Pronunciation of the Danish Consonants K, P and T: K or G? P or B? T or D?

To many people, the biggest hurdle in learning the Danish language is its pronunciation. Similar to English, Danish is a non-phonetic language, which means things aren’t always pronounced the way they are written.

One way to learn all the facets of Danish pronunciation is simply by immersing ourselves in the language, the way children do it. Enough passive contact (i.e. listening) and active language production (speaking, which includes making mistakes and hopefully being corrected by somebody) will bring us closer and closer to “perfect” Danish. 

In this process, our brain automatically makes up its own pronunciation rules, so we can get words right, even if we haven’t seen or heard them before.

But sometimes, it can be an advantage to get certain pronunciation rules explained by someone, so we avoid having to make up our own rules. Making up our own rules can take a lot of time and might leave us vulnerable to learning wrong rules and then having to unlearn them.

In Danish, there is a special pronunciation phenomenon which involves the consonants K, P and T. 

Sometimes K will be pronounced K, but other times it will be pronounced G. The same is valid for the pronunciation of P, which can have a P or a B sound, and for the pronunciation of T, which is either T or D. 

The latter actually also occurs in North American English (and some other variants of the English language), for example in words with a double T. The words “better”, “butter”, “ditto” etc. normally don’t have an articulated T sound, but a D sound instead. The same is valid for “city”, even though it has only one T.

After reading this article, you should be able to answer the following questions:

• When is a K pronounced as a K?
• When is a K pronounced as a G?
• When is a P pronounced as a P?
• When is a P pronounced as a B?
• When is a T pronounced as a T?
• When is a T pronounced as a D?

Terminology to simplify the topic :

Since the basic rules are the same for all three consonants, let us for the rest of this article join the sounds K, P, T into one category and call them strong sounds (i.e. the way the letters are actually written). Let’s then refer to G, B, D as weak sounds.

Terminology used in this article:

G, B, D = weak sounds

K, P, T = strong sounds

First of all, it is important to notice that the evolution in the Danish language is from the strong sounds towards the weak sounds. The more time a word has been part of the Danish language, the bigger is the probability of it adapting a weak sound.

I don’t have any statistics to back up my estimation, but I am sure that the three consonants take on a weak pronunciation in substantially more than half of the cases. Thus, Danes will say G, B and D more often than K, P and T, when they pronounce a word that is written with one of these three consonants.

In the following, I will present the rules as to when K, P, T ARE ACTUALLY pronounced as K, P and T, i.e. when they are pronounced as STRONG sounds. You are safe to assume that words not covered by the following rules have weak sounds G, B, D .

Case #1: K, P or T as the first letter of a word

This one is easy: Whenever one of the consonants in question is the very first letter in a word, it is strong. ALWAYS!

kat	Pronounced with a K (strong sound), not a G
perfektionisme	Pronounced with a P (strong sound), not B
termodynamisk	Pronounced with a T (strong sound), not D

All three words are pronounced with the actual letter they are spelled with, because they begin with these letters.

Case #2: K, P or T as the first letter of a stressed syllable

This one is also easy, but it takes a bit more to explain than the first rule.

To make it as easy as possible to understand, let’s look at pairs of very similar looking words, where one has a weak sound (G, B or D) and the other one has a strong sound (K, P or T).

Make sure to watch my YouTube video on this topic in order to hear some of the words from this article pronounced correctly.

Example with K:

parker = plural form of “park”	In this word, we say the K as a G sound, i.e. “parger” (with a G as in game)
parkér = imperative form of “parkere” = to park (e.g. a car)	Here, we say the K as a K

Let’s write the same examples again, this time divided into syllables:

par–ker	The word has two syllables. The stress is on the first one (stressed syllable is underlined)
par-kér	The word has two syllables. The stress is on the second one (underlined)

Just to remind ourselves: The consonant we are in doubt about here is the K (marked with bold font). 

To understand the rule, we need to look at the K and ask the following question: 

Is it in the beginning of a stressed syllable?

If yes, then we have a strong sound (second word above), if not, then we have a weak sound (first word above).

Summary of rule #2: Our consonants are pronounced with a strong sound whenever they are the first letter of a stressed syllable.

