Learning to Speak Danish— All You Need to Know
The Most Effective Language Learning System — 20 Mins/Day📚🇩🇰
I’ve tried every approach possible to learn Danish.
In this guide, I’ll tell you the only approach that works and sticks: the best, step-by-step and ultra-actionable strategy that will get you to fluency fast — guaranteed.
If you’re a consistent and can-do type of person, this plan will help you to really learn Danish studying as little as 20 minutes a day.
Who This is For 👇🏻
- You’re open for new and unconventional learning methods — we’ll go through techniques, software and ways of studying that will be novel for most people reading this guide.
- You’re systematic and consistent — we’ll go through an approach that it’s incredibly simple, but that requires you to be structured and persistent. You can’t “wing it”.
- You’re not looking for a “get rich quick”-type scheme — you’ll need to put the work day after day and week after week. (Yes, 20 minutes — but many people can’t even commit to THAT).
TL;DR // Summary 🔥
Danish is not hard. What’s hard is to focus on learning the language when you can easily — very easily (!) get around without it.
Don’t do group classes. Instead, study on your own with the following plan:
- (1) Grind Vocabulary. Do 20–30 mins every day of flashcards with full sentences (and ideally, images as well) focused on the ~2.000 or so most frequent words.
- (2) Don’t Bother with Grammar. Danish grammar is easy. You can learn it quickly as you practice with flashcards.
- (3) Once You’ve Vocabulary, Talk! Get one-to-one, private classes via Skype/Zoom and focus on speaking over everything else. Start with two one-hour lessons per week at least. If you can, take lessons every day.
- (4) More Flashcards, More Talking. Never stop making and practicing flashcards. Whenever you can talk, talk Danish — and insist to do so. Also — Don’t worry about mistakes. It’s okay to speak like a caveman, as long as people understand you. You’ll improve as you go along.
Repeat consistently for ~2 years and you’re good to go ;)
⚡️⚡️ Do you want to save this guide, and get unlimited access for later? You must click here to get free access to the guide and ALL my resources (videos, Q&As, etc.).
Why You Should Trust Me
Hi, I’m Mario — I’m an Argentinean/Italian living in Copenhagen. I came to Denmark to study at CBS, and have then stayed working first in startups, and then in Carlsberg and Maersk.
In Danish, I met my match: I’ve been ten years in Denmark, and it took me that long to learn the language.
It wasn’t meant to be that bad.
I used to think I was good in languages before I moved to Copenhagen. I got to basic conversational German in six months when living in Vienna, and then improved to B2 level in only one more year. I studied Japanese for a few years and passed a very tough exam.
Danish just shattered that self-belief. I went (and completed!) all classes, tried multiple approaches but nothing worked. I still sucked at it years and years later.
Looking deep, there were two reasons why my strategies weren’t working:
- You don’t need to learn Danish. Everyone in Denmark speaks English. It’s easy to down-prioritize. (And, as crazy as it sounds) If you study or work in English, it is easy not to be exposed to Danish at all. I occasionally went for one or two months straight without even hearing Danish. (It didn’t help most of my friends were not Danish). You need consistency to learn a language and that type of aloofness doesn’t do.
- Danish is a hard language to understand. It’s easy to read, but hard to pick up what people say. My (unproven) theory is that because of that you need a lot more vocabulary (vs. other languages) to understand sentences. This, in turn, raises the bar for when you can be fluent — if you need 2.000 words to be conversational in German, you might need double that for Danish. (Unless you’ve a good “ear” for languages. But I’m terrible at that — I don’t understand music lyrics even in my native language.)
BUT — Danish isn’t rocket science. I (finally!) got momentum when I followed the plan noted above consistently over more than two years. That’s all it took.
I’m fluent now, but still not perfect. I’ve a big vocabulary, but still shy away of very complex topics. There are a lot of people I still don’t understand, but that is also getting better. By the time you read this, I could be already fully fluent.
The Step-by-Step Detailed Plan — Step #1 — Build Vocabulary, en Masse
First, You Must Study Vocabulary.
Specifically, you must focus on learning — and doing so quickly! — the most common 1.000 words. It’s said that with 1.000 words you’ll recognize at least 75% of what you read. (Even if that’s exaggerated, it will be a high percentage.)
