmad", and "nederdel".

[@snow5570]

If u want a cheat code you can learn a dialect of danish called fynsk. Fynsk just completely ignores the soft d. Instead of saying stød they say stø´

[@Tjalfe20]

If you're looking to learn Danish the easy way, learn a dialect first, as they often marginalize the hardest features. Around the Vejle area, the soft D is "diphtong"-ized into a J glide instead. Rød is spoken more like Røj/røi, blød like Bløj/bløi, etc. Go a bit further inland (roughly Jelling), and you'll find there's also only one gender - the common gender "én".

[@SadMatte]

Røg grøg mig fløj? Yeah, no that sounds not understandable

[@esbenm6544]

It's not wrong but also a bit like an immigrant taking up cockney or a southern drawl. People are going to wonder wtf you are doing.

[@MrAstrojensen]

Or you could take the hard route, and learn Bornholmsk. Even more vowels, consonant sounds not found in Danish or other danish dialects, soft D in full effect, three genders, word contractions, irregular verbs, we have it all.

[@theotherguy8007]

Hahah brotha don't use jysk as a example you are the rednecks of Denmark ;)

[@SimplyConeh]

@@theotherguy8007 What did you just say?! I'll have you know I've got the gang ready to ride up on your house on mopeds and play loud techno at 9 am for saying such blasphemies

[@UCXWmsx-oM-WKahAKSNy-ATw]

basically: Blade is the flatter tip of your tongue. Basically just go back a tiny bit from the tip of your tongue and youre there. Put the blade of ur tongue against where you would make a s sound (dont make it press against that spot. Like how an s doesnt contact but instead slightly hovers). It might feel natural to put the very tip of ur tongue behind ur bottom teeth at this point. Add velarisation. This is basically when you make a k sound but instead of fully blocking your airway back there, allow it to constrict. Again, like how an s doesnt fully contact the roof of your mouth (that would be a t). Once u can make this prolonged airflow in the spot where u would make a k sound, then you put the first step with this step. 'blade' of tongue goes where you make an s sound. Add a velarisation sound in the back of ur mouth on top of that. DONT FORGET TO USE UR VOICE. Its not a voiceless consonant! also dont round your lips. if you find your lips forming the O like shape like when u say the word "wow" then remove that. you should be able to do a half-smile while doing the soft d. did i get anything wrong?

[@andreahoffbeck9391]

I love how it sounds when others tries to explain and speak danish heh. But i will admit this is a great video to explain certain sounds. great job klein. [I'm a dane]. Also, a fun sentence that is famous to be impossible to pronounce for people that aren't fluent in danish is: "Rødgrød med fløde". (Red porridge with cream).

[@DogeMcShiba]

I'm Danish, and the way I pronounce the "blødt d" is NOT to touch the alveolar ridge (the part behind the upper teeth), but instead to softly lay the sides of my tongue between the outer molars (i.e., the side teeth) and pushing the tip of my tongue down into the lower teeth from behind. Though I still need to have velarisation (the back of the tongue touching the velum). It creates kind of a similar sound, but less prominent.

[@KibyNykraft]

More correct for sure than the video suggestion. I don't see how the video suggestion is even possible to perform physically.

[@Ljunggreen]

Agreed! Tip of the tounge goes to the lower teeth, otherwise it'll become an L

[@antonisadkowski8598]

This sound is also used in Silesian (dialect of Polish), but it's rare. We use it exclusively when mocking the Danish.

[@MrGromps]

You just made me realize all the polish workers I see, travel back to Poland and trash tralk us. I fucking love it.

[@leifvejby8023]

:-D

[@AdaaDK]

How rude.... !!! :-P

[@ramus2027]

Ouch

[@budgiefriend]

Aproved by a Dane.😊

[@Sonderborg75]

Hi, Dane here. 😊 I usually say to those (Swedes), that makes fun of our language, that if your only exposed to the dialect, they use in Copenhagen, I truly understand the thing about the potato and the throat. But the rest of the country speaks a very different Danish. It would be like saying that every Swede speaks like they do in Skåne, where they have a very distinct dialect too. 😂 Where I’m from (South Jutland) we tend to switch our soft d with a kind of i sound instead. Especially if we speak in our dialect, that is more or less a language in its own.

