It’s no secret that Danes are freakishly good at English. Whether it’s the smiley barista at your local café, the shop assistant ringing up your groceries, or even the taxi driver chatting away during rush hour, you can bet a Dane will effortlessly switch to English the second they see you flailing with Danish. But what’s the secret to this national linguistic superpower? You might assume it’s due to an unrivalled education system or their endless consumption of English-language media. And sure, those things help. But I’ve stumbled upon a sneaky, often overlooked factor: the humble supermarket.
Could Lidl actually be the real linchpin of English language education? Danes start soaking up English from the very moment they can read, thanks to the shelves of shops like Lidl and Netto, where many products are labelled almost entirely in English. So while British kids are learning how to spell “biscuit” and “crisps” from their snack cupboards, Danish kids are figuring out what "chicken cat food" and "anti-dandruff shampoo" mean before they even hit school. It’s a kind of passive language learning that just sneaks up on you—like picking up a language without ever opening a textbook.
From their earliest shopping trips, Danish children are bombarded with English. Scanning a normal shelf they'll come across peanut butter, New York Cheese Cake, American Spare ribs, not to mention the more mundane frozen green beans or chopped spinach. By the time they’re old enough to recite their times tables, they’ve probably already clocked up a decent English vocabulary. And the best part? Not only do they not have to spend hours learning vocab lists as I did back in the day, they aren't even aware it’s happening.
Meanwhile, across the North Sea, British supermarkets are pretty much a fortress of English. You’re not going to find any sneaky linguistic lessons in Tesco’s aisles unless you count the occasional “chorizo” or “croissant” . There’s no daily exposure to a foreign language, no subtle nudging towards bilingualism as you bag your tins of beans. You buy your rice and biscuits, and call it a day. No educational bonus is thrown in.
But in Denmark, the supermarket is practically a mini language immersion class. Danish kids don’t have to put in any extra effort. Week after week, they’re getting English drilled into them just by helping unpack the groceries. Sure, they might not know exactly what "anti-dandruff shampoo for greasy hair" means at age six, but soon enough, they’ll figure it out. Same with "frozen peas" or "double chocolate granola bars." And what’s genius about this is that the learning is painless, subconscious even. It’s like getting smarter without trying. And once you have mastered one foreign language, others are always easier. There's a reason Danish kids leave grammar school with experience of a minimum of three languages, but usually four. Even Anna who is majoring in sciences did German to Nat 5 level, and is a year away from finishing Danish, English and Spanish to the equivalent of Scottish Advanced Higher.
The reason for all this English? It’s not because Denmark is trying to force English down anyone’s throat, it’s simply practical. Supermarkets like Lidl, Netto, and even the larger chains like Bilka often stock products from international suppliers who don’t bother printing labels in Danish. Let’s face it—Denmark’s market is just too small. Instead of spending extra cash to print Danish labels, they just stick with the English ones that work across multiple countries. As a result, Danish kids are learning words like "dandruff" and "cat food" while British kids are blissfully unaware that "cheese" could ever be called anything other than… cheese.
This little quirk of the Danish supermarket scene means that by the time a Danish kid hits their teenage years, they’ve spent years marinating in English without even thinking about it. They’ve seen it on their breakfast cereal, heard it on their favourite TV programmes (which, by the way, aren’t dubbed, so teenagers are not only picking up English watching their favourite sitcoms but they are also learning to read their own language faster too as everything is subtitled in Danish). All of this means that by the time they hit adulthood, Danes are already English pros. Gaming online is another source. My kids often say you can tell in a school English lesson if a kid is a gamer or not... if they speak English with a Danish accent, they don't game, if their accent is American, however, chances are they game online with the world's biggest market.
I can see the advantage just by living here, in this small-language country. I just need to drive across the border to Germany, where the products in German Lidl are, surprise surprise, labelled in German. And immediately the standard of the locals' English nosedives. But Denmark? Nah, they’re sticking with English. In a weird twist, this international laziness of not translating for such a small market has given Danes a superpower. English words just seep into everyday life in ways that, frankly, don’t happen in the UK or other large-language countries.
This constant drip-feed of English from the day they can read is a huge advantage for Danes, and it starts way before they sit in a classroom. While kids in the UK may study French or German for a few years at school, it’s nothing like the consistent, low-level exposure that Danes get from their grocery store shelves. When a British kid decides to take up Spanish in secondary school, they’re starting from zero. But a Danish kid? They’ve been indirectly learning English for years just by existing.
In the end, it’s this steady, ongoing exposure that makes Danes so good at English. Living in a small language country like Denmark means English is everywhere, whether in the classroom, on the TV, or, even at the supermarket. So next time you’re browsing the aisles of a Danish Lidl, take a moment to appreciate the secret ingredient behind the country’s near-universal fluency. You might just spot it on the label of a box of cornflakes.
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