Danish: pronunciation of Odense | WordReference Forums

Danish: pronunciation of Odense

S

sindridah

Senior Member
Reykjavík
Icelandic
Hey

I'm heading to Denmark after few days and I'm honestly very worried that the train clerk wont understand me when I ask him for a train ticket to Ødense.
So how is it pronounced?
 
    • Ehm, are you talking about Ødense or possibly Odense? According to wiki, the pronunciation of the latter is [ˈoðˀn̩sə].
     
    Ok I just have to act stupid now, I'm talking about the city in Denmark, Is that written Odense?? Now I'm even more worried about taking the train to O/Ødense, which ever it is.
     
    Hey Sindri,

    I looked on the Wikipedia page and saw the alþjóðlega hljóðritunarkerfið (IPA) pronunciation, so I hope I'm able to explain it to you so you don't get lost in Denmark (like you almost did in Manchester :p) so it's like........... actually, rather than me mangling a garbled attempt at how to replicate Danish pronunciation (as my Danish friend always says I do when I try to write it), I can link you to a native pronunciation for you to copy.

    Best of luck when you get to Denmark!
     
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    It's Odense, yes (at least I don't know any place called Ødense).

    As it's a major city, and a significant tourist destination, I think the people selling tickets will have already heard any mispronunciation you can possibly come up with :), so I doubt it'll be a problem. There are usually also machines selling tickets, so as long as you can spell the name, you might not even have to talk to anyone :).

    The d is soft, the rest is pronounced pretty much as it's written. Wikipedia says the first e isn't pronounced - that's true for daily speech, but if you want a slow, careful pronounciation, leave in that e as well. O - ðen - se.

    And as Alex said, there's a sound file you can listen to on the wikipedia page.

    Hope that helped.
     
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    As Hanne was saying, you won't end up in the wrong place even if your pronunciation is a bit off. But here it goes:

    O --- DEN--- SE, 3 syllables each pronounced as follows:
    O: a closed clean O, (not the u-like sound in Norwegian or the ou sound in English. Just like the Germans pronounce the o in “ROSE”)
    DEN: like the English word “then”
    SE: as it is written
    Voilà ! And there you have it. Then we can work on “København” tomorrow:)
     
    I think, it is important to mention also (in case any English speakers should use this instruction) that E is to be pronounced like in PEN (English pronunciation, not Irish), and not as in BE.
     
    bicontinental said:
    O: a closed clean O, (not the u-like sound in Norwegian or the ou sound in English. Just like the Germans pronounce the o in “ROSE”)
    DEN: like the English word “then”
    SE: as it is written
    Click to expand...
    Your descriptions of the first two syllables are great. But "as it is written" is always dangerous. "se" as the word "se" is pronounced in Danish? In Norwegian? In Spanish? In French? As it would be pronounced in English (since we are writing in English)?
    Also, it should always be noted where the stress (accent) is (in words of more than one syllable).:)
    Ben Jamin said:
    I think, it is important to mention also (in case any English speakers should use this instruction) that E is to be pronounced like in PEN (English pronunciation, not Irish), and not as in BE.
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    "BE" stands for "Britiish English", right? What do you mean by "English pronun ... not BE"?

    EDITS:
    It occurs to me that you probably mean the word "be". (The abbrev's AE and BE are frequent in various forums, so you can see why I misunderstood, especially after the mention of Irish English.)

    As for the pronunciation of "se", another possibility (probably the correct one) is as in a Danish word like "hændelse". (But that requires knowing Danish.:))
     
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    Thank you so much! Well judging by many of the people I know which have been to Denmark, All of them have given up trying to speak Danish because Danish people simply don't understand them, even basic sentences, In some cases I think even Danish people are not even understand each other nowadays. So after that I wanted to try pronounce Odense correctly and I've been practising! Hopefully with good results and I end up in a right place! And again thank you so much with your clarifications
     
    hanne said:
    Really? It looks odd to me that you start with two vowels - it's not a diphthong. (except for in some dialects, but not any of the ones from that area, as far as I know).
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    It has been my experience that the Danish pronounce 'd' as öð when speaking slowly. Food, Mad>Maöð. O-d-ense>Ú-öð-ense. My sister-in-law comes from Århus so this might just be specific to that area.
     
    Þegar ég reyni að bera þetta fram eins og þú skrifar þetta NoMrice þá klárlega fann ég að þetta væri eitthvað alvöru Danskur framburður! Held að þú sért alveg með þetta spot-on! Gleymi auðvitað Ú-inu fræga í dönskum framburði, var alltof mikið að reyna bera þetta fram eins og þetta er skrifað á dönsku, núna er bara klárlega æfa sig! kærar þakkir!
     
    NoMoreMrIceGuy said:
    It has been my experience that the Danish pronounce 'd' as öð when speaking slowly. Food, Mad>Maöð. O-d-ense>Ú-öð-ense. My sister-in-law comes from Århus so this might just be specific to that area.
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    I can see how the dialects of Jutland might sound like that, but for standard Danish I think I'd leave out the ö.

    By the way, for the local dialect of Odense, the d is actually mute, so you'll expect to hear something closer to O'ense over there.
     
    Dan2 said:
    Your descriptions of the first two syllables are great. But "as it is written" is always dangerous. "se" as the word "se" is pronounced in Danish? In Norwegian? In Spanish? In French? As it would be pronounced in English (since we are writing in English)?
    Also, it should always be noted where the stress (accent) is (in words of more than one syllable).:)

    "BE" stands for "Britiish English", right? What do you mean by "English pronun ... not BE"?