[@torbendk2777]

the South Jutland dialect is full of germen words. im born and raist 30 km from the german border, but live in the middel of jutland now

[@Jotaro-o]

I understand you but most of the time when people try to picture a country to get an understanding of their culture and people, they usually refer to the capital which is Copenhagen. So to us Swedes you will always be the potato language of Scandinavia ☺

[@stainlesssteel3162]

@@Jotaro-o potato is a bad way of describing it. Its more like pronouncing a word normaly, and then suddenly have your mouth go numb halfway trough.

[@srensen3081]

yah but you arent even real danes, just budget germans

[@emil8120]

Idk chief, sounds kinda german to me

[@robertkemp8717]

It’s not that hard for me to say being from near Hull in East Yorkshire. We tend to swallow a lot of our words. Unsure whether it is related but we were in Danelaw.

[@lhpl]

You probably speak Danish without knowing it. Most of English is borrowed from some iteration of Danish anyway, to the point where I - not a professional linguist - just tend to think of English as yet another Danish dialect, albeit a slightly odd one.

[@drmurik]

Fun fact: the Danish language is so good and ahead of its time that every non-Danish speaker finds it funny or weird/hard to learn :)

[@palomathereptilian]

Facts, I'm currently learning Danish (I'm Brazilian) and it's quite hard 😅 Thankfully I have a Danish friend to practice it, he's also learning Portuguese and struggling a bit with it... So it's a mutual struggle I guess lmao

[@robkunkel8833]

🌴In St. Thomas VI, a former Danish colony, we have the word “Gade” on signs meaning street. People say Gah De here but it is not close to the Danish pronunciation. This is that soft D confusion. Amazing. The letter D is a sound in Danish (a language that starts with letter D, FYI) and it can barely be explained in a excellent 7 minute video. W … D (unpronounceable) … F !

[@SIC647]

Gathe would be reasonably close. Remember to pronounce the e also: Gath-uh.

[@ellie8272]

Now I'm starting to understand people who struggle to hear the difference between English sounds, because absolutely none of what you talked about in this video was audible to me lol

[@CopenhagenRailProductions]

HAHAHAHAHAHA The joke at the end is so true! I'M DYING HERE! *WHEEZE* I've always used "the" as an example for the 'Soft D' as it'd be the closest example in English to that sound. (as far as i know). Nice video of someone explaining it better than most Danes can. Greetings from across the Øresund! 😄

[@jimmyselsmark7346]

Aaaaw... I was enjoying the video so much and then "poof" it was over :( Great video and might I add that I still find it hilarious that I as a Dane understand most Swedish and Norwegian speaking people when they speak to me in their native tongue, but they have no clue what I'm saying when I speak to them in mine.

[@JustTheJames]

I'm a british guy and I've been living in Denmark for nearly a year now. I feel like I've managed to do something that emulates a pseudo-soft d whenever I try to speak Danish but I still feel like it's not how I should be doing it, and it certainly doesn't feel natural

[@KibyNykraft]

Just say the d , since they write it, they make no mistake in what you are saying.

[@TheSwordofStorms]

Great video! Have you heard that tonogenesis has been happening in Afrikaans recently? I personally find that fascinating and I feel you might too!

[@jimmerd]

Very interesting, please explain

[@UniDocs_Mahapushpa_Cyavana]

The paper "Tonogenesis in Afrikaans: Transferring phonological contrast through enriched representations" dealt with prevoicing, which probably won't fall under many definitions of tonogenisis considering it would be weirdly close to doing things like making English a tonal language or actually do things like that.

[@TheDefB]

Why am I sitting here learning hwo to speak my own language? Dunno, but very accurate and informative! Well done

[@Iroh72]

Condolences for being a danish speaker

[@TheDefB]

@@Iroh72 Greatly appreciated

[@Keira15true]

@@Iroh72 yeah we can barely understand eachother man

[@SadMatte]

@@Keira15true Honestly as long as it isn't sønderjysk I can understand pretty well, but also have trouble with bornholmsk and sometimes fynsk

[@DogeMcShiba]

Quite a surprise seeing you here, Def

[@mertatakan7591]

