Danish - Blog Posts
I wanted to reply to a friend’s post but I didn’t have the right word for ‘really formal and proper language’ so I looked it up and this is what I got…
So, apparently, if you don’t want to seem like a stupid teenager online use mostly utter waffle
Dining Room Breakfast Nook in Seattle An illustration of a sizable 1960s breakfast nook with a dark wood floor, a brown floor, and gray walls.
Danish Rice Pudding with Almonds This dessert, which is a Christmas favorite, lets us indulge in its wonderful, rich flavors and festive hues. It is a unique kind of rice pudding. A whole almond is traditionally added to the bowl on Christmas. The person who finds it is rewarded.
Interesting mansion with clock in Flensburg,Germany with typical Danish-German style architecture. Happy people who live there. Photo from November,2024.
Guys I need everyone to know about this. It’s the best!!
Så hvidt at et hegn må vove sig bag små smil for ikke at sætte spor i ansigtet. Bagsiden af bortvendte øjne, hvor det hvide lige netop rører de stivnede dråber der skiller horisont fra et øjebliks blød berøring, hud en sag for dagens fortabte strålende glæde. Hegnet er nødvendigt for at en uendelighed, lige om det hjørne dagen er, følger med. Nu er fjernt i håndfladen, forsvinder i skyggen af hvide øjnes ansigt. Engang, en dag et øjeblik. Bliver jeg spor af små smils forsigtige berøring. Stilheden venter, videre end horisonten kan bære. Jeg rører ved en kold flade, mærker hvor min mund ikke er. Engang svinder øjeblikket ind til spor. Engang vendes det hvide i mine hænder. Indtil da. Er hegnet den nødvendige naturlighed. Hvide smil. Engang bliver ved. Videre. #mantelmomento #danielmantel #udenfilter #mindscape #oneday #gone #fenced #insideout #outsidein #nowhere #allover #mindset #mindless #babbling #theirony #brainless #kinda #danish #fictionoverreality #prose #dansklitteratur #onemoment #akindasadbutsmilingdaywithalotofnonsensegoingthroughthislittlehead (Usual one-off hashtag...) (her: whiteout) https://www.instagram.com/p/BtGe7eGH0r5/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=h0vcjze4b50l
https://mantelsroman.wordpress.com/2018/02/24/fordelen-ved-fiktiv-symbiose/ Danish prose. Short summary / english version: I'm walking along this road, not quite sure if I'm awake or asleep. Anyway, an american native is entering the picture, also maybe a dog, or is it a bicycle? I'm trying hard to focus on reality, but can't tell what is real and what is my imagination of reality. Or if there's any difference. Not sure if it matters at all. Not sure if I matter. THEN my saviour happens to wrinkle his way out of my fictive world. Putting things straight, even though he himself is an unfinished story. Me telling him is still in progress. Despite that, he guides me through the mess of mixed reality and fiction. And I happily accept, that my real worlds are nothing but that. Fictive. So the symbiosis of my fictive figure and me works perfect. No more stray indians or wobbling bicycles or maybe-dogs. Just me walking on a road. Or rather, me telling the story of me walking on a road. Am I being told. The indian drops down behind the horizon. Ahead of me, and then something with mirrors. But that might just be fiction. #https://mantelsroman.wordpress.com/2018/02/24/fordelen-ved-fiktiv-symbiose/ #mantelmomento #danielmantel #laurieandthestoryof #primeiroproximopasso (Yes, right: The person that helps me on my way...) #filtered #prose #danish #novelinthemaking #reality #fiction #mix (On quite some levels) #road #night #streetlight #justanotherspinofffromtherealstoryaboutsenhorpassoandlaurieandmeandalotofotherpeoplethroughmanyyearsturningintoanovelthatmightnotbefinisheduntill2020or21idontknow (Usual one-off hashtag...) (her: On My Way)
POSSIBLE ENDINGS. Sorry, danish prose… https://mantelsroman.wordpress.com/2018/02/15/slutning-mulig/ Summary: The story is in place. The fiction can't be more fictive. Of Course there's still a lot of my figures adjusting details. Like if they deserve their own timeline; if they should be in 1.person and tell their story through their own eyes and mind or if they should be told… So on. As for myself, or "myself" or… -all the characters more or less with parts of me. Including past, present, even future, and lots of memories and memories of me through others thoughts, well… I'm most concerned about the ending. Of it all. Of the story; of "me" and me. I actually don't know. An ending. Yes. But which comes first? The ending of fiction? Or the ending of me? And what really matters? Most? #https://mantelsroman.wordpress.com/2018/02/15/slutning-mulig/ #mantelmomento #danielmantel #laurieandthestoryof #primeiroproximopasso #udenfilter (Not true... But the words are!) #prose #meandmystory #ending #endings #danish #novel #writing #selfie #white #mood #justafittingpicturetothestorylinkedtootherwisenotwithanyrealconnection (Usual one-off hashtag...) (her: Central Denmark Region)
