Danish language

Danish is a complex language to learn and particularly to speak. On the bright side, danish has a very simple grammar and reading it or writing it might be easier than you think.

The difficulty of pronunciation strangely relies on vowels and not so much on consonants, as people may think. The only consonant sound really difficult to pronounce is the ending "d" and "t" which turns in an unnatural guttural noise. This of course unless you are throwing up or you are possessed by the devil, in which case it might be just the right sound. Unfortunately this sound is very present in the language, mostly because is part of every word which uses the definite article "et". For example, a word like "University" is pronounced quite differently whether we are talking about "a University", "et Universitet" or "the University", "Universitetet".

The complexity of comprehension relies in the incongruity between the spoken and the written language. Many letters depending on where they are placed within the word and to which letters they are paired up with will either disappear or radically change their pronunciation. A good school should concentrate on oral communication more than anything else and concentrating on the differences between spoken and written words.

Because of this incongruity (which has worsen over time), danish has become complex even to danes. Children have more and more problems in learning how to properly spell the words and their writing skills are usually quite poor. There are many interesting articles on the matter.

Usually congruity between the written and the spoken word is what distinguish a pure, official language from a dialect or a patois. In a way, danish acts more as an advanced dialect.

Article "Vokaler gør det svært at lære dansk", by Niels Ebdrup, Videnskab.dk

Dansk
Det danske sprog har for mange lyde
af Charlotte Koldbye, Videnskab.dk

De ni vokaler på dansk dækker over mindst 20 lyde. Derfor er dansk så svært at lære.

Dansk er ikke et let sprog at lære. Det skyldes, at der på dansk er mindst 20 vokallyde i spektret mellem den åbne a-lyd og den næsten lukkede i-lyd. "Rødgrød med fløde" er med god grund en frygtet sprogtest.

Hemmeligheden i det besværlige danske sprog ligger først og fremmest i vokalerne. Udlændige brækker ofte tungen på de fine vokalnuancer, som det danske sprog er præget af.
Ocke-Schwen Bohn, der i øvrigt selv er tysk, er professor i engelsk lingvistik med speciale i psykolingvistik på Århus Universitet. Han forklarer, at på dansk er der mindst 20 vokallyde. Hvorimod der for eksempel på spansk kun er fem vokallyde.
Det betyder i praksis, at for en spansktalende er der eksempelvis ikke forskel på "sol" og "sål". Det er der jo unægteligt for en dansktalende.
"Dansk er some de andre germanske sprog meget vokaltunge. Vi producerer mening ved hjælp af fine små vokalnuancer. På den måde var jeg som tysker ganske heldigt stillet, da jeg skulle lære dansk", forklarer han på formfuldendt dansk.
"Arabere og inuitter har det særdeles svært med dansk, for på deres sprog har man kun tre vokaler. De har det derfor markant vanskeligere, når de skal afkode dansk og omsætte det til noget meningsfyldt", fortæller Ocke-Schwen Bohn.

Tilegnelsen af sproget starter lige fra fødslen. Spædbarnets hjerne arbejder på højtryk for at sætte de opfattede lyde i system, så det bliver til et meningsfyldt sprog.
Som nyfødt kan man høre alle lydmæssige nuancer, som den menneskelige stemme kan frembringe, og det lille barn skelner mellem lydene.
I løbet af det første leveår luger det lille barn ud i de lyde, hvor der er en lille nuance, men hvor betydningen er den samme. På dansk kan vi udtale "zoo" som "soo" med ustemt s-lyd eller som "zzzzooo" med stemt s-lyd, der minder om en flues summen. Men fordi forskellen ikke ændrer meningen, holder barnet op med at registrere den.
Evnen til at skelne mellem de forskellige lyde er af fundamental betydning, når man skal tilegne sig et andet sprog.

Ocke-Schwen Bohn mener derfor også, man kan trænes op til igen at kunne høre de nuancer i sproget, man som barn har luget ud. Det tager sin tid, men det kan gøres.
Muligvis bør man gentænke sprogundervisningen. Måske skal man tænke på at opøve den fonetiske, altså den lydelige opmærksomhed, i langt højere grad og langt mere systematisk, end man gør nu.
Specielt i forbindelse med indlæring af vokaltunge sprog som dansk, mener fonetikeren.


English
The Danish language has too many sounds
by Charlotte Koldby, Videnskab.dk

The nine vowels in Danish covers at least 20 sounds. Therefore, the Danish is so difficult to learn.

Danish is not an easy language to learn. The reason is that Danish has at least 20 vowel sounds in the range between the open a-sound and the almost closed i-sound. "Rødgrød med fløde" (Currant pudding with whip cream) is a rightly feared language test.

The secret of the difficult Danish language lies mainly in the vowels. Foreigners break often the tongue on the fine vowel nuances, by which the Danish language is characterized.
Ocke-Schwen Bohn, who is also a German, is a professor of English linguistics, specializing in psycholinguistics at the University of Aarhus. He explains that Danish has at least 20 vowel sounds. While for example Spanish has only five vowel sounds.
This means in practice that a Spanish-speaking person does not hear the difference between "sol" (sun) and "sål" (sole). This is undeniably different for a Danish-speaking person.
"Danish is, among the other Germanic languages, very vowel-based. We produce meaningful words with fine small vowel nuances. To some extent as a German I was quite fortunate to learn Danish," he explains in flawless Danish.
"Arabs and Inuits have it extremely difficult to learn Danish, because their language has only three vowels. They have therefore significantly more difficulty when they must decode the Danish and translate it into something meaningful," says Ocke-Schwen Bohn.

The acquisition of language starts right from birth. The infant's brain is working feverishly to put the perceived noise in the system, so that it becomes a meaningful language.
As a newborn, you can hear every sound nuance that the human voice can produce, and the toddler distinguish between the sounds.
During the first year of life, the baby hatches out the sound where there is a small nuance, but the meaning is the same. In Danish, we pronounce "zoo" as "soo" with unvoiced s-sound or as "zzzzooo" with the s-sound, reminiscent of a sum flues. But because the difference does not change the meaning, it is up to the child to register it.
The ability to distinguish between different sounds is fundamental when you have to learn another language.

Ocke-Schwen Bohn thinks also that you can be trained to hear again the nuances of the language, that as a child you have missed out. It takes time, but it can be done.
Maybe we should rethink language teaching. Maybe we should think to train the phonetic, with attention mainly to the right sounds, far more systematically than what we do now.
Especially in connection with the teaching of vowel-based languages ​​like Danish, the phonetics are important.