Danish Idioms & Expressions: Learn the 16 Real Idioms and the Phrases Around Them

Deck XP0861 "Danish Idioms & Expressions" has 78 cards, but only 16 of them (cards 31-46) are idioms. The rest is a phrasebook: greetings (1-30), conversation fillers and adverbs (47-73), and a small hygge and table-manners cluster (74-78). That is not a flaw if you study it in the right order.

Sample cards

What the deck covers

Phrasebook: hej, farvel, vi ses, mange tak, tusind tak, værsgo, undskyld, godmorgen, godnat, hvordan har du det?, jeg forstår ikke, held og lykke, tillykke, skål, glædelig jul, godt nytår. Idioms: en finger med i spillet, ikke min kop te, ikke noget at råbe hurra for, komme ud af busken, gå i hundene, slå en streg over. Fillers and adverbs: sådan er det bare, det kommer an på, selvfølgelig, næsten, cirka/omtrent, som sædvanlig, i mellemtiden, straks, lidt efter lidt. Culture: hygge, at hygge sig, hyggelig.

Study it in three blocks

1. Cards 1-30 and 47-73 first. You will use these every day: jo, værsgo and selv tak have no single English equivalent, so drill them in both directions.
2. Cards 31-46 next, the real idioms. Learn the literal image together with the meaning; the cow on the ice or the cat circling hot porridge is what makes the phrase stick.
3. Cards 74-78 last. Pair tak for mad (thanks for the food, which the deck leaves out) with velbekomme: a guest says the first, the host answers with the second.

Cards to fix

• Card 31, at tage skraldet ud, is literally "to take out the trash". It is not an idiom, so suspend it.
• Card 44: the fixed phrase is der ligger en hund begravet, "there's something fishy here", not "to have a hidden agenda". Rewrite the front and the back.
• Card 53: problem is a neuter noun (et problem), so the phrase is intet problem or ingen problemer, never ingen problem.
• Card 63, præcis nok: natural Danish for "just enough" is lige tilpas.
• Card 77: god fornøjelse means "have fun / enjoy" for any activity (a film, a trip), not specifically a meal.
• Card 36, at have en pind i øret: we could not find this one in real use. Skip it until a native speaker confirms it.

Tip: learn jo as a reflex

Jo answers a negative question: "Kommer du ikke?" (Aren't you coming?) → "Jo!" (Yes, I am!). Say ja there and Danes hear confusion. Write three negative questions as fronts and jo as the back. Also learn the soft particle jo in "det er jo rigtigt" (that's true, you know), which the deck never covers.

Keep going

The vocabulary behind these phrases is in our guide to the 100 most common Danish words, which also explains the en/et gender behind the intet problem fix. For the table, see Danish food vocabulary.

Find XP0861 in the Flip It library: open Flip It and search the deck code.