Danish Grammar for German Speakers

How to use this course

Why this order?

The spine: sounds → nouns, gender, the suffixed article → pronouns and the one-form present tense → word order → agreement (plurals, adjectives, possessives) → the verb system → complex sentences → the s-passive, particles, and formal style. Unlike German, where the case system dominates everything, Danish front-loads its difficulty into sounds and small structural habits — so this course spends its time differently than its sister volume.

The design follows the same second-language-acquisition research: explicit grammar anchored in meaningful examples (Long’s Focus on Form), graded examples recycling known material (comprehensible-input research: aim to understand 95–98% of each example), quizzes as retrieval practice (Roediger & Karpicke: delayed recall of 61% for a tested group vs. 40% for re-study), and deliberate recycling of earlier grammar (the spacing effect).

How the German parallels help

Wherever Danish works like German, the course says so explicitly (positive transfer) — and that is often: V2 word order, modal verbs, particle verbs, perfect with have/be, compound nouns, even the habit of saying units before tens in numbers. Wherever Danish differs, a German trap box flags the spot where your German instinct produces a Danish error. Grammar terms used: fælleskøn / intetkøn (the two genders), helsætning (main clause), ledsætning (subordinate clause), datid (simple past), førnutid (perfect).

Quiz and exercise routine

After each chapter: quiz (recognition) first, then exercise (production). Answers are hidden behind a button. Then re-do the exercise from two chapters back — spaced retrieval roughly halves forgetting.

1 · Pronunciation: the real challenge A1

Here the tables turn completely. German is nearly phonetic; Danish is not. Written Danish will look almost familiar to you within weeks — spoken Danish is the actual mountain. Budget most of your listening effort here.

• Three extra letters: æ, ø, å. Map them from German: æ ≈ German ä (læse — “lesen”), ø ≈ German ö (øl — sounds like “Öl” but means beer), å ≈ a long open o, like the vowel in German Sohn but more open (år = Jahr). You can already pronounce all three — positive transfer.
• The soft d (blødt d): after a vowel, d becomes a sound like a lazy English “th” with the tongue low: mad (food), gade (street), hedde (heißen). German has nothing like it; do not pronounce it as [d].
• Stød: a creaky glottal catch inside certain syllables, a bit like the catch in German be’achten between e and a — but inside a vowel. It distinguishes word pairs: hun (she, no stød) vs. hund (dog, with stød); læser (reads, stød) vs. læser (reader, no stød). At A1: learn to hear it; production comes later.
• Silent letters everywhere: final -e is a schwa; d and g often vanish (dag sounds like “dæ”, meget like “majet”); h is silent before v/j (hvad, hjem).
• r is vocalised after vowels, much like German final -r (Wetter / vejret) — your German habit helps here.
• y = German ü (ny = neu, sounds like “nü”).

2 · Nouns & two genders A1

Good news first: Danish nouns are not capitalised (except names), and there are only two genders:

Useful signposts: living beings are usually en (en mand, en kvinde, en hund — but et barn, et dyr); substances and many abstract categories lean et (et år, et sprog). Suffix parallels transfer nicely: German -heit/-keit → Danish -hed (Freiheit/frihed, both common gender), German -ung → Danish -(n)ing (Regierung/regering, both common gender).

3 · The suffixed definite article A1

This is the structural surprise for a German. Danish attaches “the” as a suffix:

4 · Pronouns & the present tense A1

Personal pronouns (subject): jeg (ich), du (du), han / hun / den / det (er / sie / es — den for common-gender things, det for neuter things), vi (wir), I (ihr — note the capital I!), de (sie/pl), De (formal Sie, today archaic).

Present tense: infinitive + -r, one form for all persons:

5 · være, have, blive A1

Jeg er træt. (Ich bin müde.) · Hun har en bil. (Sie hat ein Auto.) · Vi bliver gamle. (Wir werden alt.)

6 · Word order: the V2 rule A1

Danish main clauses (helsætninger) obey the same verb-second rule as German: finite verb second, one constituent in front, inversion when something else is fronted.

