What languages should our children speak?
Last Week in Denmark (24.05-31.05) Episode 20 Year 6
What did we learn this week?
Your children can get “mother tongue education” from the municipality.
Look out for the health bus checking for type 2 diabetes. 100,000 live with this disease unknowingly. Early detection is gold.
Denmark wants you to be able to swim at least 200 meters without stopping. Check the first-ever national recommendations on drowning prevention.
Letter from the editor
Tomorrow is International Children’s Day, and it feels like the perfect excuse to talk about something many international families wrestle with: What languages should our children speak?
We have many situations. Two parents from the same language background, where the child learns that language and Danish in the educational system. Two parents from different language backgrounds, where they speak Danish or English to each other, and their own languages to the child. Sometimes they only speak Danish to the child, or they replace the parent’s language(s) with English as the common language of the family.
The consensus from the experts and pedagogues is that giving your child multiple native languages is like giving them a superpower.
Why? Beyond being able to speak with more people, multilingual children often become more comfortable switching between different ways of thinking and understanding the world. Researchers have linked bilingualism to stronger problem-solving skills and greater mental flexibility. In short, speaking more than one language can be a real advantage later in life. The challenge is not convincing parents that it is worthwhile. The challenge is actually making it happen.
Here is my situation. I am Romanian, my children are half-Polish, and at home we speak European English as our common language. From the beginning, we wanted our children to grow up with all three languages (Romanian, Polish, and English) while learning Danish through school. So far, Polish and English have developed at a great pace. Danish has taken off even faster. Romanian, however, has fallen behind.
The culprit? Me. I work more than 50 hours a week, and when I come home, English is often the easiest option. It is the language we already use as a family, and I often catch myself forgetting to switch to Romanian.
That brings me to another concern. My oldest daughter has developed Danish much faster than her other languages. When she plays by herself, she talks almost entirely in Danish. And that makes me wonder.
Will she one day be more comfortable speaking Danish than speaking with us in our own languages? Will we still be able to share what Danes call *hjertesproget* – the language of the heart?
Because language is not just how we exchange information. It is how we comfort our children when they are upset. How we tell them we are proud of them. How we share family stories, jokes, traditions, and memories.
So should we simply switch to Danish as a common language in the family? Some educators would say no. They argue that parents should provide a flawless language model. If you don’t speak “perfect Danish” (and rarely does anyone), you will only be a stumbling block. Others argue that modeling mistakes and perseverance can be positive for children, but that’s no way to teach fluency. Furthermore, speaking a less comfortable language could lead to rigid conversations without emotional depth. The communication deficit can affect the child’s emotional security.
So my only solution will be to take the children to the “Romanian” and “Polish” language schools for children, hoping that professionals will do a better job than me. If you’ve never heard of it, search for “Modersmålsundervisning” and your municipality. If you are lucky, there is already such an offer. If not, you can make it happen.
If 12 children aged 6-15 want “mother tongue education,“ then the municipality is obliged to hire a teacher and provide such education for a few hours per week. Unfortunately, this is limited only to EU languages. However, some municipalities (mainly Copenhagen) have found a way to support other languages too.
What is your experience? Share your story on our social media so that others can learn from it.
Thank you for reading and sharing Last Week in Denmark!
Narcis George Matache, Executive Editor, LWID
Our long-form articles this week…
You’re the Best-Kept Secret in Your Organization by Florin Lungu
Sofar Sounds Arrives in Vejle to Connect Cultures by Cecilia Mena Garrido
The Cultural Explorer’s Diary: Power, Sisterhood, and Survival in The Daughters of Lear by Paulina Stachnik
The Little Viking Saga – Episode 12 – Treasures from the vacuum bag by Emily Ritchie
Want to dig deeper into the latest news? Check out the Last Week in Denmark podcast. New episodes drop on all podcast apps and YouTube every Wednesday. Follow now so you don’t miss it.
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Danish Politics HQ
Political scene
⚡ The electricity grid is struggling to keep up. Some of the biggest projects now face waits of 5–10 years before they can connect, after Energinet (the national electricity transmission operator) extended a pause on new applications. Demand is coming from data centers, large batteries, and green fuel plants. Energinet says there is currently more demand for grid access than the system can provide. They are now asking politicians to intervene and prioritize which large projects should come first in line.
