• isthingoneventhis@lemmy.world
    English
    1·
    10 months ago

    A lot of my teachers (danish speakers) or miscellaneous people often comment that German is easier because of its structure or uh formulaic-ness, or that is what I tend to hear that mostly. It might just be that there are a lot of Germans or German speakers in my area.

    Conversely when I was learning French it was never prescribed as difficult, just lots of memorization for the uh… forms/genders? it’s been too long I barely remember any of it to be honest, but now I see all of the French loans in Danish ಠ_ಠ

    But generally my issues or frustrations with Danish stem from when modern words are prescribed as 1:1 translations when older/uncommon English words more aptly describe what is being said. Which in fairness would probably not be words a non-native speaker would have knowledge of.

    • yA3xAKQMbq@lemm.eeEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      I think syntactically Danish is much less complex and easier, you know, only two cases, two genders. It’s just that nobody understands shit when they open up their mouths… ¯\(ツ)/¯

      https://youtube.com/watch?v=s-mOy8VUEBk

      Oh, and the way they count is… I mean, you couldn’t do it worse than the French if you tried, but the Danish are just „hold my gløgg… halvfjerds“ 🤡

      • isthingoneventhis@lemmy.world
        English
        1·
        10 months ago

        I hate danish numbers because I flip letters/numbers a lot when I speak in English so Danish is just turbo fuck-you mode of numbers sucking ass.

        And yea it does come out as … noise vaguely masquerading as “important sounds”. At least Norwegian was like “lol wtf are out doing get those shitty letters you don’t even say out of here nerds”. Swedish … Swedish scares me. I hate when there is Swedish in Danish movies because I can’t hear Swedish and read Danish without my brain melting.

        • yA3xAKQMbq@lemm.eeEnglish
          1·
          10 months ago

          Yeah, but I’m used to that, it’s the same in German (and it sucks, especially for people with dyslexia), no, what I meant is the way they actually count.

          You know, like 99 in French is „quatre-vingt-dix-neuf“? „4 (times) 20 (plus) 10 (plus) 9“.

          Which I always thought the most idiotic way ever to come up with counting? Until I learned about the Danish…

          Ever wondered why 50 in Danish is „halvtreds“? Because „halv tredje“ means… „half-third“? Which is 2 1/2.

          Are you sitting? „Halvtreds“ is short for „halvtredsindstyve“, which literally means „half third times twenty“.

          2 1/2 * 20 = 50 🤡

          Same with 70, 90…

          • isthingoneventhis@lemmy.world
            English
            1·
            10 months ago

            Yeah the mathing bits I knew were from something older, the entire equation I don’t remember offhand. French has been mostly repressed.

            I’m more upset about time verbage being absolutely fucked and … crap I think it’s 30 minutes… into the hour instead of before? It’s so confusing and I get it backwards constantly because who fucking counts time like that even.

            Like half til 6 (or however you say it idk) is 5:30 and not … 6:30 or some asinine BS. I will take strange ye olde numbers over that shit any day. I just default to 24 hour time because I absolutely cannot be assed and it’s very dumb. I’ve explained it very poorly but hopefully it makes sense lol. And they use quarter/half past like please… please stop, just tell me weird numbers.

            • yA3xAKQMbq@lemm.eeEnglish
              1·
              10 months ago

              Hah! Yeah, I understand, but I’ve been hearing this in spoken English as well, „half seven“ instead of „half past six“, though in school I was taught only the latter existed.

              It’s like this in German as well, and it’s also regionally different, but once you get it it’s actually nice:

              In most parts of Germany (and where I grew up) and in Standard German you tell time (literally) as:

              Six, quarter past six, half seven, quarter before seven, seven.

              In the south of Germany it’s: six, quarter past six, half seven, three quarter seven, seven. This never made sense to me, until…

              … I moved to East Germany, where it’s: six, quarter seven (!), half seven, three quarter seven, seven.

              Imagine my face, I never even had heard of this before I moved there 😂

              I immediately picked this up because it rolls off your tongue way easier in German than the standard way. And it’s mindblowingly logical. I love it:

              You just need to imagine an hour as a cake: one quarter of seven, half of seven, three quarters of seven, seven. Genius.