That’s the phrase that I said to people when I first moved here and they’d just spoken to me in Danish. Since then I’ve learned that all I really need to say is “I’m sorry.” In either case the effect is the same — they switch over to English, and we can converse just fine.
It’s incredibly impressive to be in a country where virtually everyone is fluent in at least two languages. The Danes really do speak English, but there are some exceptions and limitations.
The exceptions are: children, the elderly, and immigrants. Children know some English, as they start learning it in elementary school, but they don’t know it well enough to converse. This is completely understandable, and typically anyone under 14 won’t even try to speak English. The elderly, for the most part, don’t know English at all. Of course it depends on what they did for a living, but the big push to teach English in school came after they were out of school.
But it’s the immigrants that are the most notable problem in day-to-day living, because they own a lot of shops and restaurants in Copenhagen. A few days ago I went into a bagel shop and ordered a bagel with salmon and cream cheese. Or at least I tried to. The man behind the counter, who was perhaps Pakistani or Indian, didn’t speak English at all. A few minutes later I was paying for a ham and cheese bagel.
But even for the Danes, who appeared initially to be completely fluent, English is still a second language. Their fluency varies quite a bit from one person to another, sometimes in unexpected ways. For example, I had no idea how pervasive American culture is in Scandinavia, both through music and movies. You can make references to popular American films all you want, and the Danes know exactly what you’re talking about. On the other hand, they often don’t use English very often, so it’s clearly more demanding for them to speak it.
Now that I’ve been here for over two months, I’ve become keenly aware of the limitations of the Dane’s mastery of English. Again, it varies from person to person, so you can’t just assume that every native Dane is fluent. They can almost always understand you, but you have to really follow what they’re saying, because at any moment, they’ll stop mid-sentence and say, “How do you say…”, or, “What’s the word for…” It’s like a pop quiz, and it still catches me off guard because you never know if the word they are looking for is a simple, common word, or if it’s a fairly technical or esoteric word.
It’s quite a bit of fun, really, but it lulls me into the impression that I’m not here to learn Danish — I’m here to help the Danes hone their English. Sure, that may be a side effect of my stay here, but I have to remind myself that they’re honing a second language and I still don’t know a second language. It’s very humbling.
When you do run into people that either don’t speak English at all, or very haltingly, it can be a lot of fun. I was at a flea market, and I saw four drinking glasses that I wanted. I asked the seller how much he was charging, and we quickly came to the mutual conclusion that we would not be able to do business using words. So he pulled out a 10 kroner coin, and placed it next to each glass in turn. I said, “Oh, so it’s 40 kroner for all of them. He smiled and said, “Yes.” So he knew at least one English word.
But by far the most troublesome time I talked to a Dane that didn’t know English very well was when I went to the bank to get an account. I’d made an appointment in advance because you don’t just walk into a bank and open an account in Denmark. A very pretty girl called me back to her desk. I introduced myself, and quickly discovered that her grasp of the language was surprisingly limited.
She could speak, but very slowly and awkwardly, but I figured it would be ok. I was wrong. What I didn’t understand is that to get into banking, you go to a trade school where your education is entirely in Danish, and there is no emphasis on foreigners at all. So people in the banking system have much less English schooling than the general population.
In retrospect this was made clear by the fact that she didn’t know terms like “debit card”. I asked her if I could have a card, and she said (slowly), “No. We’ll have to get to know you better first.” I asked how long that would take, and she said, “One or two months.” I realized that she thought I was asking for a credit card, so I explained — in a very charades-like way — that I want to have a card where, when I buy something, the money comes out of my account. I already HAVE the money, I’m just using the card to take the money out of my account. This made no difference. She told me to check back in one or two months. Later I called a different person at the bank and they told me that a debit card comes with every account and that mine was in the mail. I still don’t have a debit card, and that was 5 weeks ago.
Another thing that I’ve learned is that, unlike at an American bank, the person that sets up your account is your representative — every non-trivial thing you want to do with your account has to be done by them, and it’s not easy to get another representative. Today I called and said that I simply couldn’t communicate with my representative, and could I please get someone else. The support person paused, and said, “Umm…ok. I’ll have your new representative call you shortly.” My phone has yet to ring.
I intentionally choose the bank directly next to the largest train station in Denmark. It’s in the heart of Copenhagen, in an area where I regularly hear English being spoken. I figured that they — more so than any other branch — would have experience with English speakers. And yet I can go up to any random Dane on the street, anywhere in town, and I’m virtually assured of having a more satisfying conversation than I am with an customer representative in a bank next to Nørreport station.
A phrase that I often hear from Danes: “That’s the way it works in Denmark.”
Recent Comments