Languagle #21: Danish
At falde er ingen skam, men at blive liggende er
"Falling is no disgrace. Staying down is."
What it means
Everyone falls; what matters is getting up again. Failure is no disgrace, but giving up is. A saying about resilience.
How to say it
a FAL-eh air ENG-en SKAHM, men a BLEE-eh LEG-eh-neh air
Danish swallows a lot of its consonants: the d in falde and the v in blive are barely said, and 'at' sounds like a short 'a'. Danes also use a little catch in the throat, called stød, that no spelling can show.
Word by word
- At falde a FAL-eh: to fall
- er air: is
- ingen ENG-en: no
- skam skahm: shame
- men men: but
- at blive liggende a BLEE-eh LEG-eh-neh: to stay lying down (blive, stay; liggende, lying)
Where it was found
In Danish a proverb is an ordsprog. This one is from a collection of old Danish proverbs on udvalgte-ordsprog.dk.
Similar sayings
- English: If at first you don't succeed, try, try again
How to recognise Danish
Danish shares æ, ø and å with Norwegian, and the two look very alike on the page. Danish tends to have soft d, b and g where Norwegian has t, p and k, so food and street are mad and gade in Danish, mat and gate in Norwegian. Danish also writes 'af' for 'of' where Norwegian has 'av'. Swedish uses ä and ö instead of æ and ø.
About the Danish language
Danish is a North Germanic language spoken by around 6 million people in Denmark, and it was the written language of Norway for centuries, until Norwegian standards emerged in the 19th century. Written Danish is easy for Norwegians and Swedes to read, but spoken Danish is harder, because many consonants soften or disappear in speech. Danish also has the stød, a sort of glottal catch in some syllables that can be the only difference between two words.
← #20 · All answers · #22 →