Danish language
Danish is a Scandinavian language like Swedish, Norwegian, Faroese and Icelandic. Swedish and Norwegian are quite similar to Danish whereas Faroese and Icelandic are quite different. All the Scandinavian languages belong to the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages.
There is a Danish minority group in South Slesvig (Northern Germany), who has its own Danish schools. Similarly, there are German schools in North Slesvig (South Denmark) for the children of the German minority living there. In the Faroe Islands and Greenland, Danish is also taught in schools, since these countries are a part of the Danish Kingdom.
Dialects are a common phenomenon in Denmark. There are several dialects in Jutland, Zealand and Funen plus several dialects from the minor islands, e.g. Bornholm. Due to increased mobility between the different parts of the country, the dialects are tending to be superseded by regiolects.
The Danish alphabet consists of 29 letters - 20 consonants and 9 vowels.
The consonants are: b, c, d, f, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, q, r, s, t, v, w, x, z.
The vowels are: a, e, i, o, u, y, æ, ø, å.
Prior to 1948, the letter 'å' was written 'aa'. Today 'aa' is called "old å" and is still used in names; e.g. "Skovgaard" (surname) and Aabenraa (town).
One of the challenges when learning Danish is to learn how to pronounce the vowels properly. This is due to the fact that each vowel represents several, different sounds. Here are some examples, illustrating how the different vowels may sound:

A: abe, and, barn (monkey, duck, child)
E: se, eller, adresse, jeg (see, or, address, I)
I: pige, spil, drille (girl, game, tease)
O: to, ost, skov (two, cheese, forest)
U: sut, sund, succes (baby's dummy, healthy, success)
Y: sy, sytten, ryg (sew, seventeen, back)
Æ: æble, være, græde (apple, be, cry)
Ø: sød, søn, dør, grøn, høj (sweet, son, door, green, tall)
Å: gå, går, hånd (walk, walks, hand)

Another challenge when learning Danish is the so-called "stød" (literally: "push; thrust"), i.e. glottal stop. When making a glottal stop one tends to tighten the vocal cords - similar to what happens when one starts to cough. The glottal stop sounds like a short interruption of the sound.