1:56 Voiced dental non-sibilant fricative 2:35 Voiced alveolar non-sibilant fricative 3:28 Voiced laminal alveolar non-sibilant fricative 4:50 Voiced laminal alveolar approximant 5:07 Voiced laminal velarized alveolar approximant It's the English r sound but laminal and velarized. Many people hear as if it was lateral (the laminal dark l)

[@majaberliner]

Danish: Så sjovt at se den her video når jeg er fra Danmark og så sejt at du laver en video om sådan et lille land English: So fun to Watch this, when i am from Denmark and so cool that you make a video about such a little country)

[@enricobianchi4499]

I thought, while absent-mindedly reading a bit of San Duanmu's "The Phonology of Standard Chinese", that the allophones of /i/ in Mandarin after sibilants that get sometimes described as syllabic /z/, /ʐ/ or /ɹ/ looked kinda similar to soft d.

[@ramnaftaliavni6532]

I wondered where the knowledge came from, and then I saw 'sources' in the description. Immense respect for researching. I have yet to check it and I hope you have 2 sources for most claims. Keep up the good work!

[@kklein]

most claims only have 1 source, though you can certainly cross-check them with other sources. this is mostly uncontroversial information, and I want it to be a good place to start and not overwhelm people with reading material!

[@izumiamv7280]

I think there's something similar to this soft d emerging in the speach of young Germans including me. It's just lacking velarization which was also the first thing i thought was odd about hearing soft d. I found myself pronouncing /z/ pretty regularly and when talking sloppy also /l/ and /s/ as this unvelarized soft d instead which can make the word "Salatsoße" (eng. salad sauce) sound like /ðaða:dðo:ðə/ instead of normally /zala:tzo:sə/. This cange really amazes me since it merges three phonemes. I can't find much literature about it though. Glad you made this video:)

[@troelspeterroland6998]

The velar element is limited to Copenhagen, though.

[@masonharvath-gerrans832]

As long as it doesn't become as bad as in Danish. In which Bundesländer is this occurring, if I may ask?

[@izumiamv7280]

@@masonharvath-gerrans832 The Mainz area in Rheinland-Pfalz. I don't necessarily think it's a dialectal thing but I could be wrong

[@masonharvath-gerrans832]

@@izumiamv7280 as long as it comes not to Thüringen))

[@masonharvath-gerrans832]

@@izumiamv7280 ich immer habe mich für die germanischen Dialekte und Sprachen von Deutschland und anderen Ländern interessiert, also wann ich lese über und diskutiere dieses Thema, bin ich wie am ersten Tag der Schule)

[@beninua]

As a Dane and a passionate amateur linguist I truly loved this video. Rarely have I seen foreigners with such a grasp on "soft D" and "stød" as you. This was truly insightful and I didn't even find one single erroneous information, and I do have a library of more than 120 books on Danish linguistics alone, including of course ordinary dictionaries, but also works spanning huge volumes encompassing just the Danish grammar, historical dictionaries, dialectic dictionaries (Denmark is one of the smallest areas covering the most number of different dialects withiin such a small area), Thesaurus, Ethymology,.I have a few UK friends who are very danophile and they would love to learn more Danish, and to help them pronounce - or at least get used to - "soft D" I tell them they can start practising by trying with the word "there", but without starting the humming sound through your vocal cords that leads in to the "ehr" sound in "there" that will make but instead try whispering the word but stop as soon as you start whispering "there" and then pull the tongue away from the teeth and slightly backwards and upwards in the mouth.

[@Bibi_Poetics]

this is confusing as hell ! 🤣

[@Mignon15]

Døde røde rødøjede rådne røgede ørreder. - Dead red-eyed rotten smoked red trouts. Efter råd, den rædde ridder red fra reden og reddede en rad ræd råd. - After advisement, the scared knight rode from the nest and saved a gathering of scared councilmen. Some nonsensical tongue twisters that you can practice!

[@saddasish]

Just gotta make a point that because you counted short and long vowels separately for Danish and other languages mentioned, Japanese really has 10 vowels instead of 5 because vowel length is also phonemic in that language.

[@NolanEnos-u5r]

I think Japanese is always counted as having 5 vowels though because long vowels are analyzed as being double vowel sequences because of the language's mora timing.

[@shyviking]

"Japanese really has 10 vowels instead of 5". Maybe so, but all 10 of them pretty easy and phonetic (if they're written in kana or romaji, that is) to pronounce. Example: the o in "O(o)saka" is not really not that different (at least to my gaikokujin ear) from the first o in "Obon". Just longer.

