Danish curriculum

One row per week: theme, grammar focus, and the brief the storyboard is generated from. Weeks beyond the built range are the planned design.

1
A1
Arrival & introducing yourself
Present of være/hedde/komme fra; existential der er; subject pronouns; hvad/hvor questions
Maya's arrival day in Copenhagen, knowing no one — a grey winter afternoon. Across the day: she lands and meets a stranger, takes a taxi (giving her address), settles into her small flat, takes in the wintry city with a pang for warm Mexico, calls home briefly (a quick audio call — save the family video call, and Lola, for later), and meets her neighbour Nina. ~8–10 scenes, varied shapes.
2
A1
First day & registration
Numbers 0–100; har; være + age
Her first days getting official — she starts at the software company (her first day at the office, where her colleague Peter welcomes her and shows her to her desk). She gets her Danish phone number over a lunch break; the next day she registers for a national ID number at a public office (take a ticket, wait, give her details). ~8–10 richer scenes.
3
A1
Family back home
Possessives min/din; indefinite en/et
An evening video call home to Mexico — her first proper video call. She greets and talks with each of them in turn: her mother and father, her little sister Sofía, her big brother Diego, and the family dog Lola. A little show-and-tell both ways — a glimpse of her new place, a glimpse of home (they ask about her room, she asks about home). A touch homesick.
4
A1
Moving into her own flat
der ligger/står (review der er); place prepositions i, på, under, ved
Moving day — Maya leaves the temporary room for her own permanent flat in the same building; her real home at last. She lets herself in and carries in her bags and suitcases, settling into the small furnished flat room by room, deciding where everything goes — with a light touch from Nina.
5
A1
Food shopping & the kitchen
Definite nouns -en/-et — singular and bare (an adjective or a plural takes a different definite form, out of scope); kan lide — a general preference takes the indefinite plural; jeg vil gerne have
Her cupboards are empty, so Maya stocks her new kitchen. She works the aisles of a self-service supermarket: the produce, where a parsnip she has never seen goes into the basket anyway, out of curiosity; the bread; and the bakery counter, the one place with staff, where she asks for what she wants. She can't find the milk, asks an employee, and is pointed to the dairy aisle. She hunts down one taste of home — a can of black beans — pays at the checkout, carries the bag back, puts it all away in one go, and cooks her first real meal in her own flat. She goes on her own (shop staff only), and no prices or amounts — money belongs to week 9.
6
A1
Settling into a routine
Present-tense regular verbs; reflexive vasker mig; V2 review — the verb comes before the subject whenever a time or place phrase opens the sentence
One ordinary weekday for Maya. She gets up, washes and dresses, gets her bus, and settles at her desk; at midday she eats in the canteen with her colleague Peter; in the evening she cooks, relaxes and goes to bed. No clocks and no frequency words — those belong to week 7.
7
A1
Time & appointments
Telling the clock — klokken; weekdays/months; frequency adverbs
Maya fills her calendar for the week: the gym on her regular evening, a haircut she books over the phone, a bike repair. A coffee with Nina, added midweek, lands at the same hour as another appointment, so she moves one. Not every time is on the hour. No prices — money belongs to week 9.
8
A1
Getting to know the city
Imperatives gå/drej; direction prepositions
A Saturday out in the city. Nina sends her off with a route; from there strangers direct her, and when she gets lost one of them shows her the way back. She reaches the harbour and the little mermaid statue, and walks home able to picture the city. No prices — money belongs to week 9.
9
A1
At the market & prices
Prices; koster; hvor meget
A morning at a generic outdoor weekend market — Maya goes stall to stall for winter-seasonal food and a few non-food things (no summer fruit). Vary the transactions so no two stalls are the same — a taste offered, an item too dear that she skips, a weighed per-kilo price, change from a note — not the same ask-price-pay each time. No recurring cast — just Maya and the vendors
10
A1
Clothes & dressing for winter
Adjective agreement en/et/plural; har på
A cold snap sends Maya shopping for winter clothes. In one clothing shop she tries on and buys a few warm things — each garment its own complete scene (she picks it up, tries it, decides), not one try split across scenes — with sizes, colours and prices. One doesn't fit, so she leaves it. She ends by stepping out into the cold in her new clothes. Midwinter (cold, no month named). Solo — Maya and the shop assistant.
