Daily Danish Pod
A language learning podcast, for beginners, focusing on everyday scenarios.
Join Victoria, your Danish teacher, and Andrew, your fellow learner, as they work through the conversations you'll actually need in everyday life. From ordering a coffee and shopping at the supermarket to introducing yourself, each episode focuses on practical, high-frequency situations you'll encounter in Denmark.
Daily Danish Pod is a language learning podcast for absolute beginners, but learners of all levels can benefit from our focus on pronunciation and word and phrase variations.
Whether you've just moved to Denmark, are planning a visit, or simply want to build confidence speaking Danish, we're here to help.
Our goal isn't to make you fluent overnight. Instead, we want to help you take those important first steps and give you the confidence to start speaking. Many people aren't ready to chat with Danish friends on day one, but you can absolutely learn how to order food, ask simple questions, and navigate daily life.
Each episode builds on the last, introducing new vocabulary while constantly revisiting previous words and phrases through repetition. You can jump into any episode, but listening in order will give you the best learning experience.
So come with us on your Danish language journey. Listen, repeat, rewind, and don't be afraid to speak. The more you hear it, the more natural it becomes.
Get talking!
If you're enjoying the podcast, we'd love to hear from you. Leave a review, share it with another Danish learner, and let us know what everyday situations you'd like us to cover next.
Daily Danish Pod
Basic Greetings - S1 Ep1
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
In this episode, we introduce some of the most common Danish greetings you'll hear every day. You'll learn how to say hello, ask how someone is doing, respond naturally, and say goodbye.
Words of the Day
Hej - Hi / Hello
Hvordan går det? - How's it going?
Det går godt - It's going well
Godt - Good
Hvad med dig? - What about you?
Tak - Thank you
Hej hej - Bye / Bye-bye
Vi ses - See you
Main Dialogue
Victoria: Hej Andrew!
Andrew: Hej Victoria!
Victoria: Hvordan går det?
Andrew: Det går godt, tak. Hvad med dig?
Victoria: Det går også godt, tak.
Andrew: Hej hej.
Victoria: Hej hej. Vi ses!
Andrew: Vi ses!
Words and Phrase Variations
Other ways to say hello:
Hejsa - Hi there (informal)
Godmorgen - Good morning
Goddag - Good day
Godaften - Good evening
Possible responses to "Hvordan går det?":
Fantastisk - Fantastic
Fint - Fine
Okay - Okay
Dårligt - Bad
Other ways to say goodbye:
Farvel - Goodbye
Vi ses - See you
Follow us on instagram @dailydanishpod
Intro to the Episode
Speaker 4Hi, alle sammen .
Speaker 1Hey everyone. Welcome to Daily Danish Pod, a language learning podcast for beginners focusing on everyday scenarios.
Speaker 4My name is Victoria, and I will be the teacher.
Speaker 1My name is Andrew and I will be the learner. So, what are we going to talk about today, Victoria?
Speaker 4Well, Andrew, we are going to talk about basic greetings, like how to say hello to someone and ask how they're doing. We will play out a dialogue that we will repeat over and over again. There will be space for you as a listener to practice understanding and repeat out loud. We will also have our culture point and talk a bit about how Danes greet each other. At the end, we will also introduce a couple of variations.
Speaker 1Sounds great. Should we begin?
Speaker 4Yes, let's begin.
Words of the Day
Speaker 4'Lad os gå i gang'. We are now moving on to words of the day. Here we will introduce the words that you will hear again in the dialogue later. So do not worry if you don't catch everything, because we'll be repeating them many times. 'Er du klar' Andrew, are you ready, Andrew?
Speaker 1Yes, I'm ready.
Speaker 4In Danish, to say hello, it's almost the same as in English. It's 'hej'. Do you want to give that a try?
SpeakerHej.
Speaker 4If you're listening at home and can repeat out loud, try it as well. 'Hej'.
SpeakerHej.
Speaker 4To say how are you, we often say 'hvordan går det'. So it literally means how goes it, but it's the most common and also informal way to ask someone how they're doing. So do you remember how to say it?
