There’s a lot you can learn about a culture from their language, and Danish is no exception. If you’re attempting to learn Danish (and I don’t even know if it’s worth it unless you plan to live here for a while), or even any language, you might try to learn the basic needs first- ‘hello’ ‘Goodbye’ ‘I am lost’ ‘I don’t speak Danish’ ‘Where is the bathroom?’ ‘Please’ ‘Thank you’ and ‘Excuse me.’
Danish doesn’t include ‘Please’ or ‘Excuse me.’ If you run into someone while walking, you don’t say anything. There is the option of saying ‘Undskyld’ (Un-skill) but that means ‘I’m sorry’ with the connotations of ‘I am sorry from the very depths of my heart’ and so isn’t really useful. You can use it, but so far the only time I’ve heard a Dane say this is when their small child hit me with a toy.
So when you’re in public, you don’t talk. You don’t make eye contact. You act as if you are in an impenetrable personal bubble and everyone else is a ghost. Even when body-slammed by someone on the street, they just grunt and walk away. When you need to get by someone on the metro, you rustle and gather your things and make it very obvious you’re about to get up and they should move. This seems unbearably rude, but the quickest way to identify yourself as an American is to say ‘sorry’ or ‘excuse me’ when you think the situation calls for it.
This isn’t to say the Danes are unfriendly- they’re amazingly nice if you can break that bubble. When you first approach them, they look startled and wary, but as soon as you say ‘I’m sorry, I’m trying to find St. Pieter’s Strade’ they’ll smile and try to direct you towards it if they know where it is.
Of course, you have to pronounce it correctly first. ‘Where?’ ‘St Pieter’s Strade’ ‘Where?’ ‘St Pieter’s Strade!’- this went on for a while because in Danish, strade (meaning street) is pronounced ‘str-eugh-l’ As in ‘stro- eugh I just stepped in something- ll’ and since no one else outside of Denmark speaks Danish, they aren’t used to things being pronounced incorrectly.
There are literally three extra vowels in Danish that are pronounced the same, except for where in your mouth you make the sound. It’s very very hard for a foreigner. You might as well speak English, since everyone in Copenhagen speaks English.
But going back to Danish vocabulary, politeness is actually very important. You say ‘thank you’ for everything, usually about four times. Even ‘you’re welcome’ literally translates to ‘thanks shall you have.’ I’ve gotten people to think I’m Danish because I only say ‘hej’ and ‘tak’ (this still works!).
On a separate but sweet note, the Danish version of ‘speak of the devil’ is ‘speak of the sun, it shines.’
Danish Words of the Day
Hej (hi)~ hi
Hejhej (hihi)~ goodbye
Tak (tahk)~ thanks
Ost (ahst)~ cheese
If you would like to learn more, view this list of Danish language schools in Denmark.
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