11
A1
Danish weather
Impersonal det er / det bliver; seasons
Short, dark midwinter days. One ordinary day told through its weather: Maya wakes to a dark morning, checks the forecast at the window, and dresses in her warm winter clothes. Out in it, the day turns — rain on the way to the bus, a hard wind on the street, and dusk already falling as she heads home. She closes the day warm indoors, lamplight and a hot drink. Relative season cues only, no month.
12
A1
Free time & meeting people
Verb + infinitive; godt kan lide at; spille/dyrke
To get active and meet people in the dark winter, Maya joins a local badminton club on her own — she has played for years back home. She finds the club, signs up and rents a racket, then joins a doubles game with three friendly players, Kasper, Sara and Emil (new faces), and arranges to come back. Busy sports hall with many courts; no established cast.
13
A1
At the café
Modal vil gerne; politeness; må jeg bede om
A café stop out of the cold, with polite ordering as the focus — Maya finds a seat, orders a drink and a bite at the counter, later asks for one more thing and then the bill, and thanks the staff. Each exchange its own complete scene, with small moments between (the pastry case, the room warming her through). Generic café; solo (Maya and the staff).
14
A1
Public transport
tage/køre med; til/med; skal til
Maya crosses the city by public transport — she works out the route, tops up her travel card, and rides a bus, the metro, and the harbour bus (a water bus), arriving for an errand. Generic transit (no named lines or stations); solo, plus a ticket machine, a fellow passenger and a shop worker at the errand's end. The harbour bus is the last leg.
15
A1
A1 review — a day in the new city
Mixed present-tense narration; consolidation
A full ordinary weekday, start to finish: morning routine at home, the commute, a stretch at work, an errand or two that echo earlier weeks without repeating them (a shop, a bit of transport, a tourist asking the way), and home in the evening for a neighbourly catch-up with Nina next door. Peter at work, and Nina's touch to close — her first friend, capping Maya's first months. Maya at ease in her new city. ~8–10 scenes.
16
A2
Talking about the past
Preteritum of common verbs; time phrases i går / sidste uge / i januar; the perfect (har + participle) is out of scope — week 19 owns it
After badminton, Kasper and Sara ask how she ended up in Denmark, and Maya tells them: the grey January arrival, the taxi with her new address, meeting Nina the first day, her first day at the office. On a call home later in the week, her mother asks what was hardest — she retells the registration queue, the empty first kitchen, the Saturday she got lost, the cold snap that sent her shopping. Each memory is one complete scene, and every retold event matches what actually happened in weeks 1–10. The week closes on the distance between then and now. No for … siden — week 25 owns it.
17
A2
Exploring Denmark
Past-tense narration; var/havde/tog; 3rd-person possessive sin vs hans/hendes; time expressions
Her first Danish spring — the evenings suddenly lighter. Maya takes a weekend train trip to Odense, told in the past as a travel diary: the train crossing the long bridge over the sea, people-watching on board (a father wrangling his children and their little dog), the old quarter's crooked colourful houses, the H.C. Andersen museum — the man whose little mermaid she met in week 8 — and a boat down the river in the long light evening. Describing the strangers and their belongings is what the week turns on. Odense is the week's one anchor; she travels alone.
18
A2
Health & the doctor
gør ondt; body parts; har det godt/dårligt; burde
Spring brings Maya's first Danish ailment — an allergy she has never had before: itchy eyes, a scratchy throat, a heavy head. She calls the clinic and books a time with the receptionist Hanna, scans the health card she received when she moved, tells the doctor where it hurts and how she has been feeling, and picks up something mild at the pharmacy. By the weekend she is herself again. Nothing serious — the tone stays light; the card is scanned, never read aloud.
19
A2
Work & colleagues
Present perfect har arbejdet; professions
A real project lands at the office, and Maya works closely with the whole team for the first time: Peter, and the colleagues she knew only by face — the designer Eva, the tester Mads, the boss Thomas — Eva and Mads explaining what they do and how long they have done it, Thomas welcoming her aboard. She presents her part of the plan at the team's short morning meeting — a first. Eva gets a name — she will host in week 23.
