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From Abroad

So I…along with about half the other international students have signed up for a very intensive Danish language course. In just a few words words it is exhausting, incomprehensible, and really really fun. The class is twice a week for two hours for seven weeks.

Here are just a few fun facts I’ve learned about the language…and other strange things about Danish culture.

1. The language is useless. Unless you live in Denmark, especially in North Jutland (which is Aalborg), you will never need to speak a word of it.

2. Not a single word is pronounced the way it is spelled (unless it’s an English word…in which case it sounds almost the way we pronounce it). Also, most phrases just run together. There is no need to pronounce each word individually. (I’m fairly certain that if I did try to pronounce each word precisely, the Danes wouldn’t have a clue what I was saying!)

3. Words that we consider to be the worst of the worst are commonplace even among children. They are the equivalent of “shoot” or “gosh darnit”. My Danish instructor learned the hard way that native English speakers don’t usually find that so acceptable when she went to be a nanny in Los Angeles. But thanks to the shocked and appalled response of her employers, she learned that lesson very quickly!

4. There is no word for “please”. It’s not that the Danes are so impolite, they just have a very different sense of etiquette. For example, they say thank you for everything, and they do so repeatedly. If a Dane goes to a home just to visit, even if it’s a neighbor who they have visited every single day for years, they will always thank their host for the visit. The next day it is common protocol to call and thank again. And then, upon their next visit they will always thank for the last time.

5. There is no system to determining the gender of a verb. (no common endings like in Spanish or French). There are only two genders (there used to be three). Today they use just neutral and masculine (or common). But, like everything else, that changes depending on what Danish dialect you speak. (Isn’t it hard to believe a country of just five and a half million people can have so many dialects!)

6. All of the letters are the same except for three! Yay! The exceptions are Æ, Ø, and Å. And some of these letters are soon to be obsolete. Had I studied abroad in 2001, I would be attending Ålborg Universitet. That’s when they changed it to Aalborg instead.

7. The rest of the alphabet is English. That’s really helpful! The Danes, however, very very rarely use the letters C, Q, W, X, and Z. These are only used for words which have been borrowed from other languages (as most words have).

8. Almost all the months are pronounced about the same as in English..easier to read, harder to understand.

9. I’m still confused about the first day of the week. Here it is Monday. In America it is Sunday. That is supposedly based on the Sabbath which is the seventh day of the week. Christians generally celebrate that on Sunday. So should Americans (a nation supposedly founded on Christian values) start their week on Monday as well? Saudi Arabians begin the weekend on Wednesday after work and go back to work on Saturday. That almost makes them more Christian than we are!

This is the “breathtaking” campus of Aalborg University

10. Scandanavians tend to speak from the front of their mouths, hence they make short light words. One of my teachers has the theory that it’s so cold up here they just don’t want to open their mouths for very long to inhale the cold air. That finally explains why the IEP students from warmer countries are so much more boisterous! (and so much more fun! :)

11. The class is taught entirely in English. I thought this would be an advantage….but I’ve learned better. Most of the student in the class have taken ESL (English as a second language) for most their lives. They’re accustomed to translating things in their heads at least once, if not two or three times. I had might as well be taking a science course. It all goes in one ear and out the other….no processing necessary.

12. I have been taught more in just four language classes of Danish than I have in over six years of Spanish classes! And I thought I was fluent in Spanish!

13. The Danes run on time! Everything happens exactly when it is scheduled (except for the frequent canceled classes). For example, don’t be fifteen seconds late for your bus or you’ll have to wait for the next. Don’t be fifteen minutes late for dinner, or you’ll never be invited again! I guess being “fashionably late” isn’t quite so fashionabl here.

14. One teacher brought up the “Marilyn Monroe Doctrine” haha

15. Sorry to reiterate, but this language is useless. The Danes don’t appreciate that we’re learning it (when I try to speak it to a native they immediately revert to English), and they all speak perfect English anyway :)

Here’s another one of the campus. Looks just like the rec center except on a farm! :)

Other than that, everything is good. Still jetlagged I’m afraid, and the food is horrific, but it all takes time and an open mind!