Archive for October, 2011
Halloween in Danish Posted by Bjørn A. Bojesen on Oct 31, 2011
Today, the 31st of October, the hekse (witches) and spøgelser (ghosts) have come out of the dark to haunt and terrorize mankind. No one is safe in the skove (forests) or the crooked gyder (alleys) of the small landsbyer (villages). To protect themselves, people have carved grinning faces into orange græskar (pumpkins, the singular is the…
Why Denmark? Posted by Bjørn A. Bojesen on Oct 28, 2011
I’ve already given you some pretty good reasons to learn Danish. (Which I hope you’re now devoting huge parts of your spare time to! 😉 ) Whatever your motivation to learn the language, I feel that I ought to tell you why you should care about Denmark. Why do I spend so many posts writing…
Asking Questions We Like, Yes? Posted by Bjørn A. Bojesen on Oct 24, 2011
A Danish newspaper recently claimed Danish university students were too shy to ask questions at lectures. Too bad for them – asking a lot of questions helps you keeping an open mind. And with your eyes and ears wide open you’ll quickly assimilate a lot of words and succeed in your mission to learn the…
Living among Danes Posted by Bjørn A. Bojesen on Oct 21, 2011
So, Jennifer, you said you were ’positively surprised’ by Denmark? What’s the best thing about living here? Definitely not the weather! I guess I’d say the best thing – and I think many people agree – is the social wellfare system… Denmark has also a very good educational system and that was one of the…
A Canadian in Denmark Posted by Bjørn A. Bojesen on Oct 19, 2011
Hello Jennifer! You’re from Canada, right? Hi! Yes, that’s right. I’m from Calgary, Alberta. Wow, that is a long way to travel! What brought a Canadian like you to Denmark? Well, I married to a Dane, that’s why. I met him fourteen years ago. Since then we’ve been travelling a lot, but our home…
Ord is Word! Learning Danish Through English Part II Posted by Bjørn A. Bojesen on Oct 13, 2011
I recently got a reaction to my claim that Danish is an easy language to learn for native speakers of English. I can understand that for a new learner who has just started looking at the language, this may seem to be taken out of the blue. It certainly also makes sense to me that…
A Kingdom for a Ball Posted by Bjørn A. Bojesen on Oct 11, 2011
Spirits are high in Danish barer and værtshuse (pubs) tonight, as well as in countless stuer (homely sitting rooms), where hr. og fru Danmark (the typical Danish family, literally ’Mr and Mrs Denmark’) have just left the television set to fetch something to toast with: Denmark just beat Portugal 2–1! Of course we’re talking about football, that…