Let’s see this rule applied to the other two consonants:

Example with P:

gruppe = group	grup–pe	The P is NOT in the beginning of a stressed syllable, so it is weak (i.e. pronounced as a B). The stressed syllable is “grup” (underlined)
gruppering = grouping	grup-pe-ring	The P IS in the beginning of a stressed syllable, so it is strong (i.e. pronounced as a P)

From this example we learn that the rule is also valid when we have a double consonant (two P’s in this case)

Example with T:

sorter = plural of “sort” = sort/type	sor–ter	The T is pronounced as a D
sortere = to sort sth.	sor-te-re	The T is a T

Now, let’s look at these words:

lækker = delicious, e.g. food; hot/sexy, about people	læk-ker	The K’s are pronounced as G
lægger = present tense form of “at lægge” = to lay	læg-ger	Double G is always pronounced as G

As we can see, both words have the first syllable stressed. This causes the word ‘lækker’ to be pronounced with G instead of K, which means that the two words are pronounced the same way, they are homophones.

The same is the case with these two words:

tikke = to tick	tik-ke	The K’s are pronounced as G
tigge = to beg for money or food	tig-ge	Double G is always pronounced as G

Case #3: Words Starting With a Prefix

With words that start with a prefix (an example of a prefix in the English language would be the “ex” in “expert”), we apply rule #1 as if the word started after the prefix. Let’s take a few examples:

Words Starting With a Prefix

K	inkubation	in-ku-ba-tion	Strong sound: K
P	imponere = to impress	im-po-ne-re	Strong sound: P
T	aftage = to diminish	af–ta-ge	Strong sound: T

1) in-ku-ba-tion

The consonant in question here is the K in bold. Even though, when applying rules #1 and #2, we find that the K is not the first letter of the word nor of the stressed syllable (the stressed syllable is “TION”), we still have it pronounced as a strong sound (K), because the prefix “IN” doesn’t count.

2) im-po-ne-re

Here, the prefix “IM” is not taken into account, so we end up with the P being pronounced as a P (strong sound).

3) af-ta-ge

The prefix “af” doesn’t count here, so we pronounce the T as T. In any case, we would never pronounce the word “tage” in any other way than with a T sound, no matter what we have before it.

Case #4: Loan Words

Danish, like most (all?) other languages has lots of loan words from other languages. In many cases, they do not follow the above rules. Thus, I have chosen to break them down into groups. Let’s start with words ending in a vowel:

4.1) Loan Words Ending in a Vowel

If that vowel is an A, I, O or U, then the K, P or T before it will have a strong sound. In the following examples, I have added the English translation only when the meaning is not easily recognizable:

Words Ending in -A

K	pa-pri-ka har-mo-ni-ka	Strong sound: K
P	Eu-ro–pa	Strong sound: P
T	da–ta a-or–ta	Strong sound: T

Words Ending in -I

K	–	Strong sound: K
P	ko – pi (copy)	Strong sound: P
T	mul–ti an–ti	Strong sound: T

Words Ending in -O

K	ri-si-ko (risk) nar–ko (narcotics)	Strong sound: K
P	tem–po sham–poo	Strong sound: P
T	da–to (date) net–to (net, e.g. net weight)  fo–to (photo) kon–to (account)	Strong sound: T

Words Ending in -U

K	su-do–ku	Strong sound: K
P	–	Strong sound: P
T	–	Strong sound: T

In all of these words, the consonants in bold are pronounced the way they are spelled.

But no rule is complete without exceptions: The word “cirka” is said with a weak sound “cirga” (but a strong sound is also okay if the speaker wants to sound archaic). This is probably due to the fact that this word is very frequently used in the Danish language and over the years has been “danified”. I haven’t found other exceptions, though. Except for the following – which albeit, at a loser look, are NOT exceptions:

I’m talking about the Spanish word “siesta” and the Italian “pasta”. Following the logic from the above examples, they should be pronounced with a strong sound (i.e.: T). But in reality, the T’s are weak, i.e. pronounced as D’s. If we split them into syllables, we see why.

si-e-sta	Weak sound: D
pa-sta	Weak sound: D

The last syllable is STA, not TA. The combination ST in the beginning of a syllable ALWAYS results in a weak T (=>SD). The same is the case for SK and SP (= pronounced SG and SB). 

If you are unsure about syllable division in Danish, you can search for a word at www.sproget.dk and then look under ‘Retskrivningsordbogen’.

Words Ending in -E

This category doesn’t really belong here, because it contains “original” Danish words, not loan words. But I’ve put it here anyway, hope you don’t mind 🙂

Words ending in an E will follow the basic rules mentioned earlier. I haven’t been able to find any word ending in KE, PE or TE that has the stress on the last syllable, so they are all pronounced with a weak sound.

K	flas–ke (bottle) luk-ke (to close)	Weak sound: G
P	kæm–pe (to fight)	Weak sound: B
T	tan–te  (aunt) put-te (to put)	Weak sound: D

4.2) Words Ending in -TIV

Some adjectives of Latin origin end in -TIV, and always have a strong T. Examples:

re-la-tiv	Strong sound: T
po-si-tiv	Strong sound: T

4.3) Words Ending in -ISK

There are many adjectives ending in -ISK. Here, unfortunately, we don’t have any clear rules.

