The Danish Stød (Glottal Stop) - Video 1, Basic Information

The STØD is an essential part of Danish pronunciation.
This video aims to give a brief overview of the practicality of stød.
We answer questions like:
- How does the stød sound?
- What is it?
- When to say it?
Mic's Languages
Speak it for real!
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[@pragmatastic]

Yay, he's back! I had many Danish teachers over the years, and not one ever dared address the 'stød'. So, this is cool!

[@MicsLanguages]

Haha, yeah it's not an easy topic to talk about. I have spent quite some time to try to get an overview of the stød. There's not much information out there, so I did a lot of thinking to establish patterns. I hope the product (this and the coming videos on stød) will be helpful to many people :)

[@giusax89]

I know this is probably not the first time you hear this but... Damn, I really can't hear the difference between most of those words at all. I can sometimes here it's when it's in longer words, but for instance to my ears mor and mord sound almost identical. I imagined that mord is sort of "cut" earlier, but mor to me also sounds quite quick and short. Any tips on what to listen for in a word to understand "what" it is?

[@MicsLanguages]

Yeah I've heard this various times :) It's difficult to hear something that you've never known existed. Try to pay attention to the melody/intonation of the words. In many cases the difference between stød / no stød is easier to hear in the melody. With practice it gets easier. Also make sure to watch all my videos on stød, as you'll hear many more examples. Good luck! 😉

[@eira.borealis]

I only hear the difference in intonation. I feel deaf, and I'm a musician and linguist, and speak Norwegian. Thank you for the video, I'll have to watch it many times.

[@Mortimer50145]

I've only just encountered the concept of the stød and I too am finding it very difficult to hear the difference in your examples - especially the mord/mor difference (which you really *do* need to get right, to avoid confusing mother and murder!). I'll need to go back and listen several times. It's a good point that you make: that it's difficult to hear something which you didn't know existed.

[@renateyerkes9761]

@@MicsLanguages Puk Damsgaard, mellemøstkorrespondenten, har det, altså stød, virkelig mærkbar!

[@malami555]

@@eira.borealis dajesz mi nadzieję, bo ja muzykiem nie jestem ani też językoznawcą 😅😅😅

[@sukiemonsoon901]

Thank you so much for this fantastic video. I remember sitting in a car with my Danish aunt (I'm German) and she tried to teach me the difference between gul and guld/ hun and hund. I NEVER heard it, it drove me nuts. Now I finally get it and I can practice it. Tusind tak!!!

[@MicsLanguages]

That's great to hear! The difference is slight, especially when you start being confronted with it. Somewhat like o vs å, which generally is tough for Germans :)

[@dejandudok128]

Your channel is one of the most helpful tools in learning Danish. I have learned so much from you, because you make the difficult stuff fun and easy. Such a good teacher. Jeg er så taknemmelig og jeg håber du har det godt :)

[@MicsLanguages]

Mange tak, Dejan! Det er dejligt at læse beskeder som din. Jeg håber også at du har det godt og ønsker dig held og lykke med dansk og med alt andet i livet! 🙂

[@jeremycline9542]

This channel is a treasure trove for learners...many thanks!

[@MicsLanguages]

Great, thanks for the nice words!

[@ploomich]

I needed this video so bad! Thank you mic! As soon as I saw you uploaded it I pressed play.

[@MicsLanguages]

Perfect! I hope it was helpful :)

[@user-bx6oz4xc6o]

Mange tak, Mic! You always made best video. Welcom back!

[@MicsLanguages]

Mange tak!

[@andrewviloria5818]

Mange tak! Definitely an extremely helpful video!

[@sansanaye3945]

Mic .. Always made the best video .. we have learnt a lot from you...

[@MicsLanguages]

Mange tak skal I have!

[@mushtabaalizadah6824]

Tusind TAK for din fremragende arbejde

[@matthaios_]

Heyy, du er tilbage 😁 glad at se dig igen, elsker dine videoer

[@MicsLanguages]

Tak skal du have :)

[@viktoria93133]

Tusind tak, Mic! 🙏 Dine videoer om stød er uvurderlige!!! 🙂

[@MicsLanguages]

Tak, det er jeg glad for at høre. Jeg brugte en del tid på at forberede dem og optage dem etc. Så det er dejligt at høre at du kan bruge dem til noget!

