Jo oftere jeg taler dansk, jo bedre forstår jeg sproget.

It is a very common Danish pattern meaning the more ..., the more ... or the more ..., the better ....

So:

• Jo oftere jeg taler dansk, jo bedre forstår jeg sproget
• The more often I speak Danish, the better I understand the language

This pattern is used to show that one thing increases together with another.

More examples:

• Jo mere jeg læser, jo mere lærer jeg
  = The more I read, the more I learn.

• Jo ældre hun bliver, jo klogere bliver hun
  = The older she gets, the wiser she becomes.

In this sentence, the two things linked together are:

• speaking Danish more often
• understanding the language better

No. In this sentence, jo does not mean yes.

English speakers often learn jo as a word used to contradict a negative statement, like:

• Du taler ikke dansk.
• Jo, det gør jeg.
  = You do speak Danish.

But here, jo is part of the fixed comparative structure jo ..., jo ..., meaning the ..., the ....

So in this sentence, you should think of jo as a grammatical marker in a comparison, not as the standalone word yes.

Oftere is the comparative form of ofte, which means often.

So:

• ofte = often
• oftere = more often

Because the English idea is the more often I speak Danish, Danish uses the comparative form.

A simple comparison:

• Jeg taler ofte dansk = I often speak Danish
• Jeg taler oftere dansk nu = I speak Danish more often now

In the sentence, jo oftere means the more often.

Bedre means better. It is the comparative form of god/godt.

Here it works adverbially: it describes how well you understand the language.

So:

• Jeg forstår sproget godt = I understand the language well
• Jeg forstår sproget bedre = I understand the language better

In the full sentence:

• jo bedre forstår jeg sproget
  = the better I understand the language

So just like English uses better, Danish uses the comparative bedre.

This is because Danish main clauses usually follow the verb-second rule.

That means the finite verb normally comes in the second position. In the second half of the sentence, jo bedre comes first, so the verb forstår has to come next, before the subject jeg:

• jo bedre = first element
• forstår = verb in second position
• jeg = subject

So:

• Jo bedre forstår jeg sproget

This is very typical Danish word order after something other than the subject is placed first.

Compare:

• Jeg forstår sproget bedre
  = normal word order, subject first

• Nu forstår jeg sproget bedre
  = nu is first, so forstår comes before jeg

The same principle is at work in jo bedre forstår jeg sproget.

Good question. The first jo-clause behaves more like a subordinate/dependent clause in this construction, so it does not use normal main-clause inversion.

That is why you get:

• jo oftere jeg taler dansk

and not normally:

• jo oftere taler jeg dansk

So the pattern is:

• jo + comparative + subject + verb, in the first part
• jo + comparative + verb + subject, in the second part

In other words, the two halves do not have exactly the same word order.

That may feel strange to an English speaker, but it is a normal feature of this Danish structure.

Because names of languages in Danish are usually used without an article after verbs like tale and forstå.

So you say:

• Jeg taler dansk = I speak Danish
• Hun forstår tysk = She understands German
• Vi lærer spansk = We are learning Spanish

You do not normally say:

• Jeg taler et dansk
• Jeg taler det dansk

That would be incorrect.

So in the sentence, dansk simply means Danish as a language name.

Sproget means the language. It refers back to dansk.

So:

• jo bedre forstår jeg sproget
  = the better I understand the language

Danish often avoids repeating the language name if it is already clear from context. English does the same sometimes:

• I speak Danish, and I understand the language better now

You could also say:

• Jo oftere jeg taler dansk, jo bedre forstår jeg dansk

That is understandable, but sproget sounds more natural and less repetitive here.

Also note that sproget is the definite form:

• et sprog = a language
• sproget = the language

In Danish, the definite article is often attached to the end of the noun instead of being a separate word.

So:

• et sprog = a language
• sproget = the language

This is very different from English, where the is separate.

Other examples:

• en bog = a book

• bogen = the book

• et hus = a house
• huset = the house

So sproget literally contains both the noun sprog and the idea of the.

The present tense here expresses a general relationship or general truth, not just something happening at this exact moment.

English does the same:

• The more I practice, the better I get
• not necessarily only right now, but as a general principle

So in Danish:

• taler = speak / am speaking
• forstår = understand / am understanding

In this sentence, the meaning is something like:

• whenever I speak Danish more often, my understanding improves
• as a general rule, more speaking leads to better understanding

So the present tense is the natural choice.

Yes. Danish also allows jo ..., desto ..., especially in slightly more formal or written style.

So you may see:

• Jo oftere jeg taler dansk, desto bedre forstår jeg sproget

This means the same thing.

In everyday modern Danish, jo ..., jo ... is very common and natural, so the original sentence is perfectly normal.

Usually not if you specifically mean more often.

• oftere = more often
• mere = more

So:

• Jo oftere jeg taler dansk = The more often I speak Danish
• Jo mere jeg taler dansk would sound more like the more I speak Danish in terms of amount, not frequency

Sometimes mere can work in other sentences, but here oftere is the precise and natural choice because the idea is about frequency.

Yes, very natural.

It sounds like a standard, idiomatic way to express this idea in Danish. A native speaker would immediately understand it, and it does not sound awkward or overly literal.

The sentence is a good model for learning the jo ..., jo ... pattern because it shows several useful things at once:

• the comparative structure
• comparative adverbs (oftere, bedre)
• Danish word order
• the use of a definite noun (sproget) instead of repeating dansk