I Passed!

A funny video in honor of passing my Level 1 Danish for Foreigners exam. Only four more levels to go...

Spotted: Words That Make You Go Hmmmm...

Context is so important when living in a foreign country. It's the difference between thinking it quaint that Danes love to write "Satan" in graffiti to realizing it's actually a Danish curse... Unfortunately, in the absence of comprehending jokes in Danish, my daily doses of humor in Denmark have been reduced to a practically childish, grade-school level. Here are a few of my favorite recent giggle-inducing discoveries.

Sluts abound in Copenhagen. Having nothing to do with questionable morals or loose women, it's just the word for final when used alone. It can also be used in sentences like the one below, which translates more like an ending or "No more gray days!" It's also only funny in print as it's pronounced more like "sloot".

Even funnier are slutspurts which happen fairly frequently as they are final or end of season sales. I got a good belly laugh over thinking about what happens when my favorite kitchen supply store "Kok" -pronounced like a certain male body part - has a slutspurt.

As you are now discovering too, most of these juvenile encounters can be put into one of two categories - bad words or bodily functions. Below is a good example of the latter.



Fart in Danish means speed - words involving fart generally relate to travel or speed of movement, like farthinder which is a speed bump or turistfart which is not a rude noise made by a foreigner but, as when written in large letters on the side of a bus, simply means touring.

You could combine all these into one big English bathroom-humorous mess by saying, "Farten til "Kok" fordi de har en enorm slutspurt." [If you really want to try it: Fahrt-n tee cock for-dee day hah en enorm sloot-spurt.] Don't worry about offending anyone over here - you'd only be saying, "Go to 'Kitchen' because they're having a big final sale."

Leaving Las Vegas

"I'm leaving Las Vegas

And I won't be back

No I won't be back

Not this time."

-Sheryl Crow*

For a long time I thought America had its claws in me. Lured in by brights lights and kept there with free drinks and the promise of a comped hotel room, I thought I would never get it together and actually leave. I thought for sure that I would live and die and never experience my dream of being a true expat living abroad.

Now that I am, it's amazing how quickly my brain seems to be wiping away traces of my American self and cozying up to a new Euro-version of me. I noticed this the other day in Danish class, the way my brain would revert to other European languages when faced with difficult translations or inability to come up with a word. Sometimes when I can't think of the correct phrase in Danish, the French-I-learned-in-grade-school version pops into my head.


France, je t'aime!


Then there was the day where the phrase, "La escuela es rojo," got stuck on mental repeat, even though I don't speak any Spanish, nor have I ever studied it. I think it got lodged in there back in the seventh grade when all my friends were taking the "useful language", while I studied French so I could go eat crepes and croissants on a future school exchange to La Rochelle.

Despite kicking myself years later when I moved to Colorado with no knowledge of Spanish, it was an amazing trip of a lifetime. (And that French came in super-handy when my host family ran over my foot with their voiture on my first day there!) Now, in response to my recent life change, the linguistic region of my brain has switched to "foreign" mode, and I'm waiting to see which other languages I don't know make an appearance.

Another example: last week, we learned that the Danish word "lækker" can be used to describe food that is delicious, but also someone who is good-looking. Of course this led to a discussion of who was "lækker" in the world of entertainment and pop culture and my mind began wandering. Clive Owen... British! Vincent Cassel... French! David Beckham... argh, British again! Hard to blame my brain, given George and McDreamy's laughable recent cameos in my life. And lest you think the US was lacking in representation in this conversation, I did deliver a stern lecture to a German classmate on why the words "lækker" and "David Hasselhoff" should never appear together in a sentence.

With more and more American references and influences disappearing each day, my brain cannot seem to keep itself anchored in an American mindset. I've stopped jaywalking all the time and now religiously obey pedestrian signals. I'm no longer quite so disturbed by Jude Law's (unexpected!) hairy-ness - I think it's actually a European thing. I am the proud owner of three scarves, a closet full of skinny jeans and a set of wool long undies I wouldn't trade for all the creamy peanut butter in the world.

Someone who ate one too
many freedom fries on his
last trip to the States?

Am I "integrating" as the Danes would say? Maybe not as much as controversial Minister for Refugees, Immigrants and Integration Søren Pind would like. Though I don't think someone who believes multiculturalism is "deceitful" would ever fully approve of this blogger's American or Euro-versions of self.

And while I know that someday in the not so distant future, my American self will come knocking, wanting to be let back in, I will be glad that I left Las Vegas, even for a little while.

[* Apologies to my husband for lifting these lyrics from his least favorite recording artist. He still can't forgive her for covering Sweet Child of Mine, which, in his book, is about as un-American as you can get.]

