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An interesting post on John Wells's blog about Danish:
http://phonetic-blog.blogspot.com/2010/11/danish.html

Do other people (including non-English speakers) agree that the "/ð/" sounds lateral? Based on the recordings mentioned in the comments, my ears do seem to hear it as (English) /l/.

Somehow I keep overlooking the said recordings mentioned in the comments, but here it does sound lateral to me when in coda position (between vowels I hear no sound at all or something like [M\]).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu15bzJYyGE

Go to 1:20.

On the basis of this video, I think it's just 'whatever approximant sounds most ridiculous to the opinion of the speaker'

Piotr wrote:Somehow I keep overlooking the said recordings mentioned in the comments, but here it does sound lateral to me when in coda position (between vowels I hear no sound at all or something like [M\]).

there's definitely something weird going on there with velarization or something; that sounds to me like [me@_^D_o]

I've heard other foreigners hear it as a lateral. My daughter produces a lateral for /ð/ in both Danish and Spanish. I think that the lateral sound comes from its being a lot more interdental (the tongue basically moves from an alveolar to an interdental approximant during production) and a lot more approximantic than most other kinds of /ð/.

I hear it as a lateral, but having spent time with a bunch of Danes this summer, I'm happier saying that it's an interdental approximant. It is more open than Spanish /ð/, however, which itself is more open than English /ð/.

Piotr wrote:Somehow I keep overlooking the said recordings mentioned in the comments, but here it does sound lateral to me when in coda position (between vowels I hear no sound at all or something like [M\]).

The recordings mentioned in the comments are at http://da.forvo.com/search/%C3%A6de/ (a recording of "æde", which my ears hear as similar to the English word "ill") and at http://widmann.org.uk/roederoegedeoerreder.wma (a recording of "røde, røgede ørreder").

The thing about the Danish /ð/, is that it also influences the preceding vowel. Icelandic <með> and Danish <med> do not sound alike, because the /ð/ does something to the <e>, which I don't know the phonological name of, in Danish, which doesn't happen in Icelandic.

Skomakar'n wrote:The thing about the Danish /ð/, is that it also influences the preceding vowel. Icelandic <með> and Danish <med> do not sound alike, because the /ð/ does something to the <e>, which I don't know the phonological name of, in Danish, which doesn't happen in Icelandic.

I thought the thing about the Danish /ð/ was that it had weird articulation. Of course, the two may well be related.

Skomakar'n wrote:The thing about the Danish /ð/, is that it also influences the preceding vowel. Icelandic <með> and Danish <med> do not sound alike, because the /ð/ does something to the <e>, which I don't know the phonological name of, in Danish, which doesn't happen in Icelandic.

I don't think that is accurate.

Danish med is [mED] - but the reason the vowel is midlow isn't the D because we also have [me:De] "runners of a sleigh", [leD] "gate" and [le?D]/[leD?] "mean". So it isn't the D's fault that the E in med is lower than its icelandic counterpart. In fact I don't think there are any vowels that cannot precede D.

Another commenter on Wells's blog has given a link to http://fonetik.dk/dansk_udtale/oevelser/ (in Danish) which has lots of recordings of Danish sounds, including the "/ð/", stød, and the vowels.

This was mentioned by Wells too, but a lot of the vowels seem to me to be higher than their traditional transcriptions (and the comparisons to English vowels on the site Piotr linked too) suggest. E.g. the Danish short vowel often spelt æ sounds close to IPA [e], and more like English KIT than DRESS, in the recordings.

Danish high and mid high vowels sound higher than the Cardinal vowels to most english speakers I think. They did to Rory any way. There are also some tongue root action going on to make them sound higher I think.

Radagast wrote:Danish high and mid high vowels sound higher than the Cardinal vowels to most english speakers I think. They did to Rory any way. There are also some tongue root action going on to make them sound higher I think.

They did to me, yes, and apparently they also do to Wells, so I feel validated in my perception. (Incidentally, I think this is why Ditte is having a hard time distinguishing /e, E/ in Otomi.)

Wasn't there a video joking that Danish phonology is wacky that even Danes can't really understand it anymore?

no.

Rory wrote:yes.

LOL, I love that video...