Studieskolen - Studieprøven, Mundtlig Kommunikation

I'm taking a break from preparing for the looming final leg of the Studieprøve (which, for me, is tomorrow morning), as I realized that I haven't done a breakdown of this part of the exam.

So, it breaks down like this:

After we took the listening portion of the exam, we were handed a paper with a list of three umbrella topics, under each of which were a variety of possible directions to go in when talking about each topic.  This time around, the umbrella topics are "sport's role in society," "the welfare state," and "public health in Denmark."

Unlike for the PD3, where we only needed to prepare a 2-minute presentation on a topic, for this exam we are expected to prepare three presentations, one for each umbrella topic.  Each one needs to be 5 minutes long.

The day goes as follows:  First, we come in and give a 1-minute presentation about ourselves (who we are, why we're taking module 6 Danish, what we're doing with our lives, etc.).  We then choose, at random, one of 3 cards.  That card will correspond to one of the umbrella topics we have prepared, and it's that presentation that we give.  After that, we then take the remaining 20 minutes or so to have a discussion of the topic presented with the censor.

It's a lot more work that any of us expected.  Because not only are we preparing 3 topics to present, we're also expected to know enough about each topic to discuss it for another 20 minutes after the presentation.

So, the exam sure does go out with a bang.

Luckily for me, I leave on Friday for a much needed trip back to the US to visit my family and friends.  Even if I manage to forget every word of Danish that I've ever learned while I'm away, it's okay as long as I pass tomorrow, because I'll never have to take another Danish class EVER AGAIN.

Studieskolen - Studieprøven, Lytteforståelse Prep

The listening portion for the Studieprøve is tomorrow, and it's sort of a difficult thing to prepare for.  Here's how this portion works:

Part I - In the first part of the exam, a teacher reads out an article, usually about something interesting that happened in Denmark's history.  The text is read aloud twice, and our task is to answer 10 questions about the text.  We can take as many notes as we like, and after the text is read twice, we are given 30 minutes to answer the questions.  The good news - we're allowed to use Danish/Danish dictionaries.  The bad news - the texts are usually written at a fairly high level, and will definitely include words that we've never heard before.  For this portion, grammar and spelling aren't as important, as long as the answer is understandable and correct.

Part II - I don't know why, but I kind of like this part.  Maybe it's because I'm one of those weirdos who kind of likes filling out forms.  So, we're given a text with 30 words or phrases missing.  The teacher then reads the article, and our task is to fill in the missing words that we hear during the reading.  The text is read 3 times: once straight through, once with pauses after each missing word or phrase, and then a 3rd time all the way through without breaks.  We're then given 20 minutes to make sure we have everything spelled correctly and with correct grammar.  For this portion, the word or phrase has to be 100% correct, otherwise it's marked wrong.

As far as preparation for this part of the exam, I have only a few recommendations.  First, do this to your dictionary:

For the second section, this will be extremely helpful.  It's recommended that you look up every word in every phrase you've filled in, even if you are certain it's correct, just to be sure.  And not having to sift through the dictionary trying to find the right section will save precious time.

It's also a good idea to listen to as much Danish as possible, and preferably Danish at a more advanced level than everyday conversations.  Listening to Danish radio helps (which you can stream online here), but I also recommend a Danish podcast called Third Ear.  If you like American public radio shows like This American Life or Radiolab, and you're pretty far along in your Danish learning, I highly recommend it.  Really interesting storytelling, usually about Danish history (both recent and not-so-recent).

And as an update to my previous post, the issue with my stolen residence card has been sorted out.  The administrators at Studieskolen sent me an email to print out and bring with me to the exam, which will act as dispensation.  So, thank goodness for that.

So, anyway, that's enough for today.  Good luck to everyone heading into the exam tomorrow.

Studieprøven - How to Prepare

Under two weeks until the first part of the Studieprøve exam, and I'm feeling surprisingly calm.

My grades on the practice exams have been steadily improving, and I'm feeling pretty good about it.  I still have the most issues with the listening and dictation portion of the exam, but that part isn't until next month, so I've got a bit more time.