It's simple. Attraction to shiny things. Especially if it fulfills another basic need: To fit in. Being part of a group. Adapting a pattern. Now we are! No one likes to be alone, somewhere in endless something. Too much space! Everyone wants to belong. Sharing your mind with others. Counting on you getting your share as well. Expecting equal exchange; being stronger through common connecting dots. And not just a single dot; exhausted then executed by freedom. A pattern explains otherwise random stuff. Makes sense out of all the ups and downs in your life. Makes your life. Then, if another and better pattern emerges, you jump to that. Maybe for a moment dangling only from a string of light. Patiently waiting… Then! Perfect match. Fits like a glove. Or a custom made cage. But! Never ever think of the pattern as a web. That needs to be fed. More than you need to fit. It is too shiny to be bad. Woven tightly in, totally away, is just an honor. And a strength. A single mind can't survive. Thoughts united! Shining as one… #mantelmomento #danielmantel #laurieandthestoryof #primeiroproximopasso (Leading up to...) #danish (sorry) #prose #udenfilter #pattern #life #thisisjustanotherpauseorbreakbeforejumpingintotherealstory (Usual one-off hashtag) #growingup #ontheway #reality #light #guidance #gettingcloser #mystory #mymind #connectingthedots #breakthrough #enough #change #out #stop (her: Destination Anywhere)
https://mantelsroman.wordpress.com/2017/11/05/soevnens-velsignelse/ #https://mantelsroman.wordpress.com/2017/11/05/soevnens-velsignelse/ Sorry, not a very interesting picture... But fits the story... In danish. #mantelmomento #danielmantel #laurieandthestoryof (Never leaves my head...) #primeiroproximopasso (Same goes for him) #udenfilter #coffeebreak #sleep #realities #deepinside #falling #unwell #day #sleepingaway #howastateofmindorsomediseasecanmakeyoualmostunabletogetthroughaday (Usual one-off hashtag) #prose #danish (sorry, again...) (her: I Min Seng)
What a spectacular sunset! We almost didn't believe our eyes. Or maybe it was my mind playing with us. Or reality interfering rudely and a bit exaggerated with our little world. The day had been more or less as any other. As any day is more or less as any other… . For anyone and everybody. So-called real or called any- and everything else, like fictive. As, I guess, we'd be. But we had for a long time doubted those terms and what they tried to define. Not very precise, though. Back to the day, with such a surprising ending. Me and my friends, Senhor Passo, Laurie, the 'I', and our DIY-specialist, the 'he' that could turn into anyone, including a 'she'. And useful in any time; past, present and future… We had endured the normality of a normal day; quite an ordeal for us. For anyone. At this time of the year also the climate to add. All in all one of those days, where we longed to be anywhere else. And then this sunset! Unexpected, and not fitting the story. The endgame weren't supposed to take place here. What to do? Changing the story was considered too difficult. Though not written, as such, it would be all wrong with the four or five of us here, in Denmark at this time of year. I, as the master of us all, took a decision: This sunset was either geographically totally misplaced… Or fiction. We all agreed on fiction. #mantelmomento #danielmantel #udenfilter #laurieandthestoryof #primeiroproximopasso #novelinprogress #shortstory #sunset #meandmystory #fiction #reality #tobecontinued #prose #danish #thisisjustonemorepresentingmymaincharactersinthatnovelstillonthedrawingboardorinmyheadwhichisthesamesowtf (Usual one-off hashtag) (her: I Min Seng)
My Languages
Part 2
Danish.
I can’t really say what attiréd me to Dansk. Was it the movie, the Prince and Me, with the fabulous Julia Stiles? One could say that. If you look at life as purely materialistic, and nothing more. But to be quite frank, that movie didn’t make that big of an impression on me, other than the fact that it was my only real exposure to Denmark growing up. I didn’t know any Danes. In Kentucky, where I was raised, there’s not a sizeable scandinavian community. There really is nothing tangibly physical that I could say caused me to become so enamoured with Denmark, Danish, and the nordic region at large. I can’t even quite conceptualize when it began, either. I just recall thinking about all the languages I wanted to learn, and somehow Danish became a priority.
