Expat feedback - Walai from Thailand

Walai - Learn Danish Expat Feedback - Lærdansk

Hej!

This week, I am featuring Walai who is from Thailand. She completed her Prøve i Dansk 3 exam in June 2018 in Århus, with Lærdansk.

Walai is also a very talented freelance graphic designer, make sure to check out her work on walaito.wordpress.com! If you know anyone in your network that needs her skills, make sure to contact her.

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

Thank you Walai 🙂

About you

Hi! My name is Walai and I am from Thailand. I have been living in Denmark for almost three years with my lovely husband. I finished my Danish in June 2018. Now I am a freelance graphic designer and looking for a full-time job.

Danish classes

I went to Lærdansk Aarhus. After I got my CPR I contacted Job Center to send my document to the school, and a week later I started the school. I attended morning class from 8.30-11.15.

© Photo by Michael Svenningsen

Each modules are just like I am walking up the stairs, at the beginning it would be fun and fine, in the middle of the way it would be tiring and hard, but when I almost saw the end I just wanted to put all of my effort to finish it.

Prøve i Dansk 3 Exam

Prøve i Dansk 3 was not easy to me so I tried attending the class as much as I could, because the teachers helped students a lot to the preparation to PD3. They gave us very useful materials and guided us with what we should further prepare, besides what we learned in the class. For example watching Danish programs from DR or reading articles/news in Danish.

I would recommend to read something about “Danske Samfund”, e.g. Sundhed og livsstil, ligestilling i Danmark. Regarding both written exam and oral exam which tend to be about what happened in Danish society and culture.

Books at school

I used Puls1 in module 1, Puls2 in module 2, and Puls3 in module 3.

In modules 4, there were Det Rykker, At Skrive, Parat Start 1-2-3 and Pæredansk.

In module 5 I used At Skrive, Danske Stemmer, Grammatikken and 3.5’eren Opgaver til Prøve i Dansk 3. I would say that there are some chapters in some books are a bit old fashion, but that does not mean they are not good, they could give an idea and lead us to find something more interesting at the present.

© Photo by Walai

Personally I like Parat Start 1-2-3 because it is very useful to practice my grammar. However there are many online resources and materials, you can start from the school’s website, I believe there are many good stuff on it.

Tips & Practice

As I am married to a Dane, I have a better chance to use my Danish to speak with my husband or my family in law, but some of my classmates do not. So it is not easy for them to apply their Danish in everyday life. In the class we have also talked about getting a chance to speak Danish outside the class. For example, starting from ordering food at the restaurant, talking to a shop assistant when we go shopping or at the school’s library (multi center) with the volunteers who are there to help students with conversations. All we need to do is to be brave.

There are many ways to improve Danish, one of those that I like is watching programs from DR. Some of them have subtitles in Danish even though they speaks Danish so I can hear the pronunciation and the way Danes use the expression.

I also bought a Danish book called “Den lille bog om Hygge” by Meik Wiking. It is a lovely book with pictures and it is not too difficult to read, moreover it helps me with learning and understanding more about Danish Culture.