Swedish/Danish

[Hedonologist]

If I will be spending some time in both Sweden and Denmark, which will be best to learn. I'm assuming it would be better to focus on one rather than split the time between the two. Also seeing as most people will be able to communicate in English I think a bias towards reading is more important (for signs, newspapers etc)

[Cadence]

I'm afraid I don't have an answer for you question about which language would be the best to learn since I don't know all that much about danish. As a swede I'm supposed to understand both norwegian and danish quite well but to me it might as well be chinese (no offense to anyone speaking chinese though, I just don't understand it at all). I do understand some words every now and then but as a rule I'm mostly lost in any conversation that is not in swedish or english (or german, which is actually far more understandable). Nowegian is however a bit closer to swedish and then comes danish, which sort of sounds like speaking swedish with your mouth full of oatmeal (at least that's what most people are saying).

Perhaps norwegian would be the key language to learn to understand the two?

[Trellum]

Well, I think Swedish is way easier to learn than danish, I mean, danish has a really funny pronunciation and getting the accent right is so darn hard. If I were you I'd focus on Swedish.  I think most Danes will understand you, but if you are in Sweden and try to speak danish the swedes might not understand you. But in Denmark if you speak Swedish the Danes will surely understand you.  Same in Norway.

Danish people sounds so funny when they speak, as if there was a potato stuck in their throats! No offense, just an observation