The spiritual side of me suspects I had a great past life there. Have you ever had a country (or person) you’ve met, and just kind of love or hated for no particular reason? Well, you probably have past life energy there, so the theory goes. So that must be it. Or maybe it’s just all of the aquarius in my natal chart. Scandinavia seems so aquarius. Technologically advanced, intelligent, prosperous. They weren’t always that way, but the region’s history is so rich and fascinating. I feel like I could live in Denmark, Norway, Finland, the Faroe Islands, for a thousand lifetimes. It’s a pity I don’t have any connection to them, yet.
On the subject of synchronicity, where things just kinda unexpectedly happen but all make sense. Like the fact that my friend’s dad brought up alchemy randomly (I rarely hear about alchemy) then a couple hours later someone else randomly brings it up. Two in one day. It’s kinda like that.
Well, I could go two paths here. Stay on synchronicity, or go back to middle school when my infatuation with Denmark arose. My routine, while living with grandma, was to wake up in the morning, go to the living room. She would make us cinnamon toast, and I would watch TV. When I was younger, I’d then go out and play with neighborhood friends. But this was middle school, and we had drifted apart. I habitually would just browse the computer, while I comfortably sat in the living room, feeling cozy and warm in juxtaposition to the cold, gloomy, winter weather outside. Reading about Danish culture, and specifically the alcoholism, made me feel so warm and /excited/. Just reading aout Denmark and how people would get hammered and throw up on the city streets, riding their bikes. Gee. I was like, this is amazing! I wanna live there. Maybe that’s where my alcoholism started?
Well I suppose maybe that was just it. I just saw a movie about a Danish prince, then stumbled upon random internet information and the rest is history. Well, not quite. After I had a deeply profound conversion to Mormonism, I ran away from home to Utah. I met a homeless man there in temple square, and I of course was heaily mormon and set on the church being true and not open to other spiritual thought, but obviously still exposed to it. Well this homeless man and I were talking, and he told me about some experience he had where he was speaking in tongues and the people he was with said that he was speaking Old Danish. Well what are the odds that I run away from home, strike up a conversation with this random homeless man, and he mentions having a spiritual experience where he spoke a language only a few million people know out of billions. Maybe it’s not that unique, maybe he was speaking gibberish, and some returned missionary with decent exposure to northern european germanic languages got the impression he was making Old Danish noises. I don’t quite recall the details, but I will entertain the skeptics.
Regardless, maybe we had a past life connection. I haven’t seen or talked to that homeless man since, but I always think about that when I think about Denmark now. And I have been able to study Danish. It’s one of my favorite things to do. I wish I had more time and more use for it. I could say rød grød med fløde for hours. I could die in Copenhagen a happy man. A happy, drunk, alcoholic man, with all of my hygge and the cosmopolitan amenities europe has to offer.
Alas, I really do have no use for the language. No one shares my passion, and I have other things to worry about. It will always pique my interest though when Denmark or scandinavia is mentioned. Maybe one day I’ll get to at least visit the country, maybe that will give me some kind of closure. I will end by reflecting on one of the happier nights of my most recent life. It was a chilly night, I was dating Craig, a man much older than I who I wasn’t particularly attracted to in the romantic sense (was I?), but he made me feel comfortable. So comfortable, and loved. He fell asleep on the couch like usual, and I stayed up watching the tele. This time I was down the rabit hole of watching youtube videos about scandinavian history. I pranced around the house while he slept, eating these oriental flavored pretzel things from costco that were quite good, and just felt so in awe and in love with life. Soaking up the atmosphere and that warm cozy feeling that comes with being under the same roof of someone you love and trust on a moonlit, frosty night. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that. And now I recall a similar feeling, with my high school boyfriend Andrew. It was a similar relationship. I had little romantic and sexual interest, but like Craig, Andrew was quite pushy and kind of coerced me into the relationship. And I got comfortable. We had spent the evening walking down Frankfort avenue, eating sushi at my favorite restaurant, Osaka, then stopped in a mom and pop catholic bookstore. They impressed me with their language selection, which is always the first section I go to in any library or bookstore. There was a book on Dutch and Finnish that I was torn between, but I ended up getting the some decades old Teach Yourself Finnish book. I ended the night up in his attic bedroom in his charming old home. I popped some hydrocodones, and as he slept I taught myself Finnish while the warmth of the opiates spread throughout my body. I was happy. Genuinely.
