Night School

Quiz time. Taking Danish language lessons is:
A) An honorable effort to show willingness to integrate into your adopted temporary home
B) Hopeless and futile
C) Stupid because everybody here speaks English
D) A great way to meet women, with your new sexy language abilities.

There is no "E) All of the above", because the answer surely is not "D)". Danish is ugly, only 5 million people speak it, and it's incredibly hard to pick up so you're bound to sound stupid speaking it. They say that Danish sounds like Swedish, spoken with a hot potato in your mouth. That is entirely possible, as the Danes eat a lot of potatoes. Every freaking meal.

While it's been cold and travel season has not started, I decided to utilize the benefits of socialism and sign up for Danish classes. The Commune of Copenhagen pays for it, so it's really great - about a $750 value over the period of a language module. In return, I commit to 3 hour classes twice a week, for 6 weeks. Honestly, it's wearing me out. After a day of work, I rush straight to class until 9PM, fit in a quick workout afterward, and then accidentally fall asleep on my couch when I finally return home around 11PM. It feels as if I am in first year business school again. Thankfully, I am only doing it for fun, and don't need to take the entire course series required for permanent residency. Nor do I have any hopes or pressure to actually becoming fluent.

After two weeks of classes, it's interesting how at the same time I can be amazed about how much I know while at the same time being aware of how little I know. For a taste of how complicated Danish can be, here is a little lesson:

• The logic behind the number 54 in Danish is 4 and 1/2 of 20 less than 3 times 20.

• The logic behind 12:21 in Danish is 9 minutes before half hour until 1, but 12:19 is simply 19 minutes after 12.

This of course doesn't address all the pronunciation issues. As I mentioned in a prior post, words are often not pronounced as they are spelled, and often many letters are dropped completely (sometimes, up to half of them!). My favorite question from class has been, "Have they ever considered just changing the spelling by dropping all the letters that you don't pronounce?"