The Danish Language - What Makes it Easy/Hard to Learn Danish?

In this video we will look at the peculiarities of the Danish Language.

Is it easy or hard to learn for foreigners, especially speakers of English?

What makes it difficult?

We will look at grammar, pronunciation and cultural aspects.

This is a good introduction to the Danish language, but it might also include things unknown to people already learning Danish.

Links mentioned in the video:

Mic's Languages
Speak it for real!

[Jeffur]

Been learning Danish since May 2019. Danish is easy to learn, and hard to pronounce....UNLESS you know about Mic's Languages haha. This channel has been so helpful to me, and other Danish learners I know compliment me a lot on my pronunciation, and I credit this channel for that

[bigshagger]

Danish is just a vowel pronunciation challenge disguised as a language

[bullshit]

Thank you for the video. My sister lived in Denmark from 1995 until 2000 and she speaks fluent Danish. In that time i think it was different, Danish people hat more patience for people who were learning the language. I think the reason why many people answer in english is because they just speak Danish and English and dont know how much work it takes to learn a new language and that you need to practice to get better. I am from Iceland and Icelandic is a very hard language. When a person how is learning Icelandic is speaking to me in Icelandic i never reply in english because i want to help that person to get better and he or she needs the practice to get better. You also do not need to speak perfect so that people can understand you. It has helped me to say in the language that i am learning "i am learning the language", then they don’t reply in english.

[whssy]

As a Danish- native English translator, the biggest feature of Danish for me is its economy of words. Generally word counts increase about 30% when translating a Danish text into English. Translating a French text into English usually means a reduced word count of about 20%. Part of this comes from the extensive use of composite words and the definite article of nouns using one word instead of two, but does not entirely explain the improved word economy.
Also, if it makes anyone feel better, the average standard of written Danish among native Danish speakers is pretty dreadful (personal pet hate is when people use "og" instead of "at"). It certainly makes me feel better about the mistakes I still make after living in Denmark for almost 30 years.

[barrysteven]

A lot of Danes (and other Scandinavians) are saying they switch to English to be helpful and because it's quicker. I'm sure this is true.
However, if it's the case of a newcomer living in Denmark trying to integrate and learn the language then switching to English is simply a passive aggressive way of telling them 'keep out, this is our language not yours'. And if it's not meant that way they should pause and think that it may be perceived that way.
Let me put it this way. Refusing to speak Danish is like having somebody arrive at a party in your house and at the door you say "Oh, don't come in. Wait outside and we'll all come out to you and have the party out here".
Letting them join in the conversation in Danish is like saying "Oh, nice to see you. Come inside, welcome to my home".

[lucasGomes-rfov]

There are not many channels that teach Danish and your's so good, so helpful! Great video and content quality. Thank you so much. Greetings from Brazil )

[pragmatastic]

Great video! Yes, I think English is the only Germanic language that doesn't have the verb as the second idea. You're spot on with what you say about the experience of learning and using Danish in Denmark. I lived there for ten years spread between 1990 and 2014, with multiple addresses across Copenhagen and in Århus and on Bornholm. Being from England, I was constantly 'Englished', and it was only through dogged persistence that I managed to get people to speak to me in Danish, even as my command of the language improved. There were even times - many times, actually - when I would speak to a stranger in a bar, say, for a good half an hour in Danish, and by that time they'd approach the subject of me sounding like I might not be from 'these parts'. With 100% guarantee, I always knew that the moment I said I was from the UK, the next word out of the Dane's mouth would be in English. Every. Single. Time! They'd then continue in English as if the previous half an hour in Danish had never happened. I was left thinking it was a deeply ingrained national identity issue: you're one of us or you're not one of us, as if it was: Danes speak Danish, and therefore non-Danes don't speak Danish. It was a daily fight, which is quite sad, really. And I'd studied phonetics and worked obsessively to get my pronunciation as accurate as possible. The hardest part of Danish is definitely listening skills, by the way. Danes typically speak with 'raised consonants' - just like in Friends, when Chandler mumbled on the phone to Joey that he was trapped in an ATM vestibule with Jill Goodacre. That's the freaky thing that so many Danes do all the time! I love the language - it's a fun challenge - and I love speaking it. Pity that I no longer live there. But I can still speak to myself in the language!

[blotski]

I'm English and both a professional linguist and a keen amateur learner. The old switching to English thing is a real pain for native English speakers learning other languages. It has been an incentive at times though. You know sometimes you HAVE to be really good to stop them switching to English so it makes you work hard. It's those countries where the people both speak English well and aren't used to hearing their language spoken with an accent or imperfectly which are the problem. I was struck by the comment below by the English guy who said he was speaking in the language for half an hour and then the other person switched to English as soon as he knew he was speaking to an Englishman. It happened to me in a bar in the Czech republic once. I did Czech as part of my degree and, all modesty aside, my Czech was much better than his English but we switched to English and I was too polite to insist. I just left pretty quickly. I've even been known to lie when asked where I come from. I tell them I'm Russian or Romanian and don't really speak English.
I do have a friend who lived in Denmark and learnt the language and she said on a one to one basis Danes would often speak to her in English but in a group they'd all speak Danish and she could join in happily.

