At finde sin stemme på dansk/ Finding your voice in Danish
It is a general experience of foreigners in Denmark that Danes and other speakers of Danish tend to switch into English when the foreigners try to use and practice their Danish. In this article, I focus on foreign knowledge workers working at Danish universities and their experiences with finding their voice in Danish in an environment where English is frequently used.
At CIP, Centre for Internationalisation and Parallel Language Use, we are developing a format for Danish courses aimed at foreign knowledge workers. Central to the development of the course is how to make it possible for the participants to practice their Danish and have a voice in Danish outside the classroom.
In this article, I discuss different reasons why people switch into English when speaking with learners of Danish and the implications it may have, both for the learners as well as for the linguistic environment in general. Moreover, I provide ideas on how to develop and implement strategies on the part of the foreign colleague and on the part of the Danish speaking colleagues. The responsibility to learn Danish lies on the foreign knowledge worker. There can be no doubt about that, but management as well as colleagues and Danish speakers in general have a responsibility to create a linguistic environment that makes it possible and acceptable for the Danish learner to speak Danish from the beginning of their learning process without everyone switching to English right away.