I think it must be time to write another reflection on
Danish language acquisition; it is a frequent topic around here. Understanding
what is being said is getting better, context provides most of the information,
but still it is so satisfying to understand. Last week I had another
conversation with students about my (lack of) learning the Danish language.
Present was the Brazilian exchange student with whom I have been able to
sympathize. He takes classes so he is further
along than I am but he too feels like he is not progressing as much as he would
like. He tells about exchange students in Brazil and how they are functional in
Portuguese within four months of having lived there. He and I both feel like
the high level of English has a lot to do with our lack of progress, if we try
to speak Danish to anybody, or struggle to understand, people just switch to
English.
This led me to share about a soccer parent from England who
has been in Denmark for many years (12?). A few weeks ago I heard a
conversation he was having with Gus’s coach, the parent spoke in English and
the coach in Danish, and they understood each other without any problems. I
thought that this must be a unique situation but as I shared this story a
student who has a Danish father and a mother from the Philippines told us that
her mother speaks to her in English and she replies in Danish. We also know a
family with a Canadian mother who has learned Danish, so it is possible, though
she tells us that co-workers still ask her to say certain things because they
like to listen to how she says them.
One way we might learn more is by watching more Danish
television, but when English is an option and it’s the end of the day, well it
is hard to force yourself to choose otherwise. Recently an old favourite, the
British comedy show “Absolutely Fabulous” is back on the air with new episodes,
who could choose anything else? We know that Danish television has produced
some shows that are very popular (The Killing) and so too do the people at
“AbFab”; I’m not sure that the clip provided by the link could possibly be as
funny to anyone else as it has been for us, but you should watch it anyways, I can’t tell you how many times I
have.
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