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LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Seven Danish words that are tough to translate into English

Some words in the Danish language are so culturally specific, they just don't exist in English.

Published: 27 February 2018 13:34 CET
Seven Danish words that are tough to translate into English
A 'træls' situation. Photo: Henning Bagger/Scanpix Denmark

Pålæg

Luncheon meat? Cold cuts? Cheese slices? Danes have a word that does the job for all your favourite sandwich fillings. Pålæg literally means 'overlay' which probably reflects the fact that sandwiches in Scandinavia are often open.

Bonus word: pålægschokolade: a thin piece of chocolate that can be placed on top of warmed bread, melting into a delicious minimum-effort spread.


Photo: Andreas Hagemann Bro/Scanpix Denmark

Altså

A filler-word so useful that we at The Local often find ourselves accidentally dropping it into English sentences. Altså can be used variously to mean 'accordingly', 'thus', 'therefore', 'indeed' or 'I mean', but is also a much more articulate alternative to saying '… er'.

Overskud

Has two meanings. One translates fairly easily to mean economic surplus or profit. The second meaning is to have enough energy or desire to take on a task, and can be used thusly: “I'm not coming to the pub tonight, I just don't have the 'surplus' for it.”

Sympatisk

Although English words such as likeable, friendly and congenial can be used in its place, oftentimes none of these terms manage to truly say what a Danish speaker strives to communicate when using this word. It can also mean something like trusting or having a good gut feeling about someone you have just met.

Incidentally, though there is no exact equivalent to 'sympatisk' in English, there is in German, a language that also has its fair share of words that are impossible to translate.

Jo

Jo — pronounced 'yo' — means yes, but can only be used in response to a negative question or statement.

Examples where it would be used to mean 'yes' (rather than the normal Danish word, 'ja'):

“Did you not wash the dishes last night?” – “Jo, I did it just before I went to bed.”
“You didn't wash the dishes last night.” – “Er, jo I did.”

However, jo can also be used in the middle of a sentence to add emphasis, and this use is near-impossible to translate.


Photo: Lars Hansen/Scanpix Denmark

Træls

This wonderful, stoic word, native to Jutland, is used to describe something which in some way is a nuisance, pain in the backside, disappointing or just somewhat inconvenient.

“My bicycle got a puncture on the way to work.” – “Oh, how træls“.
“I've been fined 600 kroner by the police because my bicycle light wasn't working.” – “Oh, how træls.”
“I was turned down for the job I applied for.” – “Oh, how træls.”

Hygge

We're sure you've heard the word hundreds of times by now, but we had to include 'hygge' on this list, despite the fact that it is technically now also an English word. Often translated to 'cosy' or 'a feeling of conviviality', there is no direct equivalent English word to hygge.

We would argue, though, that hygge is the most translatable word on this list. In the vast majority of contexts in which it is used, it simply means 'having a nice time'.

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LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Le Havre rules: How to talk about French towns beginning with Le, La or Les

If you're into car racing, French politics or visits to seaside resorts you are likely at some point to need to talk about French towns with a 'Le' in the title. But how you talk about these places involves a slightly unexpected French grammar rule. Here's how it works.

Published: 30 November 2021 13:04 CET
Updated: 4 December 2021 17:47 CET
An old WW2 photo taken in the French port town of Le Havre.
An old WW2 photo taken in the French port town of Le Havre. It can be difficult to know what prepositions to use for places like this - so we have explained it for you. (Photo by AFP)

If you’re listening to French chat about any of those topics, at some point you’re likely to hear the names of Mans, Havre and Touquet bandied about.

And this is because French towns that have a ‘Le’ ‘La’ or ‘Les’ in the title lose them when you begin constructing sentences. 

As a general rule, French town, commune and city names do not carry a gender. 

So if you wanted to describe Paris as beautiful, you could write: Paris est belle or Paris est beau. It doesn’t matter what adjectival agreement you use. 

For most towns and cities, you would use à to evoke movement to the place or explain that you are already there, and de to explain that you come from/are coming from that location:

Je vais à Marseille – I am going to Marseille

Je suis à Marseille – I am in Marseille 

Je viens de Marseille – I come from Marseille 

But a select few settlements in France do carry a ‘Le’, a ‘La’ or a ‘Les’ as part of their name. 

In this case the preposition disappears when you begin formulating most sentences, and you structure the sentence as you would any other phrase with a ‘le’, ‘la’ or ‘les’ in it.

Masculine

Le is the most common preposition for two names (probably something to do with the patriarchy) with Le Havre, La Mans, Le Touquet and the town of Le Tampon on the French overseas territory of La Réunion (more on that later)

A good example of this is Le Havre, a city in northern France where former Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe, who is tipped to one day run for the French presidency, serves as mayor. 

Edouard Philippe’s twitter profile describes him as the ‘Maire du Havre’, using a masculine preposition

Here we can see that his location is Le Havre, and his Twitter handle is Philippe_LH (for Le Havre) but when he comes to describe his job the Le disappears.

Because Le Havre is masculine, he describes himself as the Maire du Havre rather than the Maire de Havre (Anne Hidalgo, for example would describe herself as the Maire de Paris). 

For place names with ‘Le’ in front of them, you should use prepositions like this:

Ja vais au Touquet – I am going to Le Touquet

Je suis au Touquet – I am in Le Touquet 

Je viens du Touquet – I am from Le Touquet 

Je parle du Touquet – I am talking about Le Touquet

Le Traité du Touquet – the Le Touquet Treaty

Feminine

Some towns carry ‘La’ as part of their name. La Rochelle, the scenic town on the west coast of France known for its great seafood and rugby team, is one such example.

In French ‘à la‘ or ‘de la‘ is allowed, while ‘à le‘ becomes au and ‘de le’ becomes du. So for ‘feminine’ towns such as this, you should use the following prepositions:

Je vais à La Rochelle – I am going to La Rochelle

Je viens de La Rochelle – I am coming from La Rochelle 

Plural

And some places have ‘Les’ in front of their name, like Les Lilas, a commune in the suburbs of Paris. The name of this commune literally translates as ‘The Lilacs’ and was made famous by Serge Gainsbourg’s song Le Poinçonneur des Lilas, about a ticket puncher at the Metro station there. 

When talking about a place with ‘Les’ as part of the name, you must use a plural preposition like so:

Je suis le poinçonneur des Lilas – I am the ticket puncher of Lilas 

Je vais aux Lilas – I am going to Les Lilas

Il est né aux Lilas – He was born in Les Lilas  

Islands 

Islands follow more complicated rules. 

If you are talking about going to one island in particular, you would use à or en. This has nothing to do with gender and is entirely randomised. For example:

Je vais à La Réunion – I am going to La Réunion 

Je vais en Corse – I am going to Corsica 

Generally speaking, when talking about one of the en islands, you would use the following structure to suggest movement from the place: 

Je viens de Corse – I am coming from Corsica 

For the à Islands, you would say:

Je viens de La Réunion – I am coming from La Réunion 

When talking about territories composed of multiple islands, you should use aux.

Je vais aux Maldives – I am going to the Maldives. 

No preposition needed 

There are some phrases in French which don’t require any a preposition at all. This doesn’t change when dealing with ‘Le’ places, such as Le Mans – which is famous for its car-racing track and Motorcycle Grand Prix. Phrases that don’t need a preposition include: 

Je visite Le Mans – I am visiting Le Mans

J’aime Le Mans – I like Le Mans

But for a preposition phrase, the town becomes simply Mans, as in Je vais au Mans.

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