I have officially lived in Denmark 3 years and one day. Today I have my final Danish exam. I'm lucky I have two passports, Australian and Italian, so the strict rules for immigration don't apply to me because technically I am an EU citizen. I am grateful for this little bureaucratic blunder, but I also think it's unfair, that other women in my class, just like me, might get kicked out of the country if they don't pass this test.
It's a lovely language, but I underestimated how hard a new language for a 40 year old brain would be, especially because Danish generally has no real hard and fast grammar rules, and at least 40 different vowel sounds that are simply impossible to hear if you are not a native... it's that slight difference between the vowel sound in words like soup and soon... I can barely hear it English and I admit that it is hard, but every Danish person thinks they sound completely different in similar Danish words.
Then there is inversion, perfect sentences written words with wrong places doesn't that make not sense! It's the difference between 'She wanted to leave the party, so I did' or She wanted to leave the party, so did I. One tiny word in the wrong spot changes the outcome... and there is no sign language in a written exam.
Denmark is a tiny land, less than 6 million people speak Danish, it almost seems like a waste of time to learn how to speak it, especially because everyone speaks English, but there really is no better way to understand a culture than to understand the way they speak and thus how their thoughts are formed and strung together...
I can hold a conversation, I can read and write enough to pass a test, but I realise now that it will be something I never stop learning, just like English I guess...
Just to give you a tiny taste of what I am up against, the amount of Danish words is relatively small compared to English but compounding words is very common, according to wiki ''Speciallægepraksisplanlægningsstabiliseringsperiode, which is 51 letters, is the longest Danish word that has been used in an official context. It means "Period of plan stabilising for a specialist doctor's practice,"
Try and get your tongue around that.
Wish me luck, this blog post bought to you by completely avoiding further study, because any and every danish word sounds like french to me right now...
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All the best dear!
ReplyDeleteGo rock the exam! :)
Thanks Sheethal, I just have to wait a few weeks to find out if I rocked it or not :)
DeleteOh good luck with your exam.
ReplyDeleteoh my gawd...my brain hurts just reading that!
ReplyDeletebest of luck with it, i'm sure you'll be fabulous ;)
xoxoxo
Egads! I've never been good at language, but my DD thinks it's because I have a bit of hearing loss and therefore don't hear differences. She's quite musical, you need good hearing generally speaking to be a good vocalist. Need to hear if you're flat or sharp etc, and she's very good with unusual words, kids names from all over the globe. I have to hear it multiple times and say it multiple times before I get the word right. So, you have to take a test to stay in the country? Is that a citizen requirement? Best of luck
ReplyDeleteSandy that's funny because, it took me years to learn to say the Captains name right, it has the danish vowel Ø in it which tranlates to oe. The only way you can make that sound is to hold your mouth in an O shape while saýing the letter E as in met. My Danish teacher says you can't look pretty and speak danish at the same time because you have to pull so many strange faces just to pronounce certain words :D... a good ear definitely helps too.
DeleteWow! I know a little Spanish, Hebrew, and Laotion. I dropped out of French class in highschool because there were 11 pronouns.
ReplyDeleteGood luck on test. But I believe you'll pass.
Hugs and chocolate,
Shelly
I'm still trying to work out if 11 pronouns is too many or not enough :D
DeleteAll the best, Ida! Any kind of test is never fun - knock 'em dead!
ReplyDeleteThanks Brandy... they are shocking, really individuals learn as much as they want to and different rates, particularily languages, we are all here because we want to learn, i don't understand why our knowledge has to be tested
DeleteIcelandic has no limits on stringing words together to make a long word.
ReplyDeleteBut we have grammar rules about it, so this is a 64 letter long word they mustered up: vaðlaheiðarvegavinnuverkfærageymsluskúraútidyralyklakippuhringur
it means: sloshing-hill-road-work-tool-storage-hut-outdoot-keychain-ring.
But like I said, there are no limits to how long a word can be in Icelandic, just that it's grammatically correct. (I have seen a longer word I just cant remember it all, it was about 100-150 letters.
You are adorable Miss Bates...thank you, I'm not worried about the results, it won't change much of anything. I think Greenland is just as bad don't they have a set of mountains named something like - 'twobigroundrocksintheshapeofboobswesttowardsthesunset'
DeleteHa!!!!!! He is not by the way, the spammer.
ReplyDeleteGood guess though!
I tried translating it for y'all! But it really isn't a word I would use for an outdoor-garage-hut-slushing in mud- keychain- ring.
HEHE, i would just go for keychain. Keep it simple.
But I can hardly pronounce either the icelandic one or the danish one Ida posted.
It is quite the mouthful.
And like she said, danish isn't a language you should go for if you wanna keep your face scot free from weird facial expressions. :P
Wow, I admire your desire to learn such a difficult language at this point in your life. I had to learn English, but that was years ago, at a much younger age. Always loved learning new languages -- speak some Italian and full-on Romanian -- but not sure I could do that now, at 43. How wonderful that you're taking on such a challenging assignment. Good for you!
ReplyDeleteI think my face has frozen into one of those and that was just from sign language!
ReplyDeleteHi Ida,
ReplyDeleteI so hope your final Danish exam went well. You deserve a medal learning another language. I'm thinking about trying to learn English. And maybe Welsh which would be really something.
Wishing you a peaceful weekend.
Gary
Hi Gary, thanks. I wont know the final result for a month, after the oral exam, which is a whole other bag of stress, but I am not worried about the final outcome. I wont have it as bad as some but I could have always done that bit better. I hope you are well, your command of the English language is fabulous. I encourage you to learn Welsh, the neurons in your brain love it :)
DeleteHi Ida .. I do hope all went well .. by learning Danish your ears will be attuned to many other dialects and languages - it's a blessing and one I wish I'd taken to heart.
ReplyDeleteCongratulations on living life in Denmark and settling .. enjoy many years there to come .. it must be a magical place, with lots of jumping off places to visit ..
Cheers Hilary
Hope the test went well. I am trying to learn Afrikaans, also a language not many people speak. They string all sorts of words together and love to make them be plays on words. Is that the plural.
ReplyDeleteAfrikans is so similar to Danish, in so much as it borrows a lot of words from other languages, like English, German, French, and Dutch. I can see how learning languages can become addictive, in another life I think I would like to become a linguist... :D
DeleteThanks Mary, I am not sure I will ever master it, every so often i feel like I am getting pretty fluent then I'll read a newspaper article and don't recognise half the words but I'm sure it will just get better with time... certainly using the new language every day helps
ReplyDeleteMichelle I love that you teach your kids the songs that seem to have touched my heart most as a kid... I loved do-re-mi too :D
ReplyDeleteAvast, ye maties.... there be spammers here.
ReplyDeleteCouldn't resist.
That's a heck of a word, Ida!
I'll have to see Denmark for myself someday.