Speaker 1Was it 'hvordan går det'?
Speaker 4Perfekt.
Speaker 1I think I know how to respond to this. 'Godt', right?
Speaker 4Exactly. You can just say 'godt', which means good, or you can respond in a full sentence by saying 'det går godt', directly translated to it goes well.
Speaker 1And what if I'm not doing good? I know Denmark is one of the happiest countries in the world.
Speaker 4Oh Andrew, don't worry about that just yet. We can look at it later. Let's focus on learning this for now. Do you remember how to say it goes well?
Speaker 1'det går godt'.
Speaker 4Fantastisk.
Speaker 1And what if I want to ask you, Victoria, how you're doing?
Speaker 4You would reply, 'hvad med dig'?.
Speaker 1hvad med dig?.
Speaker 4'Hvad med dig' literally means what with yourself, but it translates to what about you? So the last thing I want to teach you for now is how to say goodbye. It's super easy because you're already halfway there. So you remember how to say hello?
Speaker 1Wasn't that 'hej'?
Speaker 4Perfect. In Danish to say goodbye, we double it and we say 'hej hej' .
SpeakerHej hej.
Speaker 4All right, everyone, we're moving into the dialogue listening comprehension part, which means that Andrew and I will go over the dialogue. And at this point, we just want you to sit back and relax and listen to us go through the dialogue at a slowed-down tempo and see if you can recognize any of the words that we just introduced to you.
Speaker 4Hej Andrew!
Speaker 1Hej Victoria!
Speaker 4Hvordan går det?
Speaker 1Det går godt. Hvad med dig?
Speaker 4Det går godt, tak.
Speaker 1Hej hej.
Speaker 4Hej hej.
Speaker 1Hmm, Victoria, you added something in there.
Speaker 4Yes, I added a 'tak'. 'Tak' means thank you in Danish. So in our next episode, we'll talk a lot more about 'tak' and different ways to say thank you in Danish.
Speaker 1Great. Something to look forward to.
Speaker 4Definitely
Speaker 4efinitely.
English Translation
Speaker 1Now you can listen to the dialogue with breaks and an English translation. Victoria will read out the script, line for line in Danish, and then I will translate into English.
Speaker 4Hej. hvordan går det
Speaker 1Hi. How's it going?
Speaker 4Det går godt.
Speaker 1It's going well.
Speaker 4Hvad med dig?
Speaker 1How about you?
Speaker 4Det går godt, tak
Speaker 1It's going well, thanks.
Speaker 3Hi hi.
Speaker 1Bye bye.
Pronunciation Point
Speaker 2Pronunciation point. Pronunciation point.
Speaker 1Pronunciation point.
Speaker 4Okay, let's do it.
Speaker 1One of the harder things for Danish learners, including myself, is to grasp the difference between the written language and the spoken language. That's also a big part of what we're doing here in the pod. We're really focusing on spoken Danish. So the way that people actually pronounce words on the day-to-day. So when you look at the alphabet, it's helpful to remember that the letters are just symbols. They give you clues about what sounds to make and how those sounds come together. But in Danish, one letter can represent more than one sound. And at the same time, not every sound in Danish is perfectly represented by just one letter.
Speaker 4The Danish alphabet has 20 consonants and nine vowels, but there are many more sounds than letters. For example, while we have nine written letters for the vowels, depending on how you count, there are 20 to 40 unique vowel sounds, maybe even more. And on the other hand, many consonants often become silent. And this is why learning Danish isn't just about memorizing the alphabet. It's about practicing the sounds and getting used to hearing them and making them yourself.
Speaker 1That's what we want you to start practicing today. Victoria will take us through the alphabet, but really the goal is for you to start experimenting by making just some of the sounds in Danish together with us.
Speaker 4We're not going to cover every single sound going through the alphabet, but we'll keep coming back to them throughout the podcast and build on them step by step. For now, the most important thing is just to start warming up with these building blocks of the language. So for the next part
Culture Point
Speaker 4hej
Speaker 4Hvordan går det?