[jasonfredensborg]

I think Danes will switch to English because it is rare for a foreigner to speak Danish well. It’s just easier to go to English rather than struggle to understand one another in Danish. I sometimes wish I didn’t speak English actually. As soon as people know you speak English, they usually want to practice their English with you! 😀 English is the Swiss Army knife of languages, basically anywhere you are in the developed world, someone will know some English. But with dedication, and attention to detail I think any language can be learned..endda dansk! 🇩🇰🇩🇰

[cachorromacaco-]

Mange tak for dine videoer! Jeg er fra Brasilien og har været næsten et år her i Denmark. Dine videoer hjælper mig meget🤠

[Inthemoongarden]

I’m Saudi, so Arabic is my mother language . Arabic is a very difficult language with a complicated grammar system. Naturally, my language of choice has always been English since my parents mainly communicated with us in English growing up. I, however, have always been obsessed with the danish language because of my deep love of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytales. When I was a teenager I wrote tens of letters for him and promised to visit his grave as an adult and leave them there. My father laughed at me and said “mockingly” what made you think his soul could read English. I vowed to learn Danish. I fell madly in love with everything Danish ? I even force feed my kids st.lucia saffron buns 😂😂. I’m 36 and I just started fulfilling my dream of learning Danish, I figured it can’t be more difficult than Arabic! It’s a beautiful language and I find it so elegant but hard to understand and mind you there aren’t a lot of Danes here to practice with 😂😂. Your vids have been a breath of fresh air, simplifying everything so I don’t feel dumb with my mistakes. I believe that the mumbling thing “ this might sound silly” is just a hygge thing! 😅 I think Danes are so relaxed that they refuse to be bothered by over enunciating and I find it rather charming. learning a foreign language is always a long process but it does not have to be a daunting task if you enjoy the ride and just don’t take it too seriously. Thank you so much for your videos.

[AlfredReinoldBaudisch]

I finally came across which is probably the hardest thing to learn in Danish, it seems like a secret code for native Danes only: the glottal stop / stød. I'd love a video with your way of explaining about it. The way you explained the soft D and R made it very easy to understand and replicate the sounds. But the stød has no logic and reproducible rule at all. How to understand and replicate this? "The stød has sometimes been described as a glottal stop, but acoustic analyses have shown that there is rarely a full stop of the airflow involved in its production. Rather it is a form of laryngealization or creaky voice, that affects the phonation of a syllable by dividing it into two phases. The first phase has a relatively high intensity and a high pitch (measured as F0), whereas the second phase sees a drop in intensity and pitch."

[jimattrill]

I used to visit a Danish family quite often in the 70s. They all spoke very good English, even the young children as they were taught it at school and wanted to learn, unlike my learning of French at school where I was not motivated. English has status in Denmark as I often heard them criticising others who did not speak as good English. I tried to learn Danish and can read it even now but the pronunciation and its rules were beyond me. I used to buy books in Denmark that were all word for word translations from English and then read them both at the same time. I do remember at the British customs where I had a book 'Pa veg mod doden' (sorry about the vowels) which was 'The road to dusty death' by Alistair McClean. The customs guy saw the Danish book and asked me if it was pornographic as at the time porn was available easily in Denmark but not in the UK. I replied: "would it matter if it were?" - my best reply of all time!

[mokuscsik]

Thank you for this. I've been learning Swedish and Norwegian for some time now and has never really had issues with pronunciation. I've recently picked up Danish too and, boy, I'm struggling. I'm from Hungary and I live in the UK, so I speak both languages pretty well and having Hungarian my native I'm used to weird sounds, but still, Danish gives me hell. 😎

[weldodss]

A swede here, learning Danish. I've spoken Swedish and Finnish my whole life and when I started learning Danish I was shocked that it actually was really easy to start to understand it when it's being spoken by people. In sweden when you mention the Danish language everyone goes kind of like ''porridge people'' ''porridge language''
It takes some time to learn it but when you have learned how the soft D works it gets so much easier! Great job, you're the only one who has actually helped me with my Danish, I appreciate it!

[kingmaekartargaryen]

Mic is a wonderful teacher. I did several lessons with him, and he quickly accelerated my progress

[ellelittlefield]

I’ve wanted to learn Danish my whole life as my mom grew up there, but never had to since all my Danish relatives speak English. Plus, they love to tease me on my progress. Really needed this to push forward. Thank you!

[ArmandoGarcia-xybk]

Swedes also tend to switch to English the minute they spot a foreign accent in one's Swedish or a second's hesitation before one finding the right word. That happened to me often in Stockholm at the beginning of my time there when I was learning the language ( I am a Spanish-speaker). However, I learned to resort to a trick: Whenever my interlocutor tried to switch to English, I would excuse myself, in my still broken Swedish, and say: "ursäkta, jag talar inte engelska, jag talar bara ryska och nu svenska". That did the trick! Fortunately, I never encountered any Swede who spoke Russian and wanted to practice his/her Russian with me!

[CarinaPrimaBallerina]

The best language tutorial I ever saw on youtube, not only in terms of Danish-oriented lessons! Very thorough and with nice explanations on the grammatical aspects between languages, comparing and explaining! And by thye way; I'm convinced that Danes tend to switch to English very quickly in order to accommodate the foreigner and also to speed up the conversation to make it run more smoothly. This also due to the fact that Danes speak English on a decent level generally.

[nikefixs]

I'm trying to learn Danish for about a month, and about a week ago I found your channel and started watching your videos, and they helped me so much with pronouncation and Danish in general, so just wanted to say to mange tak, and can't wait for your new videos! 🇩🇰🙏