[@annepamelamanning]

O dear! So now I understand! Stød has six videos n I saw the sixth one first!!! 🙃 Am sure as I begin from the start, I will catch on quickly! Thanks for this. As a teacher of English I appreciate your style n clarity. God Bless.

[@MicsLanguages]

Oh great, you have figured it out by yourself. I just commented on the other video that there are 6 videos. Thanks for your nice words :)

[@HadiPlusPlus]

What a great help was this for me. I was so confused about different Danish words that apparently pronounced similarly, but I always felt a difference. After some practice I noticed that we (Persians) also have Stød in out language, but until now I hadn't paid attention to it. In Persian it is called HAMZA which is kind of a softer version of the letter Ayn in Arabic. Thank you again Mic. wish you the best.

[@MicsLanguages]

I'm so glad to hear that the video was helpful and that the language language now makes a bit more sense to you than before :) Interesting to hear that you have something similar to stød in Farsi. I wish you all the best too, thanks for writing me here!

[@stevenschilizzi4104]

Fantastisk video, mange tak! Fra Australien.

[@confused9813]

Thank you so much, this is a very helpful video!

[@MicsLanguages]

Thank you!

[@allesindwillkommen]

Mange tak, Mic. A very important topic. I'm very glad you're making a series of videos on the stød. If possible, can you please focus especially on the stød in inflected forms because dictionaries don't often show how to pronounce plurals or present/past tenses. I know you're planning to do this, just wanted to stress how confusing it can be when the dictionary form has a stød and the plural doesn't or when the infinitive doesn't but the present form does and so on.

[@MicsLanguages]

Thanks for your comment! I have already recorded all the videos on stød, just need to edit them. But luckily I have included what you're asking for. Maybe not super in depth, but in the video on nouns and the video on verbs, I have delved into inflected forms, it's actually the main focus more or less. But since there are so many rules, semi-rules and exceptions, I have only tried to establish some main guidelines. Once the videos are out, feel free to comment, letting me know whether the content was helpful 🙂

[@santiagopalau3395]

Thank you very much for the video, Mic. I think of stød as the way brits pronounce the word "lettuce", without pronouncing a sharp "t", as in the north american accent. They just jump from "e" to "u" with a subtle glottal closure. Or even pronouncing british: bri-iiish. So, I see it the same way in danish. Except I didn't know it could be used in consonants. And of course, the way danes speak very fast and this is way more subtle. Again, appreciate the videos!

[@MicsLanguages]

Thanks, Santiago. Exactly, in British English there are several dialects that use a kind of glottal stop. It's veyr similar to Danish. I actually talk about this very fact briefly in my second video on the stød. The difference is that Danish cannot have stød on a T or a D sound. But what happens in the mouth is probably pretty much the same in these two languages.

[@patrickchamberlain3980]

That's a London thing. Bo-ll for bottle is another example. My mum would tell me off for not speaking properly when I did it as a kid growing up about 60 miles north of London. To my ears it sounds very similar to Danish stoed except it appears in the middle of words rather than at the end.

[@elviranikolova2443]

Amazing! Thank you so much for this, I'm looking fwd to the other videos :)

[@MicsLanguages]

Thabk you very much :)

[@goscinny1985]

Hej Mic, rigtig godt at se dig tilbage. Jeg anbefalede for nyligt en af mine venner, som er ved at lære dansk, at se dine videoer. De er virkelig et godt udgangspunkt for en nybegynder. Håber alt går vel og tak for dit arbejde!

[@MicsLanguages]

Hej Halfdan. Det er storartet! Jeg er glad for at høre at du som dansker finder mine videoer nyttige og har anbefalet dem til din ven. Forhåbentligt hjælper de også ham. Mange tak for din kommentar. Jeg ønsker også dig alt det bedste!

[@devinbrochu7848]

Tusind tak for den super vid, Mic!!

