Check out this lesson at danishwithemi.com

Not long ago I was asked about advice on how to learn Danish. I figured that getting started or figuring out how to get started can sometimes be hard. Either there’s too many options to pick from (usually when it comes to textbooks) or there’s too little. This guide is supposed to help you figure out the best way for you to learn Danish.

1. Old School Textbook Cool

You could start out by getting a hold of a textbook. There’s a bunch on Amazon if you search “learn Danish”. Or you could read my free lessons at https://danishwithemi.tumblr.com/ or https://danishwithemi.com/. Either options are a great way to learn the grammar.

2. App: Duolingo

A lot of people love Duolingo and it has a Danish course. What’s nice about Duolingo is that it’s not too text-heavy, so it’s easy to get started and built a good habit. And it has gamification, if you enjoy that!

3. Talking about habits..

.. building a habit is key! Set yourself up to success by creating an environment where it’s easy to get started on studying like:

having a textbook/notebook out on your table or carry it around with you

have study apps on your homescreen, so you see them whenever you unlock your phone

always have a website open when on your computer so that you can easily click on the tab and start studying. Even if it’s just one word!

set a time during the day where you want to study. Mornings before school/work/university works for me

4. App: HelloTalk

The app “HelloTalk” is great for exchanging languages. When creating a profile you pick your native language and your target language (e.g. Danish). Then you get “paired” with native people of your target language who wants to learn your native language. You can also write posts with text and/or pictures that people can comments on and/or correct. It’s essentially a social media centered around language learning. This is a great way to practice the language, learn about culture and get new friends.

A similar app is “Tandem”.

5. Read a book

Pick a book you find interesting (or have read before) in Danish and read it. Go through each sentence and translate every word and every piece of grammar you don’t know. Then move on once you’ve learned that sentence. You could start with mining through a paragraph or page a day. Then, once you’ve studied that paragraph or page, you reread it. As you progress further, you should notice that you look up less words and less grammar points.

6. Sentence mining

Sentence mining is when you add a bunch of sentences to a spaced repetition system (SRS) like Anki (Anki). It’s essentially a flash card system where you can have a Danish sentence on the front and the English translation on the back. What’s genius about SRS is that after you’ve tried to memorize a flash card you determine whether it was “easy” or “hard” to memorize. Based on this feedback, Anki will then display the flash card again after x amount of time. Here’s a demo if it all sounded confusing: Anki Demo

Anki pairs well with the previous point of reading a book. You can add all of your unknown sentences to Anki and study them there.

7. Immersion

Immerse yourself in the language. Immersion is great for building a good intuition of a language. I have personally experienced learning words and phrases by only listening to my target language. Immersion is also a great way to practice your listening ability so that you can eventually pick words apart from each other. All you have to do is listen. Your brain will do the rest of the work.

To immerse you can:

change your phone/computer language to Danish 

talk to Danish friends in Danish

watch Danish series and movies

watch Danish youtubers

read Danish books (tip: pick a book you’ve already read so that you know the context and story. This should give you an easier time understanding what’s going on)

listen to Danish audio books

listen to Danish podcasts

travel to Denmark

8. Live classes

Sign up for live classes! This could either be in your neighbourhood, online (e.g. italki.com) or even in Denmark.

9. Have fun

Make sure you are having fun! So pick a method that works for you. This should help you stay in the loop and keep you enganged. You like reading? Go read! You hate reading? Don’t read! Watch videos instead. Whatever floats your boat.

I hope you find something useful here! Happy studying :)

Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter where I post updates and more!

Yes! I am not sure what kind of content you’d be interested in and since there’s tons of YouTubers out there, I will just link to some popular Danish YouTube channels:

Illustreret Videnskab - a magazine about science. They have a YouTube channel with science related content.

Lakserytteren - a guy who’s super creative and makes a bunch of fun videos. I met this guy in real life and he’s super nice!

Morten Münster - a vlogger.

RobinSamse - a couple making gaming videos.

Astrid Olsen - a girl who makes fashion, beauty and lifestyle videos.

