Product Description

Teach Yourself Danish is the book/CD course for anyone who wants to progress quickly from the basics to understanding, speaking and writing Danish with confidence. Although aimed at those with no previous knowledge, it is equally suitable for anyone wishing to brush up existing knowledge for a holiday or business trip. Key structures and vocabulary are introduced in 18 thematic units progressing from introducing yourself and dealing with everyday situations to talking about work and shopping for presents. Teach Yourself Danish follows the journey of George Wilson, a businessman, who travels to Denmark to establish a market there for his products. He has been invited to stay with his friends who live in Copenhagen. The emphasis is on communication throughout with important language structures introduced through dialogues on the accompanying recording. There are plenty of exercises to practise the language as it is introduced and tips throughout to help with grammar. Cultural information sections give useful advice and information for anyone planning a trip to Denmark.



The new edition has been updated and is now accompanied by a double CD with extra audio material. Popular features of the previous edition have been retained:

- English-Danish vocabulary

- glossary of grammatical terms

- a 'taking it further' section to direct learners to further sources of real Danish



The book (ISBN 0340 88746X) and CDs are available separately (0340 887486).

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #143079 in Books
• Published on: 2004-10-29
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

About the Author
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.

Customer Reviews

Comprehensive, easy to Learn fluency with ease
Thanks to this book I am currently a fluent speaker of Danish providing me with insight to both other languages Norwegian and Swedish. ASfter visiting Denmark 3 times since finishing the book in 1997 and shortly emmigrating to Copenhagen I recommend this boook to any studying the language.

An excellent resource
The book and CDs together really do make a complete course for you to follow at home. Presentation in good within the constraints of the small format and lack of colour printing/illustration. Each chapter is very well organised and follows a logical format. Grammatical points are explained succinctly. There are exercises and dialogues and also a focus on an aspect of Danish culture within each chapter. The variety is very welcome. There is a lot of information in each chapter, and you should not expect to progress particularly quickly. The CD is essential as a guide to the deffinately different way to pronounce Danish.

good but you will need a dictionary
Overall this is a very good book: it explains the grammar clearly, it has many reading passages, accurate cultural information, and effective excercises.
You can complete this package in around 6 months with daily studies.

One of the things I especially liked was that the dialogues cover a very wide range of scenarios, from having dinner with people to going to see the doctor - so you build up a very practical vocabulary.

It is essential that the beginner gets the cd's that accompany this book, because Danish, as well as Swedish and Norwegian, do not follow logical pronunciation patterns.
For example, the Danish letter 'e' can be pronounced as: 'i' as in "fit", 'ur' as in "fur", 'ae' as in "fang", 'e' as in "bed", 'ew' as in "few", 'ai' as in "eye"...even though the spelling is exactly the same in all cases.
There is no specific rule that determines how it is pronounced in a given situation, it all depends on the word itself, so the pronunciation of a word containing 'e' has to be memorized accurately.