Martin's Danish (and French) Log

[martinosek]

Despite the many years that I've been a member of the old htlal forum and now this place, its replacement, I've never been an active contributor. On the old forum, I have posted maybe three posts or so, I'm not quite sure. So I'll start off by saying a little bit about myself and my story and how I finally got here, to start writing this log.

I'm Martin. I was born in Poland, but then at the age of 10 (nearly 11) I moved to the UK, and I've been living here ever since. In addition to Polish and English, I've also been learning French for a good couple of years, throughout all secondary school and college, and I'd say I'm at an intermediate, low intermediate level. So, I finished my secondary school and college, and now I'd say that it's time to start university.
Originally, I was supposed to start studying at the University of Leicester in September last year, but when the results day came and I found out that I was accepted, instead of celebrating, I called the university straight away and asked them to defer my entry. I thought that now that I got my place at the university, taking a year off will be great. I'll go and visit so many places, I'll experience so many new things, life will be so amazing. However, I got brought back down to earth within the first couple of weeks of my gap year. There was this one tiny thing that I forgot to consider. Money. My mom always provided me with everything I needed, but we are definitely not rich and how was I going to travel without any money? So I started looking around for any jobs, considering that I have never worked a single day up until this point, and through a friend I found about this catering agency, I signed up, and I started working within the first week or so. Now, it's nearly the end of March now, I've been working for around 8 months and I worked as a waiter, a barman, a kitchen porter. It'd be safe to say that if the job is related to catering, I have probably done it at some point during these last 8 months.
Getting back to the topic of university, I'm now supposed to start my studies at Leicester in September. However, during the past few weeks, I started thinking more and more about university, my future, what I'm going to end up doing afterwards and I started having some doubts. University of Leicester is a good university, but it's not amazing nor is it too prestigious and my major, French and Spanish, wouldn't lead me to a job straight away. Is it worth it applying for tuition fee loan and a maintenance loan to study a humanities subject, which only offers about 12 or so teaching hours a week, and then end up with over £60k of debt after I finish my studies? I know how the loans work and that I would only start paying it back once my annual income is above the £21k threshold, but the £60k would have to be paid back eventually, however long it may take. But I'm pretty sure that I'm not the only student that would rather have the £60k saved up in the bank account, instead of having to pay it back. And so, out of curiosity, I started looking at universities around Europe. At first, I looked at universities in Finland, mainly Helsinki, but my qualifications do not meet the admission requirements and learning enough Finnish in a year to be able to follow lectures would be one hell of a challenge, so Finland's a no-no. Then I remembered that one my friends visited Copenhagen not so long ago, and he was talking about how nice it was, so I looked at the Danish universities. There aren't any tuition fees, that's a plus. I found out that if I find 10-12hrs (at least) a week job, I'd be able to receive a student grant like all the Danish students, that's another big plus. Then I found out that Danish schools use a different grading system, so I did a couple of hours research, trying to convert my grades into a Danish average, and I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that my grade average would allow me to get into most of the majors at the University of Copenhagen and University of Aarhus. I then emailed both universities regarding the qualifications and I got a positive response from Aarhus and neutral one from Copenhagen as at the moment they have too many applications to handle and I should email them again in September. But if the response regarding my qualifications is a positive one from Aarhus, then the same should also apply for Copenhagen. Looking the university websites they ask for the same qualifications, just slightly different grade averages depending on the subject. The only requirement that I don't meet at the moment is the language proficiency. I would have to pass studieprøven at at least grade 2.
And that's where this log comes into play. I have my heart already set on Denmark, and even if for some reason my qualifications will not be good enough for Copenhagen, I will still apply to study in Aarhus. This year, the deadline for international students to apply has already passed. In new the academic cycle, the deadline for the actual applications will be in March, next year, and the deadline to send all the necessary certificates (that includes the language proficiency certificate) will be in July, also next year. The summer studieprøven tests take place in May/June. This gives me over a year to work and save up some money, and to learn enough Danish to be able to pass the studieprøven at reasonably good grade.
At the moment, I'm just getting started with Danish and I'm learning the basics with duolingo. In next couple of days or weeks, I will invest in the new edition of Assmil's Le Danois, possibly Teach yourself Danish and I will my supplement my studies with watching some series or documentaries on the DR TV app, listening to radio podcasts, a couple of Danish courses on memrise, and any other smaller resources I'll find along the way. Also, if anyone has any other suggestions regarding study materials, techniques etc, I'll accept all the help, so feel free to post it here.
Danish will of course be my main focus, but I'll be continuing with French as well. It's at an intermediate level and it'd be a shame to just leave it there. I'm looking to finish New French with Ease within the next couple of weeks, then I'll possibly invest in Using French. I'll continue reading articles in French and listening to France Culture. If anyone has any suggestions for French, I'll happily accept those too.
And regarding the frequency of my posts, I think I will post updates once a week, or once every two weeks, depending on my progress and what I'll during the week.

