Hi, Hej; Yea, Ja

I didn’t realize I already spoke Danish. It wasn’t until my less jetlagged 2^nd day in Copenhagen that I realized that all these Danes weren’t immediately marking me as an English-only speaker, they were simply saying hello and I, inadvertently, was responding in Danish. This of course only invited more Danish speaking to which I could simply stare at the speaker before sheepishly saying “Sorry?”.

Luckily and weirdly everyone here speaks English and as such it’s felt like a strangely familiar vacation to a less foreign place. While in some ways the lack of language barrier has made travel here much easier and less nerve wracking; I realized I also kind of missed not knowing what exactly I was ordering or if I’d accidentally complimented my cat rather than the food.

All this being said the Danish language is at once challenging and familiar. Reading signs was relatively easy but pronunciation and word recognition…well, that was another story.

I mean, my god, the consonants used here! The Danes would surely win Wheel of Fortune because they would never have to spend money to buy a vowel.

Yikes…maybe I’m still a little jet lagged. That joke was awful.

Moving on.

I hope the English language (and certainly my usage of it here on this blog…does it still count as English??) is made fun of a little bit…because I couldn’t help but snicker and giggle at the way these sounded in my head and, well, it seems only fair:

But it looks like such a nice place!

Turistfart…but don’t we all?

Ok I’m now laughing at my own post. My work here is done.