Elena Sokolova, April 18th 2025
A wrong word stress in Danish may cause misunderstandings or a stronger foreign accent in non-native speakers of Danish, in other words, native speakers can perceive your Danish as more accented, not because of vowels or consonants mispronunciation, but because of moved stress patterns. Word stress is also connected with sentence stress and melody, so to improve word stress assignment has a great value for your Danish.
In the Danish-Danish dictionaries like https://ordnet.dk or at https://udtaleordbog.dk, you can check the pronunciation of most of the words in Danish, if you have time and need to practice your oral presentation for an exam for example. But often, there is no time for checking the word stress or when you read aloud you need to pronounce here and now. Then, some rules about general word stress patterns can be of great help to know. I will refer to those, systematized by Grønnum, Nina (2005) in Fonetik og fonologi: almen og dansk.
Word stress can only fall on the syllable with the full vowel, not a reduced one. Like in selvfølgelig [sεlˈføljəli], where [ə] can not bear stress.
If there are more than one full vowel in the word, and one of them is a long one/with glottal stop called ‘stød’ in Danish, then the syllable with the long vowel (which is normally a vowel ending a syllable, and not closed by a consonant) will take the stress. Like in bevægelse [beˈvεˀjəlsə], banegård [ˈbæːnəˌgɒˀ], forespørgsel [ˈfɒːɒsbɶɐ̯səl]. Or like in forståelse [fʌˈsdɔˀəlsə], where å is a full vowel with glottal stop/long by nature.
If there are more than one long vowel in the word, the first syllable with the long vowel will take the stress. Like in foreskrive [ˈfɒːɒˌsgʁiˀvə].
If there are no long vowels in the word, the last syllable with a short full vowel followed by a consonant will take the stress. Like in stakit [sdaˈkid].
Borrowings from French have stress on the last syllable. Like in arrangement [ɑɑŋɕəˈmɑŋ].
Prefixes, such as be-, ge-, er-, for-, are usually unstressed, like in betænksom, erfaring, gevaldig, gevinst, forbygge. Some of them, such as u-, und-, mis-, van- can be either stressed or not. E.g. in uheld, the first vowel is stess, while in the related adjective uhelidg, the prefix ‘u-‘ is unstressed.
Above I mentioned the common rules about primary stress. Some words in Danish are pronounced with a main and a secondary stress. The secondary stress generally (like a weaker stress echo) is more typical of compounds in Danish, i.e. words formed by adding several stems/words together. The general rule about the assignment of the secondary stress in compound words is that the first stem of the compound carries the main stress on that syllable, which carries the main stress in an isolated pronunciation of the stem. The secondary stress is assigned to the last stem of the compound on that syllable, which carries the main stress in an isolated pronunciation of this stem, as for instance, ˈengelskˌlærer, ‘morgenˌmenneske. The second stress is marked with a stress sign underneath. However, there are numerous exceptions to this rule.
In Danish, the secondary stress is also typical of some suffixes in non-compound words, ending in for example, -dom, -hed, -skab, -som, -vis, -bar, mæssig, -dømme. Like in barndom [ˈbɑːnˌdʌmˀ], delvis [ˈdeːlˌviˀs], arbejdssom [ɑˈbɑjˀdˌsʌmˀ]. However, the secondary stress generally is more typical of compounds in Danish, as mentioned above, and the words having the mentioned suffixes may sound like having one stess for some native speakers, as the secondary stress is very weak.
Typical mispronunciation may occur when non-native speakers pronounce compound words with two main stresses. E.g. in æbletærte, the main/primary stress in on æble-; but a non-native speaker can pronounce the word with two main stresses, like ‘æble’tærte (considered wrong). Or e.g. in mi’ljøforurening the main stress in on mi’ljø, not on both stems.
Double main/primary stress is possible in Danish, but is not a common feature. It occurs in:
If you are interested in further reading on Danish word stess, sentence stress and melody, check out http://basby.dk/H/H-oversigt.html, https://dialekt.ku.dk and https://sproget.dk/sprogviden/sprogtemaer/udtale/tryk-laengde-og-stoed/
Do you have questions, comments or suggestions - email to elena@sokolova.dk.