![]() ![]() You’ve probably heard many times that language learning is all about practicing speaking. So listen carefully to the rhythm of the language and imitate it when you speak. From my own experience, intonation is far more important to be understood. Don’t stress about getting it perfect at first, most Danes will understand you even if you don’t pronounce it 100 percent correctly. ![]() It’s somewhere in the middle of an English and an sound, best practiced with friends in a local Danish bar (with a couple of beers). The trickiest sound is probably that of the so-called “soft D” found in examples like Jeg hedder… (“I’m called…”), mad (“food”) and the famous tongue twister rødgrød med fløde (“berry porridge with cream”). Luckily, most Danish consonants (including B, F, H, K, L, M, N, P, R, S) are pronounced the same way as they are in English, so you’re already halfway there. The main issue is that Danish is not particularly phonetic, but then again, neither is English (think about the different ways we pronounce in “rough,” “through” and “thorough”). It’s true that the Danish language has many different vowels and that the pronunciation is rather unintuitive at times. In fact, its pronunciation makes it one of the most challenging languages for English speakers to learn, especially in comparison to the other Scandinavian languages. Get A Feel For The Funky Pronunciationĭanish is often described as a language with difficult pronunciation. You’ll see how easy it is to remember all sorts of things, like vin (“wine”), mælk (“milk”) or the word æble (“apple”). This means that there are lots of cognates with which to start your learning! Try planning your shopping list for the supermarked (“supermarket’), for example. And modern English left its influence on Danish with words like elevator, computer and mobil. On top of that, the Vikings influenced the English language about a thousand years ago and left us with words such as “cake” (Danish: kage), “Thursday” (Danish: torsdag) and “knife” (Danish: kniv). Plus, English and Danish are both Germanic languages, so they’re quite closely related and they share a fair number of cognates. You’ll only need to learn just three more letters: Æ, Ø and Å. As an English speaker, you’ve learned the Latin alphabet by heart - and this will give you a large advantage by already knowing most of the Danish alphabet. One of the perks of learning a language as an adult is that you already know how to read. The Best Tips To Learn Danish Focus On The Similarities Whatever your motivation, here are my top five tips to learn Danish for English speakers. Have you always wanted to watch The Bridge without English subtitles or maybe order your danish in Danish (see what I did there)? Maybe you’ve fallen in love with Copenhagen or are moving there soon and want to master the language. ![]()
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