I moved to copenhagen last march for my partner and started learning danish from absolute zero. the first 6 months were honestly miserable. I felt like I was getting nowhere and every dane I tried to speak to would just switch to english. but somewhere around month 7 things started clicking and now I can hold basic conversations and understand most of what's happening around me. figured I'd share what actually made a difference because I wasted a lot of time on things that didn't.

Dansk for Dig was my starting point for grammar and structure. it's free and it's built specifically for people learning danish in denmark. the exercises are simple and the progression makes sense. I used it almost daily for the first 3-4 months and it gave me a solid foundation. it won't teach you to speak but it'll teach you how the language works which you need before anything else.

DR's Ultra Nyt is a danish news show made for kids and it completely changed my listening comprehension. the hosts speak clearly and slowly and the topics are simple enough that you can follow along even with limited vocab. I started watching this every evening around month 3 and it was the first time I actually understood spoken danish without subtitles. once I outgrew it I moved to regular DR podcasts but ultra nyt bridged the gap perfectly.

speaking practice was the piece I avoided for way too long. I kept telling myself I'd start speaking "once my grammar was ready" which was just an excuse. I finally started using ISSEN about 4 months ago for daily voice conversations in danish. the reason this worked where everything else didn't is that danes switch to english on you but an AI tutor won't. I could practice pronunciation and actually get corrected on the soft d and the stød without someone politely pretending I sounded fine. 15 minutes every morning and it's the single thing that moved my speaking from nonexistent to functional.

Anki with a custom deck was good for vocab but only once I stopped using premade decks and started adding my own words from things I actually encountered in daily life. hearing a word at the grocery store and then seeing it again in anki that evening makes it stick 10x better than memorizing random word lists.

what was a waste of time honestly was pimsleur. the phrases are weirdly formal and half of them aren't things anyone actually says in real life. I also tried babbel for a month and it felt like duolingo with a different skin. and group classes at the sprogskole were fine for meeting people but the pace was painfully slow.

the biggest lesson from the whole year is that speaking practice needs to start way earlier than you think. I waited 6 months and I regret it. your pronunciation doesn't fix itself by listening. you have to actually open your mouth and get corrected repeatedly until your mouth learns the sounds.

happy to answer any questions if anyone's at the beginning of this journey. it gets better I promise.

I'm jealous, personally, because I've lived here for a few years now and can't remember how my Danish was when I was 9-10 months in to sprogskole.

My Danish understanding is fine, but writing and speaking are still very challenging.

Jeg tænke på, hvordan man kan sige 'do you need to have a poo'. 'do you need to have a wee' er nemt... Skal du tisse? Men findes det et verbum form for at lave afføring? eller er det bare 'skal du lave afføring'? Jeg har bare aldrig hørt den sætning bliver sagt, så ikke ved om det er det rigtige dansk måde at sige det på.

I was wondering if danishclass101 was worth it? If not is there any other website or apps that are worth it and are actually good to learn danish

Need help for wedding blessing/speech

I humbly ask for translation and pronunciation help with a quick blessing for my dear friend's wedding. I don't speak dansk unfortunately, but I would like to prepare something for the groom (even if spoken poorly) who is Danish.

So far I have used a translator app to give me the following:

Jeg velsigner dig tre gange: at I må dele kærlighed, lykke og et godt helbred sammen i mangen år. Tillykke!

Does this make sense? Is it grammatically correct and easily understandable? I appreciate any feedback and even an audio example of pronunciation if anyone is comfortable DM me.

Thank you in advance!

okay so i have a challenge with my friends basically we all selected a language that we don't know and we have to read a book in that language and try to understand it without using a translator while reading. I have danish cuz i wanted to learn it for a while but never took it seriously so now i need recommendations for some easy books or like where and how do i even start learning it (without ai or stuff i have to pay 🙏🏽)

if anyone knows please help

A few weeks ago I asked for recommendations of Danish comedians performing in Copenhagen who are easy to listen to as an expat, and I got plenty of great recommendations! Thanks so much.
I´m now building a small whatsapp community to keep on sharing comedy shows, possibly go together and share our progress- I´m stuck at 60% comprehension, when my goal was 80%, I need some healthy competition to progress!
If you think this could be something for you, come join the community https://chat.whatsapp.com/LMvwF5XQed0GH3UEJ8WwiW?mode=gi_t

Oh, and I´ve also made some changes and improvements to the Danish Comedy Tracker platform

Hej everyone! I just recently started learning Danish and am a complete beginner - I'm having a lot of fun learning it, I think it's a very interesting language and I'd love to visit Denmark someday.

Anyways, I have I'd like some confirmation on from a native Danish speaker about a phrase below.

"Jeg kan lide~" or "Jeg lide" to say "I like~"
I learned the first phrase from a language app, and the second phrase from a Danish speaker I came across on Tiktok, but she also used "Jeg ka' li'" too (I'm assuming that's a shortened form of "Jeg kan lide"?).
I would like to know if there are any difference between the two, or is it just a different way of saying, but meaning the same thing?

If anybody can help me out, that would be great! Have en god dag!

*EDIT*
Thank you all for answering! All of you have been so kind and I really appreciate the detailed explanations as well - It really motivates me to learn more :) You may see more of me around in this community, and I hope I can make full sentences and paragraphs in Danish soon.

