• MinnesotaGoddam@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    W just kinda standing here awkwardly

    also now that i’m a few seconds into the song, that is a great song

    i also finally know how to pronounce the name of my favorite shoes correctly. which is either going to relieve or infuriate my danish friend. they refuse to tell me.

    • esa@discuss.tchncs.de
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      3 days ago

      W is a double-v for us, so our alphabet goes uvw (u ve dobbel-ve), rather than uwv (ju dabbel-ju vi).

      Germanic languages vary a bit in their attitude towards w; we Norwegians use it pretty much just as a fancy old-timey v and could frankly drop w from our alphabet without missing anything (just like q is practically never used).

      Germans use w the way we use v, and then use v pretty much like f.

      The anglo w sound is something we have to learn in English class, and even then a lot of people start to hypercorrect and pronounce even the "v"s in English as their w. It can be wery funny to listen to, or wery frustrating.