Today, I had a comment on a previous post from someone who is studying for the exam on her own, asking for suggestions for books or other resources to buy online.  We didn't actually use any books this module, so here are my two suggestion for anyone looking for ways to help study for the Studieprøve:

1.  Read the newspaper.  We spend a lot of time in class reading through recent news articles about topics from Danish and European politics, to climate change, to Greenland, and more.  Not only does this help with building vocabulary, but it also gives a lot of context that can be included in both the written and oral portions of the exam.

2. Practice, practice, practice.  Nearly every day in class, we practice for the exam with one or more portions from previous exams.  It's really helpful to get a feel for the layout and timing of the exam.  For example, similar to the PD3 exam, there is a reading portion in which we're given a pamphlet and asked to scan through it and find short answers.  Easy enough, but we're only given 25 minutes for this portion of the Studieprøve, so it's important to practice scanning and knowing how much time to take for each question.  If you scroll down to the bottom of this page, you'll find examples of the various sections of the exam from previous years.  SOOOOOO important to take advantage of these and keep yourself strictly to the time allowed for each section.

Hopefully those tips are helpful to those of you heading into the exams soon.  I'd love you hear how it went for all of you when you're done.

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:

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...

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?"

Pludselig Kan Jeg Forstå Dig!

So... all of a sudden, I can speak Danish.

I'm not sure when the shift happened from me feeling like I just didn't understand enough Danish to converse to suddenly feeling fairly comfortable with it.  The change seemed to just appear from thin air.

It's a nice change.

Last week, I was hunting for a used digital piano on what is basically the Danish equivalent to Craigslist.  I wasn't feeling terribly optimistic, because I'd never had a response from anyone I'd ever contacted from the site about anything.  This time, however, I felt at least confident enough to write my inquiries in Danish, so I responded to two ads.  And within an hour, I had responses from both.  I arranged to take a look at one of the pianos, and when I was biking there, I decided I would try to get through as much of the conversation as possible in Danish.

We ended up doing the entire deal in Danish, and he actually seemed surprised to find out that I wasn't Danish.  Point for me!

And just now, while out walking the dog, I struck up a conversation with a woman who's daughter I normally see walking their dog.  She asked me where I was from, and when I told her, she said (in Danish, of course), "Oh, yes, I thought I heard a bit of an accent."  She was then surprised to learn that I'd only been here a little over a year.

Granted, I've gotten pretty used to responding to the kinds of questions other dog owners ask, so it wasn't anything too complicated, but I'm feeling a little bit proud of my Danish skills lately.

It's refreshing to suddenly understand most of the conversations going on around me.  There are still countless words that I don't know, but I'm feeling more and more confident that I might be able to do fairly well on my PD3 exam in November.

Studieskolen - Module 5.1, The Remix

Oh, hi there!  Thought I forgot about you, eh?

Nope, it's just been a busy Summer, with doctor visits galore, classes, traveling to see a sick relative, and having family in town.  Not to mention a puppy who's managed to end up with giardia, which has been... smelly and time-consuming.

But, as planned, I have returned for another go-around with module 5.1, rejoining my class from before the Summer "break."  And boy am I glad to be back.  It's nice to see familiar faces and to hear familiar Danish.  Plus, I really do like the way our teacher teaches.

In other news, last week I embarked on what I'm calling Project Let's-Find-Out-if-Ruby-is-a Piano-Prodigy.

In preparation for auditions to try to get into a music program at a university here in Copenhagen, I've started to take piano lessons.  I've never taken lessons on an instrument, and have only really learned to read music as a singer, so... I'm leaning towards me not being a prodigy.

That being said, I do have the advantage of already knowing quite a bit about music, so the teacher has been able to skip a lot of the basic music theory stuff and jump right into trying to train my hands to listen to my brain.

I'm convinced my left hand is controlled by someone other than me.

Studieskolen - Module 5.1, The Overachievers

Who goes to Summer classes at Studieskolen?

The overachievers, that's who.

At least, it seems that way.