[@MicsLanguages]

Tak skal du have, Devin!

[@pegglenights5236]

Welcome back after a long pause.

[@MicsLanguages]

Thanks!

[@richarddietzen3137]

Thank you, Mic. When you referred to long or short vowels, were you speaking of English or Danish vowel classification? Like Danish Nu = (sounds like) Nū and English New are both long vowels in the respective languages?

[@MicsLanguages]

I was referring to Danish vowel sounds. I would say that the english "new" has amuch longer vowel than Danish "nu". Most Danish vowels can have short as well as long sounds. Compare the words "tusse" and "fuser". Look them up in den danske ordbog, and you will see the transcriptian showing a long vowel in fuser and a short one in tusse. You can also hear it. "nu" has the same sound as tusse (also notice the double consonant after the vowel in tusse, which gives us a short vowel sound). I hope what I wrote was helpful and answered your question :)

[@richarddietzen3137]

@@MicsLanguages Got it!

[@kookkaiDK]

It's very good video.

[@joshadams8761]

I am a grateful requester.

[@aakos12]

Hej Mic, tak for en fed video. Jeg har lagt mærke til at ved nogle korte ord siger man ikke stød men en h-lyd i stedet, ved omkring 11:04 siger du fx "nu-h", "i-h", "de-h" osv. Jeg tror også, at det kun sker når disse ord udtales på en meget tydelig og langsom måde. Har du en forklaring på dette?:)

[@MicsLanguages]

Tak for din kommentar. Det er godt observeret, det med h-lyden. Jeg lagde også mærke til at jeg gjorde det, da jeg var i gang med at redigere videoen. Jeg har ikke virkelig tænkt over det før, og ved ikke engang om det er noget andre ville gøre. Men det tror jeg. Og ja, jeg gør det, som du siger, fordi jeg betoner ordene meget klart her. Jeg er ked af at jeg ikke virkelig kan svare på dit spørgsmål 😬

[@aakos12]

@@MicsLanguages Tak for dit svar, det er noget som jeg også har observeret hos andre, så det er ikke kun dig! :) Det er også noget jeg har altid været interesseret i. :)

[@bikkies]

I've always had a lot of trouble with stød. As a Scouser (someone born in Liverpool) I have something approximating stød in a lot of my English vocabulary. For instance "water" is often spoken as "wa'er" with a characteristic and noticeable interruption in airflow. Cockneys (from some parts of London) sometimes have something similar. So when I've been trying to speak Danish and I encounter a point where stød is needed, I seem to over exaggerate it. To make the distinction in my mind I interrupt my airflow far more emphatically than a native Danish speaker ever would. It must make my Danish really horrible to listen to.

[@MicsLanguages]

Yeah I've often heard Danish learners exaggerate the stød, which can sound somewhat "horrible". It's a thing that for some people takes a lot of training, which can come from paying attention to how Danes speak, and then also trying to copy that, preferably in a safe environment, for example recording yourself while repeating sth. from a Danish video etc.

[@MicsLanguages]

By the way, the scouse accent has a lot in common with Danish. Some of the vowel sounds are closer to Danish than other variants of British English are. The melody too, I would say. I have watched a lot of videos by Richard Grannon (easy to find here on YT) and really like the content. His accent is amazing. I'm actually trying to learn that accent at the moment. But man, it takes A LOT of work to change your accent in a language that is already ingrained with a "wrong" accent. Good luck with Danish!!

[@malami555]

@@MicsLanguages ciekawie piszesz o tym "okropnie". W języku polskim też śmiesznie brzmi przekombinowane ą ę i jest to zabawne jak obcokrajowcy naginają się, by to wypowiedzieć, ale realnie tak się nie mówi I tu nie chodzi o mówienie w obcym języku, ale o niepotrzebne przesadzanie w wypowiedzi tego 😄 pozdrawiam!

[@xinglinjiang4952]

i am totally lost.what is it. is it a foced ending?