• Jeg drikker kaffe i dag. / Ich trinke heute Kaffee.
• I dag drikker jeg kaffe. / Heute trinke ich Kaffee. — identical inversion.

7 · Questions A1

• Yes/no questions: verb first, exactly like German: Drikker du kaffe? = Trinkst du Kaffee?
• Hv-questions: Danish question words start with hv- (your w-): hvem (wer), hvad (was), hvor (wo), hvornår (wann), hvorfor (warum), hvordan (wie), hvilken (welcher). The h is silent: hvad sounds like “vað”.
• Note hvor also means “how” before adjectives: hvor gammel er du? = wie alt bist du?

8 · Negation with ikke A1

Danish uses one word, ikke, for nearly everything German splits into nicht and kein:

• Jeg arbejder ikke. = Ich arbeite nicht.
• Jeg har ikke en bil / more idiomatic: Jeg har ingen bil. = Ich habe kein Auto. (ingen/intet = kein, optional but common.)
• Placement in main clauses: after the finite verb (and after object pronouns): Jeg kender ham ikke = Ich kenne ihn nicht.

9 · Where did the cases go? A1–A2

Danish has essentially abolished the case system on nouns and articles. Manden ser hunden — subject and object look identical; only word order tells you who does what (like English). No preposition governs a case: med manden, til manden, for manden — the noun never changes.

• Pronouns keep a two-way case distinction (subject vs. object), like your er/ihn: jeg/mig, du/dig, han/ham, hun/hende, den/den, det/det, vi/os, I/jer, de/dem. There is no dative: ham covers both ihn and ihm.
• Genitive: a simple -s on anything, no article change: mandens bil = das Auto des Mannes. Even whole phrases: kongen af Danmarks slot (the King of Denmark’s castle). Alternative with preposition: bilen til manden.

10 · Plurals A2

Umlaut plurals exist just like in German: mand → mænd (Mann → Männer), barn → børn, fod → fødder (Fuß → Füße), bog → bøger. The concept is fully familiar; the assignments must be memorised per noun — learn noun, article and plural as one unit: en bil, bilen, biler.

11 · Adjective agreement A2

Danish adjectives have three forms — no case dimension at all:

12 · Possessives & sin / sit / sine A2–B1

Possessives: min/mit/mine (mein), din/dit/dine (dein), hans (sein — his), hendes (ihr — her), dens/dets (its), vores (unser), jeres (euer), deres (ihr/pl). min/mit/mine agree like adjectives (common/neuter/plural); the -s forms never change.

13 · Numbers & counting A2

1–20 are familiar cousins: en/et, to, tre, fire, fem, seks, syv, otte, ni, ti, elleve, tolv, tretten … tyve. Then: tredive (30), fyrre (40) — and from 50, Danish counts in twenties:

14 · Prepositions A2–B1

Danish prepositions never change the noun. The difficulty is idiomatic choice, especially i vs. på:

• i (in): i Berlin, i huset, i januar — but also i skole, i biografen (institutions).
• på (auf/an): på bordet (auf dem Tisch), but idiomatically på arbejde (auf der Arbeit), på hotel, på Fyn (islands!), på universitetet.
• til (zu/nach + destination, and possession): jeg tager til København (ich fahre nach Kopenhagen), en gave til dig.
• hos = French “chez”, German bei: hos lægen (beim Arzt), hos os (bei uns).
• om (about; also “in” for future time): om to timer (in zwei Stunden) — vs. for to timer siden (vor zwei Stunden).
• Movement vs. location is expressed with adverb pairs, not case: ind i / inde i (hinein/drinnen), op / oppe, ud / ude, hen / henne. Compare your wohin/wo distinction — the concept is identical, the mechanism is adverb form instead of Akkusativ/Dativ.

15 · Modal verbs & their traps A2–B1

Structure is identical to German: modal in position 2, bare infinitive at the end. Jeg skal arbejde i dag = Ich muss heute arbeiten. But the meanings have shifted:

16 · Particle verbs A2–B1

Danish partikelverber work like your separable verbs: at stå op (aufstehen): Jeg står op klokken 7 = Ich stehe um 7 Uhr auf. The particle goes toward the end of the clause — a completely familiar mechanism.

