Danish vs Dutch: similar or not?

Danish and Dutch are two different languages. Danish is spoken in Denmark, Dutch in the Netherlands and Belgium, and the two English words just sound alike. Both are Germanic languages, so they share some old words, but a Dane and a Dutch person cannot understand each other by speaking their own languages. Below you can compare the words side by side and hear the Danish ones.

Is Dutch the same as Danish?

No. This is the most common mix-up, and it is not your fault: “Danish” and “Dutch” look like a pair. They are not.

• Danish is the language of Denmark. In Danish it is dansk, and the people are danskere.
• Dutch is the language of the Netherlands and of Flanders in Belgium. Danes call it hollandsk or nederlandsk, and the people hollændere.

So if you are from the Netherlands, you are Dutch, not Danish. And a Danish pastry is from Denmark, though Danes call it wienerbrød, Vienna bread. Another trap: “Pennsylvania Dutch” is a kind of German, not Dutch at all. The word Dutch once meant “German” in English, much like German Deutsch.

Is Danish Germanic, and how close is it to Dutch?

Both languages are Germanic, like English, German and Swedish. But the Germanic family has two living branches, and Danish and Dutch sit on different ones:

That means Dutch is closer to German and English than to Danish, and Danish is closest to Norwegian and Swedish. A Dane can read a lot of Norwegian. With Dutch, a Dane recognises single words in a text, but not much more.

Danish and Dutch words side by side

Many everyday words come from the same old roots, so you can see the family likeness on paper. Tap the Danish word to hear it, and notice that the sound is often much further apart than the spelling.

Some pairs are close (brød and brood, mælk and melk), some are not related at all (ost and kaas, vand and water). Hear dag: in Danish the g almost disappears, while in Dutch it is a strong sound in the throat.

How do they sound different?

If you hear the two languages one after the other, you will not mix them up again.

• Dutch is hard and clear. It has the rough g and ch sound at the back of the throat, and the consonants are strong.
• Danish is soft. Many consonants go soft or silent. The d in brød is soft, the g in dag is almost gone, and the r in mor becomes part of the vowel.
• Danish has the stød, a small catch in the voice that can change the meaning of a word: hun (she) and hund (dog). Dutch has nothing like it.
• Danish has more vowels. Nine vowel letters, including æ, ø and å, which Dutch does not use.

How is the grammar different?

Both languages have two genders for nouns and put the verb in second place in a main sentence. After that they go different ways:

• The word for “the”. Dutch puts it in front: het huis. Danish puts it on the end of the word: huset, the house.
• Verbs. Dutch changes the verb for each person: ik werk, jij werkt. Danish has one form for everyone: jeg arbejder, du arbejder, vi arbejder.
• Word order in longer sentences. Dutch sends the verb to the end of a subordinate clause, like German. Danish keeps it near the front: fordi jeg ikke har tid, because I do not have time.

For an English speaker, that makes Danish grammar the easier of the two. The pronunciation is the hard part, and the honest answer to whether Danish is hard starts there.

Questions people ask

Can Danes understand Dutch?

Not in conversation. A Dane reading Dutch will recognise many words, especially if they also know German, but spoken Dutch is a foreign language to most Danes. Danes and Dutch people usually speak English together.

How do you say “hi” in Denmark?

Hej, pronounced like “high”. It works with everyone, from your neighbour to your boss. The guide to hello in Danish has the other greetings.

Where is Danish spoken?

In Denmark, and as a second language in Greenland and the Faroe Islands, plus by a Danish minority in northern Germany. See where Danish is spoken.

Is Danish or Dutch easier to learn for English speakers?

Dutch is usually easier to understand at first, because it is closer to English and is pronounced more like it is written. Danish grammar is simpler, but the sounds take longer.