[@sanJose2008]

Wow, you are good in Danish. 👏🏼

[@MicsLanguages]

Thank you. But it would be a bit sad if I weren't good at my native language 🙄

[@sanJose2008]

@@MicsLanguages Oh, so you are Copenhagener, excellence…English.

[@markpullano1984]

Thank you. (1) It sounds to me in this example: "Nu er den fuldstaendig fuld." that you are completely skipping over the words "er den" and saying in effect "Nu fuldstaending fuld." Is that correct? (2) If one wants to take the "Danish Two Exam or Danish Three Exam", can one take either exam in the USA? Many thanks, Mark.

[@MicsLanguages]

Hi! Let's see about your question:You are right that the word "er" would be kind of skipped. But "den" is still there, albeit in a shortened version where you would hear a slight D and a clear N, the É in the word is more or less skipped as well. All these things happen when most Danes speak normally, but of course there are people who pronounce things more clearly. As to your question about the exams (are you talking about Prøve i Dansk / PD2 and PD3?) I am. sorry I have no idea whether they can be taken in the US. I doubt it, I have at least never heard of that possibility.

[@bradendoty3695]

I genuinely can't hear the difference.

[@trixieloo]

I can’t either :/

[@fearmor3855]

It's the force of the pronunciation, the stød is said stronger almost

[@renateyerkes9761]

De her videoer er mine nye godnathistorier🏞💝

[@MicsLanguages]

Det lyder ikke godt 🤔

[@that_one_person...]

Can you make a cideo about rigsdansk and københavndansk what is the difference is the difference only in proununciation or in more things?

[@MicsLanguages]

Oh, how would I answer that question? The two are super similar, I'm not that much of a specialist in dialects to answer the question with confidence. I'm sorry 🙂

[@habbomanish]

@@MicsLanguages Would you say it is easier for a foreigner to understand someone from jutland/fyn speaking danish rather than someone from copenhagen/zealand?

[@MicsLanguages]

@@habbomanish Puha, det er et godt spørgsmål som jeg ikke rigtig kan svare på. Der er nogle mennesker der synes at københavnsk er nemmere at forstå, og andre der mener at jysk er nemmere. Jeg vil sige at det er et personligt spørgsmål.

[@habbomanish]

@@MicsLanguages Mange tak for din forklaring. Jeg spørger fordi jeg så en kommentar fra en engelsk person i en anden video du lavede der skrev at danskere fra jylland udtaler "vejret" på en anden måde end københavnere fx. At folk fra jylland udtaler "vejret" mer tydeligt og udtaler bokstaverne R og T. Venlig hilsen fra Sverige

[@MicsLanguages]

@@habbomanish Der er nogle klare forskelle mellem jysk og rigsdansk. Jor eksempel udtaler man i Jylland ofte ET i slutningen af substantiver som ET og ikke som et blødt D som på rigsdansk. Men om jysk alt i alt er nemmere at forstå end rigsdansk, det tror jeg kommer an på ens personlige opfattelse. 🙂

[@habbomanish]

wooaaw now I understand. Damn its crazy how mord/mor toget/tåget sounds so similar for a foreigner.

[@MicsLanguages]

Yes! But in Swedish you have something similar with your accent 1 vs accent 2. Stegen has two meanings depending on the accent. That's also fairly difficult for non-Swedes.

[@habbomanish]

@@MicsLanguages Ja, men det er ikke stød fordi vi ikke har stød på det svenske sprog. Det bliver en udfordring for udlændinge der lærer dansk at hele tiden være nødt til at tænke på stød da det findes i mange danske ord mens eksempler som "stegen" på svensk er bare i nogle ord.

