I learned today that there are several words for leave in Danish, so I thought I’d investigate.
Forlade means to leave, abandon, depart, forsake, quit, desert or vacate. For example: Elvis har forladt bygningen (Elvis has left the building).
Afrejse means to leave, depart or departure. For example, Jeg afrejse i morgen (I’m leaving tomorrow). Is this different from forlade?
Efterlade means to leave or leave behind, for example: Vi forlod Elvis i bygningen (We left Elvis in the building).
Overlade means to leave or entrust. For example: Overlad sangen til Elvis (Leave the singing to Elvis).
Løslade means to release, let, free, leave, allow. For example, Løslad Elvis nu! (Release Elvis now!).
Lade on its own means to let, allow, reload; or shed, shack or barn.
Do other languages have different words for different kinds of leaving?
The photo is one I took in Berlin Hauptbahnhof. You can see a larger verison on Flickr.
While I’m aware that ‘afrejse’ could theoretically be used as a verb I only use it as a noun. For the verb I would use ‘rejse’ or maybe even better ‘tage afsted’.
Like so: ‘Jeg rejser i morgen’ or ‘Jeg tager afsted i morgen’.
The difference being that ‘rejse’ indicates a long journey and given that Denmark is a small country that means going abroad, whereas ‘tage afsted’ could be the start of any trip; maybe I’m going to the shop or maybe I’m going to Tokyo.
On a different note.
Here in Finland we have announcements in English on the train stations, so you might hear something like this: “The train to Turku leaves from track 2”. This annoys me because I would have said “The train to Turku departs from platform 2”. I’m I wrong?
In the UK, announcements on railway stations usually refer to trains departing rather than leaving. For example, “The next train to depart from platform 3 is the 10:17 to …”. Or sometimes they just use from: “The next train from platform 9 3⁄4 is the Hogwarts Express”.
I think I’d be more likely to say “The train to Turku leaves from track 2” than the version with “departs”, but I also think I’d more likely expect “…departs…” from a train station announcement. So the version with “leaves” doesn’t sound wrong to me at all, but it’s maybe a little less official-sounding or something. (I’m from the US, for what that’s worth.)