26 Comments
I do too. I'm guessing until my ears adjust I'll have to remember that if I hear vanden I should write vandet.
It sounds like 'vandet' has a glottal stop sound after it? Like how a lot of Americans don't pronounce the 't' in 'fountain' but instead make a stop noise and then pronounce the last vowel. Can anyone confirm if that is how Danish works too?
Yes, Danish has an accent system called stød; as far as I understand it, it's basically a glottal stop inserted after certain phonemes.
But that's not how it's supposed to be. People may say "foun'ain" but it's meant to actually have a T.
I got this wrong because I couldn't hear the -et on the end of vandet. Played it to the Danish girlfriend who made the exact same mistake and also heard vand, not vandet.
I remember this from learning Danish in high school. In words that end with a vavel and a t or d (in most cases this being a definitive ending -et or just a -ed) the -t and -d ar softened and turn into a barely there -l (really soft and really short, but it's supposed to be pronounced like that), I can see how that could sound like vanden but you have to take in mind that Danish pronunciation can differ quite severely from the spelling, because of all those "softened" pronunciation rules.
Lucky you got to learn it in high school we are only allowed to do french and spanish ;(
I believe that 'vandet' has a short 't' sound at its end; if you're asking what is the difference between the words, the ending letter ('t' in this case) makes the word a direct article.
Is it spelled right? I'm also hearing vanden. And that would fit the pattern...
I think generally you're supposed to use -et for inanimate objects, and -en for animate objects. so when saying the man, you'd say manden, but if you're talking about the water, which is inanimate, you'd say vandet.
It's not like that, it's just all pretty random. You'll just have to learn it! An example which negates your theory would be 'et barn - a child', or 'en stol - a chair'. A chair is inanimate and uses 'en', and a child is animate and uses 'et'
Ok so how do i tell when drikker means different things like drinks and is drinking but same word?
That's more of an English thing between the 'simple present' and the 'present continuous' (other labels for these verb forms are also used) Jeg drikker øl can mean 'I am drinking beer' (right now) or 'I drink beer' (generally - as opposed to red wine or lemon tea) To be honest, many languages are like this (French, for example - for the Brits who learn it at school) and IMHO it makes learning verbs easier.
I think the is no such thing as "the water" in English, since water in uncountable. In English you drink water and not "the water"