[@MicsLanguages]

Man vænner sig hurtigt til at være opmærksom på om der er stød eller ej i nye ord. Og så er det bare at huske ordenes udtale. Uden at tænke for meget. Men jo, det er selvfølgelig sværere end hvis der ikke fandtes noget stød på dansk :)

[@multilingoman8188]

Hej Mic! Lang tid siden! Velkommen tilbage. Tusind tak for endnu en hjælpsom video. Hvis jeg lytter opmærksomt nok, så hører jeg stødet i nogle ord od udtryk. Dog det er vanskeligt for mig at udtale det. Jeg bliver nødt til at lytte og gentage så ofte som muligt, da øvelse gør mester. Hav en rigtig god dag og venlig hilsen fra Storbritannien 🙂

[@MicsLanguages]

Hej Multilingo Man. Mange tak for din kommentar. Stød er ikke nemt at mestre. Jeg lyttede til nogle af dine videoer på dansk for et godt stykke tid siden, og jeg mener faktisk at en af de ting jeg lagde mærke til, var at du ikke var helt konsekvent i din brug af stød. Jeg håber at denne video hjælper, og også de næste jeg offentliggør om emnet. Der kommer i alt 6 videoer om stød. Jeg ønsker dig en rigtig god aften! Skriv gerne igen :)

[@multilingoman8188]

@@MicsLanguages Mange tak for svaret og for at du lyttede til nogle af mine videoer🙂 Ja, hvis jeg skal være ærlig, så var jeg ikke klar over at jeg overhovedet brugede stød i mine videoer! Jeg troede ligesom at mit dansk var stødfrit. Ja, syd for stødgrænsen, f.eks på Lolland, Falster, Fyn og i Sønderjylland er de fleste dialekter jo stødfrie. Efter min mening minder sætningsmelodien i dialekterne på Lolland og Falster eller i dele af Fyn (herunder Odense-området) om de sydskotske og nordirske dialekter af engelsk. Dog jeg vil gerne snakke dansk med københavnsk tonegang - tja, mere eller mindre. I hvert fald vil jeg helt sikkert kigge på alle 6 af dine videoer om stød. Hav en rigtig god aften og vi høres 🙂

[@eirenie6957]

welcome back

[@MicsLanguages]

Thank you!

[@JohnJohn-us8pc]

add into the title "(glotal stop)" for search optimization

[@MicsLanguages]

Thanks, I've already updated the titles. Great tip! :)

[@ssall3879]

I love the letter Ø so much

[@chengyanslc]

As a duolingo player I know something strange is happening when I do dansk compared with bokmål. Now I know the concept but still confused

[@MicsLanguages]

Yeah, Bokmål doesn't have stød. But be aware of another thing on duolingo Danish: They use computer generated voices, and sometimes the pronunciation is not correct because of this.

[@grantofat6438]

The difference is so subtle that foreigners usually can't hear it. Take a sentence like "en maler maler" or "en løber løber". The first word is without stød and the second is with stød. How many can hear the difference if they are not native danes? Sometimes they can be spelled differently, like bønner (without stød) and bønder (with stød), but that doesn't make it any easier to hear the difference.

[@MicsLanguages]

Yeah it's not easy to learn for people who didn't have the luck to learn Danish as children. But most people who learn Danish as adults actually get it pretty well, nonetheless. Some are fairly lost as well, though.

[@Kirill7775]

Из этого видео я понял только то, что фонетика некоторых сложных языков (вроде тех же северокавказских) не такая уж и сложная😄

[@JohnJohn-us8pc]

wait how can we tell whether a vowel is short, long or stressed 😅

[@MicsLanguages]

Great question. That's a more advanced topic, there would be lots of rules as to when to say a long or short vowel etc. The most important thing is for you to HEAR the difference between short and long vowels. But then again, in theory you don't even need to know, cause most native speakers probably wouldn't be able to tell and they still speak their mother tongue correctly. They wouldn't know cognitively at least. But for somebody who is learning the language as an adult, it can be a big advantage to understand the topic of short vs. long vowels, and of stressed vs. unstressed. I'm sorry I throw out these words in the video without going more into detail. To be honest, I wouldn't be able to give you any reliable rules off the bat, except some very basic ones, like: A vowel sound is short when followed by a double consonant: for example ligge has a short "e" sound, whereas lige has a long "i" sound.

[@JohnJohn-us8pc]

I understand the problem. A list of words with color marked syllabels / vowels would be useful some day for ear training

[@MicsLanguages]

@@JohnJohn-us8pc Good suggestion!

