Learn the Danish writing system
Now Playing: Lesson Audio
Unlock Lesson Notes and Transcripts for every single lesson. Sign Up for a Free Lifetime Account and Get 7 Days of Premium Access.
| INTRODUCTION |
| Becky: Hi everyone, welcome back to DanishClass101.com. This is All About lesson 2, The Danish Writing System. In this lesson, Anna and I are going to explain a little bit more about the Danish writing system. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Anna: That's right! Hi everyone, Anna here. We are going to cover a lot of things in this lesson. Let's start with the alphabet. |
| Becky: Sure. The Danish alphabet is easy to learn because it is the same as the English alphabet, with an additional 3 vowels. |
| Anna: Yes, and that’s why the Danish alphabet has 29 letters. But pronunciation is very different from English and one letter as up to several sounds. |
| Becky: Anna could you quickly go over the alphabet? |
| Anna: Sure. Let’s start with the vowels: (slow) a, e, i, o, u, y, æ, ø, å |
| Becky: Okay, and now the consonants. |
| Anna: (slow) b, c, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, q, r, s, t, v, w, x, z (pause) All together it sounds like this - a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j ,k , l, m, n, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, w, x, y, z, æ, ø, å |
| Becky: We’ll talk more about the pronunciation of letters in lesson 4 of this series. |
| Anna: And together these two lessons will explain all about writing, reading and pronunciation. Be sure to check it out. |
| Becky: Okay - Let’s explain the 3 extra vowels for our listeners. |
| Anna: Sure. The three extra vowels are æ, ø, and å, and they come at the very end of the alphabet. |
| Becky: Sometimes they occur as digraphs, which are two letters that produce one sound when they’re pronounced together. These digraphs most often occur in personal names and geographical names. |
| Anna: The three vowel letters are pronounced the same as their digraphs, a e “ae,” o e “oe,” and double a “aa.” The letters where implemented in different times in history, the oldest being æ and ø from the 12 century and å is from 18 century but more commonly used after 1948. |
| Becky: I see, thats pretty recent. |
| Anna: Yes and thats why you will find the digraph for å double “a” more often than the other two. |
| Becky: Well, that’s about it for this lesson, but before we go, let’s summarize what we’ve covered. The two most important things we’ve learned are the Danish alphabet and the three additional vowel letters. Please remember that the Danish alphabet has 29 letters, 26 of which are the same as in English. |
Outro |
| Anna: Please join us next time to explore the Danish alphabet some more! |
| Becky: Until next time, bye! |
| Anna: Farvel! |
Comments
Hide