Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Studieskolen - Module 3.1, Words, Words, Words

I'm a little over two weeks into module 3 now.

So far, so... okay.

I'm still following along well enough, but I still have a tough time deciphering our younger teacher's accent.

The good news is, from what I can tell, we've basically learned all of the major grammatical rules.  It seems that module 3 focuses more on expanding our vocabulary and solidifying the grammar rules that we've learned.  And the latter is certainly working for me.  Rules that I'd learned in module 2 but had always had a tough time remembering seem to be making more sense to me now.  And I'm glad to be finally learning more words.

Danish is a much more compact language than English.  While some sources claim that English has over 1 million words, Danish has 150,000 at the most.  I think one major difference is that English has a lot more words that are obsolete, while Danish uses a far higher percentage of its words on a regular basis.

Pronunciation is still a bit of an issue for all of us in the class.  We can all understand each other fairly well, but Danes (our younger teacher specifically) seems to have a tough time understanding us some of the time.  Danish is not a language spoken by foreigners very often, so Danes often have a hard time understanding the language when it's spoken with any kind of accent, no matter how subtle.

There are some words in Danish, though, that make a lot of sense and should be considered for stealing by the English language.  For example, the Danish word for "mother" is "mor" and the word for "father" is "far."  Simple enough.  And then they take it a step further with grandparents.  Your mother's mother? "Mormor."  Mother's father? "Morfar."  And of course, "farfar" and "farmor."  It makes so much sense, and saves time from having to clarify if you're talking about your "maternal grandmother" or "paternal grandmother."

On an unrelated note, this is the Facebook page for the Copenhagen Rugby League Football Club.  "Like" it!

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