Why English to Danish is harder than it looks
En or et decides the shape of the whole phrase. Danish has two genders and attaches the definite article to the end of the noun: en bil becomes bilen. There is no rule for guessing which gender a noun takes.
Danish is blunt by English standards, and means nothing by it. “Send me the file” is perfectly polite in Danish. Translating English hedging literally produces Danish that sounds uncertain rather than courteous, so simplifying first works better.
Compounds are written as one word. Arbejdsløshedsunderstøttelse is a single Danish word. Going into Danish, a multi-word English phrase often has to fuse rather than stay separate, which is not something a word-by-word approach does.
Numbers are counted in twenties. Halvtreds is fifty, built from “half of the third twenty.” It is a genuine oddity of the language and a good reason to read the preview whenever a message contains prices, times or quantities.
Written by Hardik Vegad, Co-founder, Translatify. Last updated .
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