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Since 1971 the approach adopted in the teaching of English phonetics in Denmark has been a contrastive one. In this paper it is argued that although the original contrastive hypothesis (Lado 1957) has to be modified and weakened, a contrastive approach is highly useful in learning and teaching the pronunciation of a foreign language. Selected features of English and Danish phonetics are discussed. Within the area of consonants special attention is devoted to the transference to English of the Danish voicing neutralization, i.e., of the suspension in word-final and -medial position of the opposition between /p t k/ and /b d g/. As a result of this neutralization Danes find it difficult to distinguish between English words like "bicker" and "bigger,""cap" and "cab," etc. A section on English and Danish vowels is primarily devoted to a discussion of the difficulties which Danes have in keeping words like "luck" and "lock,""hut" and "hot," etc. apart, in spite of the fact that they possess vowels of nearly the same quality in their own language. The paper concludes with a report on a recent acoustical investigation of Danish intonation, which may provide the basis for a contrastive analysis of English and Danish intonation. (Author/AM)