Youth in Denmark
The use of English is frequent among young people under 25. English is the predominant second language and is in the school curriculum from the first grade. Roughly 90% of 15- to 21-year-olds speak English with other Danes at least once per week. Youth code switch from Danish to English with friends and classmates. English phrases or words are spoken in between Danish words. Codeswitching is a marker of youth identity and sign of opposition to adult culture. Youth use their language style to differ from adults.
Danish language
Danish has a very large vowel inventory comprising 27 phonemically distinctive vowels, and its prosody is characterized by the distinctive phenomenon "stød", a kind of laryngeal phonation type. Due to the many pronunciation differences that set apart Danish from its neighboring languages, particularly the vowels, difficult prosody and "weakly" pronounced consonants, it is sometimes considered to be a difficult language to learn and understand, and some evidence shows that small children are slower to acquire the phonological distinctions of Danish. The grammar is moderately inflective with strong (irregular) and weak (regular) conjugations and inflections. Nouns and demonstrative pronouns distinguish common and neutral gender. Like English, Danish only has remnants of a former case system, particularly in the pronouns. Unlike English, it has lost all person marking on verbs. Its syntax is V2 word order, with the finite verb always occupying the second slot in the sentence.