Expat feedback – Alexandra from Russia

Hej!

The past months have been very intense for me with preparing the Prøve i Dansk 3 exam, meaning I did not publish many expat feedback. Welcome back to the Danish Expat Feedback series!  This month, I am very happy to feature a feedback from Alexandra, who recently completed Prøve i Dansk 3 with Københavns Sprogcenter.

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

Thank you Alexandra and congratulations again on successfully completing PD3!

About you
Hi! My name is Alexandra, I’m from Russia.
My major is in translation/interpreting, but I’m currently exploring other options since Russian is not the most wide-used language in Denmark 🙂 Meanwhile I’m enjoying being a stay-at-home mom in one of the most wonderful cities I’ve ever been to.
My husband and I moved to Copenhagen two years ago, and a month later I started learning Danish at Københavns Sprogcenter

Danish classes
I enrolled for online classes as I didn’t have much choice at the time: my classes started in August and my son was born in September, so day/evening classes weren’t really an option.

At first, I was worried they might not be as intensive as the offline classes but they proved to work just great for me, so I stuck with those, modules 1 through 5, no breaks. Each next module builds on top of what you already know from the previous one, and the topics are pretty down-to-earth and useful in everyday life. Listening was probably the hardest part, but hey, it still is, since real Danish people speak nothing like what any book can teach you.

Prøve i Dansk 3 exam
So finally, a couple of weeks ago, I had my Prøve i Dansk 3 examination. What can I say? If you’ve made it this far, you’ll be just fine, so don’t freak out too much 🙂
Practicing sure helps, especially with the written part, since the tests are more or less the same every year, you get a chance to see what will be expected from you. So just do every test from previous years you can find. In my case, they were provided by the teacher but I’m sure it won’t be too hard to find those online.
As for the oral exam, it turned out to be less stressful than I expected it to be. Everyone was friendly and the questions were limited to the details of what my monologue was about (my topic was about one of the political parties, so the questions were about their views and ideas). Be confident, don’t go into silence; if you didn’t quite get the question, ask to repeat it – it’s better than answering something completely different or not answering at all.

Study Books
Which study books have you used at school for the various modules?

• Module 1 – På vej til dansk. Trin for trin.
• Module 2 – Videre mod dansk. Trin for trin.
• Module 3 – Det kommer!
• Module 4 – Pæredansk
• Module 5 – Danske stemmer

I was quite happy with the choice of books, they worked great for me. After each chapter you basically get one more topic you can more or less freely discuss with the Danes. After my very first class I could already say what my name is, where I come from and what languages I speak.
Further on, when you get to module 3, you get introduced to the unique Danish sense of humor, texts become more sarcastic and way more interesting to discuss.

Do you have any tips to improve in Danish?

I am afraid I am not the one to ask for tips on practicing Danish in the everyday life, since I’m still struggling myself. I find it so much easier to switch to English every time I have a conversation. But I’m working on it, and my son motivates me a lot: after all, I would really like to understand what he’s saying when he starts going to the all-Danish nursery 🙂

Good luck with your studies! It’s totally manageable if that’s what you want.