Studieskolen - Module 6 is Melting My Brain

Oh, hi there!

Remember me?  I'm that terrible blogger who hasn't written anything in nearly a month in a half.  Yeah, that one!

The truth is, module 6 has us writing so much that I just haven't been able to bring myself to write more.  Strangely, we took the entire class today to do a practice of the writing portion of the studieprøve exam, which is 3 hours of writing.

And yet, here I am.  Go figure.

So, let's catch up a bit.

Firstly, module 6 is hard.  On the very first day of class, we were already doing practice portions of the exam, which isn't until May/June.  And everyone in the class got high scores on their PD3 exam, which means everyone is really damn good at Danish.

That being said, I at least would have passed the portion that we practiced that first day, which is reassuring.  And the majority of university programs that require the studieprøve exam only require that you pass it with a score of 2 or higher.

As I mentioned, we're doing tons of writing, and often on topics that I struggle to stay interested in.  For example, we spent a couple of weeks discussing the EU parliament and the Danes who sit on it.  I wish I could care about EU politics, but as of yet, I haven't been able to.

Our teacher is tough, but nice.  She knows a lot and expects a lot, but is also perfectly willing to go off topic on occasion.

And she reminds me of my sister.  She actually looks a bit like her, and drinks huge amounts of coffee out of pint glasses, just like my sister does.

We'll be continuing to practice all of the many different bits of the exam for the next few months.  Not only does this exam include the reading, writing, and speaking portions like the PD3 exam, but it also includes a listening portion, which includes some dictation.  Dictation in which every word has to be spelled exactly correctly, otherwise the answer is considered completely wrong.

I'd like to go ahead and recommend a Danish dictionary.  It's just Danish, not Danish-English, but I've found it really useful.  It's actually just the updated version of one of the dictionaries that they have in every classroom at Studieskolen.  Here it is:

2014 Preview

A friend of mine once told me that odd numbered years tend to be the toughest.  Not all odd numbered years, but when a year is tough, it always seems to be odd numbered.

Now, I don't really believe in that kind of thing, but I will admit that 2013 has been a tough one, with almost everyone I know going through very difficult times.  And I'll also admit that the last year that I had that came anywhere near to being as tough was 2009.

The good news is that 2014 is just hours away, and while much of how the year will go is up in the air, I'm doing my best to think of it as a year of possibilities.

So, what can you expect to read about?  A few things:

- On the 6th of January, I'll make my way back to the halls of Studieskolen to begin module 6.  That's right, they actually let me in.  My oral exam didn't shake out as I'd hoped, as I was unexpectedly and excessively nervous.  Having walked out of my little presentation with only a 7, I had to call the student counselor to see if they would still allow me to proceed.  Luckily, the writing portion of the PD3 is the most important for module 6, and I'd gotten a 10 on that, so they signed me up without any issue.  So that means even more Studieskolen updates.

- In February, the university application website opens, and I'll be able to start applying for programs at several of the schools in the Copenhagen area.  Once all of that's done, I'll try to give updates on that process and the process of applying for SU (the student stipend that Danish and other EU citizens receive when they attend university).  I've heard horror stories about how much bureaucracy and misinformation there is when it comes to my particular SU loophole, so… that should be interesting.

- We may have a chance to make a trip back to America this year.  It's strange that it's been a year and a half since we've been there.  The time here has really flown.

- Hopefully, if everything goes as I hope it will, I'll be heading back to school in the Fall.  Which program?  I don't know yet.  Which school?  Also a mystery.  But I'm sure I'll post as soon as decisions are made.

So, I hope you all have a lovely New Years, and I hope your 2014 is full of just as many possibilities.

PD3 Part I - THE RESULTS ARE IN!

The reading and writing portions of the PD3 exam were just under two weeks ago, and despite all of the preparation, I still felt nervous and unfocused.  I just barely finished each section within the allotted time, mostly because I spent huge portions of time just staring down at my paper.

A few days before our scores were due to arrive, our teacher gave us a look at the answers to the reading portion.  This was great and all, but with a crap memory like mine, it only helped to confirm the few answers that I could remember.  Since our own answers were off being graded, we only had our own memories to go by as we checked the answers.  What I was able to confirm was that the one question I was almost sure I got wrong was, in fact, wrong.