20
A2
Volunteering at the café
Past + perfect mixed; lære at; ordinals
Maya starts volunteering Saturday mornings at the little café she knows from week 13 — to practise her Danish and meet people, she takes the counter side of that world. Her first shifts, told as they happened: the more experienced volunteer shows her the machine, her first coffee comes out wrong, her second better; by the third Saturday she knows a regular's order by heart. She also serves bun with cheese. somebody asks for ginger beer. Ordinals ride the shifts and the table numbers; she takes stock of what she has learned so far. The other volunteers stay unnamed.
21
A2
Buying clothes
Comparatives større/mindre; prøve; sizes
A mild spring Saturday: Maya shops for lighter clothes in town and buys a jacket and a shirt. At home the shirt is too small. She goes back with the receipt for an exchange: asks for a bigger size, tries the bigger one in the mirror, and it fits better. Solo, plus the shop staff.
22
A2
Cooking & local food
Imperative sequences; quantities; først/så/derefter
Maya cooks a simple local meal for Kasper and Sara. She finds a recipe, shops for the amounts it calls for, and cooks it step by step. Her friends arrive and they eat together at her small table. Solo cooking, then the shared meal.
23
A2
Making plans & friends
Future skal/vil; har tænkt mig at; synes/tror/føler at + subordinate at-clause word order (needs a sentence adverb — ikke/altid/nok — in the clause to show)
Eva, from the project in week 19, invites Maya to her home for dinner. Maya plans the visit — what to bring, when to leave, how to get there, talked through with Peter at work — and brings something along. Over the evening she talks about her new life: what she thinks, what she hopes, what she's decided. Before she leaves, they make a plan to meet again. Warm and deepening; present and future only, no retelling.
24
A2
Looking after Nina's dog
Imperatives + object pronouns den/ham/hende; skal/må (rules)
Nina goes away for a weekend and leaves Ludwig with Maya, with a few rules for his care — when he's fed, what he may and may not have, where he must stay on the lead. Maya looks after him across the weekend: she feeds him, walks him, and calls him back in the dog forest when he wanders off. When he won't come, she handles it gently, and Nina comes home to a happy dog. A warm, capable close.
25
A2
A Sunday in the city
Demonstratives denne/dette/disse; for … siden (ago); time adverbs
A slow summer Sunday with nowhere to be. Maya wanders a second-hand market, stopping over this and that, then spends an hour in a museum and takes the rest of the day easy. Threaded through it is how long ago things now feel — she thinks back over her arrival and her first months here, the for … siden reflection that week 16 saved for this week. Solo and reflective. The market and museum stay generic.
26
A2
Danish summer & traditions
Perfect vs preteritum contrast
Maya's first Danish summer, and the evenings never seem to end. Two things fall in the same week: a midsummer bonfire by the water with Peter and Eva, and her own birthday — her first away from home; she turns thirty-two. Friends mark the day with her, and she looks back over her first months here against the day in front of her. The long light is a deliberate answer to week 11's dark.
27
A2
Phones, internet & admin online
pleje at; instructions; passive -s + blive + participle
Maya updates an account detail on her electricity provider's website — the small admin everyone puts off. She usually does this on her phone in the evening: she logs in, works through the form, and waits for a one-time code. When the first code never arrives, she works around it and finishes. The on-screen instructions and system messages are part of the scene. Keep the portal generic: no named national systems (those belong to a later week).
28
A2
A2 review — a week in the new life
Consolidation across all A2 grammar
A full ordinary week in the life Maya has built, start to finish — a morning at the office with Eva, where the big project is now just work, a badminton evening against Sara, a quiet errand, a Saturday café shift, a meal cooked, and dinner with Nina. Threaded through, the odd backward glance at how far off January feels. Her job has become the everyday; the city is simply home. A warm, settled close.
