Danish Language & Culture Study Danish in Denmark

A New Way to Experience Denmark

Study abroad is all about experiences – and at DIS you have the opportunity to learn the local culture and speak to the Danes in their native tongue! DIS strongly encourages students to take Danish Language & Culture as it promises to positively enhance the study abroad experience.

In fact, well over 60 percent of all students choose to enroll in the Danish Language & Culture class. So if you’re spending a semester with the Danes, why not try to sound like one and acquire knowledge of the culture while you’re at it?

Why Danish?

Most Danes speak English, so why should you bother to study Danish? Why should you spend time trying to learn how to pronounce æ, ø and å and say “Jeg vil gerne have en kop kaffe,” or “Hvordan går det?”. Well, for several reasons. If you want to get the most out of your study abroad experience; if you want to obtain a sense of not just being a tourist passing by, but actually feeling that you live in Copenhagen, knowing just a little bit of the language and understand the local culture is an essential tool. 

A Fun Learning Experience

Danish Language & Culture isn’t just a typical language course. It offers a much more dynamic experience. On top of the courage and hard work that learning any new language requires, here you can also expect an interactive classroom, laughter, a focus on culture and real life situations, and lots of field studies throughout the semester – museums, soccer games, city tours and more. The cultural aspect will also give you new insight into the mind of Danes and help you understand the local psyche and traditions!

Most students are beginners – don't worry if you've never even heard the language – but we have intermediate and advanced levels for those students with some knowledge. Most sections are beginner 3-credit courses, but consider the 6-credit accelerated course if you really want to learn the language – it's worth it!

What to Expect

Studying Danish or any foreign language for a semester will not make you fluent, but after a semester at DIS you will be able to:

• have short informal conversations with your Danish host family or roommate or new friends at the kollegium
• order your Carlsberg or buy your daily coffee or lunch in Danish 
• read the different signs in the street and understand announcements on trains and busses.

The Danish culture part will be used as an opener to Danish culture, history and identity. It will:

• provide you with an overview of the historical development of Denmark
• enable you to understand and decode Danishness
• introduce you to current social trends and political debates
• require you to observe and analyze contemporary life and culture through a comparative lens and your own first hand observations
• training in storytelling about the intercultural experience

And while Danish language and culture are the cornerstones of the class, you will also train “story telling,” i.e. the ability to present a topic in a way worth listening to. This is an important element in your general communication skills, not least in the job market.

Field Studies

Danish Language and Culture includes three field studies, for example:

• A soccer match at Denmark’s national stadium (all classes)
• A Danish high school, meeting and working with students your own age
• Roskilde Cathedral, the royal sepulcher, on Unesco’s World Heritage list.
• Danish World War II Resistance Museum
• Statens Museum for Kunst (State Museum of Art): Danish Golden Age painting
• Dyrehaven (Deer Park, the royal hunting grounds of the 18th century).