• Common pairs: stå op (aufstehen), tage af sted (losfahren), holde op (aufhören), finde ud af (herausfinden), se ud (aussehen), gå ud (ausgehen).
• Like German, Danish also has inseparable prefix verbs (be-, for-, und-: betale = bezahlen, forstå = verstehen, undersøge = untersuchen) — the prefixes are even cognates of yours (be-, ver-, unter-).
• Sometimes both exist with different meanings, distinguished by stress and position: at oversætte (übersetzen, translate, inseparable) vs. at sætte over (übersetzen im Boot, separable) — the exact same ÜBERsetzen/überSETZen game German plays.

17 · Past tenses: datid & førnutid A2–B1

Datid (simple past): weak verbs add -ede or -te: spillede (spielte), læste (las); strong verbs change the vowel: gik (ging), så (sah), kom (kam), drak (trank) — often the same ablaut families as German.

Førnutid (perfect): har/er + participle (-et/-t): Jeg har spillet fodbold = Ich habe Fußball gespielt. Motion and change-of-state verbs take er, exactly like your sein-verbs: Jeg er kørt til Berlin = Ich bin nach Berlin gefahren. The haben/sein split maps almost one-to-one onto have/være.

18 · Comparative & superlative B1

• hurtig → hurtigere → hurtigst, like schnell → schneller → am schnellsten.
• Irregulars mirror German: god → bedre → bedst (gut/besser/am besten), mange → flere → flest, gerne → hellere → helst (gern/lieber/am liebsten — yes, Danish has gerne!).
• Longer adjectives use mere / mest: mere interessant, mest interessant — unlike German, which suffixes everything.
• “than” = end (als): Han er større end mig. “as … as” = lige så … som.

19 · Talking about the future B1

Danish has no Futur I. Three everyday strategies:

• Present + time word (the default, same as your habit): Jeg kommer i morgen = Ich komme morgen.
• vil + infinitive for predictions and intentions: Det vil regne (es wird regnen).
• skal + infinitive for plans and arrangements: Vi skal spise hos mine forældre på lørdag (wir essen am Samstag bei meinen Eltern — fest geplant). This planned-future skal has no direct German equivalent; it is extremely common.

20 · Reflexives & imperative B1

Reflexive pronoun: mig, dig, sig, os, jer, sig — a perfect mirror of mich, dich, sich, uns, euch, sich. Han vasker sig = Er wäscht sich. Many reflexive verbs match: at glæde sig (sich freuen), at skynde sig (sich beeilen). Verify each — not all German reflexives are reflexive in Danish and vice versa.

Imperative: the bare stem, even shorter than German: Kom! Spis! Læs! (Komm! Iss! Lies!). For -e verbs, drop the -e: at købe → køb! One form for du and I alike — no Kommt!/Kommen Sie! distinction.

21 · Ledsætninger: adverb placement B1

Here your German instinct betrays you most. Danish subordinate clauses (ledsætninger, after at, fordi, hvis, når, om, selvom, mens) do not send the verb to the end. Instead, the rule is: Subject – sentence adverb – finite verb:

So the diagnostic word is ikke (and its siblings altid, aldrig, også, nok, jo): main clause → after the verb; ledsætning → before the verb. Objects and complements follow the verb as usual — Danish never piles them up before it.

Fronted subordinate clauses trigger inversion in the main clause, exactly like German: Hvis det regner, bliver vi hjemme = Wenn es regnet, bleiben wir zu Hause.

22 · Relative clauses: der & som B1

• som works for subject or object: manden, som jeg ser (der Mann, den ich sehe).
• der works only as subject: manden, der står der (der Mann, der dort steht). As subject, der and som are interchangeable.
• As an object, the pronoun can be dropped entirely, like English: manden, jeg ser — impossible in German, completely normal in Danish.
• No case, no gender, no number on the relative pronoun. Possessive relative (“dessen/deren”) = hvis: manden, hvis bil…
• Word order inside the relative clause is ledsætning order (Ch. 21): manden, som ikke kommer.

