Is Danish Hard for English Speakers?

Like all Scandinavian languages, Danish is quite accessible to English speakers and can be learned without too much effort in a relatively short period of time. Nevertheless, there are some challenges. Words are sometimes very difficult to pronounce, and numbers are based on a completely different system. Let's look at this in more detail.

A Lot of Vocabulary in Common

One of the biggest advantages for English speakers is the vocabulary. English and Danish both belong to the Germanic language family, which means they share many words and linguistic patterns.

As you begin learning Danish, you'll often encounter words that look or sound familiar. This helps learners build their vocabulary much more quickly.

Grammar

Compared with many other European languages, Danish grammar is relatively straightforward, although there are a few challenging aspects.

Danish has grammatical genders and definite articles, which means learners need to memorize whether a noun belongs to one gender or the other. Danish has two grammatical genders: common gender and neuter gender. Common-gender nouns use en, while neuter nouns use et.

en bil – a car

et hus – a house

Unlike English, the definite article is attached to the end of the noun:

en bog → bogen (the book)

et hus → huset (the house)

Fortunately, the system is simpler than in many other languages, since the majority of nouns belong to the common gender and only about 20–25% are neuter nouns.

Plural forms in Danish are generally not very difficult, but they are not completely regular. While many nouns form the plural by adding -er, several other patterns also exist. Some nouns take -e, others take no ending at all, and a few undergo vowel changes.

en bil → biler (cars)

en uge → uger (weeks)

en stol → stole (chairs)

et år → år (years)

Verb conjugation

Verb conjugation is another area where Danish is learner-friendly. Forming the present tense is simple and consistent. In most cases, the present tense is formed by adding -r:

at tale (to speak) becomes taler (speak/speaks)

Pronunciation Is the Main Problem

Danish pronunciation has a reputation for being notoriously difficult. In fact, Swedes often joke that Danes sound as if they are speaking with a potato in their mouths.

There is some truth to the joke. Danish contains numerous sounds that do not exist in English, and many letter combinations are pronounced in unusual ways. As a result, words are often spoken quite differently from how they are written.

Danish also has a large number of vowel sounds—between 20 and 30 according to most estimates, and as many as 40 according to some linguists—far more than English.

Another challenge is the famous stød, a type of glottal stop that can change the meaning of words and is unfamiliar to most English speakers.

Here is an example of what Danish sounds like:

Pigen spiser en pølse i Københavns havn

"The girl is eating a sausage in Copenhagen Harbour."

Numbers Come Straight Out of Hell

Just when you think you've mastered the basics, Danish numbers arrive to test your sanity.

The Danish numbering system is based on an old vigesimal (base-20) structure, which can seem completely irrational to newcomers who are more accustomed to the decimal (base-10) system.

The numbers from 20 to 40 are straightforward:

20 – tyve

30 – tredive

40 – fyrre

But then things become strange:

50 – halvtreds

60 – tres

70 – halvfjerds

80 – firs

90 – halvfems

For example:

57 = syvoghalvtreds (seven and fifty)

84 = fireogfirs (four and eighty)

Fortunately, once you understand the logic behind the system and get enough exposure to it, even the numbers start to make sense.