Introduction to the Danish language

Introduktion til det danske sprog

Danish, the official language of Denmark, is spoken by over 5 million people. It is a germanic tongue, which means it is closely related to English and German. It becomes obvious when one gets to know some Danish vocabulary, eg. come (Eng.) = komme (Dan.) = kommen (Ger.), bring (Eng.) = bringe (Dan.) = bringen (Ger.). As a nordic language, it is very similar to Swedish and Norwegian. The knowledge of any of the above mentioned languages is a big help in learning Danish, and in the case of the two latter mutual understanding without prior learning is often possible.

The Danish alphabet differs slightly from the Latin one. There are three additional letters (found at the end of alphabet -- remember about it browsing a dictionary or a phone directory!) They are

Æ æ as in "forældre" (parents) -- a ligature of "a" and "e".
Indicates a monophtong (a single vowel).

Ø ø as in "rød" (red) -- a "crossed o".

Å å as in "et år" (a year) -- an "a with a ring above it." Before the spelling reform in 1948 the sound was written as "aa". Such spelling is preserved in some names, eg. Aalborg = Ålborg

The Danish grammar is not difficult, especially for a speaker of a Germanic language, who is already familiar with the concept of articles, sequence of tences, etc. The most difficult thing about the language is its pronunciation.