Learn how to ask "Can you speak English?"
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| INTRODUCTION |
| In this lesson, we’ll cover another extremely important phrase: "Do you speak English?" Using this phrase is important for many reasons. For one, if the party you’re speaking to doesn’t understand English, at least they’ll be able to understand what you’re asking. Furthermore, it shows a lot of respect on your part, because you’ve made an effort to learn even a little bit of the language. For these reasons and many more, we’re going to cover this very important phrase. |
| GRAMMAR POINT |
| In Danish, "Do you speak English?" is |
| Taler du engelsk? |
| Let’s break it down: |
| (slow) Ta-ler du eng-elsk? |
| Once more: |
| Taler du engelsk? |
| Taler is a form of the verb tale which in English is translated as “to speak”. |
| (slow) Taler. |
| Taler. |
| Du is the pronoun “you”, and lastly you have the language name in this case “English”. In Danish that’s engelsk |
| Taler du engelsk? |
| Another commonly used version of this question is Kan du tale Engelsk? which would be “Can you speak English?” |
| In this sentence, we added “can” and changed the order of the pronoun and verb to form the question, using the root of the verb “to speak” |
| One more time: |
| (slow) Kan du tale engelsk? |
| Kan du tale engelsk? |
| In both questions, just change the language for the one you want to ask for. Let's try with some of the languages that are frequently taught in Danish schools. |
| “Do you speak French?" is |
| Taler du fransk? |
| The word for “French" is |
| fransk. |
| Let’s break it down: |
| (slow) Fransk. |
| Fransk. |
| The whole phrase is: |
| (slow) Taler du fransk? |
| Taler du fransk? |
| Now let’s try with German. |
| Taler du tysk? |
| Or: |
| Kan du tale tysk? |
| The word tysk means “German.” |
| When you ask the question “Do you speak English” in Danish, there is a big possibility you’ll get the answer in Danish. |
| Here are a few answers in Danish you might hear. |
| “Yes, I speak English” would be |
| Ja, jeg taler engelsk. |
| Let’s hear that slowly now: |
| (slow) Ja, jeg taler engelsk. |
| And one more time at natural native speed: |
| Ja, jeg taler engelsk. |
| The first word, Ja, means “yes.” |
| (slow) Ja. |
| Ja. |
| After this comes jeg taler, which is translated in English as “ I speak”. |
| Finally, we have engelsk, which means “English.” |
| (slow) En-gelsk. |
| Engelsk. |
| All together, that’s |
| (slow) Ja, jeg taler engelsk. |
| Ja, jeg taler engelsk. |
| But in most cases people will just answer with a Ja. “Yes”. |
| If the answer is negative, Danish people could say “No, I don’t speak English”: |
| Nej, jeg taler ikke engelsk. |
| Let’s break it down by syllable: |
| (slow) Nej, jeg ta-ler i-kke en-gelsk. |
| And again at natural native speed: |
| Nej, jeg taler ikke engelsk. |
| The first word, nej, means “no”. |
| (slow) nej. |
| nej. |
| Next we have taler ikke, which is our form for “don’t speak”. |
| And finally the language. |
| All together, that’s |
| (slow) Nej, jeg taler ikke engelsk. |
| Nej, jeg taler ikke engelsk. |
| Again here people might answer just with a “no”, which in Danish is: |
| Nej. |
| (slow) Nej. |
| Nej. |
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