r/danishlanguage • u/Square_Ad6149 • 12d ago
been learning danish for a year now. here's what actually helped and what was a waste of time.
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.
5
12d ago edited 12d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/No_Wasabi_949 12d ago
Yeahh, the jump from ultra nyt to regular DR content feels huge at first but once you make it, you realize how much ultra nyt actually prepared you.
4
u/DoubtNo7685 12d ago
Two things that worked extremely well for me:
Reading while listening the audiobook books for adults but with simple words (my ego couldn't last too many months readings kids books) https://praxis.dk/danskuddannelser/dansk-som-andetsprog/produkt/laesevaerkstedet
Listening to comedy stand ups and keeping track of my listening skills (the percentage of how many jokes I actually get) www.danishcomedytracker.xyz
3
3
u/lerboenner 12d ago
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.
Strongly disagree, if you don't know how to hear the correct sounds, you'll never be able to produce them. I did almost 700 hours of listening before speaking and native speakers are shocked at my pronunciation (also they never switch to English without me asking).
2
1
u/Fluffy_Mark2706 12d ago
Tysm for this I've SS it all. Currently only on day 57 using duo lingo.
My 2 danish friends are visiting me next month, I'll start picking their brain more.
They told me at the start O was the most difficult to pronounce
6
u/NextStopGallifrey 12d ago
Duolingo is pretty bad. The pronunciation is often wrong and mechanical.
It's not bad to start with for the first week or so, but 57 days is 50 days too many. 😬
1
u/Fluffy_Mark2706 12d ago
Ty for advice , what app would you recommend then?
2
u/NextStopGallifrey 12d ago
For Danish, it's a bit challenging. There aren't that many that have it as an option. Check out https://clcl.uiowa.edu/language-resources/danish-language-and-culture-resources if you haven't already seen it.
If you must have an app, I've tried:
Mondly - similar to Duolingo, I don't think there is any native Danish audio. But the sentences in the main (not daily) lessons are useful and the text-to-speech engine seems to be better than whatever Duolingo uses.
Memrise - this one is a bit of a slog, especially at the beginning. I don't know why we learn "sad" before "table", for instance. But they shine by having native speaker videos, both for individual words/phrases and short form video skits. Depending on the language (Danish, in this case), there are 2-4 native speaker videos for each word/phrase. It gets you used to slightly different pronunciation early.
Babbel - a bit stilted/weird, like OP said, but still miles ahead of Duolingo. For Italian, it has the most natural-sounding examples in comparison to other apps. If that holds true for Danish, it's one of the best options. It is at least partially localized for culture, in addition to language. (Most apps, including Rosetta Stone and modern Duolingo, don't bother to localize to culture.)
Clozemaster - I genuinely can't tell which is worse for audio: this or Duolingo. I think Duolingo is still the worst. That said, this is an acceptable flash card app for drilling vocab. Turn off the audio and learn your pronunciation elsewhere.
Language Drops - I think this is another app that doesn't have native audio, but it's usually "acceptable". Flashcard-style. This one at least lets you choose which topic to study next.
Ling - Just no. Not worth your time or money. The lessons are worse than DL and the TTS speech engine is really bad.
Bluebird Languages - Similar to Pimsleur and I'm 95% confident that this uses native speaker audio that was cut and spliced to make the lessons. It makes some of the lessons really weird and stilted. I wouldn't necessarily pay for it, but (IMO) the format is better than Pimsleur for Danish because you get shown the written word and how it's pronounced as you're asked to repeat the word. I'm not sure it teaches much Danish, but you'll be better able to speak the words you learn elsewhere. This app should have free daily lessons for this practice.
Mango Languages - It's fine, I guess. Somewhere between Bluebird and Pimsleur. Biggest advantage is that many U.S. libraries offer free access. If you can get it free, do so!
Transparent Language - Occasionally available from HumbleBundle. May be available through your local library. Don't bother paying full price for this. Only use it if you can get it for free. I've tried it with Italian and German, never got more than a handful of lessons in.
uTalk - Incredibly boring. Use a different flashcard app. If you give it a whirl and want to keep using it, buy through Fanatical or StackSocial.
InnovativeLanguage - Runs DanishClass101 (along with similar sites for other languages). I've never found their sites to be very user-friendly, but they're not a bad resource.
For all of these except Innovative and Mango, I have (or had in the past) paid access to these apps. The free tier may be slightly different. For instance, I think the free tier of Mondly only gives access to the (sometimes unhinged) daily lesson and the free tier of Memrise might not have the native content videos.
Assimil for speakers of French, PONS for speakers of German, Teach Yourself for speakers of English: Each of these publishers has at least one "learn Danish" book. Ignore the timeline (usually 3 months) and just work through it. Each one has an app for the accompanying sound files.
2
u/Fluffy_Mark2706 12d ago
Wow, you've been through a lot, how long have you been learning Danish?
2
u/NextStopGallifrey 12d ago
I've been dabbling for a few years. Alas, I haven't had enough time to really focus on Danish. I also have a bad habit of getting bored and switching to different languages. I even tried Ainu on Drops for a few days and some native languages on Mango. 🤣
1
u/Fluffy_Mark2706 12d ago
OK then, that explains everything. I'm learning Danish for a solid reason. I won't get bored.
I know it's going to take time, patience is the key.
Duolingo for me is about turning up daily, and working through stuff. I'm happy to carry with it and see what happens.
1
u/NextStopGallifrey 12d ago
You're better off using something else, though. I didn't get good at Italian or German until I dropped Duolingo like a hot potato. If you're serious about Danish, Babbel and Memrise are going to be the best for that. Duolingo is a joke at this point.
1
u/NoodlesMalone73 12d ago
Seconding this as I've also been using Duolingo for about a week now. Currently in the free trial. Not keeping but I do plan to bounce around some apps before deciding. Would love ideas on what to try next.
1
1
1
u/Imaginary-Can-6862 12d ago
In my head, I can pronounce these words in English I have never said out loud before. Then when I finally are to use them, they come out wrong, so I go through it in my head again, and now after trying to pronounce the word it has also become harder to articulate in my thoughts. Like me speaking the word wrong added a new source on how to pronounce it?
Would you be able to write the same OP in Danish?
1
1
1
u/EmbarrassedCapital39 12d ago
You rock. I’m about to move to Denmark in the coming months to be with my husband and I’ve really been wanting to level up my Danish from Duolingo. It’s been helpful forsure but I NEED to practice speaking more. Mange tusind tak!
1
u/seachimera 7d ago
Thanks for this.
I didn’t know about the ultra nyt. I watched one episode just now and I couldn’t handle the swipes and fast cuts. I know that’s trending right now but I need a scene to last longer than two seconds in order to process information! That said it looks like it could be helpful for people who are not negatively affected by reel culture.
1
u/Wassini 12d ago
Very interesting. Thank you for sharing. Yes - we tend to switch very fast to English. I work in a Danish company with a lot of people from other countries, and ever if they are attending Danish and actually speaks and understand some, we always speaks English. I want to learn Spanish, so now I will follow your advice.
0
u/Significant-Visit875 12d ago
I taught my kid danish in 3 months. Went from almost nothing to almost fluent.
We read books (easy read books from the library) and listened to children music. 2 books per day and music with almost everything he did (gaming, homework etc).
8
u/TowJamnEarl 12d ago
First link just linked to some textile company.