    EDITS:
    It occurs to me that you probably mean the word "be". (The abbrev's AE and BE are frequent in various forums, so you can see why I misunderstood, especially after the mention of Irish English.)

    As for the pronunciation of "se", another possibility (probably the correct one) is as in a Danish word like "hændelse". (But that requires knowing Danish.:))
    Click to expand...

    This is incorrect. The pronunciation of Odense does not have the interdental voiced fricative in it. The pronunciation is more like: [oːensə] in the Fynsk dialect (the island where Odense is) and [oʕensə] in Koebenhavnsk (a dialect spoken in Copenhagen on the island of Sjaelland) <off-topic discussion deleted>.

    Nait

    Nait
     
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    DownUnder81 said:
    This is incorrect.
    Click to expand...
    Could you please clarify what you're referring to? You're quoting Dan's post, but I don't see much overlap in topic between your post and his?

    DownUnder81 said:
    The pronunciation of Odense does not have the interdental voiced fricative in it. The pronunciation is more like: [...] [oʕensə] in Koebenhavnsk
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    I don't agree with this. There is definitely a soft d (which I believe is the interdental voiced fricative you're talking about) in Odense in standard Copenhagen pronunciation. Usually I wouldn't put a very strong stød in Odense, but I guess there's some. On a sidenote you should also be careful using ʕ with Danish, it is not IPA for stød.
     
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    Hi DownUnder,


    Hmm, I’m a bit confused as well as to what you think is incorrect in Dan’s post. Upon rereading it, it still looks quite accurate to me.


    I think it is very helpful to know the pronunciation of Odense in the local dialect -which Hanne had also pointed out in post #16-, but you’re not advocating learning this as the “correct or standard” pronunciation, are you? It looks like you are dismissing the fact that there is a soft d in the standard Danish pronunciation of Odense? Well, there is. The glottal stop you talk about, is very subtle (and of course absent in the local "fynsk" dialect) and probably shouldn’t be overemphasized.


    The transcription of the pronunciation of Odense “in the Copenhagen dialect” which you provide seems to lack the soft d sound. This is a “then”-sound in English which I think comes closest to the interdental voiced fricative in the IPA. You have replaced that with the glottal stop which is very subtle. I honestly think it is a mistake not to pronounce the soft d, because that will be noticed by people. If you miss the glottal stop, it’s no big deal.


    Just my two cents…
     
    Now I see where the probelm is: I cut an pasted a wrong quote. I was to quote post number 6.

    DAN: I am truely sorry. I did not mean any harm at all. Really.

    I was to refer to Bicontinentals comment (post 6) where he said that the penultic (second last syllable) of 'Odense' is pronouces like the English 'then'. Usually this 'th' or [ð] (which is valerised and actually does not contact the teeth) is reseved to the written forms 'dd' and 'ede'. In Odense, this is NOT the modified 'th' sound typical of Danish. In this case, it is either a glottal stop or 'stoed' [ʕ] or is not realised or pronounced. Therefore, the two common ways I heard Odense pronounced while I was living in Danmark is: [oːensə] (with a long 'o' that glides to the 'e') or [oʕensə] (where the 'o' is cut short and the voice hops a little before pronouncing the 'e').

    Nait
     
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    "I can see how the dialects of Jutland might sound like that, but for standard Danish I think I'd leave out the ö.

    By the way, for the local dialect of Odense, the d is actually mute, so you'll expect to hear something closer to O'ense over there. "

    This is exactly what I was getting at in post number 15.

    Thank you Hanne for the clarification.

    Nait
     
    DownUnder81 said:
    I was to refer to Bicontinentals comment (post 6) where he said that the penultic (second last syllable) of 'Odense' is pronouces like the English 'then'. Usually this 'th' or [ð] (which is valerised and actually does not contact the teeth) is reseved to the written forms 'dd' and 'ede'. In Odense, this is NOT the modified 'th' sound typical of Danish. In this case, it is either a glottal stop or 'stoed' [ʕ] or is not realised or pronounced.
    Click to expand...
    This is wrong. As I said already, there's definitely a soft d sounds in Odense, and it's quite similar to the word "then". You may not hear it, but it's there, and if it's missing I'd find that the speaker is making a mistake (unless he otherwise speaks with a clear dialect). I imagine this could be difficult to notice for a non-native, because Danish has a tendency to reduce or skip many sounds, however, when trying to imitate, it is better to over-do some of these sounds, than to leave them out wrongly, that causes a lot less confusion (ultimately, the natives will know how to spell the word too, so we'll recognise that). So I'd strongly recommend not to leave out the soft d of Odense, even if you don't hear it from others, especially if you're concerned you'll be misunderstood.
     
    When I was staying on Fyn and in Jylland, I was taught the 'd' is not pronounced and instead there is a glide. In KBH, in pronounciation class, and by teachers of Danish, they said there is a glotal stop, whith a distinct breif pause. I have never heard or been taught of any 'th' sound in Odense. Perhaps they taught us wrong. So, you are saying that there is a modified 'th', but it is unvoiced? Is it similar to the sound in 'allerede' OR 'hedder', which one?

    I glide from the 'o' to the 'e' like the people in Jylland and on Fyn pronounce it and not with the 'd'. Is your pronounciation with the 'd' a Sjaelland thing?

    Nait
     
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