Learning Danish

In an effort to meet my fellow exchange students and seem less like a tourist when I'm out and about, I took a week-long "Danish Crash Course" offered by my host university, CBS. The course covered basic Danish language skills and Danish culture. This course was a big challenge for me. I've never had much of a knack for learning new languages. I took Spanish in school from Kindergarten to 10th grade and I am still not fluent in Spanish. 

Danish is a difficult language compared to English, for sure. Not only does the Danish alphabet have 3 additional vowels, the vowels I am familiar with are pronounced differently! Danish pretty much turns everything upside down for me. These strange new vowels leave me tongue tied. 

The additional vowels in the Danish alphabet

To make matters worse, because Danish is a historic language and not a phonetic language, words are pronounced completely differently from how they are spelled. I realized this within minutes of being in Denmark. My new neighborhood, Amager, is pronounced simply as "Ama". 

When attempting to learn Danish, it seems like most of the letters in Danish words are not even pronounced. You basically have to memorize the correct pronunciation because when you see words spelled out on the page it's impossible to just sound them out using the alphabet. When saying a phrase in Danish, the words flow together and the phrase becomes one big sound, not a sequence of sounds. 

Luckily, my Danish teacher Mike is a laid-back dude who wears shark tooth necklaces and told us dirty jokes during class. He was understanding of our struggle with the language and gave us great advice such as how to avoid having our bicycles stolen and where to find good cinnamon rolls. I'm still too embarrassed by my poor pronunciation to converse with Danes in Danish. But I've managed to use the Danish word for thank you, "Tak". Baby steps. 

An Uneventful Beginning to My European Adventure

If you're reading this it's probably because you already know me so I won't bother introducing myself too much. The short story is that I'm an American student from Maryland and I'm spending the fall 2014 semester abroad in Copenhagen, Denmark. I am writing this blog mainly to update my family and friends on my whereabouts but also to document my experiences so that when I'm older I will be able to relive my travels. I've always admired bloggers and their ability to share their inner thoughts, feelings and details of their personal lives. I've never been very comfortable sharing with the world what feels like a diary entry. But after all, this semester is about trying news things and that is what I must do. 

The first thing I saw when we touched down at the Copenhagen airport was a rainbow in the sky. I took it as a sign that I made the right choice. I had never traveled internationally before and I did not really know what to expect. I was anxious about leaving my parents, my friends and my boyfriend of a year and a half. The day of my departure, I was a big bag of nerves. But when I saw that rainbow in the sky, I felt immediately rejuvenated. Everything was going to be okay. 

    I didn't get a chance to snap a photo of the rainbow at the aiport,
   but a few days later, this double rainbow happened in the center of Copenhagen!

My host university, Copenhagen Business School (CBS), set me up with a "buddy", another CBS student who signed up to help the exchange students settle in and transition into Danish life. My buddy, Hana, met me at the airport, helped me buy a metro ticket and accompanied me to my new home, an apartment in Amagerbro, Copenhagen. I wasn't lucky enough to get on-campus housing from CBS, which sold out in less than an hour after it became available. So I was forced to find my own accommodations. 

I share an apartment with a Danish woman and an Italian woman. Both are grad students in their mid-twenties. I'm much further away from the CBS campus than I would like, but looking on the bright side, this is a great opportunity for me to engage with other cultures. I've asked my roommate tons of questions about what the Danes do, how the Danes act and general inquiries about life in Copenhagen. She's also asked me about the States. It's nice that we can both learn more about the world through each other. 

I arrived here in Copenhagen the evening of Friday the 15th. My first weekend here, I was so exhausted, jet-lagged and homesick, I didn't really do much. I explored my neighborhood and my new school. But I didn't know anyone but my flatmates and my buddy. I Skyped with my boyfriend of a year and a half, missing him already. For once, I was looking forward to Monday, when my Danish class would begin.