While the class is supposedly supposed to have 11 people in it, it seems that there are actually only 5-7 students.  This is the smallest Danish class I've been in at Studieskolen, and it's nice to be able to have more individual attention.

Like I said, though, the other students in the class are all damn good at Danish.  One girl said on the first day that she only reads books in Danish, so her vocabulary is freakin' enormous.  One guy (the only guy in our class, other than the teacher) said that he learned Danish at age 16, though I'm still not quite sure why (he's Turkish, and Danish seems like a pretty obscure language to learn in high school). Still another girl has already done module 5.1 once before, so she's got all of the answers in her book already.  Not to mention, when I arrived in class this morning I saw her reading the dictionary!

So, I'm feeling a bit behind at the moment.

The good news is, the class is as relaxed as a Summer class should be.

The bad news is that it turns out that our class will be cut short by 2 weeks, as the teacher who was supposed to teach at the end is in the hospital (she's fine, but won't be able to teach, from what I understand).

So, more than ever, I'm glad that I decided in advance to repeat module 5.1 in the Fall, so that I'm sure not to miss anything important.

I'm still annoyed that my own memory for words sucks so much.  Anyone have any memory-improving tips?

Studieskolen - Module 4.2, Exam Part II

Oops!  More than a week later, and I still haven't posted about the second half of the module 4 exam.

So, here it is:

On the day of the first half of the exam (which was a Friday), the teacher paired us up and gave us our time-slots for the spoken portion, which would take place the following Monday.  I was paired up with a friend that I'd been in classes with since module 1, so I felt good about that.

The spoken exam was almost exactly like our spoken exam for module 2.  In the first half, we blindly chose from a list that we'd made of the 3 books we'd read during the module and two topics which we'd researched and prepared a 2-minute presentation for.  I ended up choosing one of those topics, and spoke a bit about the difference between how radio stations and media conglomerates work in the US as compared to how radio functions here in Denmark.  The friend that I was paired with spoke about one of her books, which I believe was called something like "Den Grå Mand" ("The Gray Man").

In the second half, the teacher handed us a piece of paper with a topic and a few words to use as jumping-off points.  The goal was simple to have a brief conversation with our partner about the topic.  Ours was TV, so we chatted a bit about how neither of us watches much Danish TV, but that she likes the show "Matador" (which is an older Danish program), and that my husband and I are planning to get caught up on seasons 2 and 3 of "Forbrydelsen."

In the end, we passed without any major issues, as was the case for everyone in the class (as far as I know).

Since it's been a week and a half since all of that, expect another post about my impressions of the start of module 5 sooner than later.

Studieskolen - Module 4.2, Exam Part I

It's been hot and humid in Copenhagen over the last couple of days.  While 70+ degrees (fahrenheit) never used to feel especially hot, here in Copenhagen it feels oppressive.  Something about the combination of the angle of the sun and the high humidity.

That, and the total lack of air conditioning anywhere.

It was in these sweaty conditions, and accompanied by the seemingly unending sounds of construction outside of the Studieskolen building, that we took the first part of our module 4 exam.

The test was fairly similar to previous exams, although it seemed to take much longer.  We started with one of two written bits, for which I wrote a letter about where and how I grew up to a fictional person compiling stories of people's childhoods.  We then moved on to the listening portion, in which we listened to various passages and answered questions based on them.  This was then followed by the reading and understanding portion, where we had a variety of tasks involving reading or scanning through texts and answering questions or filling in blanks.  The teacher was kind enough to break up the two long writing assignments, so we finished with the second of these.  The final written task asked that we write an article for the fictional school newspaper discussing the pros and cons of volunteering to visit lonely elderly people in connection with the Red Cross.

We were given the test without any breaks, and the whole thing took 3 hours.

I was sweaty, tired, and starving when I left, but I'm 99% sure that I did just fine.

Providing I didn't somehow manage to bomb the whole thing, and that I don't completely forget how to speak Danish in anticipation of the spoken bit of the test on Monday, my plan is to attend module 5.1 over the Summer.  The dilemma I briefly had was that my current teacher, who I have learned so much from, is taking the six-week Summer break and not continuing on to module 5.1 until August.

