Sunday, October 19, 2008

Ugens danske - the week's Danish




Okay, I'm sure for those of you who don't speak Danish, listening to those of us who are learning it and complaining about the difficulty of it must lead you to think, 'Oh stop complaining, it can't be *that* hard!' Well, we went to friends for dinner last night and learned this gem. And yes, it does mean something:

Far, får får får?

Nej, får får ikke får, får får lam.



Translation:

Dad, do sheep have sheep?

No, sheep don’t have sheep, sheep have lambs

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

.....ooookay that's weird LOL

Kelli Nørgaard said...

I LOVE IT! Can we get that printed on a shirt??!!
and on the back it can say "Danish has one rule: IT JUST DEPENDS! "
every sentence is different... all I ever hear from my danish teachers is.. "well, it just depends.."

NotQuiteDanish said...

writer: pretty weird but does that surprise you?? :))

Kelli: T-shirts are a great idea! Hmm. yes I must investigate.

Irene said...

Giggle! Every child in the country knows that one, I think. ;-)

Here is a different one but in a middle Jutland dialect:

a æ u o æ ø i æ å, æ a.

It means:

Jeg er ude på øen i åen, er jeg.

I am out on the island in the stream , am I (I am, would be the literal translation).

That stream would be called a river here in Ireland. But they do seem to have rather swelled ideas of what a river really is here! ;-)

NotQuiteDanish said...

Irene: Stop torturing meeeeeeee!!! :)))))

May said...

Of course if you would say that in West Jutland dialect it would be:

Fur, fur fur fur?
Næj, fur fur æt fur, fur fur lam. :p

And then there's the Southern Jutland dialect one:

Hva' du?
A bu?
Hva' bu?
Bla bu.
Hva' bla bu?
U bla bu.

Translated:
What are you?
I'm a delivery man.
What delivery man?
Magazine delivery man.
What magazine delivery man?
Weekly magazine delivery man.

Even we Danes get befuddled at times. The sentence "Hvem ejes bakken af?" (who owns the hill?)for some reason usually sounds like utter nonsence when spoken out loud, unless you're already familiar with it.

irene: hahaha, yeah there is much discussion about how to distinguish between a stream and a river. Gudenåen was up for debate for years until they found an aquatic insect living in it that only lives in rivers, so now it's officially a river, despite the name.

C and H Romenesko said...

So funny!

May: you have to love the southern jutland dialect! It gives learning Danish a whole new twist. mojn

DreaminginDanish said...

hahahaha!! All these wacky danish-isms are hilarious!
Sometimes I bike down the road and read the signs and it suddenly hits me that i live here. It's so crazy :)

Anonymous said...

OMG the bits about the delivery man is so funny.

I have given up talking Danish with one of my classmates from Esbjerg. I'd rather talk English with him.

NotQuiteDanish said...

The worst part is, on the same evening, these Danish friends ten year old son receipted the tongue-twister, 'how much woud wood would a etc..' PERFECTLY!