[@CacoPholey]

3:22 Holy shit is that a motherfucking Novial reference?

[@kklein]

that's the one and same guy ahaha

[@rasmusn.e.m1064]

Thank you. Now I can just send this video instead of having to explain it to all the English speakers that ask me why I pronounce 'd' as 'l' :) Speaking of velarisation; If you want an idea for a topic, I'd love a video on different levels of velarisation. I've noticed that most Americans have some velarisation even in their supposedly 'light' l's, and yet there is still contrast in most speakers, even though I sometimes have a hard time hearing it because all their l's sound dark to me.

[@rasmusn.e.m1064]

example: kzbin.info/www/bejne/fmKugWewqbB-ZqM

[@enricobianchi4499]

@@rasmusn.e.m1064 this is a shot in the dark, but i posit that that person does NOT contrast the light and dark l's, and instead just says it because it's phonological tradition in english to say there's a light l allophone.

[@rasmusn.e.m1064]

@@enricobianchi4499 That was also my definite first impression, but upon second viewing I could hear a slight difference between the 'l' before back vowels ('like' and 'love') and front vowels ('leaf'), so maybe she just has a shifted contrast. I don't know, though, which is why I brought it up here. I think the otherwise excellent video did a particularly bad job highlighting the difference because not only did it include a speaker who had pretty dark light l's but also a bit of l-vocalisation, which became evident because they only included examples of dark l's in coda position 🙈. I understand why they did it; to make the contrast bigger, but if the contrast is not the right one, then it's not exactly going to clarify anything. This is why I remembered this from like 2 years ago. Talk about salience...

[@SevenTheMisgiven]

Lol. Most Danes wouldn't agree with you. As a Dutchman I figured out it was a light L by myself but Danes can get very defensive over this. Insisting it's a letter D that simply bares no resemblence to any letter D in any language in *the world.* And it's certainly nOt a LeTtEr L.

[@rasmusn.e.m1064]

@@SevenTheMisgiven What I meant is that they ask "Why do you pronounce D as L?" I don't personally think it sounds like an L. As for similarities, I also speak Spanish, and the D there can be quite similar sometimes.

[@Lassemalten]

Danish children learn to talk 6 months later then it's neighbors due to the bad language.

[@johlepan2781]

I don't know whether there is anyone who knows about the middle Chinese. But I surprisedly find that the soft D in danish performs as same as Ciru(次入) in Qieyun(切韵). Ciru(次入) i.e. Xieshe(蟹攝) is assumed from -s suffix in Old Chinese and has developed into -j suffix in Modern Chinese. However, at that time, they a.k.a. Ciru(次入) can rhyme with -t suffix in Middle Chinese. Actually, this is a quite weird phenomenon. But it makes sense if we assume their phonetic value as soft D in danish. -s>-soft D> -j This is natural sound chain, because soft D is approximant and laminal. It can develop into -j due to the phonetic characters. Also, soft D is coronal so they can rhyme with -t suffix. Perfect.

[@anniekongsvold3523]

Yes.. but here is a good thing about the soft Danish D is that even a not-so-correct pronunciation will not affect the actual meaning/content of the word. In my almost 30 yrs of Danish classes for adults I found that the most helpful way forward often was to help everybody actually FIND the sound ... without phonetic technicality. The trick was for them to teach/allow/concentrate on letting their tongue do nothing.. apart from lying low behind the lower teeth... totally relaxed. Then we all made the sound we say when we don't know what to say.. still keeping the tongue being inactive. This would be an exclamation (and we allowed ourselves to look rather stupid) and written ØH in Danish. But there it is!! The difficult and strange sound!! And very quickly it was often not a problem any more.

[@seneca983]

0:18 I think this comparison is a bit dishonest. You're counting short and long vowels separately for Danish but not for example Japanese. Since Japanese has phonemic length for vowels (and most consonants) you should count it as having 10 vowels or else count Danish as having "only" 14 vowels. Btw, what about Estonian? It has 9 different vowels but I think it also has 3 phoneme lengths so you could say that it has 27 vowels when the short, mid-long, and overlong vowels are counted separately.

