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
I’m doing my exams soon and would love to do 1 on 1 classes for like a week before my exam
Hi everyone! I’m a university student from Colombia, and I need to interview someone from Denmark for a university assignment about Danish culture. It would only take around 5–10 minutes and consists of just 6 questions. The interview would be conducted in English and can be done through chat, I would really appreciate your help!
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 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!
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:
What it doesn't do:
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.
Hi! I’m learning both Danish and Spanish and ran into a song with both recently (Børn Af Natten- Hola Bonita by Ankerstjerne & others). I know it’s a long shot, but do you know any other songs with both? Even if it’s just a few words of Spanish or vice versa? Thanks!
When I was learning, I didn't like the robotic voice on Anki decks. I wanted immersive learning with YouTube videos, to get real uses of a word instead of synthetic Duolingo phrases.
So I made LingoFuse. You 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. It works on web, android and ios.
There's a free Danish deck with 130 flashcards from 7 videos if you want to see what the cards look like.
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 :)
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 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:
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.
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:
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.
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
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?
Hello! This is a controversial topic, so, I'll start with the disclaimers:
Hey folks! I'm working on a personal project, as of yet shared only with one in-person friend, to create English subtitles for Den Store Strikkedyst, aka "The Great Knit-Off." Only a few episodes are available with english subtitles. Youtube doesn't have machine-subtitles for Danish, and even the official tvsyd site doesn't have subtitles for most.
I've been using some machine-learning / AI tools to both generate subtitles for these episodes in Danish, and to translate to English. Details on the technical workflow are in a reply.
I have guesses about which LLMs are better/worse for this, but I'd like some feedback on these transcriptions and translations if possible! (I could upload segments with subtitles for folks to view, but I don't know the copyright status of this; it's from 2014.)
I have no interest in profiting on this, and don't want to take work away from translators. (If anyone wants to volunteer to help with subtitling and translation, I'm certainly open to it!)
The following is from the intro of Season 3 Episode 1.
Original Text (via Whisper-Large-V3, I think)
[00:06.830] Den store strikkedyst er endelig tilbage.
[00:10.850] 10 dygtige strikkere er blevet udvalgt til at dyste i sprit nye opgaver.
[00:15.470] De skal være super skarpe de næste par uger, for kun én af dem går hjem som vinder.
[00:20.650] Og denne benhårde strikkekonkurrence, den begynder... nu!
[00:28.240] 10 udvalgte strikkere, så klar til verdens hårdeste strikkekonkurrence.
[00:33.120] Station 3 kommer i nul.
[00:34.700] Jeg er bare klar til at komme ind og drikke.
[00:36.240] Jeg regner med, at det skal nok gå.
[00:38.600] Jeg er helt sikker på, at jeg vinder.
[00:40.000] Jeg går efter at vinde. Det gør jeg helt sikkert.
[00:44.620] Jeg har været spændt på at møde de andre deltagere og se, hvad de er for nogen.
[00:47.660] Hvordan ser de ud? Hvor gammel er de? Er de lige så spændte som mig?
[00:52.400] Det kommer til at blive på nogle wildcards og noget held og noget kreativitet.
[00:56.500] Jeg ved ikke lige, hvor jeg kommer fra.
[00:58.760] Men jeg håber da, at jeg vinder. Selvfølgelig gør jeg det.
LLM A
[00:06.830] The Great Knitting Competition is finally back.
[00:10.850] 10 skilled knitters have been chosen to compete in brand new tasks.
[00:15.470] They need to be super sharp over the next couple of weeks, because only one of them will go home as the winner.
[00:20.650] And this cutthroat knitting competition begins... now!
[00:28.240] 10 selected knitters, all ready for the world's toughest knitting competition.
[00:33.120] Station 3 is resetting.
[00:34.700] I'm just ready to get in there and dive in.
[00:36.240] I reckon it'll go alright.
[00:38.600] I'm absolutely sure that I'll win.
[00:40.000] I'm going for the win. I definitely am.
[00:44.620] I've been excited to meet the other participants and see what they're like.
[00:47.660] What do they look like? How old are they? Are they as excited as I am?
[00:52.400] It's going to come down to some wildcards, some luck, and some creativity.
[00:56.500] I'm not quite sure where I stand.
[00:58.760] But I do hope I win. Of course I do.
