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Although Danish and Dano-Norwegian are very similar languages, there are more differences between them than a cursory examination would lead one to believe.
German influence
First of all, Danish has adopted many German words and some grammatical influences not so frequently used in Dano-Norwegian anymore. An example is names of countries.
Danish and Swedish generally use the German names of countries, or at least the German ending, while Norwegian uses the Latin endings; this means that the usual ending is -a in Norwegian and -en or -et in Danish. The -en and -et endings are the definite articles.
English: Spain Danish: Spanien Norwegian: Spania
Differences in pronunciation
The difference in pronunciation between Norwegian and Danish is much more striking than the difference between Norwegian and Swedish. Danish speakers generally do not understand Norwegian very well. Some Norwegians also have problems understanding Danish, but according to a recent scientific investigation Norwegians are better at understanding both Danish and Swedish than the Danes and Swedes are at understanding Norwegian. Written Norwegian has historical similarities with Danish, but the pronunciation is more like Swedish.
The Danish pronunciation is "softer" and the letters d, r and g in particular are pronounced quite differently in some positions in the word.
However, it should be noted that Danes and Norwegians with only a little training will fluently understand the other language. It is mostly a question of getting familiar with it.
It should also be humourosly noted that Danes have been reported to have an easier time understanding drunk Norwegians than sober ones, the former often using a more slurred matter of speech.
Grammatical differences
Prepositions
The main difference in use of prepositions in the Danish and Dano-Norwegian language is the use of i/på, (in English in/on. In many cases the rules are the same, but there are still many exceptions. For example if you were to say I'm going out (as in out to a bar or a disco) you would say in Dano-Norwegian Jeg går på byen (literally I go on the city) but in Danish you would say Jeg går i byen (literally I go in the city – in Dano-Norwegian, this sentence would mean I walk in the city, which it can mean in Danish, too).
Another difference is the use of the definite endings. In Danish, the definite ending is used similarly to the definite article in English, so that I love that man becomes Jeg elsker den mand. In Norwegian, the definite article is still used even if a specific example is already indicated with den (that): I love that man becomes Jeg elsker den mannen in Norwegian, literally I love that the man.
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