17-year-old Amy Goodman moved to Denmark from London last year to pursue her IB-studies at Grenaa Gymnasium. Since then she has made impressive progress with the Danish language, although she admits it’s a tough nut to crack…
Amy, how was it coming to Denmark and not knowing the language at all?? It was fine, actually. My birth parents are both English, but I’ve listened to the language sounds quite a lot, because my stepmom is Danish, but I didn’t know any of it before I came to Denmark. It has been a bit scary at times when everyone is speaking Danish, because I don’t understand anything. However, I’ve gotten used to it and now I’m learning Danish. Do you speak Danish at home? When I’m at home, I speak Danish with my stepmom, since she is the only one who knows how to speak Danish. When I’m back in London, I speak a mix of English and Danish since both my stepmom and grandmother speak Danish. My siblings cannot speak Danish, but my dad can speak a tiny bit, although it isn’t very much. I live at Grenaa Gymnasium’s Boarding School where there are some Danish students as well. A lot of Danish is spoken, and every time there is some sort of announcement, it is held in Danish.
So that also helps in terms of learning the language. What has been the greatest hurdle in terms of the Danish language? It is really difficult to pronounce Danish words – that’s like really difficult! My mouth just doesn’t move in the way it is meant to in Denmark, but I’m getting more used to the different sounds now. Also, spelling in Danish just doesn’t always make sense to me – how it looks on a page and how it sounds is to me completely different, so that has really been a struggle for me. Even though it’s been quite a struggle, you’ve still managed to pick up the language rather quick – How? I’ve taken Danish lessons – I have three Danish lessons every two weeks with my teacher – she is really patient – everyone in my class is quite advanced in Danish, because they have already had a few years with Danish, so I was kind of like thrown in and I didn’t even know how to say “my