”Kan du række mig kaffe?” = Can you hand me coffee?
“Hvordan er kage?” = How is cake?
”Hvordan gik samtale?” = How went job interview?
There is a distance in this situation, do you sense this? The reason is, that the declension of the noun is its indefinite form.
Nouns are people, animals, objects, situations or concepts and we use the definite form when we would like to convey a mutual understanding with whom we have a conversation. The person who speaks would like to convey that his discussion partner knows about the object he is speaking of. Through the definite form, a mutual understanding is created.
If you do not master the definite form of the noun, the opposite will happen; Distance. That is a distance that creates ‘noise’, because the purpose of learning a language is to enter into new communities and groups.
Nouns in their definite form are tricky for my students. A simple reason for this could be how they are used in the definite form; In front of the noun or in the end? In many other languages, the definite form is used in front of the word as an article. In Danish, However, it is used ‘behind’ the word as an ending.
In Spanish, you say:
«La entrevista» = the interview
In French, you say:
«Le entrevue»
In German you say:
«das interview»
In English:
«the interview»
But in Danish we do the opposite. We say: «jobsamtalen». We create the definite form as an ending of the word.
