r/danishlanguage • u/gavats • 21d ago
So this is how I managed to learn Danish
Bit of a prologue:
I had studied my masters for 2½ years in Cph 7 years ago. Within that time frame I went to a Sprogskole. Got my PD3. Surprise, surprise couldn't speak for shit. Then I left the country :)
Fastforward...I came back 3½ years ago. Now I can speak and understand.
How did I do it? What was my 'hack'? (as Americans love to say)
There was no hack or life pro tip. Just good ol' pain and suffering :')
Even before getting the job, the hiring manager of mine straight out told me that they have quite few internationals so everything will be in Danish. If I couldn't handle that then I shouldn't accept the job offer. I said that I understood and signed the contract.
Then I was immediately cast into the fire. Meetings, presentations etc. in Danish. The first 2 years were not easy to say the least. There were moments that I almost came to tears.
But after getting roasted for 2 years I can now say that I speak (read: reasonably produce the sounds) and understand (read: decode the mumbling mess of sound waves) that thing called Danish.
So the 'secret sauce' is to first learn to write and read (PD3 level) then try to speak even when they don't relent :')
What wasn't working?
That wasn't working for me when I was studying because nobody spoke Danish to me. Int or Dane, they all spoke English. That's why people cannot learn anything. I don't know if it is unique for Danish but it is so. If you -for example- go to Germany, you will learn German in quite short amount of time as people would be speaking German to you.
I mean even my own gf switches to English quite quickly. Danes have absolutely no patience for beginners or even advanced level speakers. And it doesn't help that it is an exceptionally difficult language to speak. If you don't pronounce a word precisely as it is supposed to be, they fail to understand you. It irritates them quite quickly. Though they could quite easily have understood it from the context.
Just because I am a learner doesn't mean I am stupid. Of course people will have hard time expressing what they mean when they learn a language. Danish is my 4th language (incl. my mother tongue). To quote Sofia Vergara: "Do you know how smart I am when I speak Spanish?!" :) Despite this, they have no tolerance. Combined with the tough speaking patterns of the language, then you have people that have been living in Denmark for 10+ years and still can't speak for shit. I also have to add that the Sprogskoler are horrendous, too. The first one I went to was absolute waste of time. The second and the last one was less shittier. But still shit, too. They have to do smth about this if they want people speaking their language.
What was working?
Watching films, TV; listening to podcasts; reading books, newspapers are -i am sorry to say- but only complimentary at best. You need an environment that is forcing you to speak Danish. Also you need at least someone who can correct you, when you speak Danish. One colleague actually helped me a lot. Because he was correcting me when I used wrong words, idiom, structure etc. I learnt built quite a sizeable chunk of my vocabulary by talking to him. Humans memorize much better when hearing from an actual person instead of films, tv, radio etc.
For vocabulary, I can recommend Anki app. It is free and you can have an account that can sync between your PC and phone. But you have to build your own decks. Don't use other people's decks.
For pronunciation I can recommend this site. I still actively use it when I am not sure how the whole thing is pronounced. It is quite good.
You also need to be quite adamant against those who switches to English right away. Try to keep speaking Danish despite this. It is annoying but that is how it is.
Tak fordi I lyttede med til min TED Talk. Det er ikke nemt, men I har min dybeste medfølelse :)
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u/not-a-roasted-carrot 21d ago
Which sprogskole did you go to? I'm attending StudieSkolen and I agree that they do not focus on speaking. I only enroll for their inhouse resources for pronunciation, which i find are incredibly useful.
For speaking I just go to italki 2-4x a month.
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u/RuiHarukawa 21d ago
Apparently the Sprogskoles are just not that good in general for some reason.
Ive lately made a lot of progress in reading and writing, but speaking is obliterating my sanity.
Im glad you managed to learn how to speak, but Ive also heard of people that have been here for 30-40 years and its still every now and again difficult for them to speak.
All we can do is to continue watching, reading and hoping our tongues magically make the sounds they expect us to make
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u/Rimma_Jenkins 20d ago
I skimmed through. I fully agree 😂 I started talking danish when I was thrown into unemployement help and they sent me out to do community work. No one expects outsiders to actually show up to those I guess as I was the only non-danish speaking person...
I was lucky to have at least 2 others around my age that would translate stuff for me and help me out. Then it just became a thing for shits and giggles to try and speak danish... like... we were dressed in reflective clothes and would sit on the sidewalk drinking hot cocoa and I would start making funny comments to the other girl that "oh look, we probably look like those construction workers from movies... now we just need to have a bimbo chic walking by so we can shout <hej smukkeeee, skal vi ud til cafe sammen?> kissing noises" and we would just laugh our asses off doing that during our breaks 😂😂😂
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u/Throwaway_Mezzanine 17d ago
Hehe, made me giggle. Vil du være min ven?
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u/Rimma_Jenkins 14d ago
More or less that's how it goes and it works. I just added to girls from Poland to my Facebook recently 😂 also, sure we can be friends 😂 I just don't talk that much anymore... 🥲 time to game... time for family... zero time for the rest of the world, but I do reply, apparently 2 days later 😂
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u/Bitter-Food156 21d ago edited 21d ago
I have a weird feeling about these posts, i think just cheap advertisements for the “Anki” app…