Ordbogen A/S is an online education and language technology company located in Odense, Denmark. It is

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's largest web-based dictionary company, with more than 100 digital dictionaries and 1+ million article searches per day. The name Ordbogen means ''the dictionary'' in Danish. Ordbogen A/S itself comprises several products: Two dictionary sites, Ordbogen.com and the forthcoming international site Lemma.com, and two online teaching resources Grammatip.com (grammar and spelling) and Educas.com, (all subjects of the Danish school system, 1st-10th grade). Ordbogen.com, Grammatip.com and Educas.com are all aimed at the Danish market, whereas Lemma.com targets the international market with dictionaries written in 45 languages. As of May 2016, the company has grown to more than 100 employees (with the goal of recruiting 30 more by 2017). Ordbogen has employees spanning 15 nationalities, who speak 20 different languages. The company was awarded six consecutive Børsen Gazelle Awards (2008-2013), which are awarded to the fastest growing companies in Denmark.

History and Evolution

Origins

In 2001, Michael Walther, Bjarni Norddahl, Thomas Thomsen, and Jacob Hatt founded the company Cool Systems ApS. Their associated website, coolsms.dk became one of the biggest websites in Denmark at that point in time, with 266,000 visits a day. The website allowed people to send text messages online at a lower price than the telephone companies’ usual price. Shortly after the release of coolsms.dk, Thomas Thomsen and Jacob Hatt left the company. In 2003, the remaining founders, Michael Walther and Bjarni Norddahl, went on to change Cool Systems ApS to Ordbogen ApS, and later, converted to a public limited liability company - Ordbogen A/S. 2003 was also the year when Ordbogen A/S released Ordbogen.com - the first subscription-based dictionary website in Denmark, offering easy access to a high-quality Danish-English/English-Danish dictionary, edited by Jørgen Rohde, translator and editor. By 2005, the company replaced the previous dictionary with a new version tailored for web use, which was the company's first self-produced dictionary. That same year, Ordbogen also became strategic partners with the Centre for Lexicography at Aarhus University in order to publish their dictionary ''Den Danske Netordbog'' (Engl.: “the Danish Internet Dictionary”). A year later, in 2006, Ordbogen A/S released their second bilingual and self-produced dictionary, Danish-German/German-Danish.

2008-2013

During this period, Ordbogen received the

Børsen Børsen (Danish for "the Exchange"), also known as Børsbygningen ("The (Stock) Exchange building" in English), is a 17th-century stock exchange in the center of Copenhagen. The historic building is situated next to Christiansborg Palace, the seat ...

Gazelle award six years in a row. In 2010, Ordbogen acquired the online grammar teaching system Grammatip, and that same year they entered into another strategic partnership with the publishers

JP/Politikens Hus JP/Politikens Hus A/S (''House of JP/Politiken'') is a Danish media company. History and profile JP/Politikens Hus was established on 1 January 2003 as a merger between Politikens Hus and Jyllands-Posten A/S, publishing companies of the major br ...

, followed by the

Danish Language Council Danish may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark People * A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark * Culture of Denmark * Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish ance ...

, Dansk Sprognævn, in 2011. In 2012, Grammatip was merged with Ordbogen A/S. This was also the year that the online school platform Educas was launched. Educas had developed from Vikartimen, a teachers’ resource previously bought by Ordbogen A/S, whose name and concept were changed and further digitised. 2012 was also the year that Ordbogen became strategic partners with

Oxford Dictionaries Oxford dictionary may refer to any dictionary published by Oxford University Press, particularly: Historical dictionaries * ''Oxford English Dictionary'' (''OED'') * ''Shorter Oxford English Dictionary'', abridgement of the ''OED'' Single-volume d ...

as well as German publishers Duden Schulbuch and

Cornelsen Verlag :''There also were unrelated publishing houses in Stuttgart and in (East-)Berlin, and there is the (JAVG).'' Akademie Verlag (AV) is a German scientific and academic publishing company, founded in 1946 in the Soviet-occupied eastern part ...

, while 2013 was the year work started on Lemma.com.

2013-present

In recent years, Ordbogen.com has undergone significant development, and in 2016 many new additions to the staff were made. Ordbogen is currently in the process of expanding to international markets through their development of an international version of Ordbogen.com, the site Lemma.com.

Products

Ordbogen.com

Ordbogen's flagship product is Ordbogen.com which, due to its international collaboration, makes Ordbogen.com the largest dictionary website in Denmark. Ordbogen has more than 100 dictionaries including: *

Danish Danish may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark People * A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark * Culture of Denmark * Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish ance ...

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Cana ...

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...

Estonian Estonian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Estonia, a country in the Baltic region in northern Europe * Estonians, people from Estonia, or of Estonian descent * Estonian language * Estonian cuisine * Estonian culture See also

...

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...