This is the most effective use of your time. I don’t get it why more language classes and courses are not built around it — but, alas, they’re not: most books/lessons will bundle words per category (regardless of their relative utility), which will make you learn words — e.g. “pink” — at the same time as more common ones: “white”. But “white” is used 10 times more often.
For Danish, the list of the most common words is here. (For other languages, just search for: “[Language] word frequency list”).
For illustration, to learn a thousand words could sound like a lot, but it’s a very manageable goal:
- If you study/learn 15 new words every day, you’ll be done with these 1000 words in just over two months. (Drilling 15 new flashcards per day could take you 20–30 mins per day, depending on complexity.)
- If you step it up and learn 20 new words per day, you’ll be done in only 50 days.
So — You need to let go of all those textbooks and notes. Word frequency lists are the “textbook” you need to use to learn effectively.
How Best to Learn Vocabulary
The best way to learn and drill vocabulary and learn those words quickly and effectively is with a spaced repetition flashcard app.
What Is a Spaced Repetition Flashcard App?
Spaced repetition is a memory technique that will maximize memory retention in the most effective way by “reminding” you of concepts at spaced — but algorithmically set — intervals. It’s a technique that helps our brains to remain facts: it exploits that the best time to be remember something is right before we forget it.
At increasing spacing intervals, facts — in our case, words — are more likely to be consolidated into long-term memory (and less likely forgotten). Notice the duration of each reminder is further in the future every time.
Thomas Frank has a good deep dive on Spaced Repetition — and it’s just one of many. Just Google “spaced repetition learning” and a lot of material will show up.
The Tool of Choice
I strongly suggest the open-source tool Anki. (Free for Windows, Mac and Android — one-time payment for iOS). Anki is a flashcards app where this spaced repetition technique is built-in: what you study will adjust according to what you — and you specifically — do and don’t remember.
The basic idea is that Anki shows you a flashcard right around when you will be about to forget that specific word or fact. This means that (1) you don’t waste time studying things you already know and (2) you do spend time studying things you’re in danger of forgetting.
Anki is probably the best tried-and-true way to download information into your brain. It’s an incredibly effective way to study. (I wish I would’ve learned about Anki when I was a teenager, but alas mid 20s was good enough still.)
This is how it looks — see left in English, right in Danish:
These are just a few examples. You should have hundreds of these cards. I’ve built a little over 2000 cards for Danish myself.
All the smart people I know use Anki. Either for learning languages, or coding syntaxes, or facts, or even the name and songs of birds. If you do Anki every day — and never miss — you can memorize anything. It’s the closest thing to the Matrix scene of learning kung-fu you’ll ever come across. It really works.
How to Learn the Most Frequent Words in Anki
Anki (or an alternative) will be your tool of choice to learn those crucial 1000 to 2000 words. There are multiple styles and methods on how to go around it in practice, and the below approach is what worked for me for Danish specifically. Other people suggest different approaches but everyone agrees that you need to practice with Anki.
(1) Learn With Sentences
From the get-go, learn words in context by studying full sentences instead of individual words.
This will a) help you prepare for speaking (as you’ll memorize expressions, things you would like to say, etc.) and b) serve as your grammar training as well.
Danish grammar is very simple (at least 80% of it is). I’m confident enough to say that with drilling full sentences you can learn grammar in the background without never actually “studying” it.
In my case, I do sentences in English (front) and in Danish (in the back). This means I see an English sentence first and then need to translate it (in my mind) to Danish in the spot. (Never the other way around). This pushes me to THINK in Danish. It’s active studying vs. passive. It’s harder but it pays off.
It pays off, as well, because I make most sentences be about things I would try to say in a conversation. I surprised myself time and again when I could recall (and use!) these full sentences in the right context when having a conversation.
If I get the sentence right — meaning, I can translate it correctly — , I click “Good” — and if I don’t, I click “Again” and it goes back to the re-study queue — to show up again later in the same day, and then again when it’s optimal after that.
In many cases, I just use Google Translate to create the sentences. I type what I want to say in Danish, and then Google Translate does it for me in Danish. The tool has errors but at this stage don’t worry about it. You can correct later. (You can pay a teacher or ask a friend to validate your Anki cards before you study them as well.)
🚨 Sounds Complicated? It could — and if it helps, I filmed a video where I walk you through how I use Anki in the every day. You can find it for free when you click here.