I'm sorry for this pretty long post, but I felt the need to introduce myself and my situation properly after being around for such a long time without ever posting anything with substance. But I'll stop rambling on now, and I guess my language journey begins today.

[Elenia]

Welcome to active forum life, Martin. Good luck with Danish. I don't know all too much about learning Danish, but I think one of the more difficult aspects is the pronunciation. So it's especially important to get in lots of listening from the very start, even if you don't necessarily understand it. But I managed to start picking out a few words from a Danish program I watched a few days ago, so with a tiny bit of attention, I think you'll be fine.

Check out the logs of other Danish learners on the forum, and drop by the Team Nordic thread if you feel like it or have questions that you think we might be able to answer.

[Montmorency]

Hi Martin,

What you are doing is quite brave, but also very sensible in trying to avoid the insane amount of debt that UK students are now expected to rack up. It was bad enough when my children were going through it, but it's a lot worse now. It will also of course be a fantastic opportunity to learn a new language and culture.

I thought at first that you were aiming to start this year, and that would have been pushing it, but with over a year to work, you have a good chance.

You probably know that the cost of living in Denmark is a lot more than in the UK. You will have a grant, but I doubt if it will allow for much luxury.

One resource you might like is:

http://www.copenhagencast.com

(I should say that the format has changed since I first used it, and now you have to use iTunes to get the podcast, which is a negative for me, but you may not have this hangup). One thing that hasn't changed is that the podcasts are free, but you have to pay for the PDF notes (which are useful actually, and they used to come with additional audio, and maybe still do).

BTW, you mention the DR app. I don't know about that, but if you watch DR TV on a normal computer browser, some of the programmes have Danish subtitles, which will be quite useful for comprehension because Danish is not exactly the most phonetic of languages. You will have to look these programmes out; I'm not sure if there is a short-cut way of finding them.

Good luck.

[martinosek]

Welcome to active forum life, Martin. Good luck with Danish. I don't know all too much about learning Danish, but I think one of the more difficult aspects is the pronunciation. So it's especially important to get in lots of listening from the very start, even if you don't necessarily understand it. But I managed to start picking out a few words from a Danish program I watched a few days ago, so with a tiny bit of attention, I think you'll be fine.

Check out the logs of other Danish learners on the forum, and drop by the Team Nordic thread if you feel like it or have questions that you think we might be able to answer.

Thanks, Elenia!
I agree, Danish pronunciation is nightmare. But luckily, I'm not planning on talking for a while, not until I at least finish Assimil, so then I'd able to have somewhat decent conversations and ask native Danes to correct me. And regarding listening, I'm doing a lot of that at the moment. I already found a couple of good Danish signers and I've got the 'musixmatch' app on my phone, so I'm able to have pop-up lyrics on the screen as soon as I soon I play a song on spotify, so that helps as well.
And regarding Team Nordic, I'll definitely need help in the near future, so you can count me in!

Hi Martin,

What you are doing is quite brave, but also very sensible in trying to avoid the insane amount of debt that UK students are now expected to rack up. It was bad enough when my children were going through it, but it's a lot worse now. It will also of course be a fantastic opportunity to learn a new language and culture.

