The painful process of learning Danish

      When you are in a foreign country it is a matter of life and death, if not the very basic common sense and manners, to learn the language. Even in a highly educated society like this one, you can still meet people who don't speak English and guess how fun it it is to explain what you need when you speak four other languages but non of them from Scandinavia. Yey! It's awesome.
      Nevertheless, even before coming here I decided to learn Danish. Having a thing for languages I thought it would be fun. Never have I been more wrong. And now I will share with you my painful experience with learning Danish, divided into 3 phases.
      PHASE 1: Complete denial: At first, I thought I like it. New languages are always fun. I started attending a fast course that had to finish in 3 months and I was pretty sure I would be able manage a simple conversations by that point. Well...NO. By my second week I was pretty sure I would never learn the language, because the system of teaching was just so ridiculous. Grammar. Grammar. Grammar. Some words regarding drinking. Some words regarding getting a Danish boyfriend. Grammar. Grammar. Grammar.  Have a guess how fun it is as a foreigner to be asked to make a grammatical sentence when you have a vocabulary of about 10 words and it is just because they are almost identical with the English and German words. Let's make it clear, I have no idea who thought it is a "fresh" idea not to learn vocabulary before anything else, but I am pretty sure he was wrong. By the end of the first month only the guys from Germany could say something and understand something. I could manage a simple sentence and only because I remember something from German. And no, it is not a good and interesting idea to put "love stories", "drinking adventures" and "quarrels about religion" in a LANGUAGE BOOK!!!!! Who the hell thought of this!!! I am 24, Master student and I am attending a language course. I have no fucking time to waste on learning vocabulary about drinking and getting boyfriends. I need something that would help me in everyday life. To top it all, I hate beer and generally dislike drinking and going to bars. My 3 moths passed, I learned nothing and was absolutely sure I would hate living here due to a growing cultural gap.
      PHASE 2: I can do this! Maybe.: Between university courses and kommune (municipal) courses I had one month to learn by myself. And hell, I thought I will do it! I found a few webpages with grammar and vocabulary. I downloaded a book. And I started learning by myself. The conclusion is summed up in this graph. Though I could now introduce myself and ask a few simple questions I still could not understand what they answer me and I came to realise that I am unable to pronounce some sounds from the language. Namely the soft "r" and "d". I love it when they say "it's L" not "L" when talking about soft "d". It took me half an year to be somewhere near pronouncing it, but at least now I can imagine some difference between "l" and soft "d". The "R" was a completely different thing. When you come from an Eastern country with a language with a very strong "R" and you speak other languages with (more or less) strong "r"s it soon became clear that I could not even make me my tongue twist in a way to pronounce soft "r". It hurts and I mean the literal meaning of "hurt". Whenever I try to pronounce "ringe" instead I get "hine" or even "uine". Seems like I am the only one that can't do it. Probably I was never born to live in Scandinavia.But now the grammar makes a lot of sense and constructions are actually logical. Even the endless number of words for types of bread are meaningful. Now everything is bright and sunny.
      PHASE 3: The love stories from hell: Month 7. I still lack vocabulary but at least now I start to understand when they ask me something. I passed my moments of hatred and denial and I am giving my best to learn the language. The Danes got used to me and my silly pronunciation and finally understood that they need to be patient with me and speak slowly. VERY slowly so I can get it. I can manage to ask for food, greet people and talk about families, friends, hobbies, work. And my vocabulary is still of about 300words give or take. The kommune courses proved to be very interesting and I am starting to get used to the language and culture. BUT. There are "the books". When you attend courses you get exams. And when you have exams you need to read books. And so I did. 3 books that made me hate learning the language. I am pretty sure the lady that wrote them is a complete loony!!! What was I saying about texts about beer and boyfriends? That was nothing. Comparison cannot even be made because the books you are asked to read for the official courses include: abortions, drowning, hysterical inadequate mothers, selfish bitchy girlfriends, stalkers, children, more children, more pregnancy stuff, more marriage, more love stores with dramatic endings, more completely idiotic women, more babies, babies, babies, BABIES!!!! I give up. Is this all women here think of? Marriage and babies? Because this is what I got after reading books. And these are books for foreigners. Guess what impression this leaves on me. I especially love the book about abortions where there was Henrik, who was 24 and poor thing had to study and work (Oh, wow, welcome to the real word) and his girlfriend (20) realised she was pregnant (how dramatic). Then she freaks out how he doesn't want a child (of course he doesn't want a child, he doesn't even have normal work --__--) and she wants it (wow, how mature). Then there is half a book about he is trying to convince her to get an abortion and by the end she just decided by herself that she wants the child and gives birth. I am really having enough of this. I don't need to know what abortion is in Danish!!! I need to make difference between the 7 words for milk!!!!! I bet phase 3 will be followed by phase 4 which would be phase of complete hatred. Because I don't care about babies and beer.

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