[@danglish.coaching]

I literally opened the comments to write this! 🙏🏻 I’ve seen this comparison so often, and it’s just not thought through… just like any video that starts with “why XYZ is the most difficult language in the world” - completely omitting the persons nationality from the equation 😅 surely it’s not the most difficult language to learn for another Scandinavian fx…

[@randomvintagefilm273]

My mom was born and raised in Denmark as were all her ancestors. Now I know why she never bothered to teach me!

[@Tahulrik]

The best thing about the soft d is that to my knowledge, there is little to no rules of when you actually use it. Some words you just do, and others you don't.

[@Disruptedable]

"Oh, you think danish is your ally. But you merely adopted the language; I was born in it, moulded by it. I didn't understand shit until I was already a man, by then it was nothing to me but JIBBERISH!" As with most languages, the official danish is but a very small part of our combined language. Spread across our country there are roughly 30 distinct dialects and most are VERY far from our official language. Me (I live in the northern part of Denmark), and speak a dialect called Vendelbomål. If I choose to go all in on that, people knowing only our official language (Rigsdansk) will not understand anything I'm saying. Same goes for most our dialects. Many of them are rather similar if you listen carefully and we can understand each other just fine, but again, if you only know "Rigsdansk", then you'll be lost.

[@ouroboros2727]

Long live wendelbomål 😊

[@areyouserious1494]

As a danish native i would just like to say, that sometimes my own language even confuses me sometimes😅

[@SotraEngine4]

Hence, as a Norwegian, reading your language is eeasier than speaking it

[@SadMatte]

@@SotraEngine4 same the other way around

[@SotraEngine4]

@@SadMatte I would imagine

[@myntemariekoopbuchert3889]

Samme her🤣

[@Toby8700]

samme

[@scygnius]

“I’m not just saying that as a Swede” >K Klein partaking in the long Swedish tradition of making fun of how Danes talk, veiled in a veneer of intellectualism

[@hua_tetsu_cat]

Languages are unique and it's the identity of people.

[@ArcticJedda]

A well made and informative video. Thanks!☺ It is interesting that many foreigners in Denmark, pronounce the soft D as an L. A very similar sound is also encountered in Greek (the letter delta/δέλτα, depending on the neighboring letters).

[@WoolTecMc]

As a Danish person this is hilarious. It's natural to me so I've never put this much thought in to why it is so difficult for foreigners to pronounce soft D

[@adexiofan1232]

Just as food for thought: I've always seen Norwegian as a simplified version of Danish. They look almost identical in writing, but Norwegian skips the concept of the soft 'd' entirely, pronouncing words like 'hun' and 'hund' exactly the same.

[@TerencePetersenAjbro]

Danish is notoriously difficult to pronounce for adults coming to the country from non-European countries. One is reminded of poor Prins Henrik originally from France who was mocked so often for his pronunciation. Swedish is far easier to speak and be intelligible. I lived in Denmark most of my life and the past 8 years in Sweden, I am a native English speaker with a degree in germanic languages, but I can say Danish has been the hardest to master! I found listening to Danish music and audiobooks helped a lot.

[@fex144]

Swedish is easy because it is spoken at half speed. The poor swedes can't manage to speak any faster. It is some sort of genetic defect.

[@MihoshiChama]

My favourite sentence in Danish is in fact NOT the famous "rød grød med fløde" but the much more innocent looking "jeg hedder Mette" ("my name is Mette", for those not in the know) as it contains only one vowel... pronounced in 5 different ways.

[@lhpl]

I'm a Dane and Southern Jute of birth (born just north of the peninsula Angel - from where the Angles originated), and trilingual (South Jutlandic, German, Danish) from the time I learned to speak. I don't think I'd call it a "favorite sentence", but I very much like the idea that in many Danish dialects, you can express whole sentences and tell some short stories, using _only_ vowels.

[@KibyNykraft]

@@lhpl In Norway we have an area where they say ë for many words. "E e hér e" (meaning "no no, I am HERE" )

[@lhpl]

@@KibyNykraft are you sure it doesn't mean "jeg er her, jeg"? The doubling of the subject having the meaning you tried to present by "no, no", emphasising that the speaking person is not where the person spoken to expects him to be?