29 (planned)
B1
Memories of home
Extended past; plejede at; da vs når
A long light summer evening, and Maya tells Nina about the Mexico she grew up in. She remembers what she used to do as a child, and sets it against the life she has built here. Particular days come back to her too — the summer she first left home, her grandmother's kitchen. Warm and a little homesick. Narrated to Nina in the room, not shown as flashback.
30 (planned)
B1
The people in my new life
Adjective nuance; relative clauses som/der
Maya describes the people who fill her life in Copenhagen now — for her sister Sofía back home, who keeps asking who everyone is. She gives each of them a few details: Nina from next door, Peter from the office, Eva whose dinner she went to, Kasper and Sara from the badminton club — what they're like, what they do, how she came to know them. The circle she has gathered in half a year, seen together for once.
31 (planned)
B1
Passing on the news
Indirect questions (om / hv- word order in subordinate clauses); reported speech
Maya and Nina catch up over the week's news. Maya passes on what she's heard — what a colleague let slip about a change at work, what her sister asked about her plans, what the café regulars were saying on Saturday. Nina has her own to share. Two friends trading a week of secondhand news.
32 (planned)
B1
Nature & cycling culture
Real conditional hvis; modal nuance
High summer, and Maya has become a cyclist — the bike she once kept for weekends is now how she gets everywhere. On a free Saturday she rides out of the city with Kasper and Sara to the coast, a proper day in nature. The plans bend to the day: if the sun holds they ride on, if it clouds over they turn back for coffee, and there's a swim in it if the water is warm enough. The city left behind for an afternoon.
33 (planned)
B1
Money, taxes & welfare
Large numbers; hypothetical ville/skulle; fordi clauses (word-order shift)
Maya sits down with her first proper Danish payslip and tries to understand where her money goes. The numbers are large and unfamiliar — what she earns, what's taken, what's left — and she budgets the month around them. Nina helps her make sense of it: why the tax is so high, and what it buys her in return. Maya considers what she would do with more, and what she ought to save. No named national offices — a payslip and the tax system, kept generic.
34 (planned)
B1
Friendships & relationships
Reciprocal hinanden; emotion verbs
The friendships that were new a few months ago have become real. When Nina is going through a hard time, Maya is the one she calls — and Maya realises how much these people have come to mean to her, and how they look out for one another now. A heart-to-heart, a favour returned, a worry shared and eased. The belonging the whole term has been building toward, felt for the first time as mutual.
35 (planned)
B1
Danish culture: film, music, books
Extended opinions; synes godt om; relatives
Autumn sets in, and Maya explores the culture around her — a film someone recommends, a novel Nina lends her, the music in the café. She shares her opinions: what she liked, what she didn't, the film that stayed with her. Eva and Nina share their own favourites. No named titles or artists.
36 (planned)
B1
Planning an event together
Connectors derfor/dog/alligevel
The café where Maya volunteers decides to put on a small autumn evening for the neighbourhood, and the volunteers sit down to plan it. Maya helps them work it out — what to serve, how to let people know, who does what — weighing each idea against the others until they settle on a plan between them.
37 (planned)
B1
Staying or going?
Conditional; hvis jeg skulle…; håber/regner med at
The dark comes early now, and a question Maya has been avoiding surfaces: does she stay, or go home? A year is nearly gone, and she feels the pull of home against the life she has built here. She imagines the two futures — what her life would be if she stayed, what she'd give up if she went home — weighing what she hopes for against what she realistically expects. No decision yet; that comes in week 41.
38 (planned)
B1
Problems & getting advice
burde/skulle; complaints; subordinate word-order mastery
A project at work slips, and Maya feels she's carrying the blame. She's frustrated, and she says so. Her friends rally with advice: Peter tells her what she should do, Eva what she ought to say to the boss, Nina listens first and then offers her own view. A hard week, made easier by her friends.
39 (planned)
B1
Family visits Copenhagen
Extended narrative; tense-mixing; sequencing
Maya's parents fly in from Mexico, seeing her Danish life for the first time. For a few days she's the guide, showing them the city that baffled her in January — the harbour, her café, her own neighbourhood — and she introduces them to Nina. The days run one into the next: where they went, what they ate, what her father made of it all. Full circle: the newcomer of week 1 is now the guide.
