Lesson2 The alphabeth Now we learn two more letters: p pronounced as p in English e The e-sound is somewhere inbewteen the english sound of a and e. Your tongue is down when saying a and up when saying e, so put your tongue in the middle of these positions and you will get the danish e-sound. Now we can form a new word se (see, look, watch) (Isn't it easy? Look at all these English words and you only have to learn one Danish!) When you say "se" remember to cut the airstream after the e so it is as short as when you said "si" Lets go for another word: spise (to eat) This word can be divided into 2 syllables so it will be like this: spi-se When saying "spi" you say it like "si" only with a p inbetween. BUT when saying "se" you could think it should be like the word "se" (to look) but because it is in the ending of the word, it has to be pronounced as the e in "the". This e-sound can also be explained like this: Relax your mouth and let it be open and while you let air out of your mouth you put on sound. NB: This sound is usually written as an upside down e in a dictionary Still remember to cut the airstream after e Know say the whole word aloud: "spi-se" Danes will usually sustain the i sound so it goes directly into the s-sound so you in fact don't cut the airstream after i: Let's form this in rules: * When a word ends with "e" and there is more than one syllable the e is pronounced like the e in "the" * When a vowel ends a syllable and there is a syllable after the vowel is sustained into the the next syllable. * When a word is divided into syllables, every vowel in the word has it own syllable Danes have a tendency to let the e in "spise" disappear totally. If you say the word "spi-se" quickly a lot of times you can feel it is quite hard to change the vowel sound from i to e, and that is why we just let go of the e sound. Don't be affraid of this because it is always the same thing that disappears. But more on that later.