Teach Yourself Complete Danish - 384 page Book and 2 Audio CDs
Are you looking for a complete course in Danish which takes you effortlessly from beginner to confident speaker? Whether you are starting from scratch, or are just out of practice, Complete Danish will guarantee success! Now fully updated to make your language learning experience fun and interactive. You can still rely on the benefits of a top language teacher and our years of teaching experience, but now with added learning features within the course and online.
The course is structured in thematic units and the emphasis is placed on communication, so that you effortlessly progress from introducing yourself and dealing with everyday situations, to using the phone and talking about work.
Table of Contents:
Introduction
Pronunciation
01 At the railway station
02 It was a lovely meal!
03 Shopping
04 At the airport
05 Weekend in North Zealand
06 By train to Jutland
07 At a business meeting
08 At the hotel
09 At a cottage in Mols
10 On board the ferry
11 Back at Hans and Lone's house
12 On a language course
13 Tourists in Copenhagen
14 At a restaurant
15 When you visited us in England
16 Alison is ill
17 Shopping in Copenhagen
18 Goodbye, till next time!
Strong and irregular verbs
Glossary of grammatical terms
Key to the exercises
Danish-English vocabulary
English-Danish vocabulary
Taking it further
Index
By the end of this course, you will be at Level B2 of the Common European Framework for Languages: Can interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible without strain for either party. This course will appeal to those who want to refresh existing knowledge as well as complete beginners who want to gain a thorough grounding in understanding, speaking and writing Danish.
Covers a wide range of topics and language structures for learners who want to progress quickly beyond the basics to a level where they can communicate with confidence.
The topics covered will appeal to those learning for holiday and business purposes. Learn effortlessly with a new easy-to-read page design and interactive features:
NOT GOT MUCH TIME?
One, five and ten-minute introductions to key principles to get you started.
AUTHOR INSIGHTS
Lots of instant help with common problems and quick tips for success, based on the author's many years of experience.
GRAMMAR TIPS
Easy-to-follow building blocks to give you a clear understanding.
USEFUL VOCABULARY
Easy to find and learn, to build a solid foundation for speaking.
DIALOGUES
Read and listen to everyday dialogues to help you speak and understand fast.
PRONUNCIATION
Don't sound like a tourist! Perfect your pronunciation before you go.
TEST YOURSELF
Tests in the book and online to keep track of your progress.
EXTEND YOUR KNOWLEDGE
Extra online articles at: www.teachyourself.com to give you a richer understanding of the culture and history of Denmark.
TRY THIS
Innovative exercises illustrate what you've learnt and how to use it.
About the Author Bente Elsworth
Bente Elsworth was born in Randers, Demark. She has lived in England since 1968
and has a degree in Russian from the University of London. She has many years
of experience in teaching Danish at the University of East Anglia and this has
made her aware of the particular problems that English speakers face when
learning Danish. This knowledge forms the basis of the approach adopted in
Teach Yourself Danish.
About the Danish Language
Danish is one of the North Germanic languages, a sub-group of the Germanic branch of the
Indo-European languages. It is spoken by around 6 million people, mainly in
Denmark; the language is also used by the 50,000 Danes in the northern parts of
Schleswig-Holstein in Germany, where it holds the status of minority language.
Danish also holds official status and is a mandatory subject in school in the
Danish territories of Greenland and the Faroe Islands, which now enjoy limited
autonomy. In Iceland and Faroe Islands, Danish is, alongside English, a
compulsory foreign language taught in schools . In North and South America there are Danish language
communities in Argentina, the USA and Canada. In the 8th century, the common Germanic language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse,
had undergone some changes and evolved into Old Norse. This language began to
undergo new changes that did not spread to all of Scandinavia, which resulted
in the appearance of two similar dialects, Old West Norse (Norway and Iceland)
and Old East Norse (Denmark and Sweden).
This is one reason why it is easy for an English-speaking student to learn Danish vocabulary. Another is that both Danish and English have borrowed from Greek, Latin and French, e.g. biskop ( bishop ), alter ( altar ), soldat ( soldier ), journalist and garage . Then, with the dominance of English and American culture in the 20th and 21st centuries, Danish has borrowed English words without changing their spelling, and modern Danish is full of words like pyjamas, software, hotdog, interview, television .
Danish and English also have a shared grammatical background. Languages are not static; they change over time. Both Danish and English have moved a long way from a grammatically complex language with three genders, several cases and a heavily inflected verbal system. The structure of phrases and sentences in Danish and English relies on word order and the use of prepositions, because the relationship between words can no longer be established through the use of cases. |