I thought at first that you were aiming to start this year, and that would have been pushing it, but with over a year to work, you have a good chance.

You probably know that the cost of living in Denmark is a lot more than in the UK. You will have a grant, but I doubt if it will allow for much luxury.

One resource you might like is:

http://www.copenhagencast.com

(I should say that the format has changed since I first used it, and now you have to use iTunes to get the podcast, which is a negative for me, but you may not have this hangup). One thing that hasn't changed is that the podcasts are free, but you have to pay for the PDF notes (which are useful actually, and they used to come with additional audio, and maybe still do).

BTW, you mention the DR app. I don't know about that, but if you watch DR TV on a normal computer browser, some of the programmes have Danish subtitles, which will be quite useful for comprehension because Danish is not exactly the most phonetic of languages. You will have to look these programmes out; I'm not sure if there is a short-cut way of finding them.

Good luck.

Thanks, Montmorency!
It may be brave in terms of finances, but paying back £60k is just way too much. So, if I have to have to move to another country, so be it. On the other hand, I moved houses so many times in my life, I became neutral to this kind of stuff. I'll meet new people, make new friends, all will be well. I had some of my friends telling me that I'll be homesick, but having had to move to another country at 10, I haven't had the chance to develop a strong cultural identity. So, neither Poland or the UK feels like home to me. Whenever I go to Poland, I feel like a foreigner and in the UK, even after 8 years, I am still a foreigner. Homesickness doesn't affect me. And moving to Denmark might even prove to be the best decision I'll ever make.

Moving there this year would really be pushing it! But over a year should be enough. I mean, in the UK, I see quite a few international students, sometimes with a really questionable level of English, but they still manage to somehow follow the lectures and get decent grades. So why I wouldn't succeed with Danish, especially that the language is much closer to English than for example Mandarin. As long as I'll be consistent and efficient with my studies, it's doable.

'Luxury' is not a word that exists in a student's vocabulary! I'll try to save up a couple thousand pounds before I leave, and if I really had to I could also ask my mom to help me a little. All I need is food and a roof over my head, and I'll be fine.

Thanks for the suggestion! I hate itunes, but I was able to get the podcast through my 'podcast addict' app, which has an itunes search engine. I'll check out the PDFs when I have some more free time.

It's the same for the app. It also has subtitles for selected programmes. The app is nice and easy to navigate, so it's also not a hassle to go through and check which programmes offer subtitles and which don't. However, it's a bummer that I can't watch live TV, and many programmes are also blocked because I'm outside of Denmark. I tried using Hola VPN, but that doesn't seem to solve the problem

[Montmorency]

Hi Martin,

You certainly seem to have a positive approach, and it sounds like you know exactly what you are doing.

Just as an aside, I had always been kind of interested in the Scandinavian languages in theory, but it was a trip to Norway just over 5 years ago that got me into attempting to learn one. The trip was planned at least a year in advance, so I worked through the TYS book and audio during that year. I say "worked", but I didn't really work that hard.

In the early part of the following year, the famous TV series "The Killing" was shown in the UK, and that made me decide to switch to Danish, so I went through the TYS Danish book and audio, and also did things like Copenhagencast, and tried to watch/listen to some DR TV and radio. I watched all the Danish, Danish-Swedish, (and Swedish) series on BBC4 as they came along, and was a fan of Borgen.

DR TV started a factual political programme called "Bag Borgen" (i.e. "behind Borgen"), which I think was trying to cash in on the popularity of the fictional series in order to get people in Denmark interested in real politics. I can't say I understood much, but I liked the sound of it, and the presenter somehow managed to make it seem interesting. That series has ended now (after a long run), but there is a kind of replacement political series with the same presenter, and I've watched a few of those. Unfortunately, there are no subtitles (as far as I remember). I can't remember the name of it, but I think it would be easy to find by category.

(I have myself now switched back to Norwegian after a recent trip (how fickle am I? ). Not just fickleness, but certain aspects of the trip made me think that Norwegian was actually possible to learn, and that I'd have a better chance with its spelling-vs-pronunciation situation than with Danish. There are still plenty of pronunciation traps for the unwary English speaker, but for the moment at least, I feel I can make some headway with it, and anyway, we are planning some more Norwegian trips).

