This description of the Danish language was taken from the website of the Danish Adult Education School - Studie Skolen
and is certainly the best and most honest account I have ever read.

Is Danish difficult for foreigners to learn?
- Yes, but not more so than other languages.

Danish has many vowel sounds - quite a few more than we actually write, and there are many silent letters. In Danish, there is a big difference between what we write, and what we actually say. In other words, there is not much correlation between sound and letter. In this respect Danish - and French - represent two of the more difficult European languages. This means that students need to learn to see a word as it is written, and yet at the same time learn a completely different sound image. In addition to this, Danish also has a unique sound phenomenon called the glottal stop, which can be difficult to achieve. The glottal stop is something that makes Danish especially characteristic in relation to other languages. Foreigners do not necessarily have to learn the glottal stop. There are regional dialects in southern Jutland, Lolland and Falster, among other places, which don't have the glottal stop at all.

The Danish word order in the main and subordinate clause can often be difficult for foreigners. The Nordic languages, German, and Dutch are unique in having what is called "reversed word order", that is, the verb before the noun. You can also say that the verb is always in place number two in the main clause.

Many foreigners feel the lack of a word such as "please", "bitte" or "por favor" in Danish. But we actually do have politeness markers imbedded in the language; they're just not quite as easy in Danish. "Luk venligst vinduet" doesn't always sound that friendly in Danish. If we want to politely ask someone to close the window, we could perhaps say, "åh, du kunne vel ikke lige lukke vinduet". In this case, "vel ikke", together with a past-tense form of the verb, is a politeness indicator.

A major problem for foreigners in Denmark is that Danes have only heard foreign attempts at speaking Danish for the last 30 years. Our tolerance level is still relatively low. A person's Danish must be absolutely correct before we can recognise it as Danish. In English-speaking countries, where people are used to hearing English spoken in strange ways by people from all over the world, the tolerance levels are much higher. Eventually, things will be that way in Denmark, too, it just takes time.