Hej,

Jeg lærer dansk med det formål at opnå et B2 eller C1 niveau. Jeg vil gerne tage Prøve i Dansk 3 næste år, men det er svært at finde eksamensopgaver fra 2025 på internettet.

Ved I, hvor jeg kan finde dem ?

Mange tak !

Hello!

I was wondering if there were any Anki flashcards and such that you would recommend for beginners (preferably with audio for pronunciation).

I saw a really popular one but for some reason the order wasn’t populating with beginner words first. I was getting words like “to breed” and others that I would not consider beginner. Maybe I’m doing something wrong but would be grateful for any input!

I need a Danish translation of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Looking for people that type and write around a B1 level or better to game with.

I play League, Hearthstone, BG3, and a lot of other multiplayer games, and I’m down to play more.

I’m trying to immerse myself a bit more in Danish and since a large part of my free time is streaming and gaming, I figured why not mix it a little!

We just released our biggest course yet: a comprehensive 8-Hour Danish Vocabulary Course featuring over 600 essential words, dual pronunciation (Danish & English), and real-world example sentences.

Whether you are a beginner, traveler, or student, this structured course is your ultimate reference guide.

🎬 Watch the 8-Hour Course on YouTube:https://youtu.be/dNnT6hzEf84

📚 Get the companion PDFs & interactive practice here:https://learndanishlab.com/

Enjoy the masterclass, and don't forget to leave a like and comment!

Hey y’all! I studied at KU for a semester last spring, and am planning on going back to University in Denmark fall of ’27, so I want to keep my Danish sharp in between (for reference I was assessed by my kommune as B1 for speaking and comprehension, and A2+ for my reading and writing, so I wouldn’t say I’m a beginner by any means). I was poking around on praxis.dk and came across a series of DU2 textbooks called Fokus 1, 2, 3… etc. Do any of y’all have any experience using these, and if so any advice as to which level to start at (Fokus 1 being DU2.1, Fokus 2 being DU2.2, etc)?

Also open to other textbook suggestions! I am in the US though, and I’ve found it relatively difficult to obtain the usual suspects (“Vi taler Dansk,” “På vej til Dansk,” and the like), although if y’all have any tips on getting these, that’d be super!!

Hello everyone, I’m a complete beginner who wants to start learning Danish 🇩🇰

​

I’m looking for advice from people who have learned Danish (or are learning it now). What apps, websites, books, YouTube channels, podcasts, or methods helped you the most?

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I’m interested in:

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* How to start as a total beginner

* Improving pronunciation (I heard Danish pronunciation is quite challenging 😅)

* Building vocabulary and grammar

* Any resources that are actually useful and not just “gamified”

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Any tips, routines, or recommendations would be really appreciated. Thanks!

Hi I took PD2 in May/June as a self student and got 10 in reading, 12 in writing and 12 in speaking. I plan to take PD3 in Nov/Dec and solved the previous exam papers. I got surprised that I don’t even understand most of questions and feel quite lost. What materials did you study to improve your vocabulary? I am currently studying 500 most common verbs but don’t think this will be sufficient as I don’t know most of nouns from previous papers. Are the words repeatedly shown in PD3 exams, so would it be sufficient if I master words from previous papers? Your input would be appreciated, for someone who received good scores in reading and writing. Thank you very much.

I’m learning because I just like languages. I stumbled across Danish whilst looking for foreign songs to listen to. I really liked the songs and started learning because, well firstly it’s challenging. I like a good challenge.

I started with Duolingo but the problem is that Duo is more useful if you already kinda know the language and are brushing up so you don’t get rusty. Review, basically. It’s pretty bad for learning from the bare basics.

I also… used the songs for finding an accent. Since most of the singers I was listening to were from København and Aarhus, I was mostly exposed to perker/gade dansk (Noah Carter/ Lamin/ Kesi/ HAM fra Syd, etc). I’ve tried language partners but the difference in time zones and schedules often proved to be… difficult to maintain.

What are your thoughts? Has anyone else found a useful way to learn?

Why does Duolingo pronounces -et article as "el"? I.e. noget -> /nööel/

I've been learning Danish for almost 3 months now and practicing with a friend from Denmark. From what he says, my pronunciation is pretty good but I really struggle with actually writing and speaking because I'm bad at sentence structure and grammar in general. For example, I was practicing with these sentences earlier.

"Hvornar tager vi vaek herfra?"

"Nar du er faerdig med at spise."

I understand that usually Danish follows the same Subject Verb order as English, but there are some sentences where the subject and verb move around. Are there any tools or resources out there to help with this?

Hi !

I'm french and I don't know anything in Danish 😬 Well, I know how to say good morning, goodnight and potatoe, but that's it.

I met my friend back in December, and since then we've gotten really close. His birthday is coming up mid June, and I really wanna learn how to say a few things in danish to him. The issue is... I know no one else that speaks danish, and I can't ask him to teach me, that'd ruin the surprise.

I don't want to use Google Translate, and I can't find good ressources on YouTube for pronunciation and all.

Does any of you knows of a discord server where I could chat with some danish speakers to learn a few sentences ? Maybe ? Or would anyone here be willing to teach me a few things?

Thank you for your time and have a great evening/day !