In many of these words, we can use either option, a strong or a weak sound.

For example in po-LI-tisk. Pronouncing this word with a T would be seen as more “correct”, for example by some older “conservative” Danes. But in today’s Denmark, you hear a lot more people saying it with a D sound. Here are some more examples of words, where both a weak and a strong pronunciation are accepted:

K	tyr–kisk (turkish)	Weak or strong sound
P	tro–pisk (tropical)	Weak or strong sound
T	prak–tisk (practical)	Weak or strong sound

4.4) Words Ending in -ATION

Now let’s look at loan words ending in -ATION.

First of all, it’s important to note that these words always have stress on the last syllable, unlike in English, where the stress is on the penultimate syllable (e.g. “ex – pla – na -tion). 

In Danish words ending in -ATION, the consonants we are in doubt about are in the penultimate syllable, i.e. immediately before “a-tion”. They are not stressed syllables, so according to rule#2 they would be weak sounds:

ve-ge-ta-tion

mul-ti-pli-ka-tion

BUT, in the case of “vegetation”, it would be incorrect to use a weak sound (D). Vegetation has to have a T sound (vegeTation).

After some research, it became clear to me that there is a rule we can rely on:

If we have a word ending in “ation” that has 4 or fewer syllables, we have a strong sound, and if there are 5 syllables or more, we would normally say the word with a weak sound, but a strong sound would also be accepted. Let’s see this more clearly in the following overview:

Words Ending in -ATION with up to 4 Syllables

K	pro-vo-ka-tion re-pli-ka-tion pub-li-ka-tion lo-ka-tion in-di-ka-tion fa-bri-ka-tion de-di-ka-tion	Strong sound: K
P	e-man-ci-pa-tion ok-ku-pa-tion	Strong sound: P
T	ve-ge-ta-tion kon-fron-ta-tion	Strong sound: T

Words Ending in -ATION with 5 Syllables or More

K	kom-mu-ni-ka-tion sim-pli-fi-ka-tion mul-ti-pli-ka-tion kva-li-fi-ka-tion i-den-ti-fi-ka-tion	Weak sound is normal, strong is also okay
P	I couldn’t find any words in this category
T	I couldn’t find any words in this category

Let’s also quickly look at the word “station”: It’s in the category of “words ending in -ATION with up 4 syllables”, so we might be inclined to pronounce the T in the first syllable with a strong sound (T). But if you have managed to read this article until here (which means you are really interested in the Danish language haha), you might remember that the syllable “STA” always has a weak sound (SDA).

4.5) Words Ending in -US

Here we generally have strong sounds, but there are also some exceptions:

K	Mar–kus	Strong sound: K
P	cam–pus	Strong sound: P
T	sta–tus spi-ri-tus	Strong sound: T

K	fo–kus ho–kus-po–kus cir–kus	Weak sound normal Strong sound okay
P	–	–
T	Kris–tus	Weak sound: D

4.6) Words Ending in -UM

Here we always have strong sounds:

K	pub-li-kum	Strong sound: K
P	–	–
T	punk–tum de-po-si-tum	Strong sound: T

4.7) Words Ending in -TOR

Words ending in TOR always have a strong sound (T):

TOR

mo–tor lek–tor ven-ti-la–tor

Strong sound: T

The word ventilator actually has an extra T (ven-ti…), which is also pronounced with a strong sound. I’m sorry I cannot tell you why. But as you might already see, loan words do not entirely follow any clear rules.

Conclusion

Congratulations, you now know pretty much into detail when to pronounce K, P, T as K, P, T, and when to pronounce them as G, B, D.

It depends on where the letters appear in the word in question. Feel free to look at the different cases again. I especially recommend you to say all the words in this article out loud. If you are in doubt about the exact pronunciation of a word, I recommend you to use Den Danske Ordbog, where all of the words can be heard pronounced by a native speaker.

If you don’t know about Den Danske Ordbog, you should check out this video I have made:

All cases not mentioned in this article will have weak sounds (G, B, D). That is… unless I forgot something or left something out unknowingly, which is in no way impossible.

It took me quite a bit of research to make up these guidelines, so I hope they help you in learning Danish pronunciation as well as you can. And remember that it is essential to hear and speak Danish as much as possible, which is why I recommend you to repeat these words again and again, until you get their pronunciation right automatically, without thinking. You could even consider recording yourself to improve your pronunciation. For this, I recommend an app called Echo. See this video:

Thanks for reading this text. If you have any questions, write them here or under the YouTube video I’ve made for this topic (link above).