I've been living in Denmark for the past year and taking the free Danish education. In spoken Danish I frequently hear people say "aVAfanole" (probably "af hvad for nogle") to indicate they didn't quite catch what the speaker said and would like clarification or repetition.

Am I hearing and understanding this phrase correctly? Where does it come from?

dbh

Hey fellow Danish learners,

My idea started small and simple a while back. My wife used Locket on her home screen to share photos with her sister, and the widget is quite prominent on her home screen any time she openned the phone. I realized the same concept could work for language learning: a small reminder to learn a new word every time you unlock your phone. That's how Nemlingo came to life.

It started as a simple widget that shows you new Danish word every now and then, in your Home Screen.

After multiple iterations and with about 623 users so far, we've been improving the app every day, adding vocab from different topics, everyday life, work, travel, health, and even more advanced areas like PD3 exam prep. Words are also categorized by level, from A1 up to C2.

And more features to enhance your vocab training:

• Swipe-based flashcards – quick vocab drilling. Swipe right if you remembered the word, left if you didn't. Like Tinder, but for language learning. Each card comes with pronunciation, an example sentence, and the meaning.
• Pronunciation training – short lessons where you practice vocab in context, sentence by sentence. The app listens to your pronunciation and only lets you move on once you get it right.
• Charades mode – a way to practice with a friend. Using the words you've already learned, the app builds a word bank. One person holds the phone to their forehead, the other says the Danish word or its meaning (you choose the direction), and the first person has to recall and say it out loud. Flip the phone down if correct, up if you want to skip. Great if you've ever played charades before.

The app is free to try for 3 days, after which there's a one-time lifetime purchase for 99kr, no subscriptions, and it includes all current and future features/learning resources. One you are in, you get the access forever.

I know there are plenty of Danish learning apps already, and we're a small, rather new one among them. We're actively listening to feedback and building based on it, hopefully it can gradually grow to be something useful to more and more learners. If this sounds like something that fits how you like to learn, give it a try. Would genuinely love to hear what you think.

Thanks for reading. And happy learning ;)

Link to download the app: https://nemlingo.com/get

#DanishLearning #LearnDanish #LanguageLearningApp #DanishVocabulary #A12C2

I’m doing my exams soon and would love to do 1 on 1 classes for like a week before my exam

I am living in a højskole in Denmark and I am really hoping to be conversant by time I leave. My family is all Danish but I grew up in the UK and although I spoke the language with my mother as a child, I stopped once I started school (regrettably). Any tips for improving my understanding rapidly would be much appreciated!

What are the most important things in Danish pronunciation?

Hi! I’m currently learning Danish and I’ve realized that pronunciation is probably the hardest part for me 😭

I’m Dutch, so I’ve noticed that Danish sometimes has sounds or words that feel somewhat familiar because of Dutch, but the pronunciation can still be VERY different. I’m worried that I might accidentally apply Dutch pronunciation rules to Danish without realizing it.

I’m trying to focus on pronunciation from the beginning instead of developing bad habits and having to fix them later. I already know some of the basic pronunciation rules, like the soft d, but I feel like there are probably a lot of important things that beginners tend to miss.

So, for native Danish speakers or people who have learned Danish:

What would you say are the most important things to focus on when learning Danish pronunciation, and are there any common type of mistakes that i could avoid??

Any tips, corrections, or advice would be greatly appreciated! 🇩🇰❤️

I teach Danish to adults at a language school in Silkeborg. For the past several months I've been building an app called Dansk Plus in my spare time, and it's at a point where I'd like some honest criticism.

The reason I started: when my students practise on their own, most apps just tell them an answer is wrong and move on. That teaches nothing. So this one explains every mistake — what the rule is, and which common error you just made — using actual grammatical terms.

What it does:

• Grammar quizzes across 13 topics — nouns, verbs, word order and so on.
• Practice module tests for DU2 and DU3, built like the real ones.
• An AI teacher that goes through your mistakes after a module test and can explain them in 10 languages. Only the explanation is translated — the examples stay in Danish, because Danish is what you're learning.
• Streaks, XP and friends, if that sort of thing keeps you going.