Animal Farm

Sandra Boyton is a well-know children's author who, depending on how many times your child has demanded you read her books in a row, is either a genius, or should be shot. Or possibly both. All her books rhyme in such cutesy, catchy ways that you can literally recite them in your sleep, which I admit is sometimes helpful when you are falling alseep on the thirtieth reading in one night.

One of her books, Moo, Baa, La La La! opens with the following lines:

"A cow says Moo!

A sheep says Baa!

Three singing pigs say La La La!  

'No, no!' you say, 'that isn't right.

The pigs say OINK all day and night.'"

That kind of sums up how I've been feeling since I came across a Danish children's book at my son's daycare about animals and the noises they make. A fellow American expat-mom and friend of mine recently blogged about her bewildering experience concerning frogs so I know I'm not the only one out there having an animalistic linguistic crisis.

She and I both discovered that in Denmark frogs say, "kvæk-kvæk" which, to an American ear, sounds an awful lot like "quack-quack". Of course, this leads right into the next question which is, "If frogs say, 'quack' then what do ducks say?" To which the Danish response is, "rap". Huuuuhhhhh... My three weeks of Danish classes have taught me that most Danish r's are somewhat similar to French r's - throaty and harsh. The only ducks I know that would be saying "rap" in this way would be the ones dying of pneumonia or trying to cough up a feather-ball.



Solving the burning question - why?



Here's another interesting one with wider implications. Danish pigs say "øf" which comes out sounding like "uhf" or the French word for "egg" - oeuf. This got me thinking that maybe the creators of my husband's latest addiction, Angry Birds, are actually French? I've been speculating about this game since its appearance on our cell phone a few weeks ago beause it doesn't seem to have a logical point. Testy birds bombarding green pigs? But since my run-in with Old McJensen's farm, I'm suddenly finding all new depth and meaning. I can finally begin to understand how a movie might be made out of the world's most plot-less game.

 

Here's the movie's tagline: (Danish) Pigs, watch out! The Angry (French) Birds called - they want their "oeufs" back!

 

 

#10 Dropping Bombs

M.C. Escher's Tower of Babel

On Monday I start taking my free government-subsidized Danish classes. All "I-can't-believe-they're-paying-for-this" absurdity aside, I expect this to be a life-changing experience in many ways. Perhaps one element of my new life I admit I might miss a little is the other-worldiness of being surrounded by and immersed in a language that is completely foreign to my ear. Before moving to Denmark I had never traveled to a place where I was not at least somewhat familiar with the language.

Sure, I felt decidedly American when I spent a few weeks as an exchange student in France, but I was never completely out of touch with those around me. I could understand snippets of conversation here and there and make appropriate apologies for my American gaffes (is there a plural of faux pas?). My grade school French was passable enough for me to ask for directions and buy Nutella crepes and came in super-handy when my host family accidentally ran over my foot with their Audi.

Denmark, on the other hand, is like a linguistic broken refrigerator. There is this constant humming, droning noise that probably means something but I haven't yet figured it out. For the first week or so it gave me a slight headache but my brain has become comfortably numb  to it by now. Which makes the English that creeps into my auditory stupor that much more startling. Sometimes it's a conversation between a couple of university students or an expat parent speaking to their kids.

But more often it's Danes dropping bombs. And boy do they drop them. Mostly of the F-bomb variety. I don't think I would notice it as much if I were back in the States however here it's like linguistic Tourette's. Blah blah blah F*#!ing blah blah blah S!@$ blah blah F%#$!.

Let me qualify this a little by saying it is mostly young Danes. That said, American curses appear more frequently than I would expect in public instances so I can only assume it is culturally accepted on some level. Which, when I stop to think about it, makes sense. I don't think I would even recognize a Danish swear word if I saw one right now so of course I can't be offended if I don't even know what I'm looking at. Even if I did, it loses some of its taboo in translation. Here's an example. Raise your hand if you're offended by, "Ma voiture est foutu!" See, I told you. So much funnier when your car is f-ed up in French.

 Jimmy Kimmel illustrating that context is everything 

So I guess I shouldn't have really been suprised when I came across the cover of this month's Eurowoman magazine on the Danish newstands.


Holy s--t!

Is this just another example of me being an American prude? Am I the only one trying to cover my son's ears as they play the full, unedited versions of American rap tunes in the mall's stores? [Answer: yes] 

And yet, I find myself more homesick than offended. It's a sad state of affairs when you're so starved for English conversation that even an overheard curse on the street feels a little like home. With any luck, in a few more weeks, the droning will give way to conversation and meaning. And who knows, maybe the average Dane swears like a Danish sailor? Maybe I'll find the linguistic oasis I imagined is saltier than I expected?