We celebrated finishing the most time-consuming bit of the exam with a party at our place the Friday after the exam.  Everyone brought a dish from whatever country they came from, and the evening was full of fun conversation and TONS of food.  It was the very definition of Danish hygge.

On Friday morning, as I walked to class, I checked my email hoping I would have the email containing my grades.  I had, indeed, received an email from the school, but it looked at first like it only contained the time and place for my oral exam on the 16th.  As I scrolled further down, though, I got a shock that almost had me shouting out loud right there on the sidewalk:

Resultatet af dine skriftlige prøver fra denne termin:
Læseforståelse:                    10
Skriftlig fremstilling:              10

Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles… I actually managed to get the 10s I will need to continue on to module 6 after New Years!

I also received the subject for which I'm supposed to prepare a 2-minute monologue for the oral exam: Illegal dog breeds in Denmark.

We all know I love to talk about dogs, plus the topic was given well before we were expecting, giving us even more time than we thought we'd have to prepare.

Merry Christmas to me!

Studieskolen - HERE COMES THE PD3

What a terrible blogger I've been!

With the looming PD3 exam, I've been utterly distracted.  So distracted, in fact, that the damn thing snuck right up on me.

In fact, it's tomorrow.  Or rather, the first part of it is tomorrow.

Since we've spent the last month or so doing practice exams with actual previous PD3s, I am able to give a pretty good breakdown of how the thing works.  So, here goes:

The first day of the exam lasts about 5 hours.  It starts with the "reading and understanding" portion, which is broken up into 2 sections.  First, we're given some kind of information booklet (so far we've seen booklets about Danish taxes, university programs, nature hikes and short trips within Denmark, among others), from which we answer maybe a dozen questions.  We're given 25 minutes for this bit, so it's all about reading the Table of Contents and scanning through information.  Next, we're given a packet with 2-3 articles and we're given 65 minutes to read them and answer questions.  The tricky bit here is that they're looking for very specific answers, so if you haven't fully understood the text, you're likely to give either too much or too little information for your response, leading to them counting your answer wrong, even if it's mostly right.  An important thing to note for this part of the exam is that, despite being allowed to use dictionaries for this part during all of the previous module exams, dictionaries of any kind are not allowed during this part of the PD3.

We'll then be given a 30 minute break, followed by the writing portion.  Good news, folks - dictionaries of all kinds are allowed for this part!  Here, we're expected to write two essays.  One is a response to a letter or email, in which they're looking for more casual language.  And for the second, we have a choice between two topics:  One is based on statistics about Danes or Denmark in which we're supposed to show that we know how to analyze and discuss said statistics, and the second gives a topic for which there are several points of view and asks that we discuss the merits of some of them.

As I mentioned, we've been doing practice exams for the last month or so, and our teacher has been grading them as though they were real PD3 exams.  Being used to an American grading system in which we're either graded from A to F, or we're graded on a percentage scale up to 100%, the Danish grading system is baffling to me.  The possible grades are as follows: -3 and 00 are the grades below the failure line, a 2 is a passing grade, next is a 4 (which is the score needed to attain citizenship), followed by 7 (the American equivalent to getting a B), and finally 10 and 12.  You need a 10 on all sections of the PD3 in order to proceed directly on the module 6.

How have I been doing to far?  In the beginning, I was getting 7's on absolutely everything.  Even the ones that I thought I'd done really well on, always a 7.  Lately, though, I've been doing better.  Mostly 10s, and even a 12 last week on a "reading and understanding" portion.

Here's hoping tomorrow's exam goes as well.  A lot is riding on it.

No pressure or anything...

How Rude...?

Before moving to Copenhagen, I read a lot of accounts from foreigners living here who complained that the Danes were rude.  I argue that "rudeness" is highly relative.  How rude the Danes seem depends a lot on how friendly your home town is.

My home town?  Not especially friendly.  Let me describe it a little bit...