[@aweqaweq]

As one of your few Danish viewers, I am quite amused by this video. However, I thought blødt d was also a feature of certain Southern bokmål dialects in Norway and Southern Swedish (skånsk?) matching the historical extent of the kingdom?

[@kklein]

not the same soft d as far as i'm aware

[@KibyNykraft]

@@ctj42 In swedish the d runs silent at the end of town names. Such as Halmstad ("Halmsta'"). The same in norwegian. This is however not in all dialects and not in all generations of age. The soft d in south coast Norway is clearly pronounced as d but where the spelling is T. For example bløt (wet, soft, weak). In Kristiansand this is pronounced blød. But practically only there. Perhaps in some of the nearby towns /suburbs like Mandal and Søgne. In Stavanger it is however done with an ë behind it for some words but not all. "Bløde", in english it would have been something like "blur-dë(h)". (In the phonetic alphabet shown otherwise of course). In plural there the same but with more pressure on the last vowel and slightly less on the ø.

[@KibyNykraft]

(in the north and central Norway "å tilbløte" is mostly used for soaking something, where "det er bløtt" will be "it is wet/soaked". There and in formal written norwegian it is spelled with a T... In plural in written norwegian "de bløte", the wet ones. "De er bløte" = they are wet. In the north = bløt in borh plural and singular. A curious detail in northern Norway is that people say "tadd" instead of "tatt" like the rest of Norway. Meaning stolen or taken away )

[@albertstrauss8287]

Godt at se at der er mindst en video om danskere hvor vi ikke bliver latterliggjort. Tak!

[@CornerKickKing2003]

Just wanted to thank you for including references in the video :)

[@spillredet]

I'm Norwegian, and I think I am one of few Norwegians who has simply fallen in love with Danish. It is so quirky and detailed, and while grammatically quite close to Norwegian, it is still more elegant than Norwegian is. Their sentences has more finesse to them, I feel. Went to Denmark this summer, and while I could understand them, they did not understand my Norwegian. So I had to try to speak Danish, and to my delight it worked. I was thrilled!

[@avienated]

(5 months later, 5 likes) yes, there are few of us but I love Danish too! :D

[@selmavoss4202]

Cannot phatom falling in live with the hellborn that is the danish language but ok. Kos deg med det, du høres litt psycho ut ❤️

[@EliasBrown999]

Im danish. I have no problem understanding my language. Until i saw your video. I dont know what the f*ck is going on anymore.

[@alegitimateperson6178]

At the University of Copenhagen we actually transcribe the soft-d as /ɤ/. R. Schachtenhaufen argues that it's actually a vowel and not a consonant anymore

[@kklein]

interesting. that's a pretty weird transcription but no weirder than using eth

[@mathiassejerkilde6689]

@@kklein Schachtenhaufen describes it as [ɤ̻̽] a "centralised laminalised close-mid velar vowel" on the basis of acoustic analysis by Juul & al. (2016) which places it as a central-back vowel which might be something like ɘ or ɯ ʊ ɤ from which he maps it to ɤ. It evolved from a historic |d| but I think describing it as a vowel in modern danish makes a lot of sense as we can then group it with the vowel group traditionally called "halfvowels" which appear in unstressed syllables and express the same neutralisation we see with the bløde d.

[@troelspeterroland6998]

Surely, that would represent a strong Copenhagen accent?

[@aglioeolio7730]

I'm really angry at the categorization of soft-D as a vowel, but I don't have the knowledge to express this anger productively. Now I have to go get a Ph.D. in linguistics. Shit.

[@alegitimateperson6178]

@@troelspeterroland6998 not necessarily a strong Copenhagen accent, but most phonetic and phonological analysis of danish is based on how people sound in Copenhagen.

[@hi_promankiil3rSIUU]

Im danish og jeg er glad for at danmark er med i så mange videoer) kun danskere ville forstå det her så like kommentaren tak👍

[@KnittedSister]

I think the differences in dialect in a country as small as ours is interesting. I saw a comment mentioning how the soft d has pretty much been cut off in the dialect they speak on Fyn. And i had a neighbor two years ago, who came from England. Him and his Danish girlfriend had lived in Copenhagen for a few years, before moving over here to Jutland. He had learned quite a bit of danish at that point, but he found himself completely unable to understand what a jutlander was saying, even if he had been perfectly capable of understanding the same thing being said by someone from Copenhagen. It annoyed him to no end, and even if he really enjoyed conversing and improving his danish, he would oftentimes ask me if i would just take the potato out of my mouth so he could understand what i was saying, meaning it was time to switch to english. 😂