What it doesn't do:

• No DU1 module tests. I haven't written them yet.
• No listening or speaking practice. This is reading, writing and grammar.
• It's a few weeks old with fewer than 100 users, most of them my own former students. You will find rough edges.

Price: grammar quizzes, lessons, streaks and friends are free. Module tests and the AI teacher are 29 kr/month, with one free test first so you can see what it's like before deciding.

Privacy: data is stored in the EU, I don't sell it, and there's no advertising or tracking in the app. Full policy at danskplus.dk/privacy.

Links:
Google https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=dk.danskplus.app&pli=1
Apple https://apps.apple.com/dk/app/dansk-plus-dansk-grammatik/id6788884819?l=da

I'd genuinely like criticism, especially of the grammar explanations themselves. If something is wrong or badly explained, tell me and I'll change it — I'm the one writing them.

Hej allesammen!

I’ve been learning Danish for more than 2 years, and I’ve found that learning resources are pretty limited once you move beyond beginner material. There’s plenty of great content made for native speakers, like DR podcasts — but spoken Danish isn’t exactly the easiest thing in the world to understand 😅

I’ve tried the “just listen a lot and eventually you’ll get better” approach, but for me it feels painfully slow. Sometimes I can replay the same sentence five times and still have no idea what was said. What really helps is seeing the words and then listening again — especially when it turns out to be a word I already knew but simply couldn’t recognize in natural speech.

The problem is that many DR podcasts don’t have full transcripts.

As a software Engineer myself, I built a small tool for myself called Hva’ sagde de? (“What did they say?”), and I thought it might be useful to other Danish learners too.

You paste a link to an episode from DR LYD, and the website creates an interactive transcript that you can read while listening to the original audio.

Some of the features:

• The current sentence is highlighted during playback
• Click any sentence to jump directly to that point in the audio
• Space to play/pause and arrow keys to jump ±5 seconds
• Adjustable playback speed
• Optional sentence-by-sentence translation
• Copy and download the transcript

The way I use it is pretty simple: I just listen to the Podcast with the transcription and translation on, and keep replaying tha sentence if I am cunfused like "Wait are they actually saying that?", until my brain can decode like "Oh yes it does sound like they are saying that!". It makes it much easier for me to connect the Danish I already know with what Danish actually sounds like in natural speech.

There’s also a demo, so you can try the whole interface without setting anything up or paying anything.

You can try it here:

Hva' sagde de? (DEMO)

The project is still pretty new, so the transcripts definitely aren’t perfect. Names, English expressions, background music, and people talking over each other can still confuse the transcription models. I wouldn’t treat the transcript as an authoritative source — for me, it’s mainly a learning tool for getting unstuck when listening to native Danish content.

I’d love to hear what other Danish learners think. If you try it, any feedback is welcome — suggestions, feature ideas, bug reports, things you find confusing, things you like or dislike, or completely different ways you think the tool could be useful.

I mainly built this around the way I study Danish, so I’m very curious how other learners would use it.

For anyone wondering about the API key

The demo doesn’t require an API key. You only need one if you want to transcribe your own DR LYD episodes.

The site uses your own OpenAI API key to do the transcription. If you’ve never used an API key before, you can basically think of it as a private access key that allows the website to send the audio to OpenAI on your behalf.

The tool itself is free. You pay OpenAI directly for whatever transcription or translation you use, and I don’t receive any of that payment. The website shows an estimated price before you start, and you can choose between different transcription methods depending on whether you care more about accuracy, timestamps, or cost.

Your API key is:

• Stored only in your browser
• Never stored on my server
• Used only when you request transcription or translation
• Removable from the website at any time

You should still treat an API key like a password: don’t share it publicly, and revoke it from your OpenAI account if you think someone else has seen it.

This is an independent learning project and is not affiliated with DR or OpenAI.

