Learn how to express gratitude
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Gina: Hello and welcome back to DanishClass101.com. This is Absolute Beginner season 1, lesson 3, Expressing Gratitude in Danish. I’m Gina. |
| Anna: Hej, I’m Anna. |
| Gina: In this lesson you’ll learn how to express gratitude in Danish. |
| Anna: That's right! Being able to express gratitude will always come in handy. |
| Gina: So let’s get started! |
| Anna: The conversation takes place at a birthday party and is between Simon and Emma, who are brother and sister. |
| Gina: The speakers are speaking standard Danish, since there are no formality levels in spoken Danish to be considered. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Let's listen to the conversation. |
| Emma: Tak for gaven. Kunne du tænke dig et stykke kage? |
| Simon: Ja tak. |
| Emma: Her er et stort stykke. |
| Simon: Mange tak. |
| Emma: Det var så lidt. |
| Let's hear the conversation one time slowly. |
| Emma: Tak for gaven. Kunne du tænke dig et stykke kage? |
| Simon: Ja tak. |
| Emma: Her er et stort stykke. |
| Simon: Mange tak. |
| Emma: Det var så lidt. |
| Now let's hear it with the English translation. |
| Emma: Tak for gaven. Kunne du tænke dig et stykke kage? |
| Emma: Thank you for the gift. Would you like a piece of cake? |
| Simon: Ja tak. |
| Simon: Yes, please. |
| Emma: Her er et stort stykke. |
| Emma: Here's a big piece. |
| Simon: Mange tak. |
| Simon: Thank you very much. |
| Emma: Det var så lidt. |
| Emma: You're welcome. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Gina: So, Anna, when is a good time to show gratitude in Denmark? |
| Anna: Every time you’ve received something from someone, for example, a gift or a kind action. But you can also express gratitude when asking for something. |
| Gina: Can you make this more specific? |
| Anna: Sure. If I want to say “Pass me the salt, please,” notice that in English there’s a “please” at the end of the sentence. |
| Gina: That’s right. |
| Anna: In Danish, the sentence becomes Ræk mig saltet, tak. In this case, tak means “please”, because there is no actual word for “please” in Danish that can be used in all the ways the English word can. |
| Gina: I see. |
| Anna: There are other ways of weaving “please” into requests in Danish, but saying tak at the end of a sentence is the most common one. |
| Gina: Excellent. |
| VOCAB |
| Gina: Now let's take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. The first word we shall see is |
| Anna: tak |
| Gina: thank you, thanks |
| Anna: (SLOW) tak, tak |
| Next: |
| Anna: kunne du tænke dig |
| Gina: would you like |
| Anna: (SLOW) kunne du tænke dig, kunne du tænke dig |
| Next: |
| Anna: et stykke kage |
| Gina: a piece of cake |
| Anna: (SLOW) et stykke kage, et stykke kage |
| Next: |
| Anna: ja tak |
| Gina: yes please |
| Anna: (SLOW) ja tak, ja tak |
| Next: |
| Anna: mange tak |
| Gina: thank you very much, thanks a lot |
| Anna: (SLOW) mange tak, mange tak |
| Next: |
| Anna: det var så lidt |
| Gina: you're welcome, don’t mention it |
| Anna: (SLOW) det var så lidt, det var så lidt |
| Next: |
| Anna: du |
| Gina: you |
| Anna: (SLOW) du, du |
| Next: |
| Anna: kage |
| Gina: cake |
| Anna: (SLOW) kage, kage |
| Next: |
| Anna: stor |
| Gina: big, large, great |
| Anna: (SLOW) stor, stor |
| Next: |
| Anna: mange |
| Gina: many, a lot, much |
| Anna: (SLOW) mange, mange |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Gina: Let’s take a closer look at the usage of some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Anna: The first phrase is Ja tak. |
| Gina: It literally means “Yes, thank you” or “Yes, thanks,” but is equivalent to “Yes, please.” |
| Anna: As you know, there's no actual word for “please” in Danish. So Ja, tak is used in the same way in Danish as “Yes, please” is in English. |
| Gina: That was easy. What’s our next phrase? |
| Anna: Mange tak. |
| Gina: This phrase means “Thank you very much” or “Thanks a lot.” |
| Anna: Yes, it’s a very straightforward phrase, because it's used in the same way in Danish as "Thanks a lot” is in English. |
| Gina: So this shouldn’t give much trouble, right? |
| Anna: No. You’ll be just fine. |
| Gina: Great! And finally we have… |
| Anna: Det var så lidt. |
| Gina: This phrase means “You're welcome” or “Don’t mention it.” |
| Anna: It’s composed of the word det, which is the pronoun “it,” the word var, which is the past tense of the verb “to be,” the word så, which in this case is the adverb “so,” and the word lidt, which is an adjective and means “a little” or “a bit.” |
| Gina: Let’s hear it all together one more time… |
| Anna: Det var så lidt. |
| Gina: So the phrase literally means “It was so little,” as in “It was no problem at all,” right? |
| Anna: Exactly! But it can still be used in the same way in Danish as the English “You're welcome” or “Don’t mention it.” You can also use Ingen årsag which literally means “No reason,” but has the same meaning in Danish as Det var så lidt. |
| Gina: I see. Okay, now onto the grammar. |
| GRAMMAR POINT |
| Gina: In this lesson you’ll learn how to express gratitude by saying “thank you.” |
| Anna: And the most common way of saying “thank you” in Danish is tak. |
| Gina: It’s short, easy to pronounce and easy to remember. |
| Anna: Definitely! And you're going to hear and use it every day in Denmark. |
| Gina: Because Danish is quite similar to English, you can specify what you are thanking someone for by adding the preposition for after tak. And follow that with whatever it is you are grateful for. |
| Anna: Yes! So let’s say that I’m grateful for you helping me out with something… |
| Gina: You should be! |
| Anna: (laughs), right… Then, I would say Tak for hjælpen, which means “Thank you for the help.” |
| Gina: Another version of thanking me for helping you with something is… |
| Anna: Tak for din hjælp, which means “Thank you for your help.” So basically the phrases are the same. |
| Gina: If you want to specify your expression of gratitude even further, you can say… |
| Anna: Tak fordi du hjalp med at gøre rent, which means “Thanks for helping with the cleaning.” |
| Gina: So, what we did was add the conjunction fordi after tak. |
| Anna: Fordi means “because,” and following this is du, which is the pronoun “you.” |
| Gina: That gives us… |
| Anna: Tak fordi du… |
| Gina: And you’re halfway there! Yes, all you need to do now is add whatever action you want to express gratitude for. Can you give us some examples? |
| Anna: Sure. For example, Tak fordi du ventede. |
| Gina: This means “Thank you for waiting.” |
| Anna: Tak fordi du er så venlig. |
| Gina: Which means “Thank you for being so friendly.” |
| Anna: Unlike English, Danish distinguishes between past and present actions in this sentence pattern. |
| Gina: In the first example, the action or verb ventede actually means “waited,” but in this case is equivalent to “waiting” in the English version of the sentence. |
| Anna: In the second example, er is the present tense of the verb “to be,” and it's equivalent to “being” in the English translation. |
Outro |
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| Gina: Okay, Anna. Tak for this lesson! |
| Anna: And tak to you too, listeners! |
| Gina: Until next time! |
| Anna: Vi ses! |
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