The solution?

I will most likely repeat module 5.1 again in August, because he's definitely the best teacher that I've had here so far.  Plus, the more time I can spend in module 5 before the PD3 exam in November, the more likely I will be to get the minimum 10 required to move on to module 6.

Whatever it takes.  Within reason.

Studieskolen - Module 4.2, EXAM PANIC!

They've gone and scheduled our module 4 exam.  It'll be broken up into two bits.  The first bit will be a week from this Friday, and the last bit the following Monday.

As far as the actual make-up of the test, I don't have too many details.  What I do know is that, much like the module 1 exam, we will have a spoken portion in which we are given a topic at random (from a list of three books we've read and two topics that we've prepared), and we are supposed to talk about the topic for two minutes, followed by questions from the teacher.

As far as the rest of the exam, for now I assume it will be much like the previous exams: some reading comprehension, some listening bits, and a written portion involving writing letters and/or emails.

To be honest, I'm not especially panicked about this exam.

It's the module 5 exam that's stressing me.

We were given Monday's class to decide on and research the two topics of our choosing for the spoken section of the test, and I found myself sitting at a computer next to our new teacher.  I took the opportunity to grill him on what would be needed to proceed to module 6 after the PD3 exam at the end of module 5.

He explained the grading system, which is on a scale of 12.  To pass the PD3, you only need to score a 2.  In order to get Danish citizenship, you need to pass the test with a score of at least 4.  In order to be allowed to proceed to module 6, which I would need in order to take university courses in Danish...

I'll need to score a 10.

So, the plan is to seriously buckle down.  I've downloaded a couple of language-learning apps onto my iPad (the most useful of which, so far, is called Memrise, and teaches languages and loads of other topics), and plan to jump back into the Rosetta Stone practice as well.  My main problem is, as always, remembering the vocabulary.  I find myself looking up words a dozen times and still not being able to remember them the next time.

My plan, as well, is to try to continue to take Danish classes through the Summer break.  There's only one day class offered at Studieskolen during the break, and my teacher admitted that it's entirely possible that there won't be room for everyone and that there's nothing I can do to ensure a spot, so...

Just gonna cross my fingers and hope that everyone else decides that they need a Summer vacation.

Chatting with Children

Here's a conversation that I had today with a little boy who lives in our building (translated from Danish, as he has not yet started to learn English):

Little boy: What have you been doing today?
Me: I had Danish class this morning.
Little boy: I think you speak Danish well.
Me:  Thank you! But there are still a lot of words that I can't understand.
Little boy:  Yeah, me too.

All together now... Awwwwwww!

It has actually been really helpful and confidence-building to speak with the children in the neighborhood lately.  The language is new-ish enough to them that they don't find it strange or frustrating if there are words I don't understand.  In fact, I found myself nervously not unsure about a question that some kids in the dog park asked me a few weeks ago, but they happily obliged me by miming the action of picking up the dog.  They were just asking if they could hold the puppy.

I'm getting to the point where I understand quite a lot of what people are saying around me.  In fact, I tend to understand more than I think I understand.  The trouble comes when someone asks a familiar question in a slightly unfamiliar way, and I completely lose the context and assume they're asking something I won't understand.  For example, I was just in the dog park (again) and a little boy asked me how old my dog was.  Trouble was, he didn't ask it in the way most people ask, which is "How old is he?" or "Hvor gammel er han?" in Danish.  Instead, he asked "How many years is he?" or "Hvor mange år er han?"  I knew the words, but wasn't used to being asked that way, so it took me a moment to wrap my head around the question.

It's all just going to take lots of practice.

And I'm going to need to start stepping up my Danish practice and consumption outside of class if I plan to continue on to module 6.