Speaker 4Det går godt
Speaker 4hvad med dig? det går godt, tak
Speaker 4hej hej
Speaker 1Hi hi. So Victoria, d o Danes actually have this conversation? Is this something that I would come across in my daily life?
Speaker 4The basics are definitely there. It's a very normal conversation you could have with someone at your workplace in passing when you're greeting them. There will probably be a little bit more complexity to it, but this could also definitely be something that you could encounter.
Speaker 1So I'm from the United States. Maybe the listener can hear it at home. When we go into a coffee shop, this is a conversation that we might have with any random person. It could be the person in line behind us, it could be the barista at the coffee shop. Is that something that you're is going to happen in Denmark?
Speaker 4No. Danes probably in that regard find that kind of small talk a little too shallow. So it's not to say that Danes don't engage in small talk in that way, but in the United States, how's it going is almost the same equivalent as saying hi. And you don't really necessarily answer truthfully. Whereas in Denmark, there would probably be a there will probably be a bit more of an expectation of you answering truthfully.
Speaker 1But so this is maybe this conversation is something that I would have, as you said, with a colleague or someone I already know. It's something that you would say, but you have to already have kind of know the person. Yes. You're not just gonna say it on the street to anyone you walk by.
Speaker 4No.
Speaker 1Okay. Nice.
Practice Listening - Real Speed
Speaker 4Now we will try to speed it all up and have it in a normal conversation style. Hi Andrew.
Speaker 1Hi Victoria
Speaker 4Hvordan går det?
Speaker 1Det går godt. Hvad med dig?
Speaker 4Det går godt, tak
Word & Phrase Variations
Speaker 1Hej hej
Speaker 4H ej hej
Speaker 1We will now have the section word and phrase variations. These are different ways you can say similar concepts and ideas related to this episode's dialogue.
Speaker 4So remember we would ask someone 'hvordan går det? And then you could answer 'det går okay'. It could also be if it's going incredibly well, you could say 'det går fantastisk'. What if you're not feeling so well? Then you could say 'det går dårligt'. 'dårligt' means bad.
Speaker 1And so would I always say hi to someone, or is there other ways to greet somebody?
Speaker 4Well, there are different ways. One some that are more time specific. That could be 'god morgen', which means good morning. So 'god morgen'.
Speaker 1God morgen.
Speaker 4Or 'god aften'. Which means good evening. 'God aften'. Or if you're just greeting at any time of the day,'god dag'.
SpeakerGod dag
Speaker 4God dag. Yes. If it's more informal, you could also say 'hejsa'.
Speaker 1Hejsa, Yeah. So I would say that if I were seeing you, a friend of mine.
Speaker 4Definitely.
Speaker 1And is there any other way if I'm gonna say goodbye to someone?
Speaker 4Yes. So remember, goodbye. The more informal goodbye would be hej hej. But if you are seeing someone soon, you could say 'vi ses'. Yeah, which means we will see each other. Or if it's a more formal setting, you could say 'farvel'.
Speaker 1Farvel
Speaker 4Yes, which is related to farewell. So 'farvel'
Teaser for Next Episode
Speaker 4That's all for this episode. Join us next time as we take a trip to the supermarket.
Speaker 1We would love to hear from you, our listeners. Please comment whether you have ideas for how we can improve, scenarios you would like us to cover, or even just to say hi and introduce yourself. We'd love to know where you're from and your motivation for learning Danish. If you'd like to support us further, please like and subscribe. And check out our Instagram at Daily Danish Pod to get updates on our work.
Speaker 4This podcast was created and recorded at Union, a culture house in Nørrebro, Copenhagen, with funding from Fonden Københavns Sprog Center. The pod would not be possible without both of their help. A big thank you to Chenny, Esben, and Gustavo for your ongoing support. A shout out to Omar for our logo design and Andrew Rennison for creating our jingle.
Speaker 1Sacrified Day Victoria.
Speaker 4Hi hi.
Speaker 1See you next time.