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DANISH WORD OF THE DAY

Danish word of the day: Ø

The Danish language might be known for its lengthy compound words, but today we take a look at a word just one letter long.

What is Ø?

Today’s word of the day ø, meaning island, is also the shortest Danish word (well, tied with another single-letter word, å, which means stream).

It is also one of three Danish letters that don’t exist in English, along with the aforementioned Å and Æ. These letters are often split into oe (ø), aa (å) or ae (æ) when, for example, Danish names are written in English texts. Ø is also sometimes written as o, which is misleading, because o is a different vowel in Danish.

The pronunciation of ø is somewhere between the exclamation ‘oh!’ and the filler word ‘er’ in English, but given the letter ø cannot be found in the English-language alphabet, it’s hard to describe an exact match.

We think that, like the word ‘bed’ in English, ‘ø’ has the rare quality of looking like the thing it signifies. It has more than a passing resemblance to an island, right?

Why do I need to know Ø?

Apart from Jutland, Denmark is a country consisting of islands (there are 443 named ones), so it’s a word you’ll hear a lot.

You’ll spot it in the names of some of these islands, such as Læsø, Samsø, Æbelø, Bogø, and Sprogø. These are generally the smaller islands, while big ones have names without the ø — the obvious examples are Zealand (Sjælland) and Funen (Fyn), but Bornholm, Langeland, Lolland, Falster and Møn can also be added to this list.

There are some exceptions to this, like Endelave and Anholt, which are both somewhat smaller than our favouritely-named Danish island of all: Ærø.

An important linguistic point to remember is that you generally use the preposition på (on) with islands. For example, you would say ‘jeg bor på Fyn‘ (I live on Funen), but jeg bor i Jylland (I live in Jutland).

Although ‘på Fyn‘ is correct, this only applies when talking about the island, not towns or cities located on it, for example: jeg bor i Svendborg, en mindre by på Fyn (I live in Svendborg, a small town on Funen).

Likewise, when talking about a region within an island you switch back to (in). This is particularly relevant on the largest island, Zealand, which is often discussed in terms of its geography. Jeg bor i Hillerød, det ligger i Nordsjælland (I live in Hillerød, it’s located in North Zealand) is correct, for example.

It’s not a major faux pas to mix up  and i, however.

Finally, the Danish word for peninsula is halvø, literally ‘half island’. Worth knowing given that the only non-island part of the country, Jutland, is in fact a very large peninsula.

Examples

Jeg har lige været på Ærø og synes øboerne er utrolig venlige.

I have recently been to Ærø and think the islanders are incredibly friendly.

Intet menneske er en ø.

No person is an island.

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DANISH WORD OF THE DAY

Danish word of the day: Kværn

This unassuming little word pops up surprisingly often in Danish, so it's a very good one to have in your vocabulary.

Danish word of the day: Kværn

What is kværn?

Kværn is a noun meaning “mill” or “grinder”, used to refer to any kind of tool or machine that breaks a substance down into smaller pieces.

kværn can be small, for example a peberkværn (pepper mill) or kaffekværn (coffee grinder).

There’s some overlap between kværn and mølle, the Danish word for “mill”. In the past, mølle might have been used to refer to household items like the coffee grinder. It’s now become the reserve of larger pieces of machinery like windmills (vindmølle), but there is stills a bit of interchangeability in Swedish, a sister tongue of Danish.

If you’re in Skåne – the Swedish province closet to Denmark — the word for “mill” in the local dialect is not kvarn but mölla.

Why do I need to know kværn?

The above describes how to use kværn as a noun, but it’s also a verb, at kværne, meaning “to grind” or “to mill”.

Apart from everyday uses like jeg kværner kaffebønnerne (”I’ll grind some coffee beans”), you won’t hear it too often in its literal sense, but it has a lot of figurative meanings too.

For example jeg var så sulten, at jeg kværnede maden uden at sige et ord means ”I was so hungry I gobbled down (literally ’crushed’ or ’ground’) the food without saying a word”.

This can also apply to drinking: han sad og kværnede bajere hele aftenen (“he sat there downing beers all evening”).

It can also be used to describe working very hard, as in jeg skal bare kværne, indtil projektet er færdig (“I have to keep grafting until the project is finished”).

Finally if someone kværner bare løs, it probably means they are talking non-stop.

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