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DANISH WORD OF THE DAY

Danish word of the day: Medlidenhed

Today’s Danish word of the day can be used to express the sadness you feel when a loved one – or a complete stranger – is having a hard time.

What is medlidenhed? 

Medlidenhed consists of three parts: med which means ‘co-‘ or ‘with’; lide which is the infinitive form of the verb “to suffer”, and hed, a suffix which turns an adjective into a noun (like -ness in English).

Its closest English equivalent is ‘compassion’, the act of feeling kind-hearted sympathetic concern or sadness for another person who is suffering or has been affected by some kind of misfortune.

You may recognise the lide component from the construction jeg kan ikke lide det, the rather clunky, but most common, way of saying “I don’t like it” in Danish. Literally translated, jeg kan ikke lide det means “I can’t suffer it”. Conversely, if you want to say ”I like it”, the standard phrase is jeg kan godt lide det – literally, “I can suffer it well”.

Why do I need to know medlidenhed?

Today its meaning is figurative, but in the old Norse languages it could also literally mean that a person shared an affliction with someone else, or for example that a body part was affected by pain elsewhere in the body.

The influence of this can be seen in the modern expression jeg føler med dig, “I’m feeling with you”, which indicates that you feel the other person’s pain, so strongly that you are even prepared to carry some of it in a philosophical sense.

The use of at føle (“to feel”) here is worth noting because it is a component of a similar word, medfølelse, which is a synonym to medlidenhed, but has a milder meaning which is closer to the English ‘sympathy’.

You could also say it’s a direct opposite to skadefryd, the sense of joy taken from another’s misfortune, a word which is loaned to many other languages in its German form, Schadenfreude.

Medlidenhed is a Nordic relative to the word ‘compassion’ (which is used in various forms in languages including English, French and Italian) in the sense that ‘compassion’ comes from the Latin com (‘with’, ‘together’) and pati (‘to suffer’, compare to for example ‘The Passion’ which in Christianity refers to the crucifixion and final period of the life of Jesus).

But because at lide is a modern word that – unlike ‘passion’ – is used to talk about suffering in everyday speech, medlidenhed perhaps comes across as more blunt and literal than its English equivalent.

Example

Der var en stor bølge af medlidenhed i den danske befolkning efter at nyhed om naturkatastrofen kom frem.

There was a wave of compassion throughout the Danish public after news broke of the natural catastrophe.

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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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