Expat feedback - Ioana from Romania

Hej!

Welcome to the first expat feedback of 2018! If you are new to this blog, make sure to check out the Expat Feedback interviews from last year!

This week, I am very happy to feature a feedback from Ioana who studied Danish in Århus with LærDansk and completed her PD3 in 2016. Make sure to follow her on Instagram (@basedindk) to follow her latest news 🙂

I sincerely hope that you will enjoy reading this post, where he shares her personal experience.

Thank you Ioana!

About you
My name is Ioana. I am from Romania and have been here for 3,5 years. My first 2 years here I spent on taking my Master’s degree at Aarhus BSS in Corporate Communication, and for the past 1,5 years I’ve been working for BESTSELLER, which is a Danish fashion company. I live in Aarhus, and I have pretty common hobbies, such as spending time with my friends, my boyfriend, going to the gym and eating tons of good food. I am a huge foodie and a party girl at heart. Three exciting things going on in my life right now: I will start going to CrossFit from February, next Wednesday I start taking Danish classes again (this time at FOF Aarhus) and I am now trying to be a pro at InDesign.

Danish classes
As for my Danish learning background, I’ve been pretty dedicated to learning the language from the start, and I still am. I am quite committed to living in Denmark and I my goal is to get a job where I can fully work in Danish in the next 3-4 years. Coming here as a student, you get all the support you need to sign up for Danish classes. I took my Danish classes at Lærdansk in Aarhus, and from what I remember it was just a matter of getting a paper from the job center in order to sign up for the classes.

Day classes vs evening classes?
Because I had university courses during the day, and later on became employed, I took classes in the evening twice a week. I must admit it’s pretty tough to go to class in the evening when you’ve already had a long day, but it helps if you have a cool teacher, some coffee and some snacks. And of course, if you are motivated to stick with it. But if you have a choice and can go in the morning or during the day, I’d really recommend you do so. I also had a 5 months period where I only attended one of the classes as I was going to university full time, had an internship and worked a part time job on the side.
I really appreciated that I had the flexibility in that sense and that I could be able to at least go once a week and be on track with my study. I think a learning from me here and maybe an advice to others is – don’t make excuses for yourself of why you can’t go, but suck it up, find a middle ground solution and keep going. I’ve seen so many who decided to pause their education because they had so many other things to do and never came back. Or came back too late and regretted missing valuable time. The faster you learn Danish, the easier it is to live in Denmark.

How did you find the various modules at school?
I think the modules themselves and what they entail are totally fine. What really makes or breaks a class (at least personally) is the teacher’s way of holding the class and the colleagues in the class – how dedicated they are and how much better or worse they are compared to you. I guess what I am trying to say is that if it really feels wrong, in the sense that the class is way too advanced or on the contrary, try and see if you can change. I’ve also had teachers I could really not connect with and teachers that were so into it, so funny, so energetic, that going to class was instantly a good experience. The good thing about the classes is that if you’re stuck with a teacher you can’t relate to, most likely you’ll get another one for your next module.

How was the Prøve i Dansk 3 examination?
I went to class for 2,5 years and “graduated” from PD3 a year ago, so some of my memories faded away. What I remember clearly is that the talks pre-exam made it sound like such a huge thing, such an important exam. And I’m not saying it’s not, more like take it easy – it’s more difficult than all the other tests you’ve had so far, but you are supposedly better prepared as well. My exam was held in this big hall with tens of tables and people. For those who don’t do good with tests it can be pretty intimidating. You leave your phone in a box at the entrance, you’re given a number – very much like any other official exam. My advice here is: up to the exam try and go to all classes and make an effort to do your homework – because most of the time the homework in the module before the exam is made out of assignments similar to the ones at PD3.

Any comments regarding the exam?
The first part of the exam (the written one if you wish) has a listening, reading and writing part. For the writing part you are allowed to bring a dictionary and if I remember right, a list with verbs. That helps a lot. Also, don’t try to write better than you normally do. Stick with expressions and phrases you know. Don’t try any sophisticated language. It won’t work if you haven’t used it before. For the listening part, if you can’t hear one thing, don’t get stuck, don’t panic, just let it be and focus on the next thing coming. Same for the reading. If you can’t find one answer, move to the next question. Try and get as many answers as possible, and when you’re done, go back and try and figure out what you skipped. The worst mistake you can do is block at one question you can’t answer.

The second part (the oral exam) is held another day. I can’t remember the exercises precisely, but I remember before the exam we had a chance to prepare for all the topics that we could get. Do that, prepare a little speech for all topics beforehand and try and memorize key words and phrases related to each topic. Don’t learn by heart the whole speech though. Again, what worked for me was sticking to the way I expressed in my regular conversations in Danish. In the end, the feedback from my examiner was that my grammar is not 100% perfect but that my natural way of speaking will make it easy for me to figure it out in the world. Which is basically why I took that education so yay me. 🙂

Study Books
I studied from Puls and then we always got extra material in class from the teachers for grammar exercises. I really don’t think there’s an issue with the material. I always had some and more to learn from.

Danish practice
Do you think it is easy to apply your Danish (that you learned at school) in the everyday life?
As for applying my Danish in everyday life, I use it from time to time but for sure not every day. At work I have a colleague who knows I understand and speak Danish so she writes and talks to me in Danish most of the time. I also sometime attend meetings in Danish and in general listen to a lot of Danish at work. The most I’ve used Danish is with my boyfriend’s family, and then I also speak Danish when I shop, when I go partying downtown, and when I write emails to authorities, the caretaker, the gym and so on. On top of that, I do listen to music and news in Danish every morning on my way to work, and have Danish subtitles to all movies and series I watch.

Movies, series and Books suggestions
Movies to watch: Underverden – by far the best Danish movie I saw, and it’s from this year. More here.

Series to watch: Forbrydelsen – has 4 seasons but the 1st is by far the best and you can watch it for free on dr.dk here & Broen – I am now watching season 4, also running on dr.dk for free.

Books to read: I barely get myself to read something in English, let alone in Danish, but this Christmas I read a Christmas calendar and I really recommend you start doing that next Christmas. It takes 15 minutes a day and it keeps you motivated to finish it by Christmas. I read Nissebanded i Grønland.

You can read another article on my relationship with Danish here. I wrote it almost 2 years ago and maybe things have changed a bit but I still think it’s relevant.

What do you do outside of school to practice your Danish?
When I was going to Lærdansk, as a student I got a Danish online language partner through one of the school’s programs called Taldansk. We talked once a week through Skype, as she lived in Copenhagen and I lived in Aarhus. That was by far the most helpful thing I did to have the courage to talk Danish with Danes. I strongly recommend it.

I also volunteered at the school and was an advocate for the program, seeing how much it brought me. Lærdansk also has a language cafe down in the basement of the school, if you want face to face conversation, and they always have volunteers happy to talk to you. More about Lærdansk opportunities here.

While I was studying for PD3, to stay motivated with doing my homework in the weekends, I formed a group called Danish and Fun. The International Community in Aarhus jumped in and helped us get a room at Dokk1 in Aarhus to hold our weekly meetings, and soon after when I couldn’t be responsible for the group anymore due to work, they took over and made it part of their programme. If anyone is from Aarhus, do go over. It’s every Sunday from 13:30 to 15:30, there’s language games, Danish volunteers, and internationals to socialize with.

You can find out more info about it here.