After class today, I asked my teacher if there was anything special I should do in order to continue on to the 6th module, as most people only go through module 5.  The big Danish fluency exam takes place after module 5, and only those who want to take university courses in Danish continue on to the 6th.  She clarified that I will need to get a very high score on my module 5 exam in order to be allowed to take module 6, so she recommended watching lots of Danish television, reading lots of Danish books and newspapers, and listening to Danish radio.  Apparently, once you take and pass your big module 5 exam (known as Prøve i Dansk 3), you cannot be readmitted into module 5 classes without paying for them yourself.  So, if I pass the Prøve i Dansk 3, but don't have a high enough score to continue to module 6, I'll have to pay to re-take classes and to re-take the exam.

So... you know...

No pressure.

A Swedish Sojourn

Yesterday was our first wedding anniversary, so we decided to get away for the weekend.

With Sweden so close, it's felt entirely ridiculous that, after nearly a year, I had still never been.  So, we spent the weekend in Malmö.

Malmö is just a short train ride from where we live here in Copenhagen, but it seems quite different.  Technically, Copenhagen is the older of the two cities, but since much of Copenhagen was burnt down by the Brits in 1807, there isn't much that remains here that is older than that.  Malmö, on the other hand, maintains much of it's old architecture, making it look much more like bits of Germany or Flanders in Belgium.

Those of you who know the infamous Eurovision song competition may be quite familiar with Malmö by now, as it was just held there last weekend.  Luckily, we did not get married a week earlier, or it would have been much more difficult (and much more expensive) to get a hotel room.  As it was, we managed to get a really lovely room right on Malmö's Lilla Torg, or "little square."

We were literally two doors down from a Spanish restaurant that was recommended by a colleague of my husband's, so we went there for dinner on Friday night.  On Saturday, we spent the morning wandering around town, and stumbled upon a really lovely park that was crawling with geese and ducks.  Not only that, but it seemed were just in time to see a bit of the Malmö Garden Show in the very same park.  Dinner was at a little seafood restaurant (which could have been better, to be honest), followed by a surprisingly good and creative dessert in our hotel restaurant.

Malmö really is a lovely town.  There isn't a whole lot to do, but it's got lots of beautiful architecture and a really comfortable vibe.  If I had any reason to, I could see myself living there.  And in fact, there are a lot of people who live there and work in Copenhagen, because the cost of living is so much lower.

Today, it was back to the grind with Danish class.  The first day that we met our new teacher, he said (in regards to how difficult it is to learn Danish), "Det skulle ondt!"

Translated, this means, "It should hurt!"

And boy, does it ever.

Studieskolen - Module 4.2, A New Hope

The new teacher walked confidently into the room wearing jeans and an open button-down gingham shirt over a plain white t-shirt, looking like a mix between Paul Giamatti and Tim Curry.  His hair was wild and curly and his smile was big and full of humor.

I knew immediately that this was going to work out.

From the start it was clear that the new teacher had been teaching Danish longer than our previous teacher.  He was infinitely more sure of himself and of the answers he was giving to our questions.  Not only that, but his Danish was far easier to understand.  Both because his pronunciation was clearer and because he seemed to have a better understanding of which words and phrases we had and had not learned in previous classes.

I already feel more optimistic about the class going forward.  To be honest, I had started to seriously lose hope and motivation, and was beginning to wonder if continuing was a waste of time.

It's clear that he's going to be a tough teacher.  Strict but kind. Insisting that we speak Danish whenever he's in the classroom, even before class starts and during breaks.  But always with a smile on his face.

It's nice to feel a renewed sense of hope.

En Film på Dansk

Strange as it feels to say, this is already the last week of module 4.1, and I'll be heading to module 4.2 next week.

Not only that, but it seems like we're changing horses midstream.

Instead of continuing on with our nice-but-frustrating Monday/Wednesday teacher, Studieskolen has altered the class a bit and we will have a brand new teacher next week.  We'll still have our other teacher one day a week, but our less experienced teacher is being replaced by someone who has, apparently, been working at the school for many years.

I, for one, am relieved.

So, today was our last class with the aforementioned inexperienced teacher.  We spent the first hour of class going over our homework, and took the following two hours to watch a Danish movie.

He asked the class if we would prefer English or Danish subtitles, and I think I was the only one to meekly squeak "...English...!"  That's was my insecurity speaking.  Everyone else enthusiastically voted for Danish.