[@fritmore]

noi'ce

[@veneratlazulum2033]

I can't hear any phonological difference, but I can hear a tonal one.

[@MicsLanguages]

Great! It's a mixture between the two.

[@Zestieee]

I really REALLY struggle to hear the stød. It's very confusing to me

[@billbirkett7166]

Det minner mig lidt på hvordan man må genkende forskellet mellem tonerne på kinesisk. Man er nødt til at få masser af sprogtraining for at væne sig til lyderne. Når det kommer til grammatikken og ordforråd er dansk virkelig ikke særlig svært at lære som fremmed sprog, man når det kommer til udtalen og forståelsen, så må man rigtig passe på.

[@MicsLanguages]

Jeg har kun hørt om tonerne i kinesisk, har aldrig haft virkelig kontakt med dem. Men det virker som om. må godt kan sammenligne de to sprog på det område

[@WhiteandBlack]

I'm a Russian speaking person and I cannot get this difference by ear :(( I was told we have 'stod' in one word only, 'ne-a'. It means colloqial 'no' and it has pronounciation as [n'je?a]

[@MicsLanguages]

Would you happen to be able to send me a link where I can hear the sound, to see if it is the same sound as the stød?

[@WhiteandBlack]

I've sent you a link in Istagram because you tube had cut my message...

[@papaquonis]

One of the best things about being a Dane is that I don't have to learn Danish later on in life.

[@tatikagila5057]

Mind-boggling how I can't hear the difference. And we have real glottal stops in my native language.

[@MicsLanguages]

Many people say they can't hear a difference. But after some time I think you'll be able to hear it. Especially the difference in the melody. I don't remember if I talk about that in this video or in some of the others on stød. Good luck!

[@martinkeating8227]

That's a lot of stool.😮

[@MicsLanguages]

Great, stool is already part of everybody's life, so nothing new for people to learn 🤔

[@mimirsvision9929]

I can’t hear the difference :/

[@MicsLanguages]

Tryr to listen to the melody, there is a clear difference there

[@mimirsvision9929]

@@MicsLanguages Mic the only thing I see as difference is that it seems to my ears that the consonant or the vowel with “stød” is are “longer” or the sound is “continued” É super difícil de explicar, acho que até impossível de replicar tendo minha base como português

[@desmondtanenwei]

I love to eat Rødgrød Med Fløde

[@MicsLanguages]

I understand that. It's not one of the words foods :)

[@brazzo975]

First

[@alainac4713]

I wanted to learn danish to impress someone and I no longer think I'm smart enough nevermind😂

[@Arsenico971]

Having a very good command of the norwegian language, I can read danish perfectly. But the moment I find out that "gode" is pronounced "goooh" (while in norwegian, even though it's written the same way, it's pronounced "goo-deh"), I realize I'll never be able to speak it properly. :D

[@MicsLanguages]

With practice everything is possible. But for many people Danish takes a lot of practice! 😁

[@anastasioskoulaouzidis6640]

so phonetic language (!), it requires completely different set of mind to get to learn it

[@MicsLanguages]

Yeah it takes a bit more effort than many other languages :)

[@Andreacosta448]

I literally cannot hear the difference 😩

[@ericmartin1968]

Jeg har bort i Danmark i 6 år, og jeg kan ikke stadigvæk høre forskellen mellem de fleste stød - ikke stød par. Jeg kan godt høre stødet når en Københavner siger "te'e ske'e" men jeg kan overhovet ikke høre nogen forskellen mellem "mor" og "mord". Heldigvis bor jeg i Fredericia, hvor stødet ikke er så stærkt.

[@MicsLanguages]

Haha det var heldigt! Der er forskellige dele i landet hvor du godt kan klare dig fint uden at kunne høre forskel mellem stød og ikke stød. Men måske bliver du bedre til det med tiden. Det er jo en vigtig del af "rigtigt" dansk. Haha, jeg laver sjov, jysk er lige så rigtigt som rigsdansk. 😇

[@CyrodiilicKhajiit]

HAN ER TILBAGE!

[@MicsLanguages]

Yeah!! :D