Elsa Maria's Log: Danish + (PT, LA, NL, NO)

[jeff_lindqvist]

Out of curiosity, and I can probably just search this, but why not ask here as it was your log Elsa Maria that made me wonder
this... Does Danish also have a tonal system like Norwegian and Swedish? Are the tones similar-ish?

First of all, it is usually said that the stød in Danish somewhat corresponds to the tonal system of Norwegian and Swedish. (But personally, I think this explanation mostly makes sense for minimal pairs.)

As for a tonal system, I'd say that Danish in fact does have two pitches - that is, you'll encounter two-syllable words with different pitches. Sometimes I hear words like these pronounced with a regular acute accent (think /JOHN-son/, /LON-don/) in one dialect, but more like a Swedish pitch#2 by most speakers.

To use my favourite Nordavinden og Sola example, I'm sure that if there were a Danish counterpart, we'd find versions that used both pitch accents (and mostly in the same spots), but also versions that used "the other" pitch for some words.

[Elsa Maria]

I am glad that someone knowledgeable like Jeff answered Peter's question. The stød comes up all the time in learning Danish, but I have not come across anything about tones. So out of curiosity, I searched a bit.

This is only a wikipedia article, so consider the source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_dialects

The graphic indicates that a small area in the south has tones. And the text says "In Southeastern Jutlandic, Southernmost Funen, Southern Langeland and Ærø, there is no stød but rather a form of pitch accent.

Is a pitch accent the same thing as a tone? Pardon my ignorance. I confess that I have not been the careful student of pronunciation like PM. I'd like to know more about such things!

I have marked these sites for later exploration:
Tema: Dialetkter
https://sproget.dk/temaer/dialekter

Dialekt.dk
https://dialekt.ku.dk/

And I have my eye on a new book about Danish pronunciation:

Udtalt: En introduktion til dansk fonetik
https://samfundslitteratur.dk/bog/udtalt

I learned to speak Danish in Aalborg, and I have been told that I have the northern accent. I suspect that is why I can understand Mette Fredericksen (the Prime Minister) so easily. She is from Aalborg.

[jeff_lindqvist]

Is a pitch accent the same thing as a tone? Pardon my ignorance. I confess that I have not been the careful student of pronunciation like PM. I'd like to know more about such things!

That's probably a question of definition, but if someone talks about Norwegian and Swedish as tonal languages, they most likely mean the pitch accent system. Minimal pairs are often referred to, but rarely the fact that the two pitches are used basically all the time (in multi-syllable words). And rarely that they are used (and manifestated differently!) in all dialects.

[PeterMollenburg]

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Thanks guys! Very informative.

[Kaputin]

I can recommend a large library with free Norwegian audiobooks - https://lydbok.online
It's a really large choice of different dialects can be found there.

[Elsa Maria]

I'm reasonably happy with my 6WC so far, but it seems that deciding to focus on European Portuguese was a good way for me to spend time on Dutch.

So far, my pie chart looks like this, using round numbers:

29% PT
Using Linguaphone, Pimsleur, and Practice Portuguese.
If I ever buy another Linguaphone course, it will not be a digital version. It is really annoying to navigate.

32% DA
This is my 365 Day challenge language. I usually read for 30+ minutes per day. Right now, I am reading Barndom by Tove Ditlevsen.

19% NL
16% LA
4% NO

I am definitely in love with Portuguese, and it just might be the language that excites me the most. It pretty much ticks all the boxes that I am looking for in a new language: a personal connection, lots of untranslated literature, and spoken in places I might actually visit someday. But I don't really like this beginning phase of learning very much.

[Iversen]

In my opinion Danish isn't a tonal language, but rather more a language that uses stress to give utterances structure, including the special kind of stress that is called 'stød'. Let's first compare "galop" (as done by a horse) with the company name "Gallup". "Galop" has stress on the last syllable and therefore there may be a slight tendency to raise the tone level, while it is likely to go slightly down when the stress is on the first syllable as in "gallup". However the changes will never be as pronounced as in Swedish or Norwegian, and I doubt that you can find any examples where they have phonemic value, i.e. define minimal pairs. The stress pattern already contains all the relevant information.