23 · der & det constructions B1–B2

• der er = “es gibt / da ist”: Der er et problem = Es gibt ein Problem. Der bor mange mennesker i Berlin = In Berlin wohnen viele Menschen. Danish uses this existential der far more than German uses “es”.
• det as weather/impersonal subject: Det regner. Det sner. Det er koldt. = Es regnet. Es schneit. Es ist kalt. Direct match.
• det as anticipatory subject: Det er vigtigt at lære dansk = Es ist wichtig, Dänisch zu lernen.
• Answering with det: Danes answer yes/no questions by echoing with det + verb: Er du træt? — Ja, det er jeg. (literally “yes, that am I” = Ja, bin ich.) A charming pattern German lacks; learn it as a chunk.

24 · The two passives B2

• blive-passive: blive + participle — a perfect mirror of your werden-passive: Brevet bliver skrevet = Der Brief wird geschrieben. Tends to describe single, concrete events.
• s-passive: add -s to the verb — no auxiliary at all: Brevet skrives. Tends to describe habitual, general or normative statements: Døren åbnes klokken 8 (Die Tür wird um 8 geöffnet — regelmäßig), dansk tales i Danmark. Very common after modals: Det kan ses (das kann man sehen / das ist zu sehen).
• State passive: være + participle, like your sein-Passiv: Døren er åbnet = Die Tür ist geöffnet.
• Agent with af (= von): Bogen blev skrevet af en dansker.
• Bonus: some verbs exist only in s-form with non-passive meaning (deponent verbs): findes (existieren — der findes mange muligheder), synes (finden/meinen), mødes (sich treffen), lykkes (gelingen).

25 · Conditionals & hypotheticals B2

Danish has no subjunctive mood. Where German reaches for Konjunktiv II, Danish uses past-tense forms plus ville:

• Hvis jeg havde tid, ville jeg læse mere. = Wenn ich Zeit hätte, würde ich mehr lesen. Structure identical; Danish just uses plain havde instead of hätte.
• Hvis jeg var rig… = Wenn ich reich wäre…
• Past hypotheticals: Hvis jeg havde vidst det, ville jeg være blevet hjemme / colloquially var jeg blevet hjemme. = …wäre ich zu Hause geblieben.
• Politeness: ville and kunne soften requests exactly like würde/könnte: Kunne du hjælpe mig? = Könntest du mir helfen? Jeg ville gerne have en kaffe = Ich hätte gern einen Kaffee.

26 · Infinitive clauses: at, for at B2

• at + infinitive after verbs and adjectives: Jeg prøver at lære dansk = Ich versuche, Dänisch zu lernen. Note: at stays before particle verbs as a separate word: at stå op (aufzustehen) — no infixing like German aufzustehen.
• for at = “um … zu”: Jeg lærer dansk for at tale med familien = Ich lerne Dänisch, um mit der Familie zu sprechen.
• Modals take the bare infinitive, as in German: jeg kan svømme.
• Careful: at is also the conjunction “dass” (jeg ved, at…). In speech both are reduced; in writing, keep them apart by function.

27 · Pluskvamperfektum & tense sequence B2

havde / var + participle: Jeg havde allerede spist, da han kom = Ich hatte schon gegessen, als er kam. Motion/change verbs take var: Han var allerede gået = Er war schon gegangen. Typical with efter at (nachdem): Efter at jeg havde spist, gik jeg.

28 · Reported speech C1

German marks reported speech with a mood (Konjunktiv I: er sei krank). Danish has no such mood; instead:

• Use at + indicative, usually with tense backshift after a past reporting verb (like English): Han sagde, at han var syg = Er sagte, er sei krank.
• Remember ledsætning word order in the at-clause: Han sagde, at han ikke kom.
• Reported questions: om (= ob): Hun spurgte, om jeg kom; hv-questions keep the hv-word: Hun spurgte, hvornår jeg kom. Note: when the hv-word is the subject, insert der: Hun spurgte, hvem der kom.
• Commands: at + skulle: Han sagde, at jeg skulle vente (er sagte, ich solle warten).