So, Danish it was.

We watched a film called "Adams Æbler," (which, as you might have guessed, translates to "Adams Apples).  This is a film from 2005 starring famous Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen.  You might know him from the current American TV serious "Hannibal."

I went into it fully expecting to be completely lost, but I surprised myself.  I actually understood most of what was said.  To be fair, I would never have been able to figure it out without the subtitles.  But with the subtitles, I found that I could follow fairly well.

This gives me hope.  And maybe even a tiny bit more confidence.

By the way, speaking of subtitles... It's now a word that I often have difficulty remembering in English. I find myself always wanting to use the danish word (which is "undertekster").

I'm not sure I have room in my brain for both languages, and may eventually forget English completely.

A Mixed Bag Round-Up

I've been a bit distracted this month, so it's been a full 2 weeks since my last post.  But with April coming to a close, it seems like a good time for a quick round-up of recent events.

Let's go back to April 16th, which is the Danish queen's birthday.  It's traditional for her to step out onto the balcony at her palace here in Copenhagen on her birthday and wave at the gathered masses.  A girlfriend of mine who I met my first module of Danish classes wanted to go see, so she and I took my puppy, Wooster, and joined the celebration.  It was a perfect day for it:

That's the queen in the red jacket on the balcony.  Wooster was, as you might expect, quite impressed:

As far as Danish class goes, it's been a bit of a mixed bag.  One of the main issues this module is that the "textbook" that they're having us work from is what appears to be a not-yet-published version of a future textbook.  So we've been receiving each chapter as large stapled-together packets.  It's chock-full of errors and missing information and incorrect page numbers, making for a lot of confusion.  Not only that, but the DVD that they handed out to go along with the "textbook" was a burned DVD with a hand-written title, and which we were asked to download onto our computers and then return.  In addition, the track titles on said DVD don't match the names of the assignments in the book, so it's a bit of a guessing game to figure out which video to watch.

Our Monday/Wednesday teacher actually seems to have gotten his act together a bit.  Instead of just assigning a ton of homework and spending class time going over the answers to that homework, he's now having us work on more interesting, varied, helpful assignments during class.  He still hasn't prepared enough to actually know all of the correct answers, but at least he's moving in the right direction.

It seems, however, that we are going to have a mid-module teacher change.  The new course schedule came out this week, and it looks like our Monday/Wednesday guy is going to be replaced by a Monday/Wednesday/Friday guy (with Thursdays remaining with our other teacher) when we move to module 4.2.  We've been told that this new guy has been teaching Danish for a long time and is very good.

And finally, today is my birthday.

The big 3-2.

Happy birthday to me.

Studieskolen - Module 4.1, Correcting Teacher

Started module 4 yesterday.

Meet the new teachers, same as the old teachers.

Indeed, I have the same two teachers as I had for module 3, and things with our Monday/Wednesday teacher have begun in style.

And by style, I mean with me having to explain the difference between past tense and present perfect tense to the teacher, after he gave us the wrong answer on an assignment during class.

To be fair (sort of), he seemed to be much more prepared prepared for the start of module 4 than he was for the start of module 3.  Then again, he didn't even know he was teaching on Mondays at the start of module 3, and showed up more than half an hour late.

You can't see it, but I'm rolling my eyes.

We also worked on an assignment in which we had to figure out where the "stød" (or glottal stop) was in each of the seasons and months of the year.  If you've been reading my posts for a while, you know my feelings on "stød."  Now, I've come around a little bit on the idea.  A very little bit.  For example, on words that sound almost exactly the same, sometimes the stød and the context of the surrounding sentence are the only way to know which word is being used.  However, insisting that we listen for something that is both difficult (and often impossible) to hear and usually unnecessary for the sake of being understood... feels like a waste of time.  Time that we could be using to learn useful things like... words and grammar.

Not to mention that stød is generally the least of people's problems when it comes to Danish pronunciation.

The good news is, our Thursday/Friday teacher is also the same as well, and I find her knowledgeable, easy to understand, and downright delightful.