English and Danish are deceptively similar. I read somewhere that two thousand years ago, English and Danish were the same language. They’ve changed and evolved since then, but many of the core grammatical rules are similar, the structure is similar and lots of words look similar or even identical.
But don’t be fooled. Just because a word looks the same as an English word, it doesn’t mean that it means the same thing.
For example: mad. Mad in Danish means “food.” It’s pronounced as “mel” – and remember that tongue. It does something mysterious here, which hopefully I’ll be taught when I finally attend proper Danish classes.
The English “mad” is “gal” in Danish. Pronounced as “ge-el” (leave it to the Danes to make a three letter word into a two syllable word).
The Danish “and” (pronounced as “en”) means a “duck.” Or “spirit” – just to confuse things further.
“Is” (ees) is ice cream.
“Men” (me-een) is a conjunction, as in “but” or “to.” “At” (et) also means “to.”
“Leg” (laay) is a “game.”
“Bad” (pronounced as ‘bel’ with the swallowed tongue sound) is actually a “bath.”
“Bag” (be) means “back” or “behind.”
There’s also “løve”, which looks almost like “love,” but actually means a “lion.”
And if you drive in Denmark, it’s likely you’ll encounter the word “fart”, which of course does not mean that. It means “speed.”
That’s all I know for now. My Danish classes start in October, but I’m getting ready with the help of Duolingo.
Post-Amerikan 