[Montmorency]

Hei Hei igen Martin,

I have now re-found that Danish political TV programme, the successor (in a way) to "Bag Borgen". It's called
"Langt fra Borgen", i.e. "Far from [Borgen]", and in contrast to "Bag Borgen" which concentrated on the politicians, I think the idea of the new one is to concentrate on the ordinary people who are affected by the various policies of the politicians.

Like "Bag Borgen", it is introduced by Ask Rostrup (great name!), who I think combines the necessary elements of good humour, drive and outgoingness to make it seem interesting even if one isn't understanding all the language.

This one will expire very shortly (unfortunately), but there are some more in the series:

https://www.dr.dk/tv/se/langt-fra-borge ... a-borgen-3

(and that one has Danish subtitles. I don't know if they all do though).

This link will take you to all the current programmes:

https://www.dr.dk/tv/se/langt-fra-borge ... fra-borgen

Looks like they only last about a month, i.e. a similar time to BBC's iPlayer.

(Oh, I think I got one thing wrong above: they do involve politicians, but it's putting them at the sharp end of their policies, i.e. where people are actually affected by them. Seems like a good idea!)

[thomas_dc]

Woohoo, someone is learning Danish. Soon Danish will be the new lingua franca of the world. Can't wait!

I wish you good luck with your plans and hope they will work out well for you. As to studying in Denmark: I heard that studieprøven is quite difficult, but then again, why not? In case it does turn out to work a little slower than anticipated the Danish universities offer courses taught in English as well. I know you're focusing on learning the language, so it might be a boring solution, but just keep in mind that it's possible. I also believe that once you live here (in Denmark that is) you'll be offered Danish courses for free. I think that these are pretty good in quality.

As to the cities. Copenhagen is great: a real capital. But expensive. You'll need to sell a semi-vital organ every few months in order to pay your rent, or you'd have to get a part time job (which is preferable) please look up on the specific rules as to how manu hours you're allowed to work while studying here as a foreigner. We kust had a case of a student from Cameroun (i think) who studied engenering and was the top of his class in everything, but he worked slightly too many hours one month and got deported before being able to finish his exams - the media were on it, but the ministry wouldn't budge.. Just be carful.
Then there is Århus. Århus calls itself the worlds smallest big city.. But really, that's just marleting. With around 300.000 inhabitants, it's no metropolis, and it doesn't really compare to copenhagen. Århus still has its moments, though. It's a very young town. Around 10% of its citizens are students. Housing is a little cheaper there.
Do come spend some time in each city before deciding. They're both charming in summer, but to get a more realistic idea, come in November

[martinosek]

I don't know yet what kind of a layout I'll be using for my updates, I'll probably experiment a bit with the layouts for the first couple of weeks. But after a long week of anticipation, here comes my first update.

Let's start with the progress bars.
Assimil - Le Danois sans peine: 7 / 68 - Passive Wave
Assimil - Le Danois: 4 / 100 - Passive Wave
Assimil - NFWE: 75 / 113 - Passive Wave
Assimil - NFWE: 26 / 113 - Active Wave

Danish
Le Danois sans peine - A little thing to mention with old edition is that while I do have the audio (although, not of the best quality), I don't have the physical book. I only have the PDF. So, instead of just going through the lessons as I do with French. I write the Danish dialogues down in my book to have a physical copy of them, and that also gives me a little bit of writing practice. So, getting back to the point. I've done the 7th lesson today, and thank god it was a review lesson. I really needed a little break. But Danish pronunciation is an absolute nightmare! I mean, words such as 'gadelivet', 'gulvet', 'kvarteret', and even 'anledning'. I'm having to spend half of my time just going back and forth the PDF, Forvo and Google translate to get a better idea of what the words sound like, and even that doesn't always help. Learning Danish pronunciation should be implemented in schools as punishment. Instead of having detentions, make the kids pronounce difficult Danish words and don't let them go until they pronounce the words perfectly These were only the first seven lessons, but they already take me longer to get through than the latter lessons of Assimil French. I'm scared to see what lessons thirty and forty will be like. I also wonder what the Danish learning curve looks like, is it hard in the beginning and then it gets easier with time or is it just hard all the way through because of the pronunciation?