(2) Add Images For Tricky Words
If I keep failing the same card over and over — meaning, I can’t memorize a word or sentence -, I add an image to the card help out.
There’s something magical about images. It’s like a brain hack: we just remember better a picture than a word. (Interestingly enough, even if the picture is not perfectly in context). The more fun or exceptional (some people would even say, the more sexual 😀) the image, the easier it will be to remember.
In the best of worlds you would ALWAYS add images to your cards. Especially at the start. But don’t over-complicate it: a simple search through Google Images will suffice. (Another hack: when looking for images, search in your target language — in our case, Danish).
Example — Looking for “Ligeglad”. Hard to translate specifically, the expression gives good context:
(3) If a Total Newbie, Add Sounds As Well
Danish pronunciation is hard. (In my opinion, the hardest aspect of learning Danish). If it’s your first time exploring Danish, you’ll be surprised to hear that “Amager” (a part of Copenhagen) is pronounced “Ama”, or that “y” is pronounced like “u” and so on.
This is where Forvo will help. In Forvo, you have a pronunciation dictionary: collections of audio clips (which you can download!) from native speakers pronouncing specific words or short sentences. You can find a clip for each of the most common words and also add the to your flashcards in Anki.
(For reference, there are 30.000+ audio clips in Forvo for Danish alone. In the case you can’t find something in Forvo, you can also use ordnet.dk which is even more extensive.)
Note — I seldom add audio clips myself. It’s only when I learn a new word with a weird pronunciation e.g. “spidsfindig” that I add them to Anki.
(4) Then, Just Be Consistent!
You then need to practice and drill Anki cards every day. This is not hard. Unlike a textbook, Anki cards are something you can practice every time you’ve two minutes to spare. I’ve the app on my phone, and practice a bit in the morning, a bit after lunch, a bit when I’m waiting in line somewhere, etc. In total, it never takes me more than 20 mins per day.
I helps to make studying as “frictionless” as possible. I’ve only four apps on my phone home screen, and Anki is one of them. (Plus, I track whether I study or not every day — more on that on this video.)
Especially at the beginning it’s crucial that you never miss a day of studying. (Especially if you’re going with the ambitious track). If you do miss, you’ll have double work the next day — you’ll get all the cards you were supposed to review originally, plus all the new ones for the new day. This can quickly balloon. You should aim for no breaks until you reach your goal — e.g. to learn those 1000 words.
(I’m serious here. I used a similar approach for learning Japanese Kanji and for four months never missed a day. I was studying almost an hour a day and was absolutely terrified of how things would look if I had to do double studying even once.)
🎥 Off Topic — But in case you’re interested. I use a system called Lights to check-in that I do everything I say I need to do every day. I explain that in this video:
Side Note — How to Make Anki Cards
You should build your own flashcards.
You can download pre-made Anki decks. But I strongly recommend you NOT TO DO THAT. Yes, it’s a shortcut but you learn a A LOT better when you do the effort yourself. I can’t stress that enough.
😉🎈 BUT — If you want to start with someone else’s cards, click here to get access to my curated list of resources for FREE. (But, again, you’re much better off NOT clicking and making your own cards).
New Card Process — Step by Step:
I now do cards when I don’t understand something I read, or when I want to say something and don’t know how to do it. In the above case, I read that article’s headline in DR’s website and didn’t fully get what it meant.
I then add the sentence to Google Translate and check the output. In the above case I did Danish → English but I have done many cards with English → Danish as well.
I then go to Anki’s website and copy and paste straight from Google Translate. I want to add an image, I just copy and paste straight in there as well. Easy.
🤖 You can also uploads cards in bulk via a CSV file, or use Python scripts to speed up the work as well. I did the cards the old fashioned way above. You can click here to get access to the advanced resources.
🤓 ALSO — There are a ton of (mostly free) guides on how to use Anki. I just touch the tip of the iceberg in terms of what can be done. You can click here to get access to my recommendations.
When you expanded your vocabulary to 1000–2000 words, you need to take things to the next level: start to talk with people.
(Technically, you could go talking a lot earlier — but in my opinion you would be better spending the valuable time drilling vocabulary before actively working on speaking.)
Anki is GREAT. BUT being self-taught with Danish or any language is very (extremely) difficult. You need classes as well. This step is crucial.