And other dictionaries such as: *

Synonym A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means exactly or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are all ...

Orthography An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and mos ...

* Foreign words And also dictionaries within such fields and subjects as: *

Lego Lego ( , ; stylized as LEGO) is a line of plastic construction toys that are manufactured by The Lego Group, a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. The company's flagship product, Lego, consists of variously colored interlocking ...

Wind energy Wind power or wind energy is mostly the use of wind turbines to electricity generation, generate electricity. Wind power is a popular, sustainable energy, sustainable, renewable energy source that has a much smaller Environmental impact of wi ...

Music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect ...

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

Automotive engineering Automotive engineering, along with aerospace engineering and naval architecture, is a branch of vehicle engineering, incorporating elements of mechanical, electrical, electronic, software, and safety engineering as applied to the design, manufactu ...

Ordbogen App

The app Ordbogen Online offers the same services as the website.

Grammatip.com

Grammatip is an online educational tool for teaching Danish, English, German and French grammar and spelling to Danish elementary and secondary school children as well as to adults and foreigners. It is a dynamic product as new assignments are added to it every week. Users have the opportunity to suggest changes and edits, which Grammatip then incorporates when creating new categories and exercises. Grammatip covers several exercises such as: * Danish spelling * Spelling tests * Dictations * Danish reading tests

Educas.com

Educas is a web-based educational portal with thousands of exercises for all mandatory subjects and interdisciplinary themes for the public Danish elementary and secondary level school system (the “folkeskole”). The site is updated daily with new exercises. Educas.com and Grammatip.com are both online resources, and assignments are both given and completed online. Educas allows teachers to apply the site as a digital ”blackboard”, and several times a year theme weeks are held that combine school topics with current events. The assignments are searchable through the Danish “Fælles Mål” (Engl. “common goals”), which are the official competence goals for the different school subjects at different grade levels of the “folkeskole”. Folkeskole courses include: *

Mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

Physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

History History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

Lemma.com

Lemma is the international version of Ordbogen.com and is currently under development. It will offer dictionaries from Ordbogen.com as well as from publishers such as Oxford Duden, Duden Verlag, K Dictionaries, and

. Lemma will offer a lot of the same dictionaries as Ordbogen, but with such additions as: *

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

Urdu Urdu (;"Urdu"
''

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus' Places *Czech, ...

Vietnamese Vietnamese may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Vietnam, a country in Southeast Asia ** A citizen of Vietnam. See Demographics of Vietnam. * Vietnamese people, or Kinh people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group native to Vietnam ** Overse ...

Office Culture

According to their website, Ordbogen values creativity, flexibility, ambition, and responsibility: ”Here at Ordbogen we emphasise work/life balance and are fairly certain that our work culture defies the norm in every aspect. Need a brain break? Play fetch with the office dog. Challenge your coworkers to a game of MarioKart. Build some lego. Take 10 minutes for a yoga retreat in our yoga room. Blow off some steam at our ritual ‘Friday’s Bar’. Come skydiving with us. Travel the world with your team for a company conference. We know that our employees are the backbone of our business, of our success - and we make sure our workplace environment reflects that.”

Achievements

Ordbogen was awarded as a Gazelle company 6 years in a row (2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013) by the Danish business newspaper

. The Gazelle award is given to Denmark's fastest growing companies. A gazelle is defined as a company which: " ..has achieved a continuous growth in revenue or gross profit for the last four financial years, and which has, in total, more than doubled the revenue or the gross profit in the period". In 2013, Ordbogen set a Guinness World Record for world's largest dictionary, with a book measuring 4.62 m (15 ft 1.89 in) and 89,471 pages. The book encompasses the 46 dictionaries which were available on www.ordbogen.com at the time.

References

According to Ordbogen.com's own references, a great many Danish companies and media outlets have recommended them, including

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...

Danmark,

GlaxoSmithKline GSK plc, formerly GlaxoSmithKline plc, is a British multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company with global headquarters in London, England. Established in 2000 by a merger of Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham. GSK is the ten ...

Danmark, and the news department of the national broadcaster

Danmarks Radio DR (), officially the Danish Broadcasting Corporation in English, is a Danish public-service radio and television broadcasting company. Founded in 1925 as a public-service organization, it is Denmark's oldest and largest electronic media enterp ...

, which have applied Ordbogen.com for their translation and language needs since 2005. Other customers of Ordbogen A/S includes such Danish companies as: Note: original URL is live, but does not contain information supporting the list shown here. *

Maersk (), also known simply as Maersk (), is a Danish shipping company, active in ocean and inland freight transportation and associated services, such as supply chain management and port operation. Maersk was the largest container shipping line a ...

* Nets A/S * Skat * Dong E&P * Telmore A/S * TV 2 Danmark

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ordbogen.Com Online dictionaries Translation dictionaries Danish language