Daily Life in Denmark HQ
🩺 Around 100,000 people may have type 2 diabetes without knowing it. To help find them, the Diabetes Association is sending a health bus around the country this summer, offering quick risk assessments and blood sugar tests at public events. The idea is simple: catch the disease before it causes serious problems. The last time the bus toured the country, it identified more than 150 people with undiagnosed diabetes and hundreds more with early warning signs.
🏊 We have the first national recommendations for what children and adults should be able to do in water. For adults, the minimum goal is swimming 200 meters without stopping, including 25 meters on your back, plus basic rescue skills like helping an unconscious person with a floating device. The recommendations come after reports that around 100 people drown every year. If you haven’t been in a swimming pool since school, this may be your sign to test whether you remember more than just the doggy paddle.
🤖 Companies increasingly expect new hires to know how to use AI tools, and schools are scrambling to adapt. Several IT and web development programs now teach students how to use AI and allow it during exams if they can explain their process. Teachers say the bigger fear is graduating students into a market where AI already handles many of the simpler junior tasks. One student put it simply: why spend twenty hours fixing coding mistakes when AI can do it in seconds?
🏕️ More parents are creating their own clubs for children who struggle to go to school. In places like Aalborg, families meet around campfires and creative activities instead of in classrooms. Their children deal with anxiety or other challenges that make school feel overwhelming. Parents say the clubs are the first places where their children feel relaxed around other people again. Families searching for similar support often use the Danish term “skolevægring” (school refusal).
💙 A man who died last autumn left 1.3 million DKK to Frederikshavn Municipality to help the Skagen area he cared deeply about. He had no children and spent years discussing local politics with friends and neighbors. Now a small group of locals, including one of his closest friends, must decide how to spend the money. Such a story is more common than you might expect in Denmark. There are hundreds of private funds established for the good of the society, which you can find in the book “Legathåndbogen” (at your nearest library).
🧳 What started as a hobby collecting souvenirs from flea markets has turned into one of the most unusual museums in the country. For more than 30 years, Hans Rossen has filled a former theater building on Langeland with around 3,000 holiday memories from around the world, everything from snow globes to a space shuttle model. Now he hopes someone else will take over the collection and continue the dream. In a time where people travel across the country just to visit quirky little museums and nostalgic experiences, the idea may still have more life in it.
🐭 Researchers are asking us to help look for signs of one of the rarest animals in Denmark: the hazel dormouse (hasselmusen). The tiny rodent has almost disappeared in recent years, but a surprise discovery in South Denmark gave researchers hope there may be unknown populations still out there. Families are now encouraged to search forests and gardens for hazelnuts with strange bite marks and/or tiny nests. This may be one of the few times in life where finding half-eaten nuts is considered scientific research.
💍 A groom lost his wedding ring in the water at Nordhavn just hours after getting married. After giving up on finding it himself, he asked for help in a local Facebook group. The next morning, a stranger arrived with a snorkel and wetsuit and found the ring in under six minutes. A good reminder that the internet is occasionally useful for something beyond arguing with others.
Danish Economics HQ
Our money
🏠 Alexander Mustafa Sethi from Amager has won a complaint case against the tax authorities after being charged interest on a tax mistake. The new housing tax system had calculated around 19,000 DKK incorrectly, which led to interest charges. After the homeowner complained, the interest was refunded, something a tax expert described as close to a “100-year event” because these kinds of interest repayments almost never happen. The case gives hundreds of thousands of other homeowners in similar situations the chance to recover their money.
⛽ Denmark’s independent economic advisers, often called the country’s financial watchdogs, are warning that the Iran conflict could push inflation up to 4.7% next year if oil prices remain high. Despite rising prices at the pump, they do not support cutting fuel taxes, arguing that cheaper petrol would only increase demand for oil when supplies are already under pressure. They also expect housing prices to keep rising, although higher interest rates could eventually slow the market down.
🍽️ Restaurants across North Jutland say they have plenty of customers but not enough staff. Some cafés have started closing several days a week because they cannot find kitchen workers, even during the busy summer season. Restaurant owners in Aalborg have now turned to job centers for help, something that was almost unheard of a few years ago. Back then, a Facebook post or a sign in the window was often enough to fill a vacancy.
