Learn Hardcore Danish: Jeg er stolt af min veninde, fordi hun taler flydende dansk. - I am proud of my female friend because she speaks fluent Danish.

You don’t normally use another preposition here; stolt over exists but is less common and a bit more formal/“high” style. For everyday use, learn stolt af as a set phrase.

What is the difference between ven and veninde?

Both relate to friend, but:

ven = male friend (or gender‑neutral in some modern usage)
veninde = female friend

Traditionally:

min ven = my (male) friend
min veninde = my (female) friend

In contemporary casual Danish, some people use ven more gender‑neutrally, but veninde is still very common for a female friend, especially when you want to make the gender clear (as in this sentence, since we then also use hun).

Why is it min veninde and not mit veninde or mine veninde?

Danish possessive pronouns agree with the gender and number of the noun they describe.

veninde is a common gender (en‑word): en veninde
For a singular common‑gender noun, the possessive is min.

So:

min veninde = my (one) female friend (en‑word)
min ven = my (one) (male) friend (en‑word)
mit hus = my house (neuter, et‑word)
mine venner = my friends (plural, regardless of gender)

That’s why it must be min veninde here.

Why is the word order fordi hun taler flydende dansk and not something like fordi taler hun flydende dansk?

Danish has V2 word order in main clauses (the verb normally comes second), but in subordinate clauses (after words like fordi, at, som) the verb no longer has to be in second position.

Main clause: Hun taler flydende dansk.
- Subject (hun) – Verb (taler) – Rest
Subordinate clause: fordi hun taler flydende dansk
- Subordinator (fordi) – Subject (hun) – Verb (taler) – Rest

So fordi hun taler … is correct.
fordi taler hun … would be wrong in standard Danish, because after fordi we are in a subordinate clause, and we no longer use the V2 pattern there.

Can I also say fordi at hun taler flydende dansk?

Yes, you can.

fordi hun taler …
fordi at hun taler …

Both are used in spoken Danish.

In written, more formal Danish, people often prefer the shorter version (fordi hun taler …) and may consider fordi at a bit colloquial or redundant. But in everyday speech you’ll hear fordi at all the time, and it isn’t “wrong” in normal usage.

Why is taler used here and not another verb like snakker?

Danish has several verbs for “speak/talk”:

at tale = to speak (a bit more formal/neutral, used especially about languages)
at snakke = to chat/talk (more informal)

When talking about a person’s ability in a language, tale is the default:

hun taler dansk/engelsk/tysk = she speaks Danish/English/German
han taler flydende fransk = he speaks fluent French

You could say hun snakker dansk, but that usually describes the act of talking in Danish (chatting), not specifically fluency or skill. For “speaks fluent Danish”, taler flydende dansk is the natural choice.

Why is it taler and not something like er talende (is speaking)? How does Danish show continuous actions?

Danish mostly has one present tense, used for both English simple present and present continuous.

hun taler dansk can mean
- she speaks Danish (in general), or
- she is speaking Danish (right now), depending on context.

The form er talende exists but is very rare and sounds archaic or very formal; it’s not the normal way to express “is speaking”.

So you should usually just use the simple present taler, and let the context show whether it’s a general ability or something happening right now.

Why is flydende placed after taler? Could I say hun flydende taler dansk or hun taler dansk flydende instead?

Standard, natural word order is:

hun taler flydende dansk

Structure:

Subject: hun
Verb: taler
Adverb (how?): flydende
Object: dansk

About the alternatives:

hun flydende taler dansk – sounds wrong/very odd. Adverbs like flydende don’t normally go between the subject and the verb in Danish.
hun taler dansk flydende – possible, but it sounds a bit marked/emphatic, like stressing “Danish, fluently” as a chunk. The neutral way is taler flydende dansk.

For “speaks fluent X (language)” in Danish, the usual pattern is:

taler flydende X

Why is dansk not capitalized, while Danish is in English?

In Danish, names of languages and nationalities are written with a small letter:

dansk = Danish
engelsk = English
tysk = German

So:

hun taler flydende dansk
Jeg lærer engelsk.

You only capitalize proper nouns like country names and nationalities when they are used as nouns with names:

Danmark (Denmark)
en dansker (a Dane)

But as an adjective or language name, dansk is lowercase.

Why is the pronoun hun used? Could you use han or something gender‑neutral instead?

hun is the Danish she.

Pronouns:

hun = she
han = he

So the sentence explicitly says “my female friend, because she speaks fluent Danish”.

Danish does not (yet) have a single, widely used gender‑neutral third‑person singular pronoun like English they. In practice, people use han or hun based on the person’s gender, or sometimes repeat the noun (e.g., vennen / personen) to avoid gender, but that’s more awkward.

Why is the adjective stolt not inflected (why not stolte or stoltet)?

In predicative position (after er/var/bliver etc.), adjectives in Danish are usually in the basic form, without endings:

Jeg er stolt. = I am proud.
Hun er glad. = She is happy.
Vi er trætte. = We are tired. (here the -e marks plural)

Here, stolt describes the subject jeg after the verb er, so it stays in the base form:

Jeg er stolt af min veninde.

You would inflect adjectives mainly:

in front of nouns (en stolt far, et stolt barn, de stolte forældre), or
in plural predicative (Vi er stolte = We are proud).

But with singular jeg here, stolt is the correct form.

Could I say Jeg er stolt af min veninde, som taler flydende dansk instead of using fordi?

Yes, but the meaning changes slightly.

fordi hun taler flydende dansk = because she speaks fluent Danish
→ clearly gives the reason for being proud.
som taler flydende dansk = who speaks fluent Danish
→ just adds information about the friend (a relative clause), but does not explicitly say this is the reason.

So:

Jeg er stolt af min veninde, fordi hun taler flydende dansk.
= I’m proud of her because of this specific fact.
Jeg er stolt af min veninde, som taler flydende dansk.
= I’m proud of my friend, who (by the way) speaks fluent Danish. (Maybe there are other reasons too.)

Both are grammatical; choose based on whether you want to emphasize cause (fordi) or just description (som).