Danish Language Blog

”I’m a mink farmer from Hjørring [town in Northern Jutland]!” A man tries to impress a woman with a witty line in a pedestrian city street at night, just before the bars close at 10 PM due to COVID-19. She smiles – it’s early November, and Danish minks are suddenly the talk of the global…

Grammar – (quite) easy. Pronunciation – (very) hard. I sometimes wish there was a pill (or rather a caramel) Danish-learners could eat, and boom! they’d master all the vowel shades & stød and could concentrate on fun stuff, like poetry or Danish movies. In lack of a magical shortcut, let’s revisit the topic of long…

I don’t know if the TV series Vikings created a lot of Danish learners. Still, since it first aired (2013), many people around the world have become curious about the fierce Scandinavian warriors. No, you can’t chat to them. But 2020 Danish wouldn’t be there without their input, so let’s grab a glass of mjød…

If you ever tried coding, you may have come across ”if-then-else” (if X happens then Y should happen, else Z should happen). If you haven’t, no worries – you can probably get along for a long while without any if-clauses… But if I were you, I’d still take a look at the little word in…

Danish has two aspects that makes it particularly hard for learners: 1. The sounds, which Danish (!) poet Benny Andersen compared to havregrød i kog (boiling oatmeal porridge). 2. The Danish humour and culture, which is embedded in the language. Where else in the world can you say that something costs ”a dog” (en hund)…

Tøj skaber folk (clothes create people), as the saying goes. Here are some handy words to get you covered fra top til tå (from top to toe). No matter how much the sun might scorch you from the big blue sky, only a few beaches in Denmark will allow you to walk around nøgen (naked)…

100 years ago, the northernmost part of Germany became Danish – once again. To loud cheers, king Christian X rode his white horse across the old grænse (border) to claim his new land, July 10th 1920. What’s the fuss all about? Away from the border region, many Danes don’t really know – but the celebration…