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LEARNING DANISH

The seven stages of learning Danish every foreigner goes through

You've got your dansk ordbog, you've downloaded all the apps, you are ready and willing to learn Danish. Then you move to Denmark and reality hits. Optimism, overwhelm, delight and then over it: These are some of the emotions familiar to those of us trying to learn the language, writes Emma Firth.

Published: 31 October 2022 16:56 CET
Updated: 2 March 2024 06:19 CET

Girl with a textbook on her head in despair

How learning Danish can sometimes make you feel. Photo by Siora Photography on Unsplash.

Stage one: Optimism

You’ve decided to move to Denmark. You’ve watched The Killing and Borgen and can pick out the words ‘tak’ and ‘hej hej’, so you’re sure that within a year or so of actually living in the Scandinavian country, you’ll be sounding like Sarah Lund herself. You can’t wait to get started.

Tip: Hold onto the optimism because you’re about to have the shock of your life.

Stage two: Overwhelm

You arrive in Denmark, you’re overwhelmed by the next level life admin and you do not understand a word, not a word, of what is going on around you. You start to recognise written words while you’re out and about; ‘s-tog’, ‘gade’, ‘rugbrød’, but when you say them out loud, oh dear. You soon realise that you can’t learn Danish by reading it in your head. This is a language that needs to be listened to, at slow-speed, then de-coded, put back together and practiced. But you’re too tired for that because you’ve just moved country.

Tip: Enrol in the government’s free Danish language course as soon as you can. It will give you structure and motivation for starting to learn some useful vocabulary and vowel sounds. Duolingo and Google Translate are also your friends.

Stage three: Quiet delight

You’ve passed your first module of your Danish language course. You had a little chat in Danish and explained which country you come from, where you live and how many siblings and/or pets you have. This is it. You are going to be fluent in 18 months’ time (after Module 5). There’s tangible progress in your language skills and you are on your way to deciphering Danish.

Tip: Remember this feeling of progression and how good it feels because you’re going to have to keep it going for quite some time. Speak the little Danish you know, over and over again to gain confidence in hearing yourself make the sounds.

Stage four: Incredulity

You’re now half way through the language school modules. You’ve put hours and hours into learning this language. You know enough vocabulary to use in everyday life – it’s there in your head – you even know how to spell and conjugate the word. So why, when you go to say the sentence to the person behind the check-out, do they look at you in bewilderment and after another failed attempt, switch to English?

You start to feel like the hard work has been a waste, or perhaps you’re terrible at languages, maybe you’ve actually got an undetected speech impediment. The truth is, Danish takes a lot of hard work and practice to get to conversational stage. The vowel sounds are subtle and plentiful; the only way to master them is to keep speaking Danish.

Tip: Don’t give up – you know far more than you sound like. Keep talking Danish wherever you can and push past those awkward exchanges, which unfortunately have to happen in order to progress to the next level. Force Danish speakers to stick to Danish, even just for five or ten minutes, or mix up a bit of English into your Danish so you can keep to the general thread of Danish conversation.

Stage five: Reinforcements

The reason you can’t be understood is not you, it’s Danish. You realise that the language course alone is not going to make you fluent. You need reinforcements. You sign up to a language cafe, force yourself to listen to some Danish podcasts, start to watch more Danish TV and read some children’s books.

Tip: If you haven’t got a Danish person living with you, go and find one who will help you practice. There are schemes where a Danish volunteer can sit with you and help you practice speaking, or you can volunteer yourself in a local charity shop. If you have a cheerleader who reassures you that you can and will be understood, then you will get over that barrier many face after language school finishes.

Stage six: Breakthrough

You are being understood more than you’re not, you can read posters, apartment notices, letters in your e-boks. You are not so embarrassed by the vowel sounds coming out of your mouth and people are impressed you can understand a Danish exchange.

Tip: Don’t take your foot off the pedal just yet. Keep going with the podcasts, the TV and the reading because stage four can and will still happen, and it can knock you off your course.

Stage seven: Acceptance

Despite your breakthroughs and miles on the clock, you realise you no longer know what fluency feels like. You will never sound exactly like a Dane; there will always be new words or expressions to learn; there will always be someone who responds with a “hvad?” to what you’re saying. But what you now accept is that this is the case with any language and we are all learning every day.

Tip: The more you use the language, the more you’ll enjoy it. One day, you may even find yourself sounding like Sarah Lund, to the untrained ear.

Member comments

Anonymous - 2 March 2024 at 09:40 CET

Brilliant text! Frighteningly and humorously true. It’s not easy to speak as a seals do (aka dansk) but for sure it’s encouraging to be able to “small talk”. Borgen is good stuff!

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'Make it fun': How foreigners in Denmark help their kids become bilingual

For foreign residents in Denmark with children, the matter of bilingualism can be one that requires a lot of thought.

Questions can include which languages to speak at home, how important is it to you that your children speak your mother tongue, and how to ensure they are strong at speaking the local language – in this case, Danish.

We previously spoke to an expert about the topic, whose advice included the recommendation that “parent(s) should speak in their mother tongue and stay authentic”, and also touched on school options and technical aspects of language acquisition in kids.

Below is a selection of the overwhelming number of survey responses we received from our readers. Thank you to all those who took time to get in touch.

“My only tip is to speak your own language with your children confidently and consistently whatever people around think or say,” said Radu, a Romanian who lives in Copenhagen.