Le Danois - I ordered the Superpack last Thursday, and it already arrived yesterday. So, I'm happy with that, even though the shipping costs were almost 10 euros. The new edition has 32 more lessons, and the audio is of much better quality. But having had a quick glance at the first couple of lessons, I noticed that the dialogue length is on the shorter side. It takes until lesson 13 to get at least 8 lines of dialogue and until lesson 22 to get 10 lines. Compared with the old edition, where already from lesson 1 there were over 10 lines. So, today I've done my 3rd and 4th lessons, and for the first week or two I'll be doing two lessons a day, especially since the content in the beginning stages isn't difficult. I'll also be having more listening practice, so that's always a plus.

Other - I've passed the first checkpoint on Duolingo and I'm halfway through to reaching the second one. I'm really liking Duolingo, despite the content not being always too realistic. I'm getting a lot of basic sentence pattern construction practice, and I'm also getting a lot of practice for the words 'spiser' and 'drikker'. I know that Duolingo does not hold my ability to retain words in high regard, but I think I've already mastered those words Oh well, some more practice won't hurt, I guess.
At the moment, I'm not focusing as much on Memrise, but I still try to go on it at least once a day. I'm doing the 'Conversational Danish' course, where I'm on 26 (!) words, and '500 Most Common Danish Words' where I've managed to learn a staggering amount of 10 words. On the plus side, I'm able to download the courses for offline usage, so I can learn words when I have some free time at work. I'll be honest, the offline feature already came in handy more than a couple of times
Regarding my Danish media consumption, the biggest positive of the week is that I managed to find a really good VPN app! 'TouchVPN' allows me to finally watch live TV! Although, it doesn't unlock any of programmes that aren't available for viewing outside of Denmark, I can at least watch live TV. And on Friday, I watched the Danish Xfactor final And while on the topic of music, I found a couple of really good Danish artists. Marie Key, Tue West, Annika Aakjær, Ulige Numre. Some of the other Danish artists I listen to include, Joey Moe, Djames Braun, Sys Bjerre, Rasmus Seebach, Rasmus Walter. If anyone has any other recommendations, feel free to share them.
Oh, I'm also looking for some good Danish literature, so again, feel free to share any recommendations.

French
Assimil NFWE - I've been focusing most of my attention of Danish, so my progress with French won't be as fast or as exciting. But both of my Danish courses are in French, so that gives me additional French practice. And as to Assimil NFWE, today I've done lesson 26 of the active wave, and lesson 75 of the passive wave. The lessons aren't too difficult, but in new the lessons there are always a couple of new words or there's a reinforcing of a grammar concept I haven't yet grasped properly. So, it's good to know that the lessons are useful and I'm still progressing. I've had the Assimil French book for about 5 years now (alongside with 3 other courses, in which I've never went past lesson 14). With French it's been on and off, but I'm hoping that log will help me to finally finish the book and then move onto 'Using French'. And regarding other things I've done to improve my French, this week, there's not a lot to say. I have my Facebook in French and I follow a couple of French news outlets, and I think I've read one or two stories last week. I also listened to a little bit of French music, but other than that, it's been pretty quiet. Today, I might upload one or two French songs on lyricstraining. I might listen to a France Culture, and maybe work through it. I'm not sure yet. We'll see how today pans out.

