Learning Danish
Learning Danish is not difficult, but some care must be taken with it's spoken form. Danish grammar is similar to English in many ways and not too difficult, but Danish has a looseness in it's pronunciation that can be a little hard to grasp for a native English speaker. Learning spoken Danish is best done by listening to native speakers and imitating them. Making the leap from a textbook to listening and speaking would be difficult without an audio component to your study.
Like it's cousin languages Swedish and Norwegian, Danish has few commercial language learning products available for those native English speakers who want to learn the language. Some of the more widely known companies don't produce anything, others produce only limited, or less comprehensive products. Your best bet for self-study may be to get two or more complementary products, which I usually recommend anyway. Before you begin, check the How to Learn Languages page and the Learning Tips page to help put together a comprehensive lesson plan for yourself. Here are some of the best products available for learning Danish :
Internet/Free Speak Danish A comprehensive free online course to learn Danish with vocabulary, useful phrases and audio. This course is very effective and well organized, and a downloadable version is available for $20.
Internet/Free
Transparent Language offers a free vocabulary trainer to get started learning Danish. Get your Free BYKI™ Lite download by Transparent Language
Book/Audio Combo/Inexpensive
Teach Yourself Danish
The longstanding Teach Yourself series has always had a wide variety of languages. The new version, called Complete, has a coursebook that comes with two audio cd's and is available in most bookstores or online.
Book Teach Yourself Danish (old version). Published by David McKay Company or English Universities Press in the 50's, 60' and 70's, these old Teach Yourself books are great grammar-intensive workouts with lots of little exercises. Combined with an audio product, this would make a good component for learning Danish grammar. They are out of print but can be found in used bookstores or online at ABE Books.com
Audio Only
Pimsleur Danish Compact
As far as ease of use and quality of the material and method, Pimsleur is the best. You begin learning Danish in a natural and comfortable way. It's the same for all Pimsleur language programs, but some go further than others. Pimsleur Compact Danish is too short to stand on its own as a complete language learning method. It is only 10 lessons long, and it's brilliant conversation and pronunciation regimen is diluted by the reading practice which shortens every lesson, unlike Pimsleurs Comprehensive programs in other languages, which have a separate cd for reading practice. Compact makes a very good introduction to Danish or a good audio supplement for its conversation and pronunciation work, but a more comprehensive method is needed to go beyond the first steps in the language. Read my more indepth Review of Pimsleur Products or compare to a similar product in my review of Pimsleur Swedish Compact.
This inexpensive software program to learn Danish is a great tool to have in your arsenal. Lots of vocabulary and phrases, dialogues, audio from native speakers, games and activities and much more to get you started on your path to learn Danish.