On the other hand 'stød' definitely has phonemic value, i.e. you can find lots of minimal pairs where stød/not stød is the only difference - like "ender" (ends as a verb or a noun in the plural) versus "ænder" (ducks, with stød). Some have tried to describe it as a suprasegmental feature like stress (which is tied to a whole syllable), and it seems to me that the stød actually could be described as a special kind of stress which just happens also to affect the airflow.

It is well known among us Danes that the people on the 'Sydhavsøerne' ('South sea Islands') Lolland, Falster and Møn don't have stød in their dialects, but it is far less known that there allegedly are some areas in Southern Jutland, Funen and a snip of Zealand that also lack it. You may ask what the Sydhavsø people say instead of the stød, but I'm not sure that there even is one single clearcut thing that replaces it - like a tonal pattern as in Swedish or Norwegian. However I'm not a professional dialectologist, and I don't live in the relevant areas so I may have overlooked something.

You have to get up to larger segments before anything like tones affect the meaning - f.ex. we do raise the tone in most questions. But we can also use words like "mon" (from the old verb "at monne") that already defines a sentence as a question. And if we say "mon hun kommer" with a raising tone then she may come (happy expectation!) - but if we say "MON hun kommer?" then the tone goes down, and the implication is that she probably won't come. Tonal patterns simply aren't as important in Danish as in certain other languages, and even in the example I just gave the stress pattern is more important - but supported by prosody.

[jeff_lindqvist]

In my opinion Danish isn't a tonal language, but rather more a language that uses stress to give utterances structure, including the special kind of stress that is called 'stød'. Let's first compare "galop" (as done by a horse) with the company name "Gallup". "Galop" has stress on the last syllable and therefore there may be a slight tendency to raise the tone level, while it is likely to go slightly down when the stress is on the first syllable as in "gallup". However the changes will never be as pronounced as in Swedish or Norwegian, and I doubt that you can find any examples where they have phonemic value, i.e. define minimal pairs. The stress pattern already contains all the relevant information.

I'm not thinking of moving stress (and possible tone change as a result), but rather the fact that spoken Danish has something which matches a Swedish grave pitch accent (2-4 in pinyin). And the same two-syllable words are also pronounced flat, or with an acute pitch if you want (4-5). In a series like Badehotellet, there are people (presumed locals?) who use mostly 4-5 for two-syllable words, whereas the city people have the 2-4. In my book, that's one example of pitch accent in a tonal system. Even if the usage doesn't change the meaning.

[Elsa Maria]

I'm really happy with my language learning right now - probably the happiest that I have been in a long time. I feel motivated, I like my resources/strategies, and I am not too busy to study. Let's see how long this trifecta lasts

At the moment, I am participating in the 40h7dLC on Twitter. The idea is to do 40 hours of language in 7 days, and the challenge is running this week. I honestly don't expect to reach 40 hours, but I do want to see how many hours I can manage this week without making myself miserable.

Day 1 (Monday) and Day 2 (Tuesday) were just over 4 hours each.

The current breakdown looks like this:
NL: 33%
PT: 31%
LA: 23%
DK: 13%

[Elsa Maria]

My latest challenge for myself is to write in my log every day from now until the beginning of the 6WC on May 1st.

I ended the 40h7d challenge with 25+ hours. That's a decent amount of studying for one week. That was last week.

This week yielded less hours, but there were some good reasons for that. I might do some more this evening, so I'll make a full report tomorrow. Right now, I'm at 13h53m for the week.

Seeing how many hours I can fit in motivates me, whereas streaks never motivate me. I lose streaks all the time, but I don't much care. OK, yes, I was kind of mad at myself for missing a lot of days in March on the 365 day challenge. There was no really good reason for that. I don't think I actually missed ten days in March like ATracker tells me. I think it was more like five. But I reported it as ten because maybe it was ten. I didn't feel like ten! Oh well, so it goes. I've missed two days so far in April.

I thought about switching from Danish to generic, so I could keep my streak, but I decided to just stick with Danish for the 365 day challenge. I'm currently in maintenance mode, but that maintenance is very important to me. I think it is paying off. I had a long video call today with some Danish friends. I have not spoken much Danish in recent months, and it went better than I had expected.

A regular week for me right now includes the following interactions. All are online.

Small group class (NL)
Language Exchange (NL-EN)
Italki Lesson (PT-PT)
Asynchronous Latin: 3 sessions per week

Now I want to add in some sessions with a Danish tutor.