@Montmorency
I can't blame you for switching back to Norwegian! Were it not for the specific target that I set myself, I'd probably switch as well. Danish pronunciation and trying to figure out what's being said is just a pain in the ass! And especially as you're planning more trips to Norway, Norwegian seems to be better option for now. You can always come back to learning Danish some time in the future.
I've heard and read a lot about Forbrydelsen and Borgen, but I never actually got around to watching any of them. I'm going to have start watching them in the near future, I seem to be missing out on some great Danish content. And thanks for programme recommendations, I really like politics, but I need to improve my Danish a bit before I can start enjoying those kind of programmes. I'll keep them in mind for the future

@thomas_dc
Thanks! I need all the luck I can get!
I don't know why but I thought that studieprøven is at a B2 level, but after further research I found out that studieprøven for higher education is in fact at a C1 level. So, I agree with your comment. Studieprøven will be rather difficult. But hey, what's life without a challenge. Achieving C1 in just over a year would be a great accomplishment. I did some 'calculations', and I worked out that I'm going to have to study Danish for two hours everyday for the next year. At first, it sounds achievable, but will I have enough willpower to succeed. Only time can tell
I looked at the courses again, and University of Copenhagen doesn't offer any undergraduate courses in English and Aarhus offers a couple, but they all have Maths A or B as a requirement and I don't meet that requirement. Anyway, as you can probably already tell from my log, I'm more of humanities guy. So, I was thinking of doing maybe French, Linguistics, Law, Rhetoric. Something along those lines. Those courses interest me more and I meet all the requirements for them as well, so that works out well.

I mean, I could sell my kidney and that would keep me going in terms of money for a couple of months, but it doesn't sound like a good long-term solution Finding a part-time job sounds so much better, and with the ability to speak Danish, I should, in theory, have an easier time finding a job than the international students that only speak English. I did a bit of research regarding the amount of hours you're allowed to work as a student and for Non-EU students it's 20hrs a week, at least that's most websites say, but then one or two websites say it's 15hrs. So, I don't know. But for EU students, there doesn't seem to be a limit as such. As an EU student, if I work at least 10-12hrs a week, I'll also be able to receive SU. So that's what my plan looks like at the moment. Come to Denmark with around £4000 - £6000 pounds saved up, find a part-time work of at least 10-12hrs and then apply for SU. I'd use my savings for keep me going for the first month or two, and then with the job and SU, I could be looking at around 7500-8000 DKK a month, maybe a little more, maybe a little less. I'm not sure exactly. But I think that should be enough to survive as a student.
I still have a lot of time to think about my decision, but at the moment, Copenhagen is my first choice. The city is bigger and there's more going on, so it could be easier to find a part-time, and the university is better ranked and more prestigious as well. But then Aarhus isn't really that small, it's around the size of my current city, the university is also doing pretty good in the rankings and the grade requirements are slightly lower too. I don't know yet. I still have time to think about that.
I'll definitely have to come to Denmark twice or thrice in May/June to pass the studieprøven, but I'm guessing I'll be quite stressed then. So, I'll try to come once or twice before that as well

[Montmorency]

Great update Martin.

I can see Copenhagen must be tempting, but if you end up plumping for Århus, you might run into Iversen now and again (at least I think that's where he is).

Talking of Norwegian vs Danish etc, you might enjoy this video (although the sound level drops off towards the end unfortunately):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pS0Nx-LsXl0

"Danish, Norwegian or Swedish?"

Cristina was a stalwart of HTLAL, and is a member here, but unfortunately hasn't been able to be as active on here as she was on HTLAL. It would be great to see her on here more often when she has the chance. Richard was also a member of HTLAL and a highly respected member of the polyglot community; I'm not sure if he is on this forum though.


EDIT: Talking of "Forbrydelsen" etc, are you following "Follow the Money" on BBC4? As of now, I think you can still catch up from the beginning on iPlayer.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/group/b072h7rk

(BTW, I really learned to love the sound of spoken Danish, even if I couldn't pick out the actual words most of the time! "The Bridge" was great because (at least at first) they used to make great play on the differences between Danish & Swedish culture and language; playing the stereotypes perhaps, but it was fun).

[Montmorency]

Just another point on "Follow the Money": I notice that the Danish subtitles are there at opensubtitles.org for some of the episodes (not all, at the time of writing anyway). However, the English ones are present for all the episodes.

Try searching under both English and Danish film titles.

(It's an annoying site to use...you have to be careful what you click on, but it is possible to extract subtitles (as .srt files), with care and patience).