Step #2 — Talk With Real Humans
Don’t Go to Group Classes
You can if you want — after all, you can meet friends, have fun, and so on — but don’t kid yourself: group classes are NOT an effective way to learn a language. It’s the same with Language Exchanges and the like. They’re fun, and, yes, you learn — but they’re not effective methods.
🔥 If you want to learn FAST, you need personalized one-to-one classes. (And A LOT of them.) Any other type of learning is slower and and ineffective in comparison.
Spend Time on Individual Classes
In 2021, you can do individual, private classes completely online with services as iTalki.
In iTalki, you can connect with Skype/Zoom teachers for your target language and book private lessons. You can get a one-on-one lesson for less than 10 USD per hour. (And it goes as low as 5 USD for Spanish, for example). It’s fantastic.
You can sign up with my link here, and we both get a 10 USD credit 👋🤑.
iTalki (and its alternatives) have some incredible benefits:
- Find a Teacher You Like — There are many, many teachers (even for Danish there is a decent amount), and you can take trial lessons with most of them. You can work through a few teachers until you find the right fit (or fits!) for you.
- (You can have as many teachers as you want — and to start I recommend you’ve at least two. That’s what I did.)
- No Commitment — If you don’t like a specific teacher after a few classes (and viceversa!), you can stop and find another one. There’s nothing that will “lock you in” with one or more teachers. (But— You can buy “lesson packs” for e.g. 10 lessons from teachers, and usually for a good discount, but you don’t need to).
- Design Your Learning Program — You can align with your teachers on what you want to learn e.g. practice for an exam, practice grammar, follow a guidebook, etc. In my case, I told teachers that I wanted to exclusively focus on talking and that they shouldn’t worry about my grammar and pronunciation until I became fluent enough.
- Ultimate Time Flexibility — You can schedule iTalki classes whenever you want. (Technically, when teachers are available). You can take them early in the morning, during a break from work, in the evening … When it suits you best. You can also change the timing from week to week. It’s very convenient.
- It’s Better Than Asking Friends. You don’t need “official lessons”. You could well ask friends to help you. After all, you should use every opportunity to talk possible, and if your friends support you it’s GREAT. I prefer iTalki vs. “lessons with friends” as I don’t like to owe favors and want to set my own schedule. (Especially at the beginning — so, when you’re not-so-fluent, chats with friends can be painful.)
👥 (To hammer this point: In 2019, my wife’s Danish was better than mine. (She’s also an expat). I decided to take two lessons a week to just talk and get fluent, while she said she didn’t want to and preferred the “friends approach” to get fluent. I went from caveman to decent by the end of that year and she made little progress — especially since it was hard for her to get friends to get on board for her “classes” after a few times. Better to pay up!)
How to Make the Most of Your Classes
- (1) Focus on Conversation. Don’t spend too long on grammar, pronunciation, details, etc. JUST TALK. You’ll make many mistakes and that’s fine. The whole point is that you need to force yourself to fluency, and the best way to do that is to talk. This is not a time to look for perfection. Be aware you’ll make a million mistakes.
- (2) Write Down New Words and Phrases. It will happen often that you want to say something but don’t know how to. In that case, your teacher will tell you how you say that. (Writing the specific words or sentences straight on Skype/Zoom or on a shared Google Sheet, etc.). Write that down and then move on. Ideally you discover two dozen words/phrases per class at least.
- (3) Make Anki Cards Out of the New Words and Phrases. If possible, do the cards the same day (or next day). But always before the next class. This, so when you meet again with your teacher, you impress him/her by using the new words or phrases in conversation — and you also get corrected if you use them wrongly. I can’t understate how important this step is.
- (4) Have Multiple Teachers. Start with two lessons a week with two different teachers. (If you have the time and money, do even more — i.e. I know people that take iTalki classes every day.)
- (5) To Start, Stick to 1-Hour Classes. It will take you a bit to get fluent — and a decent part at the beginning of the class to get up to speed. While on that journey I recommend to stick to deeper, one-hour classes. You can change to shorter lessons once your Danish is better.
📚🔏 —If you want a headstart, you can get my own (my teachers’!) detailed notes from my first ten classes. You can click here to get access.
Step #3 — Towards Mastery: More Flashcards, More Talking, Training Your Ears
The first 90% of learning a language will go quickly. But the last 10% is hard. It’s easy to be partly fluent. But you need a bigger effort to be fully fluent and have every type of conversation, .