29 · Discourse particles: jo, da, nok, vel C1

Danish, like German, seasons every sentence with small untranslatable particles — the famous doch/ja/wohl/mal/schon game. Most learners suffer here; you already think in Modalpartikeln, so map them:

Also jo as an answer = your doch after negative questions: Kommer du ikke? — Jo! (Kommst du nicht? — Doch!). A perfect one-to-one match English speakers can only envy.

30 · Advanced style C1–C2

• Compounding: Danish builds compounds exactly like German, with linking -s- and -e-: hastighedsbegrænsning = Geschwindigkeitsbegrenzung, arbejdsmarked = Arbeitsmarkt. Writing compounds as two words (*hastigheds begrænsning) is a real orthographic error in Danish too — your German one-word instinct is correct.
• Adverbs from adjectives: add -t: han kører hurtigt (er fährt schnell). German leaves adjectives bare as adverbs; Danish marks them — forgetting the -t is a giveaway German accent in writing.
• Formal/written style: official Danish favours the s-passive (Ch. 24), nominalisations in -else, -ning, -hed (beslutning = Entscheidung, undersøgelse = Untersuchung), and light-verb chunks: træffe en beslutning (eine Entscheidung treffen — the same idiom!), stå til rådighed (zur Verfügung stehen), tage afsked (Abschied nehmen). Amtssprache habits transfer almost embarrassingly well.
• “man” exists and works like yours: man kan ikke vide det = man kann es nicht wissen. Object form: en; possessive: ens.
• Register: spoken Danish contracts aggressively (det er → det’, ikke → ik’); written Danish stays close to what this course teaches. Expect the gap between the two to be far larger than in German.

Study plan for a German-speaking beginner

1. Weeks 1–2 — Foundations (Ch. 1–8). Grammar-wise these are fast for you; spend the saved time on Chapter 1 and raw listening (slow Danish podcasts, DR with subtitles). Threshold: you can read simple sentences aloud with soft d and roughly correct vowels, and score 90% on the exercises.
2. Weeks 3–8 — Core (Ch. 9–23). One chapter per 2–3 days: read → quiz → exercise → re-do the exercise from two chapters back. Give double time to the four German-trap zones: predicative adjective agreement (Ch. 11), sin/sit/sine (Ch. 12), må/skal (Ch. 15), and adverb placement in ledsætninger (Ch. 21). Benchmark: you can say fordi-sentences with correct ikke-placement in speech without pausing.
3. Weeks 9–14 — Push on (Ch. 24–27). The s-passive is the one genuinely new system; the conditionals and pluskvamperfektum are nearly free for a German. Benchmark: you can read a DR news article and correctly parse every -s verb form as passive, deponent, or genitive.
4. Months 4+ — Polish (Ch. 28–30). Reported speech, particles, style. The particle chapter (29) is your unfair advantage — drill it early if you enjoy it; nothing makes you sound more native faster. Benchmark: you can use jo, nok, vel and lige naturally.
5. Throughout — listening above all. Written Danish will surrender quickly to a German speaker; spoken Danish will not. Make listening a daily habit from week 1, use the sound-shift table (Appendix A) to guess vocabulary, and keep the false-friends list (Appendix B) visible.

Caveats

• Grammar level is not the same as CEFR skill level. The tags show where a structure is typically taught. In Danish specifically, listening comprehension will lag your grammar level by a wide margin — that is normal and expected.
• The contrastive method has limits. Contrastive analysis over-predicts some errors and misses others; use the German parallels as scaffolding, not a guarantee. Some Danish difficulties (stød, vowel inventory) have nothing to do with German interference.
• Gender is only partly rule-governed. The en/et assignment must be memorised per noun; German gender is not a reliable predictor.
• Register and regional variation. Spoken Danish reduces heavily and varies (Jutland vs. Copenhagen); the course teaches the written standard (rigsdansk). The du/De guidance reflects mainstream usage; a few formal contexts still use De.
• This is a grammar course, not a complete language course. It deliberately omits systematic vocabulary building and — critically for Danish — extensive pronunciation and listening training. Pair it with daily audio input from day one.