DR Nyheder - a newschannel who covers a lot of interesting topics from A to Z presented in a fun and documentary-like manner.

Hi Anon! Thank you kindly for sharing this story! It definitely brought a smile to MY face! And I am very happy to hear that you enjoyed the tips.

Interchanging words as a polyglot is definitely a thing. I do the same with Danish/English all the time without even realizing 😂 As you progess in your language-learning journey you might even experience, if not already, having dreams in Danish (I have tried this with other languages. It’s crazy, even though it was probably gibberish, haha).

Check out this lesson at danishwithemi.com

What is this? What is that? It’s your first question word: what!

Question words are essential in any language! So in this lesson I am going to teach you your first question word: what. These lessons on question words will be short and therefore (hopefully) easy to comprehend. After each lesson I want you to go and ask yourself (or your Danish friend/Danish language partner) a bunch of questions and answer them!

Question word

What = hvad

Example sentences

What is it? = Hvad er det?

It’s a pillow = Det er en pude

What is that? = Hvad er det? (note: the context is when an item away from you)

It’s a toothbrush = Det er en tandbørste

What is this? = What er det her? (note: the context is when you are holding an item)

It’s a magnet = Det er en magnet

What time is it? = Hvad er klokken?

It’s half past three = Den er halv fire

What are you doing? = Hvad laver du?

I am studying Danish = Jeg studerer dansk

What do you think? = Hvad synes du? (note: the context is when asking about an opinion)

I think it is a good idea = Jeg synes at det er en god idé

What are you thinking about? = Hvad tænker du på? (note: in Danish you are not thinking ABOUT something. Instead you are thinking ON something. On = på)

I am thinking about you = Jeg tænker på dig

Fun fact: English question words start with “wh”, where Danish question words start with “hv”. Reversed, almost!

Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter where I post updates and more!

Check out this lesson at danishwithemi.com

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In this lesson you will learn how to say what you like and what you dislike. In English you have the verbs “to like” and “to dislike”. In Danish it’s different. Grammatically, liking something in Danish is something you can do (to be able to = at kunne). To show you what I mean I will give you an English translation, but with the Danish grammar applied: “I can like candy”. In Danish the sentence is: “Jeg kan lide slik”. It sounds odd (in English), but it is correct in Danish.

Fun fact: the Danish verb “at lide” means “to suffer”, so it’s important to remember to say “kan lide”!

To like/dislike a thing

If you like/dislike a thing the structure is as follows:

Jeg kan lide [noun] = I like [noun]

Jeg kan ikke lide [noun] = I dislike [noun] / I don’t like [noun]

Example sentences:

Jeg kan lide katte = I like cats

Jeg kan lide sodavand = I like soda

Jeg kan ikke lide lakrids = I dislike/don’t like liquorice

Jeg kan ikke lide musik = I dislike/don’t like music

To like/dislike someone

If you like/dislike someone the structure is as follows:

Jeg kan lide [pronoun/name] = I like [pronoun/name]

Jeg kan ikke lide [pronoun/name] = I dislike/don’t like [pronoun/name]

Example sentences:

Jeg kan lide hende = I like her

Jeg kan lide Mikkel = I like Mikkel

Jeg kan ikke lide dig = I dislike/don’t like you

Jeg kan ikke lide Anna = I dislike/don’t like Anna

To like/dislike an activity

If you like/dislike an activity the structure is as follows:

Jeg kan lide at [activity] = I like to [activity]

Jeg kan ikke lide at [activity] = I dislike/don’t like to [activity]

Example sentences:

Jeg kan lide at danse = I like to dance

Jeg kan lide at spise = I like to eat

Jeg kan ikke lide at synge = I dislike/don’t like to sing

Jeg kan ikke lide at spille fodbold = I dislike/don’t like to play football

To love/hate

If you really like or really dislike something you can, just as in English, say that you love or hate something. The verbs are:

At elske = To love

At hade = To hate

The verb “at elske” (to love) is just a regular verb. Unlike “kan lide” and “kan ikke lide”, you don’t say “kan elske” or “kan hade” unless you specifically talk about being able to love or hate something/someone.