Radu said he has two children, a 5-year-old who goes to an English-speaking preschool, and a 7-year-old who also went to the preschool and now attends Danish state school. The children speak Danish with their mother and Romanian with their father.

“The Danish system and society are very focused on making foreigners speak Danish, but don’t let them assimilate your children while you are trying to integrate,” Radu said.

“We want them to be multilingual,” he said of his children.

“We think that’s the most beneficial for their development and understanding of the world. We also want them to communicate naturally with both sides of their family and not end up speaking English with relatives,” he said.

Born in Denmark

Silvia, who is Italian and lives in Copenhagen, said that Italian is the only language spoken at home between her, her two children (3 and 6 years) and their father, who is also Italian. The children were born in Denmark.

The children “go to a public Danish school and there they only speak Danish”, she said.

“We want them to be fluent in both Italian and Danish, and we know that they will pick up English very easily in school. Having three languages in the pocket will already be amazing, when it comes to languages, the more the better!,” Silvia wrote.

“The only tip is keep it clear, set a language for a specific context (home/school/family etc…) and keep it, it’s easier for the brain when you can contextualise your learning experience,” she said.

Alison, a reader in Aarhus, said she speaks “90 percent” French to her little boy who was born in Denmark in 2022. His dad is Danish and he attends a local Danish daycare, she explained. The parents speak English to each other.

“We want him to be bilingual, we see it as a plus and he needs French to communicate with French family members,” she said.

“For now we just speak each our language. We make sure to have books in French, listen to songs and watch cartoons in French to make it fun,” she said.

One reader who responded to our survey described the reverse situation – speaking Danish in a home in another country.

“My partner is Danish and she moved to the UK many years ago to live with me. We have two children. We didn’t marry and my partner and two daughters are Danish nationals with Danish passports and citizenship,” said the reader, Dominic.

The family plans to move to Denmark next year and Dominic, as the only non-Danish speaker, has now begun learning Danish. Both languages are spoken at home, he said.

“Mother speaks to daughters in Danish – I speak to them in English. When we all speak it’s in English. I am learning Danish,” he said.

“We have always used two languages. It was natural to raise our daughters with two concurrent cultures because that’s what they are – a mix of both,” he said.

Kelly in Aarhus has two children born in Denmark with one British and one Danish parent.

“We run one parent, one language [also known as the OPOL method, ed.] at home. We might have liked to have sent our kids to a bilingual school but the only one (in Aarhus) just closed so our only real option is to send them to a local folkeskole [state school, ed.],” she said.

“Have two language profiles on your streaming services so they can watch cartoons in both languages,” she tipped.

“Me and my wife came from Nepal to Denmark in 2017,” began Sapan, who lives in Copenhagen’s Vestegn.

“We had our first kid in 2019 and the second one in 2022 (in Denmark),” he said.

“Me and my wife communicate most of the time at our home in our native tongue which is Nepalese. This is to ensure that the kids can understand Nepalese language as well,” he said, adding that the children now attend Danish preschool.

“We are really careful and don’t want them to struggle with their Danish language so we help them with the Danish at home as well. Both of us have been to Danish language school. We allow only books, TV programmes, etc in Danish at home. We also help them to translate both languages,” he said.

“We want them to be multilingual so that they have multiple choices for their future”, Sapan said.

Moved to Denmark

Other readers, who moved to Denmark after their children were born, described the experience of older children learning Danish.

“I have two kids (9 and 13, today). We were all born and raised in Brazil. When we moved to Denmark, two years ago, they were 7 and 11 and were fluent in Portuguese and speak a little English,” wrote Luiz, who lives in Aalborg.

The children now go to a Danish state school where they mainly speak Danish, he said.

“It is great to see how they developed both Danish and English in the last two years,” he said.

“I had an amazing experience with the folkeskole. There, both my kids had Danish classes full time during the first six months, together with other internationals. Teachers were great and, today, both of them are attending the regular classes on the second and seventh grade,” he explained.

“It helped us a lot to watch cartoons in Danish (thanks, Ramasjang!) and often visit the library and borrow some books for them to read,” Luiz said.

Another reader said that she sometimes found it difficult to always use her mother tongue in her family setting in Denmark.

More than two languages

“We are German and American and moved with our children (son, now eight and daughter, five) to Denmark two years ago. Everyone understands both languages but when we are all together we speak mostly English,” wrote Cornelia from Copenhagen.

“Mum and Dad speak English together, but when the kids are there I try to speak German. Kids might answer in all three languages but Danish is their strongest now,” she said.

“Both kids are in a Danish environment. Son has some English-speaking friends, which is so important! I am having problems to maintain the German because I am now the only one here who speaks it to the kids, outside family and friends abroad,” she explained.

“We are trying to maintain trilingualism. Every language is an enrichment and will open future possibilities. We read books and watch TV in all three languages,” she added.

The highest number of languages spoken by children among our survey responses was four: Turkish, Italian, Danish and English.

Deniz in Copenhagen said his children, age 3 and 7, were born in Denmark to Turkish and Italian parents.

“Mom speaks Turkish with the kids. Dad speaks Italian with the kids. Mom and Dad speak English and Italian to each other,” he explained.

The children attend Danish daycare and school and “speak Turkish with each other when they play together. They speak Danish, Italian, Turkish or English when other family members or friends are around them,” he said.

Deniz explained that he preferred to bring up the children in a multilingual environment “so that they feel they are rooted in Denmark but they also feel connected to Turkey and Italy and communicate with family.”

“English is also important to communicate with everyone,” he said.

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