My Languages
part 1
in order of when i picked it up. I grew up in an english speaking home, had friends who only spoke english, and really did not get any conscious exposure to another language until i was around 7 years old. my great grandmother on my mom’s side, married into the family, was a lovely woman from Tokyo whom we called Chick. she awoke my interest in other languages and cultures. i was eager to learn japanese from her, and she taught me some. just a few sentences here and there.
it wasn’t until middle school that i really got back into languages. i remember feeling excited for moving to high school, and being able to take french. i told my father over dinner at one of our favorite mexican restaurants, where he, my sister, and i would almost ritualistically go to [until it burned down]. he was quite irate that i had fancied french over spanish, and understandably so. spanish is much, much more common and useful in the united states than french is. however, i couldn’t be deterred. i was naturally drawn to french, and that’s what i would choose. i primed myself using google translate, looking up random words here and there. i would go on to study it for four years in high school. i was the top of my class, and everyone knew it. i just simply loved french and was good at it. i was fortunate enough to take IB French (international baccalaureate) which i can’t brag enough about. ib was awesome. like a breath of fresh air compared to the crap american standardized education feeds us. well, anyway. french will go along to become my major in university, not so much due to passion or interest, but because it’s common enough that it’s a major at most universities. france isn’t my favorite country and i don’t really want to live there. i’d choose quebec or luxembourg or belgium first. but hopefully it serves me well.
japanese was my other focus. in middle school i got into anime (death note specifically) besides already being madly in love and obsessed with pokémon and yugioh. i attempted to teach myself katakana. i remember thinking my name kyle would be キユレ kiyure, cuz i didn’t know how katakana worked back then. it’d probably be more like カイヨウル. however aside from that i didn’t really have much more need or pressure to learn more. the high school i would later go on to offered japanese, but for some reason that escapes my memory, i never took it. i ended up taking four languages in high school, but japanese was not one of them.
i guess this would be a good segue into spanish. but back to japanese first. i would later study japanese in college, centre college, to be exact. im thankful i did because i was able to write my great grandma chick a letter with the japanese i had learned. she was living in north carolina with my grandma and step grandpa, as she lay dying. i wasn’t able to see her before she passed, but my grandma said she loved my letter and wouldn’t stop mentioning it. lol.
synchronicitly, my japanese professor would be an awesome mormon man who i would have a good rapport with, because i was passionately mormon at this time in my life. and he was pretty awesome. he probably just thought i was some dumb kid, and i was. but if you’re reading this brother dixon, おはようございます！「元気ですか？」
i supposed i have lied, though. i forgot that i studied spanish in elementwrycschooo. so i did have exposure to foreign languages. we did not take spanish in middle school though, which is odd and embarrassing tbh. but i would later take spanish in high school for three weeks, before i dropped it because my class mates were pronouncing me llamo like... mee lahmo. not may ahmo like literally anyone should know by now.... so i switched to chinese.
inspired by avatar the last air bender, and an anxious and impulsive desire, i signed up for chinese class to get away from the heathens who didn’t know elementary spanish. why i didn’t ask if japanese or german was available, and honestly now that i think of it, i may have. at least one or the other. i distinctly remember being told chinese was available, and i just took it. so began my journey with 中文.
spanish was too easy and nothing about spain or south america really draws me. i do like argentina though, and catalan seems interesting. and definitely portuguese, but that’s not spanish!
before i continue on that though, let’s rewind. my knack for languages was already blossoming in middle school, even though i hadn’t had any formal study besides elementary school spanish from señor ramos. i told my dad as we sat together at the dinner table that i wanted to learn five languages. i was surprised later when he brought it back up, because i didn’t think he had remembered. looking back, i guess that is kind of unique. not many people have that desire, let alone accomplish it. in america at least.
well i still remember those languages. i believe they were japanese, french, german, spanish, and danish. yes. undoubtedly those were it. which one doesn’t belong? lol. danish, i know right? which is why we need to rewind. my love for denmark probably isnt worthy of its own post, but i will leave off here, and pick this up later. i gotta go to school, hun.
xx gossip girl
(Flute Duo) F.Kuhlau 3 Flute Duos for 2 Flutes Op.80 No.1 G-dur Performe...
この曲の第3楽章は私が大好きな曲の一つです！ ぜひ聞いてくださいね！ The third movement of this song is one of my favorite songs! Please listen! この曲は20年ほど前に演奏したことがあります。 I played this song about 20 years ago. 驚くことに、指はしっかりとこの曲を覚えていました。 Surprisingly, my fingers remembered this song firmly. おかげで練習がとても楽でした。 Therefore, it was very easy to practice.