The 1,000 Most Common Danish Words

Ranked by real-world frequency. Study all of them free with spaced repetition.

More Danish lists: Nouns Verbs Adjectives Adverbs About learning Danish

The 1,000 Most Common Danish Words: the list

Tips for learning Danish words

• Most verbs on this list appear as infinitives ending in -e (komme, gøre, være, blive, sige, lave, give, bruge, ske), so once you spot that pattern new verbs look far less random.
• Learn hvor, hvorfor and hvordan as a set: these question words all begin with hv-, much like English wh- words, which makes them easier to recall together than one at a time.
• Short words such as ikke, jo, nok and lige carry a lot of meaning but are easy to skim past, so practise them inside short phrases rather than in isolation.
• When you meet a noun such as mand, check whether it takes en or et - Danish nouns are either common or neuter gender, and that choice affects articles and adjective endings later on.
• gøre and lave overlap in ways that English 'do' and 'make' do not always match, so learn them with example phrases instead of the bare translation.
• Typing out similar-looking verbs such as sige (to say) and ske (to happen), rather than just recognising them, helps fix their spelling - which is exactly what typing the answer in Vocab Voyage trains.