LLM B
[00:06.830] The great knitting showdown is finally back.
[00:10.850] 10 skilled knitters have been selected to compete in brand new challenges.
[00:15.470] They will have to be super sharp over the next couple of weeks, because only one of them will go home as the winner.
[00:20.650] And this bone-hard knitting competition, it begins... now!
[00:28.240] 10 selected knitters, ready for the world's hardest knitting competition.
[00:33.120] Station 3, zero in.
[00:34.700] I'm just ready to go in and get started.
[00:36.240] I figure it will turn out fine.
[00:38.600] I am absolutely sure that I will win.
[00:40.000] I'm going for the win. I'm doing it for sure.
[00:44.620] I've been looking forward to meeting the other contestants and seeing what they're like.
[00:47.660] What do they look like? How old are they? Are they as excited as me?
[00:52.400] It's going to come down to some wildcards, some luck, and some creativity.
[00:56.500] I don't really know where I stand.
[00:58.760] But I do hope I win. Of course I do.
LLM C
[00:06.830] The great knitting duel is finally back.
[00:10.850] 10 skilled knitters have been selected to compete in brand-new tasks.
[00:15.470] They need to be super sharp over the next few weeks, because only one of them will go home as the winner.
[00:20.650] And this hardcore knitting competition begins... now!
[00:28.240] 10 selected knitters, all ready for the world's toughest knitting competition.
[00:33.120] Station 3 is starting at zero.
[00:34.700] I'm just ready to get in there and drink.
[00:36.240] I expect it's going to go well.
[00:38.600] I am completely sure that I will win.
[00:40.000] I'm going for the win. I'm definitely going to do that.
[00:44.620] I've been excited to meet the other participants and see what they're like.
[00:47.660] What do they look like? How old are they? Are they as excited as I am?
[00:52.400] It's going to come down to some wildcards, some luck, and some creativity.
[00:56.500] I don't really know where I stand.
[00:58.760] But I hope that I win. Of course I do.
LLM D
[00:06.830] The Great Knitting Duel is finally back.
[00:10.850] 10 skilled knitters have been selected to compete in brand-new challenges.
[00:15.470] They need to be incredibly sharp over the next few weeks, because only one of them will go home as the winner.
[00:20.650] And this hardcore knitting competition begins... now!
[00:28.240] 10 chosen knitters, ready for the world's toughest knitting competition.
[00:33.120] Station 3 is underway.
[00:34.700] I'm just ready to get in there and drink.
[00:36.240] I expect it'll go well.
[00:38.600] I'm absolutely sure that I'll win.
[00:40.000] I'm going for the win. I'm absolutely certain of it.
[00:44.620] I've been excited to meet the other contestants and see who they are.
[00:47.660] What do they look like? How old are they? Are they just as excited as I am?
[00:52.400] It's going to come down to some wildcards, a bit of luck, and some creativity.
[00:56.500] I don't really know what to expect.
[00:58.760] But I do hope I win. Of course I do.
LLM E
[00:06.830] The Great Knitting Contest is finally back.
[00:10.850] 10 skilled knitters have been selected to compete in brand new tasks.
[00:15.470] They will have to be super sharp over the next few weeks, because only one of them will go home as the winner.
[00:20.650] And this cutthroat knitting competition begins... now!
[00:28.240] 10 selected knitters, all ready for the world's toughest knitting competition.
[00:33.120] Station 3 is at zero.
[00:34.700] I'm just ready to get in there and drink. (Note: Likely a slip of the tongue or slang in the original audio)
[00:36.240] I reckon it'll go alright.
[00:38.600] I am absolutely sure that I will win.
[00:40.000] I'm going for the win. I definitely am.
[00:44.620] I've been excited to meet the other participants and see what they're like.
[00:47.660] What do they look like? How old are they? Are they as excited as I am?
[00:52.400] It's going to come down to some wildcards, some luck, and some creativity.
[00:56.500] I'm not quite sure where I stand.
[00:58.760] But I do hope that I win. Of course I do.
(I'll reveal which LLMs these were later on, if desired)
One of the areas of difference is, in "Og denne benhårde strikkekonkurrence," I see translations as "cutthroat," "bonehard," and "hardcore."
As a native US English speaker, I'd say the following:
I'd love any feedback people have about this project, and any help folks would like to offer, technically or otherwise.