State of the markets
🎮 A Danish game studio just released a James Bond game after spending around 1.3 billion DKK to produce it. That makes it the most expensive cultural production ever made in the country. People in the gaming industry hope the launch could push Denmark onto the global gaming map in the same way Minecraft helped Sweden years ago. The company behind the game, IO Interactive, started in Copenhagen in 1998 and now has more than 500 employees across Europe.
📈 We got our first new stock market listing in more than three years. The company is BioMar, one of the world’s largest producers of fish feed, with factories across the world and revenue of 16.5 billion DKK last year. The listing also comes at a time when the Danish stock market has become much smaller, with the number of listed companies falling from 204 in 2007 to just 114 today. Now investors are watching to see whether companies like Leo Pharma and WS Audiology could be next.
🧀 The EU has approved Arla’s takeover of the German dairy giant DMK, clearing the way for what will become Europe’s largest dairy cooperative. Together, the companies will unite more than 12,000 farmers and generate close to 19 billion euros in annual revenue. The deal had raised concerns about competition and milk prices, especially in Northern Germany, but the EU concluded there was still enough competition in the market.
🛒 The EU has fined Temu 200 million euros after investigators found unsafe and potentially illegal products on the platform. Mystery shopping tests showed that many chargers failed basic safety checks, while some baby toys were considered a high safety risk. The EU says Temu has not done enough to assess the risks of products sold through its marketplace. Temu now has until August 28 to present a plan explaining how it will fix the problems.
Entrepreneurship
🐟 A 27-year-old entrepreneur in Thy looked at piles of discarded fish skin and thought: what if this could become chips instead of waste? Now he runs a small company from a basement at the Hanstholm harbor, turning leftover fish skin into crunchy snacks that local shops and restaurants have already started selling. The idea sounds slightly insane at first. Then again, so did oat milk a few years ago.
🌍 Want to grow your business beyond Denmark? The Keys to Europe’s Market is a free event for entrepreneurs interested in reaching customers across the EU. Hear from experts on internationalization, partnerships, and market access, and be among the first to receive the new guide, The Keys to Europe’s Market. The event takes place on June 26, 16:00–19:00, in Aalborg, with food and drinks included. Registration required.
International Community HQ
🏗️ Romanian and Italian construction workers have restarted a blockade at the new super hospital in Odense, saying they are still missing around a month’s worth of wages after their employer went bankrupt. The workers rejected an offer from the main contractor that would have paid part of the money later and offered new jobs in two weeks. Instead, they returned to the gates with signs asking a simple question: “Where is our money?”
💒 Thousands of international couples who got married in Copenhagen are receiving refunds after the city discovered it had been charging wedding fees it was not legally allowed to collect. The practice affected around 12,000 couples over seven years and will cost the municipality up to 23 million DKK. The story is also a reminder of how big wedding tourism has become: around 5,000 international couples choose Copenhagen each year to tie the knot.
Community Noticeboard
Danish Pedagogy & Social Values 📍Kulturhuset Vartov, Copenhagen | 🗓 Tue Jun 9, 17:00–19:00 | Free, requires sign up
Greater Copenhagen Neighbourhoods: Stories by the Water 📍Orientkaj Metro Station, Copenhagen | 🗓 Thu Jun 11, 17:00–19:00 | Free, requires sign
Copenhagen Photo Festival 📍Multiple venues across Copenhagen | 🗓Jun 11-21 | Free (outdoor/street exhibitions) / ticketed (festival center) Read more here
3daysofdesign📍Showrooms across Copenhagen | 🗓Jun 10-12 | Free | Read more here
Free workshop for middle managers. Former Volvo and Renault project manager Florin Lungu is hosting a 90-minute online workshop on managing from the middle. Participants will complete a self-assessment, compare experiences with others, and leave with practical tools for handling everyday leadership challenges. June 10, 17:00–18:30.
➕ Hosting something relevant to internationals in Denmark? Send it to us at noticeboard@lwid.dk
Denmark in Global Headlines
🌷 “Queen Margrethe of Denmark hospitalized again less than 2 weeks after heart attack” – People
🏛️ “Denmark’s Frederiksen gets a second chance to form next government” – Politico
📉 “Denmark expects slower growth over next two years due to Mideast tensions” – HurriyetDailyNews
🧊 “Greenland talks with US and Denmark remain deadlocked after four months” – ArcticToday