perceived mumbling

Modern spoken Danish has gained a reputation as being exceptionally difficult for foreigners to understand and master. The nine Danish vowels represent sixteen different sounds and most of the consonants are unvoiced. A unique feature is the 'stod', the glottal stop, used to distinguish between several homonyms and words. The Danes also tend to drop inflectional endings, and this perceived mumbling, even in formal standard Danish, may present problems to those learning the language.