Yeah, I know what a compound is, but I was just wondering why they were using this word also when talking danish. As I mentioned above, I am aware that it makes sense to talk english there (especially over the radio and when british troops are involved), but when the whole sentence is in danish, it doesn't help the english-speaking guy to only understand this one word (and there was no one around, anywway).
There has to be a danish word for "compound", though. I don't speak danish at all, but i know it's close to english and german in a way. These languages are all interconnected, so there are a bunch of words that sound alike or are at least written the same way, so i wouldn't be surprised if it really was "compound" in danish, as well. It would be rather odd, though...
In general I can understand some bits of swedish here and there since I know some english and my mother tongue is german. But danes speak so funnily ( :troll: everybody's making fun of them) that I would be really surprised if the only clear word they use would be compound - exactly as in english
. Thats why I'm asking. I also know that you tend to pick up words from a language that surrounds you all the time, as english does in their case, so whatever. It just made me curious. Wonder if people not affiliated with the military use that many english words in danish, too. This one guy's mother used some english in her everyday talk, too, for example.
Back to topic....
Actually, no, i can't really think of any Danish word that directly translates to "compound".
And yes, we do use a lot of english words, and the reason for it is that we're constantly hearing english in our every day lives.
Why? Because Denmark is a nation of only about 7 million people, who speaks a language unique to thouse 7 or so million people.
For this reason, it's pretty hard to produce entertainment in Danish, it's an extremely limited market, you can only sell a movie/song/TV-Show or anything else spoken in Danish to Danes (and only a percentage of thouse will be interested in buying it), nobody else will buy it, so not all that much gets produced, it's just not profitable.
Instead, most of the entertainment we get is imported from the UK or the USA, because allmost all Danes speak and understand English.
So it's all around us, the TV and movies we watch, the music we listen to, etc, most of it is in English, and thus, it's hardly supricing that bits of English finds it's way into our language, especially when the English word for something is more conveniant than the Danish word, or there just isen't a Danish word for it.
But it's also about mindset, we're hardly the only nation in this world who gets constantly bombareded with the pop culture from a differen't language, but Danes are nothing if not laid back, and we don't really find things like language important, we just don't care what word is used for something, why not just say "Computer", it's easy, why bother inventing a new Danish word for it?
We're certainly not like the French, who seem to think the French language, she is how you say, le sacred! And she must be le protected!
Pfft, nuts to that, i'm not getting out of my compfy chair unless beer and sex are involved