.... and the big hand points to the six!

Danish lessons are ticking over slowly, and I seem to be surviving somehow. Today we learnt how to tell the time, and it has to be said, my hypothesis of the Dane's being crazy was further validated today.

Lets take the time, for example, of 7:30pm. In english you'd say half past seven. Fine and good. In Danish though, it would be "halv otte" - "half eight". A bit odd, but it is a bit of a "is the glass half full or half empty?" sort of argument... Ok, a bit strange, but the germans do it, and we all know about ruthless German efficiency. Can't remember how you do it in French, but that's not the point. More like english, in danish you also say "fem minutter over otte" (five minutes past eight) and "fem minutter i otte" (five minutes to eight). And ditto for ten past, and twenty past as well. But what happens when you get to, say, 7:25pm, which in Denmark would be written 19:25? It'd be something like "femogtyve minutter over nitten" (five and twenty minutes past nineteen), right? Ahhh, no. Actually, it is "fem minutter i halv otte" (five minutes to half eight). Yeah. Five minutes to half eight? What happened to the 19 and all that stuff?

As a further sideline to this discussion there are two other funny danish words I happened across. One is the number nine: ni - as in "we are the knights who say NI!!". And the danish word for australia (australien) sounds absolutely identical to a kiwi taking the piss out of the ozzie accent.... Struth mate! Throw another shrimp on the barbie!