SHARE
COPY LINK
For members

DANISH WORD OF THE DAY

Danish word of the day: Folk

This Danish word is a word for the people.

What is folk?

Folk simply means ‘people’, but it is used in a great number of ways, and in a great number of words. 

Folk or volk is the Germanic equivalent of the Latin populus, which is the origin of the English word people, the French peuple, the Spanish pueblo, and many more.

Folk is cognate with the English, Norwegian and Swedish folk, and the Icelandic fólk, the Dutch and German volk, as in Volkswagen, which means ‘the people’s car’ — usually called folkevogn (“people’s wagon”) in Danish.

Why do I need to know folk?

Being such an important word, you can find it used in many other words. 

Folkeregistrering is the process by which Danish residents are entered onto the Centrale Personregister (CPR). The purpose of the CPR is to be a register of basic information including name, date of birth and address, and the number under which you are registered is used as a form of identification in many public and private services. In short, life in Denmark doesn’t really work without one.

Folkekære, which means something like “dear to the people” is a term often used to describe veteran actors or celebrities who are popular with pretty much everyone — singer Kim Larsen or actor Ghita Nørby, for example.

Then there’s the use of the word in folkeparti, “people’s party”, used by three different political parties which traverse the ideological spectrum: Dansk Folkeparti (Danish People’s Party), Det Konservative Folkeparti (The Conservative Party) and Det Socialistiske Folkeparti (The Socialist People’s Party)-

Sometimes it just means a group of people, as in der er masser af folk på gaden – “There are a bunch of people out on the street.”

Sometimes it means ‘the people’: folket or det danske folk can be used to refer to the public in general.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.
For members

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”).

SHOW COMMENTS