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DANISH WORD OF THE DAY

Danish word of the day: Tosomhed

The Danish language has a word that could be considered an opposite of 'loneliness', and its range of uses is surprisingly broad.

What is tosomhed?

The Danish word for loneliness is ensomhed. It can literally be translated as “onesomeness”, and describes the feeling of loneliness or feeling alone. The adjective is ensom, so if you want to say that you feel lonely, you’d say jeg føler mig ensom.

While ensomhed and ensom refer to involuntary, loneliness – saying jeg bor alene (“I live alone”) does not necessarily mean that you are unhappy about this situation. Jeg føler mig ensom (“I feel lonely”), on the other hand, implies that you don’t really want to be alone.

The word ensomhed is made up of ensom – lonely, which in turn comes from en or “one” – as well as hed, a suffix similar to German -heit which can be loosely translated as “-ness” in English. Other examples of words made up of a Danish adjective with the suffix -hed are nyhed (“news”, literally “new-ness”), frihed (“freedom”, literally “free-ness”) and hemmelighed (“a secret”, literally “secret-ness”).

We’re about to reach the word that is the subject of today’s article: Danish, unlike English, also has a word for being alone with another person: tosomhed or “twosomeness”, which can describe the feeling of being a couple or “twosome”.

Why do I need to know tosomhed?

The use of tosomhed in conversation can be either positive or negative – it can be the feeling of being part of a team, sharing a life together, or it can describe a couple who spend so much time with each other that it is detrimental to their other social relationships. Or, as the Danish dictionary puts it, two people who “live together or are in each other’s company for better or worse”.

Those on the lookout for a partner may say they miss the feeling of tosomhed from sharing their life with someone else, or those recently out of a relationship may describe choosing to go it alone after experiencing that the tosomhed stifled their own independence.

In either case, it’s perhaps not surprising that the concept is identifiable enough to have its own word in Danish. According to European statistics, Danes have the third-highest rate of single-person households in the EU, behind Sweden and Finland. 

Examples

Jeg kan godt forstå, at Rachel blev træt af at se på Ross og Julie. Der gik simpelthen for meget tosomhed i det.

I understand why Rachel got fed up with seeing Ross and Julie together. There was just too much twosomeness going on.

Selvom alenetid betyder meget for mig, er der intet, der kan slå følelsen af tosomhed.

Although I value my ‘me time’, nothing beats the feeling of being at one with another person.

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DANISH WORD OF THE DAY

Danish word of the day: Varmebølge

Here's a Danish word to use when complaining about the hot weather.

Danish word of the day: Varmebølge

What is varmebølge?

Varmebølge means “heatwave” in Danish.

Varme means “heat” or “warmth”, and bølge means “wave”, so it’s an easy translation. You’ll sometimes hear hedebølge used too, using another Danish word for “heat”. The word varme is the more common of the two, and can be used in situations where you might say either “heat” or “warmth” in English. Hede, on the other hand, implies a more extreme type of heat.

For example, the Danish words for “hot water bottle” and “central heating” both use varme rather than heat (varmedunk and centralvarme or just varmen, respectively) and “hot weather” is varmt vejr but the phrase i kampens hede means “in the heat of the battle”. 

Why do I need to know varmebølge?

While the above terms – varmebølge and hedebølge – are synonyms on first glance, there’s an important difference.

Denmark’s national meteorological agency, DMI, defines a varmebølge as a three-day period on which the average highest temperature is over 25 degrees Celsius.

For a hot spell to qualify as a hedebølge, on the other hand, the average highest temperature for the three days in question must exceed 28 degrees Celsius

People from southern parts of Europe might consider either type of Danish heatwave to feel more like regular summer weather – and perhaps this helps explain why extreme weather in southern regions in recent years, related to climate change, has led to speculation Denmark could become an increasingly popular summer destination for foreign holidaymakers.

The phrases also reveal a little about how Denmark’s climate influences language and the way Danes talk about the weather.

READ ALSO: Five Danish phrases you only hear in summer

While almost everyone gets quickly tired of long spells of cool, wet summer weather – like those seen during most of June 2024 – it also doesn’t take much for Danes to begin longing for more moderate temperatures to return once it heats up.

Anything over around 24-25 degrees Celsius is likely to be considered for meget (“too much”) what I would consider a regulation summer temperature of 26 degrees might be described as denne forfærdelige varme (“this dreadful heat”).

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