Learn how to ask about the price of an item
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Denmark’s monetary unit is the Danish Crown. |
| Denominations include coins for 1, 2, 5, 10 and 20 crowns, and bills for 50, 100, 200, 500 and 1000 crowns. We also have a half-crown coin called 50 øre. One øre is one hundredth of a crown. |
| GRAMMAR POINT |
| Let’s say some prices in Danish. It won’t be too difficult! Let’s start with 1 Danish Crown. |
| En krone. |
| (slow) En krone. |
| En krone. |
| En as you know is one. |
| And krone is the name of the Danish coin in Danish. This literally translates as “crown” |
| Denmark’s neighboring countries of Scandinavian descent also use the same name for their currency. So in English, to distinguish between them you have to add “Danish” or the relevant country name before “Crown”. |
| 15 crowns will sound like this: |
| Femten kroner. Krone becomes kroner in the plural form. |
| Let’s break that down: |
| (slow) Femten kroner. |
| Femten kroner. |
| ・ |
| If you go up to hundreds or thousands, just try to remember our previous lessons about counting. |
| We’ve already learned that “a hundred” in Denmark is hundred. |
| 230 crowns would be To hundrede og tredive kroner. |
| (slow) To hun-dre-de og tre-di-ve kro-ner. |
| To hundrede og tredive kroner. |
| To means “two” and hundrede is “hundred”. |
| So 200 is to hundrede, 300 is tre hundrede, and so on. |
| ・ |
| A thousand in Danish is |
| Tusind. |
| (slow) Tusind. |
| Tusind. |
| For 2000 or more of something, we simply change the number in front of tusind. |
| So 2000 would be to tusind. |
| Now for a slightly more complicated number, 5420 crowns: Fem tusind fire hundred og tyve kroner. |
| Let’s break it down: |
| (slow) Fem tu-sind fi-re hund-red og ty-ve kro-ner. |
| Once more: |
| Fem tusind fire hundred og tyve kroner. |
| Here, the two words hundred and tusind are seen and heard in another form. They’re Hundrede and tusinde; basically you just add an e to the end of the word. But this does not indicate plurality, and there are no special rules connected to their use either. |
| ・ |
| As I mentioned in the beginning, the Danish Crown has a smaller coin that would be equivalent to cents. You will see prices in Denmark with these cents, but when it comes to paying cash, the figure is either rounded up or down to the nearest 50 cents, since this is the only øre coin left. The other coins have been decommissioned over time. |
| In Danish “15 crowns and 50 cents” would sound like this: |
| Femten kroner og halvtreds øre. |
| (slow) Femten kroner og halvtreds øre. |
| Femten kroner og halvtreds øre. |
| Øre is a non-countable word, so even if the price is 50 or 1 it will stay øre. The word øre is from the viking age - the coin used to be made of silver then, but now it is a low value copper coin. |
| Since the 50 cent coin is half the amount of a crown you will also hear it called En halv krone. “A half crown.” |
| So another way to say “15 crowns and 50 cents” is “15,5 crowns” |
| (slow) Femten en halv krone. |
| Femten en halv krone. |
| Femten is “15” |
| Followed by en which means “one”, this is connected to the next word halv which means “half”. Creating the meaning “one half” |
| (slow) En halv. |
| En halv. |
| And lastly you have krone, the singular form of “crown”. |
| Let’s hear it once more; |
| Femten en halv krone |
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