Example sentences:

Jeg elsker sport = I love sport

Jeg elsker min familie = I love my family

Jeg hader dårlig mad = I hate bad food

Jeg hader skumfiduser = I hate marshmallows

Check out this lesson at danishwithemi.com

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Is it mine? Is it yours? Is it Marie’s? Let’s extend on our knowledge about possessions and possessive pronouns in Danish. First, a quick recap of the possessive pronouns that we saw in Lesson 6:

What’s the difference between “min/mit/mine”, “din/dit/dine” and “dens/dets” you might wonder. Let’s look at the difference:

Min/mit/mine

Min is used when the object you are talking about is an en-noun (e.g. “en kat”).

Example sentence: Det er min kat = It is my cat

Mit is used when the object you are talking about is an et-noun (e.g. “et fjernsyn”).

Example sentence: Det er mit fjernsyn = It is my television

Mine is used when the object you are talking about is in plural (e.g. “bøger”)

Example sentence: Det er mine bøger = It is my books

Din/dit/dine

Din is used when the object you are talking about is an en-noun (e.g. “en kat”).

Example sentence: Det er din kat = It is your cat

Dit is used when the object you are talking about is an et-noun (e.g. “et fjernsyn”).

Example sentence: Det er dit fjernsyn = It is your television

Dine is used when the object you are talking about is in plural (e.g. “bøger”)

Example sentence: Det er dine bøger = It is your books

Dens/dets

Dens is used when the owner of an object is an en-noun. Let’s say that the object is a toy and that the owner is a cat. You could then say: “It is the cat’s toy”. But you could also replace the word “cat’s” with “its” and the sentence then becomes: “It is its toy”. Since a cat in Danish is an en-noun (en kat), the word “its” translates to “dens” (and not “dets”) in Danish. The sentence in Danish is then:

Det er dens legetøj = It is its toy

Dets is used when the owner of an object is an et-noun. Let’s say that the object is a garage and that the owner of the garage is a house (yes, this example is weird). You could then say: “It is the house’s garage”. But you could also replace the word “house’s” with “its” and the sentence then becomes: “It is its garage”. Since a house in Danish is an et-noun (et hus), the word “its” translates to “dets” (and not “dens”) in Danish. The sentence in Danish is then:

Det er dets garage = It is its garage

‘s

To show possession in English ‘s is used. For example: “It’s my mom’s car”. The concept of adding an s at the end of the word is the same in Danish. However, the apostrophe is omitted. The sentence in Danish would then be: “Det er min mors bil”

Example sentence: Det er Marias hun = It is Maria’s dog

Sin/sit/sine

Sin/sit/sine wasn’t part of the table above because they are quite special. Their grammatical purpose was already covered in Lesson 6, but for good measure I will leave the same explanation here:

In English there’s no difference between the pronoun used when the subject of a sentence is owning the object of a sentence versus when the subject of a sentence is not owning the object of a sentence. This sounds like gibberish, but let’s look at an example sentence:

He eats his burger.

In this example sentence you can’t tell whether he is eating his OWN burger or some other guy’s burger. This is something you will have to know from context of the sentence.

In Danish there’s a clear distinction between whether (as in this example) he is eating his own burger or someone else’s. Let’s look at the same example but in Danish:

Han spiser sin burger. (since the pronoun “sin” is used we can tell that he is eating his own burger)

Han spiser hans burger. (since the pronoun “hans” is used we can tell that he is eating someone else’s burger)

Sin is used when the object of the sentence is an en-noun (e.g. “en far”).

Example sentence: Hun besøger sin far = She visits her dad

Sit is used when the object of the sentence is an et-noun (e.g. “et æble”).

Example sentence : Hun spiser sit æble = She eats her apple

Sine is used when the object of the sentence is in plural (e.g. “katte”)

Example sentence: Hun kæler for sine katte = She pets her cats

I just wanted to let you know that I am still active. I’ve just been really busy lately. But I am here and ready to help you! Hopefully, I will write and release a new lesson very soon.

Let me know if you have any requests on lessons, vocabulary, etc.