Speaking the same language

Hvordan går det? Jeg hedder Random Girl.

I’m learning to speak Danish. My local municipality provides language classes (‘Danish for Foreigners’) for free for up to three years once you acquire a CPR number (social security). But (I hear you ask) everyone speaks English in Denmark so why learn Danish? The answer: because I can.

It’s true that you can easily get by here if you speak English, but Random Girl is a big believer in the ‘when in Rome’ mentality and I am feeling more than enthusiastic having begun a one-month beginners’ ‘intensive’. The course involves three-and-a-half hours of lessons per day, every day, for a month. It has come to feel rather like a job and the prospectus does recommend people treat it as such. There is so much to learn each day that you would be foolish not to. Missing a class is not a good idea. Even the Danes admit that learning this language is tough.

I can say that up to now, I’ve managed the basics comfortably and I am using my key phrases (“Hvor er toilettet henne?”) as often as…well, I need to, I guess.

Some people describe the language as an exercise in speaking with a potato lodged in your mouth. One of the things I think that makes it challenging is that there is a big divide between what you see on paper and what is pronounced (or more vitally, what is NOT pronounced. “Jeg vil gerne have et stykke chokolade kage” sounds more like “yay vee grrr na hay it shtook shokoLAthekay”. And yes, I intend to order chocolate cake as often as I can from now on because, frankly, it’s so much fun to say :)

Random Girl’s approach to speaking a new language out loud includes learning the phonetics and structure of the language carefully, and then, once learned, saying every phrase as quickly as is humanly possible. I mean lightning fast. We tend to speak so slowly when we’re learning that when we hear things in ‘real time’, we are flummoxed. Aurally, we tend to just pick out select key words in what people are saying anyway, so this kind of ends up working in your favour. If nothing else, it makes you speak out loud at speed, helps your familiarity with word order giving you better fluidity and, hopefully, leaves you with greater confidence to keep speaking, which of course, is key to learning any language. Any native language-speaker (of any language) will naturally run their words together, swallowing more sounds the faster they speak. In a colloquial English-speaking environment, for example, I might say ‘hasi’goan?’ How does this register with the people who have just learned to say, ‘How are you doing today?” Not easily, I would guess. But then, native speakers certainly wouldn't require them to speak in such a pronounced manner in order to understand their intention, y'know?

Speak fast and people around you will put the pieces together. That, or they will smile as though they do. Either way, they will respect that you tried and you will feel a little bit cooler for choosing the road less monotonous.

On a completely separate note, I do note that the good ol’ fist ‘bump’ holds great value here, as much as in numerous other places I’ve been (and bumped). Bump your friends, bump your neighbours, bump the green grocer on the corner. I’ve bumped them all! [ahem] They all bump back without hesitation and the result – and I’m not exaggerating here - is instant solidarity! Exceptional mention goes to the guy I met last Friday who, hitherto unaware, took a real shine to what he, once I learned him the gesture, endearingly called, ‘the knuckles’. (“I like that. The knuckles! I’m going to have to use that from now on!", said the devastatingly handsome, blue-eyed Dane who smiled broadly back at me – exclamation mark, exclamation mark, closed quotations. Ladies, learn to bump!) The ‘knuckles’ then; a fist offered in peace, rather than hostility. The ultimate ice-breaker that stretches the world over. Who knew?

Really, I think the key lesson is to make the effort to meet people at their point of comfort. To learn through observation how to speak and listen(!) as they do, or need you to do, then endeavouring to oblige in order to find a comfy place for them to engage with you. I strongly believe this rule of thumb applies to all people I meet, not just those who speak a different language. I also strongly believe that in doing so, you will be more readily met at your comfort zone by the other. I can’t hope to get my own message across clearly if I deny myself, and those around me, the right mechanism to pass it on. If I can show I am willing to adapt, the odds are, they will react in kind. Do you insist on using email when the person you are communicating with doesn’t use a computer? Whatever you have to say will be rendered inert. Use tin cans and piece of string if you have to, but try doing it their way first (instead of the other way around) and just see what happens next...! As it is, Random Girl just likes to learn anyway, but certainly, this approach has served as a practical tool for this relative newbie. I can say, at very least, that my network consists mostly of locals, rather than expats. I'm proud of that.

The ‘bump’ has actually been a good litmus test to see how willing another person is to connect with me at all and to determine whether or not they can meet me on a common plane. The mutual understanding of its meaning is both uplifting and cathartic. Again, the bump is an extremely effective leveller. You bump + I bump back = we smile. People who usually bump, mirror your acceptance and those who don’t, just love that they have the chance to bump and be bumped, and so the action gives them joy, which comes straight back to you and on we go. Simple maybe, but as noted above, sooo effective because from that point on, I have permission to speak in any language - especially as much 'potato-y' Danish I can muster - as I know, post-bump, that whoever it is that I am speaking to is already open to my person. We’ve already shared a smile and know we are 'speaking the same language', so the rest is usually pretty easy.

Someone much wiser than I once said, “If you cannot say what you mean, you will never mean what you say.” Hear, hear! For me, I just can’t resist the chance to learn to share with people I never would have imagined I might have the chance to share with, even for the briefest moments. Language-wise, what little I’ve learned so far has made me feel I’ve taken a monumental step forward in my life…for the sense of expansion, for the sense of accomplishment, and for the way it will see me reach further than I ever thought I could. Who knows where it could lead to? I bump to that!

Random Girl