The road to mastery/fluency is — surprise surprise (!) — more of the above approach: more flashcards, more talking. But we add a bit more of immersion to the mix.
First — You Need More Words
If you follow my approach, you should be able to reach B2-C1 level in six months or less. That’s good enough for most every day conversation. But the jump to C2 and beyond — to real fluency — will take double the amount of vocabulary, as per the below table:
Also via Stack Exchange:
250 words constitute the essential core of a language, those without which you cannot construct any sentence.
750 words constitute those that are used every single day by every person who speaks the language.
2.500 words constitute those that should enable you to express everything you could possibly want to say, albeit often by awkward circumlocutions.
5.000 words constitute the active vocabulary of native speakers without higher education.
10.000 words constitute the active vocabulary of native speakers with higher education.
20.000 words constitute what you need to recognize passively in order to read, understand, and enjoy a work of literature such as a novel by a notable author.
Second — Expand the Talk
I’m now fluent enough that I try to carry every conversation possible in Danish: in shops, on the phone, when going to e.g. the borgerservice, on the day care, when talking with fellow parents in the day care, etc. I only switch back to English when it’s a very complex/important topic (e.g. taking my son to the doctor and I don’t fully understand something), but otherwise keep to Danish.
I also still do classes. It’s not that often anymore — once every week, or every two weeks now — but still, I didn’t break the habit. I always learn new words or phrases, still now. Plus, at this stage I know my teachers well and we can have usually good conversations.
In 2021 I even started talking Danish with my wife. (She’s from 🇪🇪 Estonia). We talk in Danish especially when in front of our son, so he’s not so much exposed to English. (He’s getting Spanish from me and Estonian from her already, plus Danish in day care. He’s as you can imagine a bit confused with that already.)
Third — Danish Listening and Reading Immersion
Learning ACTIVELY — so, learning flashcards and talking — is the way to learn quickly. But it doesn’t hurt to add some passive learning to the mix as well:
Train Your Ear. Hearing/training you ear is the hardest part about Danish to me. I have made big strides on this with actual conversation, but added some passive learning to the mix as well. Specifically:
Watch Danish TV and Series. Ideally, watch programs that are spoken in Danish and (important!) have subtitles in Danish as well. You can find plenty and all for free on DR or TV2. For example, I went through the famous series Borgen and learned (especially) a lot of expressions and idioms that had never come up in my classes or reading. But there’s a lot more. Just watch something that you’ll find interesting.
Also — If you’re committed (as I am) you watch TV with Google Translate and Anki open at the same time 😀. You want to remember what you learned after all!
Read the News in Danish. I forced myself to only read news — even international news — from Danish newspapers. DR and TV2 are free, but there are more, though many with pay-walls: Børsen (for business), Berlingske (general), etc. If you’re going to read the news anyway, why not read them in Danish and pick up a few new words every time?
Hear Audiobooks. In Denmark, you can “rent” audiobooks from your public library FOR FREE with the eReolen app. It’s a very good deal. I tried, for example, finding big international best sellers I had already read — e.g. Mark Mason’s or Jordan Peterson’s books (I couldn’t find many others) — and try to go through them in Danish as well. You can do that you have the book in written version on your Kindle or iPad and the audiobook on your phone at the same time. It’s a fantastic way to train your ear while also reading something you enjoy.
Hear Podcasts. If you prefer podcasts, you’re lucky — there’s a decent selection of Danish language podcasts of all types: conversations, narratives, etc. and on multiple different topics. I got recommended, for example:
- Hjernekassen på P1
- 24 spørgsmål til professoren | Weekendavisen
- Supertanker | DR LYD and others in DR LYD
I haven’t hooked into any of these yet as to actively prefer them over the likes of Hardcore History, Revolutions or Tim Ferriss, but it’s good the option exists!
In Conclusion 🇩🇰
If you came here looking for a “get rich quick”-type scheme for learning Danish I’m sorry to have disappointed you. To master the language will take time and effort.
BUT — at least, the path I outlined is the most effective way to go around it. You can get away with 20 mins a day on average and still make a big and consistent improvement.
I guarantee you that the combination of (1) strategically studying vocabulary with Anki, and (2) a lot of one-to-one classes will work. It’s bullet-proof 👌🏻.
👾 If you want to learn more about this approach in-depth and get access to further resources for free, remember to click here.
Good luck! 🏋️
