When I arrived in Denmark in May 2022, lots about Danish life and culture fascinated me: the small stuff, like the obsession with cycling and addiction to candy; the big stuff like the work-life balance and inspiring levels of body positivity; and the gargantuan stuff, like the language.
Danish may not have a direct translation for the word ‘please’, but it does have ‘rød grød med fløde’, and just the ability to casually slide that into conversation with locals was enough to motivate me to get started on my language learning journey in September 2022.
Two months ago, I cleared my Prøve i Dansk 3 (PD3) exam with fortrinlige grades, and if my language learning journey taught me one thing, it’s that I love the Danish language. If there’s something it didn’t, it’s how to get rød grød med fløde to roll off my tongue with ease.
Now, with limited avenues to continue on my language learning trajectory–module six (Studieprøven) being perhaps the most likely–I’m growing increasingly concerned about what to do with all the Danish occupying large quarters of my brain. Where do I use it? How do I build on it?
“Language is a funny thing. If you don’t use it, you lose it,” Brooke Fossey told me over coffee and kanelsnegl when I met her in a café at Nørreport on a characteristically wet ‘summer’s day’ – putting my exact fear into words.
Just minutes earlier, she had pulled in on her trusty bicycle, braving the Danish uvejr to make the journey from Hellerup to our planned coffee date.
Her waterproof jacket looked like it was no match for the sheets of rain that now lashed the cafe’s windows relentlessly. Still, she was upbeat, a broad grin lighting up her bright blue eyes.
Like me, Fossey is an expatriate in Denmark. Unlike me, she’s American born and raised. Like me, she’s completed her PD3. Unlike her, I’m yet to pass Studieprøven. Like me, she knows the challenges that come with continuing the language learning story after the sprogskole chapter. Unlike me, she’s made concerted efforts to further hers through her Instagram account @nearlydanishdame.
“Learning Danish has always been purely because I wanted to, and that has allowed me to come from a place of curiosity, not obligation. Not feeling like it’s a battle has helped me enjoy the journey and encouraged me to find fun ways to integrate learning into my life,” she says.
Fossey’s tryst with Danish started while she was still living in the US. On a pre-COVID weekend trip to Copenhagen, she and her family were won over, and Fossey resolved that on her next trip to Denmark’s capital, she would order a coffee in Danish.
To start with, she used apps such as Duolingo, Drops, and Mango before hiring a private online tutor. By the time the family got the opportunity to move to Copenhagen, Fossey was almost PD3-ready and enrolled in module five classes at SPEAK.
It was some time during her PD3 journey that Fossey conceived The Nearly Danish Dame as a space to both solidify the things that she was learning and nerd out on the Danish language.
“I wanted it to be a little light-hearted and acknowledge my desire to understand it all, with a healthy dose of humour and acceptance that at 42, I’m never going to do it perfectly,” she says.
Today, Fossey’s account continues to be an expression of her inner nerd, but has also evolved to serve as a mini encyclopaedia for curious Danish language learners, with handy tips on navigating the language and motivation to keep going.
In the majority of her Instagram reels and videos, Fossey makes an effort to communicate the language’s puzzling grammatical structure with quirky proverbs in Danish.
Her disarming candour and evident passion for det danske sprog have drawn keen engagement from her Instagram community, and the resulting knowledge-sharing has made her profile flush with fun ways to tackle a language that seems insurmountable to many.
Eager to discover the history behind the word bil? Been wondering what træls actually means? Want to know how to tell someone to ‘hold kæft’ without sounding rude? Need invaluable tips on how to best prepare for the PD3 and Studieprøven? Ready to finally figure out how Danish prepositions work?
Fossey’s got (nearly) all the answers for you over on @nearlydanishdame.
Her Instagram community may just be 12,300 followers strong – a humble number by Instagram standards – but its success can be measured in how many choose to actively interact and engage with her posts and videos.
The comments are a direct reflection of Fossey’s commitment to both her own language learning journey as well as that of her followers.
Despite working two part-time jobs, offering time to volunteer organisations, and raising two young boys, Fossey makes it a point to fit Danish into her hectic daily life.
“I try to religiously attend snakkeklub at the library once a week at work. I have the privilege of speaking Danish pretty regularly at my jobs, too. I’ve watched basically everything on DR, with Danish subtitles. I also have some non Danes whom I Skype with in Danish. There’s likely a lot of mistakes, but it’s an opportunity to speak unfettered without feeling stressed. I also love listening to Danish music and enjoy learning the songs, fine-tuning my pronunciation along the way,” explains Fossey.
Given the breadth of all she explores, I wonder if she has a favourite.
“It’s tough to pinpoint because all work together from different angles and help with different blindspots,” she tells me – but admits that she gets the “most light-hearted joy” from learning Danish through music.
“I especially love hip hop and rap from all time periods. It can be so sharp and witty and is a great way to practice your pronunciation,” she enthuses.
If her dedication to unconventional learning is admirable, her commitment to learning at the cost of embarrassing herself is even more so.
“When I started my Instagram profile, I felt like I had to do everything perfectly and that if I made a mistake, it would embarrassingly be out there forever in public. But this language journey, both privately and publicly, has reminded me that the best way to learn is often through making mistakes. So, if I can just stay curious and not confrontational with the language, then it’s about getting better, not being flawless,” Fossey says.
She insists that allowing yourself grace through the process is paramount: “How can you know everything about a language? You never can, not even your modersmål. You have to acknowledge that language learning isn’t linear. It’s up and down and it plateaus, and you feel frustrated, and you make breakthroughs, and if you do a little bit every day, it builds and builds. Progress, not perfection.”
As the rain continues falling in steady sheets outside, I sip the last of my flat white and Fossey put on her rainwear, ready to take on the Danish elements yet again with the same grit and determination she does the Danish language.
I chew on her ‘progress, not perfection’ statement as I think back on my year-and-a-half-long road to the PD3 and contemplate my next steps.
Like Fossey, I embrace new languages, so I approach learning them with a sense of acceptance, not reluctance. For many others, however, it remains a daunting and overwhelming prospect.
To those still grappling with the nogens, nogles, and nogets of det danske sprog, Fossey advises to keep chipping away at it.
“Language is the ticket to connections to people and places: in short, integration. It is what connects and binds us, and so if you are hoping to feel more connected to Denmark or Danes, stick with learning Danish. Even a little at a time. Find what sparks your joy with the language and use that to drive you when you feel lost or frustrated,” she says.
“Or just write to me and I’ll pick you up, as people have done for me when I have had my language letdowns. Even though it’s a lillebitte sprog on the world stage, Danish can be your ticket to hygge.”