I grew up in a suburb north of New York City.  It's close enough that folks who work in NYC can buy homes and commute to work.  It's got its pockets of less well-off areas, but overall the whole county has a good bit of money.  And one thing that I've learned from having lived in both poor and wealthy cities is that folks with lots of money don't always feel the need to be friendly.  Conversely, when I lived in Buffalo, NY, which is known for being almost as poor as Detroit, I found that almost everyone I met was open and friendly.

So now, let me compare waitstaff and retail workers in my hometown to the same here in Copenhagen.  Back home, most of them are teenagers and 20-somethings.  It's tough to make enough money making minimum wage or collecting tips to afford a place to live there, so a lot of them are still living with parents. Think back to yourself as an awkward teenager or disgruntled 20-something, and imagine trying to put a smile on your face and be friendly to a bunch of folks your parents' age who make more money than you.  So, you'd tend to get service that was lackluster, to say the least.  Here in Copenhagen, people live a fairly private life, even when in public.  Interacting with strangers on a daily basis doesn't come easily to a lot of Danes.  That being said, even the folks working in restaurants or in retail shops make a living wage here, so they tend to be less irritated about having to be at work.

Sure, the waiters don't work for tips here, which means they don't feel the need to put in the extra effort to be nice.  But what that also means is that when they are nice, it's much more genuine.  And let's be honest, the tip money doesn't help the kids back home working at the local diner to be especially friendly.

I can certainly see how coming from a town where everyone's fairly nice to everyone else can make the Danes seem cold to the point of rudeness, but I've found that folks here are usually as nice to us as we are to them.  They don't take terribly kindly to being talked down to, as they have a culture that says that everyone should be on the same level, but my experience has been that when I'm smiling and kind to waitstaff and shop workers, they're pretty much always as smiling and kind right back.

That Time I Woke Up Danish

Just an absurd little anecdote for your first day of Fall:

Last Thursday, I had a very minor operation in what I hope to be the undramatic dramatic conclusion of my adventures getting an up close and personal look at Danish healthcare.

I've been conducting all of these meetings and examinations at the hospital in English, partially because I'm much worse at Danish when I'm nervous, but also because I don't want to mistranslate something that's said to me and have it lead to major confusion.  That was the case on Thursday, of course.  I chatted with all of the nurses in English, chatted with the surgeon in English, chatted with the student doctor who was watching the whole thing in English as well.

And then, they put me to sleep.

In my half-awake, drug-induced daze, I don't remember what questions they asked me when they woke me up from the anesthesia, nor do I remember if they asked them in English of Danish.

I do remember realizing almost immediately that I was responding to them in Danish.

In fact, the one thing that I very clearly remember saying as they rolled me back into the recovery room was, "Jeg ved ikke, hvorfor jeg taler Dansk."

Or, "I don't know why I'm speaking Danish..."

Wait, what?

I've talked a lot about how difficult it can be to pronounce Danish words to a degree that the Danes will understand.

Today, let me talk a little bit about how hard it is to understand the Danes.

First, a clip from a Danish film that we watched in class yesterday, called "Bænken" or "The Bench, " in case you're not sure what Danish sounds like:

Our teacher has taken to showing us Danish films on Fridays that are in some way related to the material we've been learning.  The current chapter we're working on is about Danish drinking culture (the Danes drink a lot), and this film has a lot to do with excessive drinking.  So, not only are they speaking Danish (which is mumbly on its best days), but the characters are also drunk off their asses most of the time.

That being said, we always watch Danish films with Danish subtitles, just so that we can follow what they're saying.  Not such a shock for a foreigner to have an easier time if the subtitles are there, sure.

The thing is, the Danes use the subtitles too.  I was just chatting with a Danish friend earlier today who said that she often turns on subtitles when watching Danish movies.

Now, sure, a lot of countries have a variety of accents which people from other parts of the country have trouble understanding.  England is a great example, as they have countless different accents, and people from the south of England often have trouble understanding accents from the north.  The opposite can be said of the US, in fact.

The thing is... Denmark is a very small country.  There are only 6 million people living here.

It strikes me that 6 million people shouldn't have such a tough time understanding each other.

But the one phrase that you'll hear the Danes say to each other more than almost anything else is, "Hvad siger du?" which translates to, "What did you say?"