[@ffarkasm]

I spent 5 months in the Danish town of "Odder", but when the locals pronounced the name of the town for me it sounded more something like "Ölla". For a forigner that particilar _soft D_ sounds much more like _L_

[@peterlarsen7779]

Can't be _that_ difficult.... Danish children learn the language all the time! 😙😙😙

[@DraslyThe1]

These sounds exist in some part of the Norwegian language, if you goes as south as you come in Norway, you can hear people talking like this. Also old people whom is talking a Norwegian dialect heavily influenced by Danish words as in most of Norway we say "kake" but in a dialect they use the Danish word "Kage"

[@nowave7]

Does kake mean what I think it means?

[@DraslyThe1]

@@nowave7 if you think about "cake" then yes

[@nowave7]

@@DraslyThe1 Oh! No! That is definitely not what I was thinking about! 😁

[@DraslyThe1]

@@nowave7 Oh😁thought you got it since its just one letter different xD I think I know what the word you meant 😅

[@nowave7]

@@DraslyThe1 Yeah, sorry, that was my German kicking in! 😆

[@Hivod01]

why is japanese considered to have only 5 vowel phonemes when there is a length distinction? why count the pairs seperately for danish but not for japanese?

[@kklein]

that's actually a really good point. it's convention for some reason that i didn't think to question! Japanese should really have 10 phonemes including length distinctions

[@wellimbob4622]

there's 2,163 comments here and you have no reason to believe me (and my testimony can be flawed in ways other than being untrustworthy), but the soft d is actually a conditional allophone of /l/ in my dialect of american english. In coda and when not preceded or followed by another alveolar consonant, it becomes a laminal approximant rather than a lateral approximant, and like. it was already velarized! I'm not trying to say this to brag but more point out how this field of study is something that we can never have a complete picture of! Sounds exist in the first place because they are a more comfortable or beautiful way to say something rapidly than the version of the sound that came before them, so the fact that this sound exists at all and is phonologically so similar to other sounds means that it could be way more common than we think. Since it's a phoneme in danish that makes it easy to spot there, but in how many other places is it hiding? How many random rare sounds are conditional allophones that just never exist in a context where they can undergo phonemicization? How many random dialects are there with rare sounds that exist for a generation or two before the kids get folded back into the majority dialect by youtubers? How many dialects are just not considered worth studying? It's impossible to really know, unless you can think of a way to poll 8 billion people AND get them to understand articulatory phonetics. But doesn't that make what we can find all the more beautiful? And isn't it a wonderful thing that we'll never run out of new things to discover??

[@DarkSchuller]

As a danish person myself, all i have to say is : det er så fint. godnat

[@JixieDyeAuthor]

Been learning Danish for about five years now. I love languages with interesting sounds. Danish and many pacific island languages like Samoan are my fav's. I love a little Croatian too.

[@memeconnect4489]

jeg skal skide

[@hoangkimviet8545]

After listening to this video, I forget how German is difficult!

[@SkyTheHusky]

I tried it many times... 10 times, more exactly. This is what I got: /ð/ 3 times /!/ twice /dz/ twice /q/ once almost threw up twice

[@grantofat6438]

Throwing up is a differend sound. You are doing something wrong.

[@caskadestudio]

NO WAY... I have it just about right and I've only been doing danish for just over half a year... thanks duolingo and my accent mimicking skills!

[@tru7hhimself]

in austria we have at least as many vowels. i just counted 15 different qualities and most of them can be long and short.

[@marna_li]

Scanian phonology is something I take very serious as a Scanian. All those beautiful triphongs that other Swedes find funny.

[@SIC647]

Scanian triphongs are beautiful. I don't care what anyone else says.

[@TheNatureThread]

@@ctj42 This is just like the Gōdāvari dialect of Telugu! The standard pronunciation of it is [goːd̪äːʋɐɾi] but I'm pretty sure it sounds something like [gu̯ɔɐ̯d̪äːʋɐɾi] in the dialect itself, with a triphthong, although I haven't seen anybody else talking about it and describing it as a triphthong.