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Danish and Norwegian are very similar languages, but there are more differences than are easily noticeable without taking a closer look. One thing that is especially noticeable is that the Danish language has many German words and some grammatical influence not found in Norwegian. An example is names of countries. The Danish language generally uses the German names of countries or at least the German ending; this means that the usual ending is -a in Norwegian and -en or -et in Danish.

English:   Turkey 
Danish:    Tyrkiet 
Norwegian: Tyrkia

Differences in pronunciation

The difference in pronunciation between Norwegian and Danish is much bigger than between Norwegian and Swedish. Danish people generally do not understand Norwegian very well, especially if it is not Bokmål. Norwegians also have problems understanding Danish, but according to a recent scientific investigation they are better at understanding Danish than the Danes are at understanding Norwegian.

The Danish pronunciation is softer and especially d, r and g are pronounced quite differently. E.g. Danish g is pronounced as Norwegian y or ou.

Grammatical differences

Prepositions

The main difference in use of prepositions in the Danish and Norwegian language is the use of i/på, english in/on. In many cases the rules are the same, but there are still many exceptions. For example if you were to say "I'm going out" (as in out to a bar/disc) you would say in Norwegian "Jeg går på byen" (lit. I go on the city) but in Danish you would say "Jeg går I byen" (lit. I go in the city).

Another difference is the use of the definite endings. In danish, the definite ending is used similarly to the definite article in english, so that "I love that man" becomes "Jeg elsker den mand". In norwegian, the definite article is still used even if a specific example is already indicated with "den" ("that"): "I love that man" becomes "Jeg elsker den mannen" in norwegian, literally "I love that the man".

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