Swedish vs Danish: Which Is Easier, and How Similar Are They?

Key takeaways

Swedish and Danish are in the same Foreign Service Institute difficulty group (Category I).
Their everyday vocabulary is close: roughly 6 in 10 everyday words look alike, so learning one gives you a real head start on the other.
Study time will not decide it, so start with the one you will actually use.

How hard is each one?

For an English speaker the two sit in the same difficulty group, so neither is officially easier: the Foreign Service Institute puts both at 552–690 class hours. These are the figures behind the how long does it take to learn a language calculator, from the US Foreign Service Institute's published language training times.

	Swedish	Danish
FSI difficulty group	Category I	Category I
Class hours to working proficiency	552–690	552–690
Full-time weeks	24–30	24–30

The hours are for a native English speaker in full-time classes aiming at professional working proficiency. Useful everyday conversation comes sooner, and the calculator breaks the time down by level.

How much do the words overlap?

Their everyday vocabulary is close: roughly 6 in 10 everyday words look alike, so learning one gives you a real head start on the other.

A few everyday words that look alike in Swedish and Danish:

English	Swedish	Danish
British	brittisk	britisk
Arabic	arabiska	arabisk
cassette	kassett	kassette
material	material	materiale
parent	förälder	forælder
restaurant	restaurang	restaurant
return	returnera	returnere
volleyball	volleyboll	volleyball

And a few everyday words that look completely different:

English	Swedish	Danish
airport	flygplats	lufthavn
breakfast	frukost	morgenmad
custom	sedvänja	skik
every	varje	hver
gate	grind	port
manager	chef	leder
run	springa	løbe
still	fortfarande	stadig

Writing system and grammar

Both use the Latin alphabet, so neither asks you to learn a new script, though each has its own spelling rules and special letters.

	Swedish	Danish
Writing system	Latin alphabet	Latin alphabet
Grammatical genders	2 (en and ett words)	2 (en and et words)
Noun cases	None	None
Tones	No	No

Which should you learn first?

Study time will not decide this one, because the two ask for about the same. If you want to reach a particular place, a person or a job, start with the one you will actually use: steady motivation counts for more than the difference in hours. Because they share so much, you do not need to pick one forever. Learning one first makes the other noticeably quicker, and the main risk is mixing the two up, so give the first a solid base before starting the second.

Frequently asked questions

Is Swedish easier than Danish?

For an English speaker the two sit in the same difficulty group, so neither is officially easier: the Foreign Service Institute puts both at 552–690 class hours. Hours are for a native English speaker reaching professional working proficiency in full-time classes; casual learning gets you to useful conversation well before that.

How similar are Swedish and Danish?

Their everyday vocabulary is close: roughly 6 in 10 everyday words look alike, so learning one gives you a real head start on the other. They are both Germanic languages, like English.

Should I learn Swedish or Danish first?

Can speakers of Swedish and Danish understand each other?

Some can, to a degree, but it varies a lot from person to person and with practice. Written text is usually easier to follow than fast speech.

Keep going

See all language comparisons