Now having some reviews on Amazon, I wanted to share these (thinking that there might also be some people with time on their hands to learn a bit of Danish):
A couple of the customer reviews really capture what we were trying to accomplish with the book:
“Brilliant book for learning the grammar in depth as well as grasping the harder subjects whilst being at a beginner level. However, if you are planning on getting this book after completing danish on duolingo, this will be too advanced and will not understand many of the words. 🙂 So i’d recommend a different book for that. However for an advanced beginner to advanced, is just as i’d describe it as well. A nice nifty book. Would recommend!”
“this is a great book for advanced beginners and intermediate learners up to upper intermediate students at B2 level: very well structured and comprehensive in terms of topics it covers. I would even wish more exercises and audio of at least some of the texts.”
Original post
Finally, a grammar for intermediate Danish – for people who have moved beyond the basics but still find the Complete grammars too impenetrable (don’t we all…).
I started work on this book in 2015, and it soon turned out that it was a big task: I did not want to produce another basic book, neither did I want to pile on rules and exceptions that hardly ever matter. I wanted to find a middle-ground, covering all the grammar needed by most users, but also daring to exclude stuff that was only relevant in very specific situations. I also wanted to provide clear explanations of advanced points (such as past future, conditional perfect and when to use ‘er’ and ‘har’ in the perfect and pluperfect).
This meant rethinking how topics were covered and which elements were paired (does simple past belong with pluperfect; does pluperfect go with perfect? And where does past future belong? Is future part of modal verbs?) And it meant not being able to rely on other types of material but developing it all from the beginning.
Luckily I was joined by my colleague Dr Anne Grydehøj in 2017. At this stage I had realised that I needed a sound pair of extra eyes if the project was going to be successful. As it turned out, Anne became much more than that, and when I asked her to be a full co-author, I was so pleased that she agreed!
The book contains 20 chapters with full explanations of all relevant Danish grammar. On top of that there are reading texts to support vocabulary building and understanding of genres in Danish: from relatively simple diary entries, recipes and letters to the editor to letters of complaint, Tweeting, book reviews – and poetry. On top of that we cover culture and traditions: Fastelavn, the first Danish acid rock album by Steppeulvene, folk high schools, Fredagsbarer (Friday bars at universities) and much more.
Throughout, we have included tips and tricks to support your language learning: the difference between ‘hen’ and ‘henne’, using ‘lidt’ and ‘meget’ to quantify comparative adjectives and adverbs, and the different meanings of ‘studerende’ and ‘student, to mention but a few.
We hope you will find the book useful – and do leave a review on Amazon if you do. If you find anything that needs clarification, please feel free to write to me and I will do my best to help you!
You can buy the book on Amazon.
You can read more at Hodder’s homepage.