40 (planned)
B1
Lifestyle & wellbeing
Abstract nouns; det er vigtigt at; impersonal
After the rush of the visit, Maya thinks about how she actually wants to live here. She looks at the balance — the gym, badminton, volunteering, time with friends, rest, the calls home — and works out what matters and what she can let go, the daily habits that keep her steady as the dark months come. A quieter, more reflective week.
41 (planned)
B1
B1 review — a turning point
Mixed grammar; narrative climax
The question from week 37 — stay or go — comes to a head, and Maya answers it: she stays. Not a dramatic moment so much as a morning when she realises she has already chosen this, that it is home now. She tells Nina; she tells her family on a call. She chooses this life on purpose — the year's arc, resolved.
42 (planned)
B2
A career in Denmark (formal)
Register shift; formal passive; nominalisation
Maya takes on something bigger at work: she writes a formal proposal and presents it to management. She's nervous, but she keeps her composure, and the proposal is taken seriously.
43 (planned)
B2
Politics & debate
Abstract discourse; hvorvidt; concessive selvom
At a dinner with friends, the talk turns to politics, and Maya joins in — she makes a case, concedes a point, presses on whether one side is really right. The topics stay broad — fairness, how a society shares things out — not party politics.
44 (planned)
B2
Science & technology
Complex passive; således at; cause/effect connectors
A science documentary fascinates Maya, and she can't stop talking about it. She explains it to Nina afterwards — how it works and why. Generic subject, no named programme.
45 (planned)
B2
Media & advertising
Rhetorical structures; ikke kun… men også
The ads are everywhere on Maya's commute. She and Eva, the designer, take one campaign apart — how it persuades, what it promises without quite saying it. Maya understands the tactics for the first time. A generic campaign, no named brand.
46 (planned)
B2
Art & literature
Interpreting; hypothetical ville have
Maya and Nina spend an afternoon at an art exhibition, drifting from room to room and stopping longest where they can't agree — a painting Maya reads as hopeful and Nina finds bleak, a photograph that says something different to each of them. Maya makes her case for what it means, what the artist might have been after, how it could have struck her differently on another day. Neither talks the other round, and they carry the argument out to coffee. Generic works, no named artist.
47 (planned)
B2
Ethics & dilemmas
Conditional perfect; hvis… havde…, ville… have
A moral dilemma lands on Maya at work — a mistake she could quietly let slide. She weighs it in hindsight: what she might have done differently, and what would have followed. She talks it through with a friend and makes her decision.
48 (planned)
B2
The Danish model: economy & work culture
Formal register; the language of statistics
Maya has a stake in the welfare model now — she pays into it, and she's used it. When her family asks whether the high taxes are really worth it, she explains the bargain: what comes out of each paycheck, what it buys in security, how it compares to home. No named institutions.
49 (planned)
B2
History & change
Narrative-past mastery; indtil/siden; historic present
Maya wants to know the history of the city she's come to love. Over old photographs Nina digs out, and on a walk through the older streets, she pieces together how the place changed — what stood here until the harbour was rebuilt, how people have lived since the old days, what's gone and what remains. Generic history — not dates and kings.
50 (planned)
B2
Happiness, success & belonging
Nominalisation; abstract subordination
Maya's first Christmas away from her family — Nina and her friends include her, so she isn't alone for it. Between the warmth of the day and a quiet video call to Mexico, she reflects on what happiness is now, what success looked like when she arrived against what it looks like tonight, where "home" actually is. Bittersweet and warm. Christmas kept generic — not the specific customs.
51 (planned)
B2
Speaking like a Dane: idioms & particles
Modal particles jo/da/nok/vist/vel; idioms
A loose evening in with her closest friends — Nina, Kasper and Sara. The talk runs fast and colloquial — teasing, gossip, half-finished sentences — and Maya is right in it, sounding like one of them.
52 (planned)
B2
B2 capstone — a year on
All structures; full narrative close
A year to the day since Maya stepped off the plane into a grey Copenhagen winter, knowing no one. Deep winter again — the same cold as her arrival, a different life inside it. She looks back over the whole year, and everything that grew in it. Full circle — this time the winter feels like home.

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