Learn to speak Danish - Week 1

The more and more I search the job forums here in Copenhagen, the more the realization hits that a strong knowledge of a Nordic language such as Danish is basically essential for finding a good job in Denmark. Unfortunately, the majority of us expats that arrive in Denmark have no knowledge of the language. Luckily, it is very important to the Danish government that foreigners have the opportunity to learn Danish to help integrate into Danish society; foreigners who obtain a CPR number have three years to attend free Danish language classes.

I signed up with a language school called IA Sprog which is located a few blocks from my house. Back in August, I met with a representative of the school who helped place me in the appropriate level of class. Due to my lack of knowledge of ANY Danish, I was easily (and happily) placed in Level 1. I chose to be part of the intensive language program; I attend lectures on Monday and Wednesday nights for 3 and a half hours. Each class consists of a test of 15 sentences (oral and written) as well as practicing basic oral Danish and going over written assignments from the previous class. It has been a while since I have been in school and I will admit that three and a half hours of Danish does not go by very quickly....

There are 10 students in my class who come from the following nations: Poland, Pakistan, Norway, Holland, Canada, Germany, and Great Britain. My partners in crime so far are the girls from Poland and Germany. The girl from Germany is in Denmark for 2 years working on a masters degree in biochemistry and the Polish girl was traveling in Asia, met a Danish fellow, and now lives here.

After my first two classes I am able to say the following:

I am Allison. / Jeg hedder Allison.
That is a car. / Det er en bil.
My dog is small and black. / Min hund er lille og sort.

And most importantly....

I do not speak Danish. / Jeg toler ikke dansk.

I have had the opportunity to practice these sayings on walks with Quigley. Everyone I meet is happy to practice with me (and happy to help me pronounce my 'æ', 'ø' and 'å' sounds as well as the awful soft 'D' sound).

I will leave you today with an example of the videos that I use for each lessons to help learn the language. I could not find the first video of level 1, lesson 1 on youtube...so here is lesson 12 of level 1. The setting is a school where individuals are learning to speak Danish. The topic of the class lecture is apples, oranges and bananas. While I unfortunately do not understand everything said in the video (I am only on lesson 4), I do understand that individuals are asked whether they would like a banana, apple or orange, and that Mustafa is sick and was not able to make it into class. Fatma offers to take Mustafa the bananas to help him get better.

Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73Nn9N6tShc