Danish placement exams are offered for registered students at UW. Students with no previous exposure to Danish are able to register for DANISH 101: First Year Danish  via MyPlan or MyUW at any time. The Scandinavian department does not offer proficiency exams to those outside UW (e.g., high-school students seeking admission, prospective students, extension students, etc.); neither does it offer testing in languages not currently offered in its curriculum.

International Baccalaureate (IB) and Advanced Placement (AP) exams in Danish are not currently counted among subjects with applicability towards UW graduation requirements, so cannot be used for placement. For more information, please see the IB Policy Overview page and AP Policy Overview page on the UW Office of Admissions site.

Students interested in a placement test should send an email to uwscand@uw.edu with your student number, the language you are interested in, and your experience with the language (high school experience, college experience, and at-home experience).

There is no cost associated with the Danish placement test.

The Scandinavian Studies Department is not currently able to provide a proficiency test in Danish.

The Danish placement assessment is based on all four primary language skills: reading, writing, listening and speaking. Assessment for listening and speaking skills is through an oral interview with faculty. Writing is assessed by short written responses in Danish while taking the placement survey.

The Scandinavian Studies Department does not offer study materials for the test.

Students who have completed a test should email their results by emailing uwscand@uw.edu.

Students should only need to take the Danish placement test once. Your placement will be valid for one academic year.

Once the interview is over, the instructor will be able to determine your level of knowledge in Danish and place you into the correct course. Feedback on specific elements of assessment performance will be given at the discretion of the instructor.

No. These exams are purely to either place students into the correct class or to fulfil graduation requirements for language proficiency. First-year (elementary) or second-year (intermediate) foreign-language credit is not granted either by examination or by course completion in a student’s native language. “Native language” is defined as the language, or one of the languages, spoken in the student’s home during the first six years of their life and in which they received instruction through the seventh grade.

Students who misrepresent the extent of their background so as to gain entrance to a course at the elementary or intermediate level may be dropped from the rolls of that course.