It has now been more than a year 
since I moved to Denmark, and I have been enjoying it thoroughly. I haven’t been posting as much as I would have liked about my own experiences living abroad, but I guess that is part of the busy times you face when moving to a new country. Now that I’ve passed the one year mark and the experiences start to repeat itself – start of the new fall semester, Christmas coming up again (big deal here in Denmark!) – I feel quite settled.
My very own local host
When looking back on this year, the first few months were busiest because that’s when most of what is new comes your way and you have to arrange a myriad of practical details. This is where I had a lot of great help by my very own local host – one of my colleagues informally took on that role which helped me greatly in figuring out all kinds of practical stuff (especially also because I didn’t speak the language at all in the beginning).
Hvad siger du? (what did you say?)
An additional challenge has been learning the language. Although it helps that I am Dutch – especially for understanding the written language – understanding the Danes themselves is the biggest struggle for me. 
The Danish linguist Ruben Schachtenhaufen nicely put it when he said that the Danes pronounce their language ‘in a muddy way’ (1) because they leave out many of the consonants and have up to 45 ways to pronounce their vocals. But then, happily, there are also some easy things, like the fact that they don’t really conjugate their verbs. Just one form of the verb for I/you/he/we/they for each tense. That makes life a bit easier!
Enjoying the ‘hygge’
All in all I really enjoy life in Denmark. I very much appreciate the beautiful landscape, the ironic sense of humour and the emphasis on ‘hygge’ (or ‘gezelligheid’ in Dutch) – they even have a verb for it! I am curious, though, what this winter will bring – as the past winter has been so soft it might be a bit tougher this time around!
Sources
- Dorren, G. (2011). De talen van de noorderburen. Onze Taal, nr. 10 [The languages of our northern neighbours]
Photo of Danish flags by Hugovk and of ‘Language’ by Shawn Econo via Flickr.
[…] Written Danish is not the issue – it’s all about the pronunciation. As I noted in my blog post One Year in Denmark, the Danes leave out many of the consonants and have up to 45 ways to pronounce their vocals. That […]
[…] Written Danish is not the issue – it’s all about the pronunciation. As I noted in my blog post One Year in Denmark, the Danes leave out many of the consonants and have up to 45 ways to pronounce their vocals. That […]
[…] The world upside-down So I actually speak (much) better Danish than I understand, which was also quite frustrating because I get into these situations where I am actually able to speak quite a bit of Danish, but then be completely at a loss when they answer me in their normal (incredibly fast and slightly swallowed) way. I might have brought it on myself by not having a television – and hence not watching Danish TV – but I also blame it on the ‘muddy’ way in which Danes pronounce their language… (according to Danish linguist Ruben Schachtenhaufen!) […]
[…] The world upside-down So I actually speak (much) better Danish than I understand, which was also quite frustrating because I get into these situations where I am actually able to speak quite a bit of Danish, but then be completely at a loss when they answer me in their normal (incredibly fast and slightly swallowed) way. I might have brought it on myself by not having a television – and hence not watching Danish TV – but I also blame it on the ‘muddy’ way in which Danes pronounce their language… (according to Danish linguist Ruben Schachtenhaufen!) […]
[…] Written Danish is not the issue – it’s all about the pronunciation. As I noted in my blog post One Year in Denmark, the Danes leave out many of the consonants and have up to 45 ways to pronounce their vocals. That […]