Denmark Diaries: To Do: Danish Basics, Part 2

Jeg er Max og jeg bor i Mannheim.

Today was the first lesson of the Danish course. I put together my first sentences, introduced myself and practised my pronunciation with about 15 people. Considering I went into it with no previous knowledge, it actually went quite well, although the pronunciation is still very experimental. I don’t see a real system yet, but it’s only been 90 minutes so far…

On the other hand, listening comprehension is actually going quite well, even without any direct knowledge of the language: Our Danish teacher told us about her family at the end of the lesson, deliberately using unfamiliar words. The meaning became clear quite quickly because you can sometimes hear similarities to English or German words.

The gap between spoken and written language is astonishing: at first glance, there are relatively many cases where letters remain silent when spoken. Also, words are often pronounced in a rather extravagant way - in a short audio example where several Danes introduce themselves, the spelling of their names was a bit of a puzzle before it turned out to be quite simply “Mette” or “Morten”…

The fact that verbs are not conjugated, on the other hand, suits me very well. Grammar has never been my hobby, so if you can keep it simple, I’m happy.

The first Danish lesson has definitely whetted my appetite for more. I’ll find out in a few weeks how the level of difficulty increases…