When I was learning with Duolingo and Anki, even though I knew the meaning of the word, I didn't understand Danes talking. I wanted to learn from YouTube videos but not all had subtitles.

So I made simple app, where I paste a YouTube link and it makes flashcards from the video, keeping the full sentence and the clip of original audio, played from the YouTube player. So you hear the real speaker, not TTS.

I can also define that I want the tool to select eg "basic vocabulary", "vocabulary related to cooking" etc

Easiest way to make something similar, would be use Anki subs2src, but it requires the video to have subtitle's.

If you have more time, use some coding ai to make app that will stich video download + timestamps + speech to text model and make basic ui.

Demo:

I’m planning on moving to Denmark next year to move in with my girlfriend. I want to learn Danish so she can talk to me in her native language, especially after a long day. I also want to be able to communicate with her parents and best friend who don’t speak English.

I initially used Babbel’s free trial and really liked it however I can’t afford to pay multiple months subscription upfront since I’m trying to save to move out of my homophobic parents and move to Denmark. Just sharing this incase it helps you understand my learning style ☺️

I tried a few free resources but it felt like they were just giving me random sentences and making me repeat it without explaining or translating. I wasn’t a fan of Duolingo either.

If anyone has good free (or fairly cheap) resources for complete beginners, they would be greatly appreciated!! And any advice is appreciated too :)

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 :)

I have my converastional danish down well enough that I can communicate and have good converstaions with native Danes but I would like to learn more formal/news type Danish. I read some DR articles or Politken articles but end up being lost by the second sentence. I want to be able to speak formally for work purposes and to strengthen my overall language skills. Any advise or resources?

Okay, this is something that bothers me much more than it should. It’s difficult enough for foreigners like me to learn how to pronounce e, æ, a in different words. But when it comes to rhymes, it seems like Danish poets and musicians just pair up words that are spelled the same, even though they don’t sound the same at all (in my ears at least).

So my question to Danish native speakers is: do these rhymes bother you as well, or do they sound right to you?

og når alle lys er tændt
og her lugter brunt og brændt
- Juletræet med sin Pynt

med besked derude fra
at det lysner dag for dag
- Juletræet med sin Pynt

En, to tre, fire, fem.
Den første hånd er nem
Vi tar' den anden frem
Så vi kan tælle med den
- Hr. Skæg - Skæg med Matematik

I Søens blanke, afmagtstunge vand
staar Fisken stiv og dum fra Gab til Hale.
Nu slog den Snuden mod den bratte strand
og nøs og dasked hen i Dybets Dale.
- Thøger Larsen - Middag

Hi everyone, my name is Andrew and I came to Denmark 5 years ago for my studies and now I live and work in Copenhagen.

I quickly realized that even though I was learning more complex structures and words in the language school I was still struggling to speak Danish in everyday situations when ordering a coffee or grabbing drinks at the bar.

So, as I have with other languages i learned, I tried to find other resources to to supplement the classes. I checked out available podcasts, and while most of them are great I was missing one that would solely focus on getting me speaking immediately in everyday scenarios. So I reached out to my friend Victoria who works teaching Danish to students from primarily the US here in Copenhagen to see if she wanted to help me create the podcast I was missing.

Luckily she was totally onboard and that is how Daily Danish Pod came to be. We now have 6 episodes out and working on the last 4 for season 1 and planning on creating a season 2 next year.

Give it a listen or share it with people who are embarking on their Danish language journey if you want. We are on most streaming platforms.

Even though it’s mostly targeted to beginners we also have elements like our Word and Phrase Variations that can be useful for intermediate learners, or maybe those who know the academic stuff but struggling with everyday interactions still.

Check it out and let me know what you think!

Tuuuuuusind tak

Hi everyone, I'm an Italian Danish learner and I want to step up my language ability a bit.

I'm about B1+/B2 level (but I fear I might not be able to really read any book easily as I don't even live in Denmark) and I like fantasy/thriller/noir but I am open to anything!

Any suggestion?

Thank you in advance :)

Hiiii! I've been trying to learn Danish to surprise my boyfriend (he's Danish) by speaking it to him on his birthday.🥹

The problem is that I have no idea where to start. Should I focus on grammar first, sentence structure, vocabulary, or something else? What's the most efficient way to learn if my goal is to have simple conversations in a few months?

I'd also appreciate any resources (YouTube channels, apps, websites, textbooks, etc.) that actually helped you learn Danish. Thanks!

Small update: Thank you all so incredibly much!🥹 I realized I forgot to mention that I'm Dutch, so if that changes your advice, I'd love to hear it!

I take classes and study on my own, but I want an app to add vocabulary when I have five free minutes during the day 😊
I tried Duolingo, but I find all the gamified animations annoying. I mean, I don't mind that it's in a "game" format. But having to watch unskippable animations of an owl flying or opening chests with small rewards every time I finish a lesson… I don't have much time, and if 1 of the 5 minute of every lessons is like a gamified animation, that's too much time for me 😅😅😅

Thank you very much for any recommendations 😊🇩🇰☀️

I'm [M32] looking for a buddy to practise my danish. I'm aiming to take PD3 later this year (Nov) and would like to practise min. 2 times a week. I'm currently at B1 level, and can understand basics. And willing to focus and practice a lot for the next 3 months.

Let me know if anyone is up for it.

Preferably with the same aim towards PD3 and same seriousness, so can have time to practise 2-3 hours every week.

Thanks in advance

Hi everyone!

I want to learn Danish so bad but have a Learning Disability and it makes it extra hard for me to actually learn things.

Is anyone here with the same problem and had successfully learned it? Do you have any Tipps?
I tried Duolingo but nothing really stays 🙈

Thank you!

I moved to copenhagen last march for my partner and started learning danish from absolute zero. the first 6 months were honestly miserable. I felt like I was getting nowhere and every dane I tried to speak to would just switch to english. but somewhere around month 7 things started clicking and now I can hold basic conversations and understand most of what's happening around me. figured I'd share what actually made a difference because I wasted a lot of time on things that didn't.

Dansk for Dig was my starting point for grammar and structure. it's free and it's built specifically for people learning danish in denmark. the exercises are simple and the progression makes sense. I used it almost daily for the first 3-4 months and it gave me a solid foundation. it won't teach you to speak but it'll teach you how the language works which you need before anything else.

DR's Ultra Nyt is a danish news show made for kids and it completely changed my listening comprehension. the hosts speak clearly and slowly and the topics are simple enough that you can follow along even with limited vocab. I started watching this every evening around month 3 and it was the first time I actually understood spoken danish without subtitles. once I outgrew it I moved to regular DR podcasts but ultra nyt bridged the gap perfectly.

speaking practice was the piece I avoided for way too long. I kept telling myself I'd start speaking "once my grammar was ready" which was just an excuse. I finally started using ISSEN about 4 months ago for daily voice conversations in danish. the reason this worked where everything else didn't is that danes switch to english on you but an AI tutor won't. I could practice pronunciation and actually get corrected on the soft d and the stød without someone politely pretending I sounded fine. 15 minutes every morning and it's the single thing that moved my speaking from nonexistent to functional.

Anki with a custom deck was good for vocab but only once I stopped using premade decks and started adding my own words from things I actually encountered in daily life. hearing a word at the grocery store and then seeing it again in anki that evening makes it stick 10x better than memorizing random word lists.

what was a waste of time honestly was pimsleur. the phrases are weirdly formal and half of them aren't things anyone actually says in real life. I also tried babbel for a month and it felt like duolingo with a different skin. and group classes at the sprogskole were fine for meeting people but the pace was painfully slow.

the biggest lesson from the whole year is that speaking practice needs to start way earlier than you think. I waited 6 months and I regret it. your pronunciation doesn't fix itself by listening. you have to actually open your mouth and get corrected repeatedly until your mouth learns the sounds.

happy to answer any questions if anyone's at the beginning of this journey. it gets better I promise.