Why is Denmark the best country to live in? You can learn a lot from an expat. They can tell what turning the page and starting a brand new chapter feels like, how it is to be hit by a great mix of excitement, fear, and hope.
They can teach you how it is to explore new fields and discover little by little what actually this new culture consists of, making assumptions, forming opinions but staying open to test them at every step of the way. They can tell you things about your country that probably never crossed your mind before. They will if you ask them. And we always do stand here, ready and excited to hear a new story.
Caroline is from Brazil, and she lives with her husband in Denmark for almost six years. She is now established in Vejle. Their work brought them here. The perks of being an expat in Denmark made them stay. They are already fluent in three languages.
My husband is from Germany, so both of us already spoke three languages- German, Portuguese, and English when we came to Denmark. These three are also our relationship languages. Now I had started learning Danish and Spanish since the quarantine began. Of course, Spanish is way more comfortable for me to learn than Danish is.
On how languages share the way we think
Caroline shared her opinion on how languages can shape the way you think, behave and perceive things.
Foreign languages are such an interesting thing. Every time you communicate in another language, you can see how your personality changes to a certain extent. I think that languages allow you to reinvent yourself.
Indeed, this is a belief shared by a lot of bilinguals and polyglots. But, in the end, each language is just a tool we use to interact with more people in a more comfortable way.
The fact that I speak German facilitated the communication process with some members of my husband’s family who don’t speak English. You want to be able to interact with them, and you want to be able to show your personality. This is important.
On being part of the Danish society
The opinions Internationals have about the Danish society vary. You will hear around that becoming a part of the real Danish society is not an easy thing. But, as J. Thurber said: there is no exception to the rule that every rule has an exception.
We love Vejle, although we ended up here by accident, as we were looking for a house to rent. I always hear people saying that it is hard to contact the Danes, making friends even harder. It has never been an issue for us. We have Danish friends. Our neighbors are absolutely fantastic. We love them so much that we decided actually to stay in this neighbourhood and, in Denmark long-term. This made me seriously consider learning the language.
We had a traveling lifestyle for a while. Before Denmark, we lived in Germany, in the USA, and Brazil. We were looking for a place where we could settle down. When we came to Denmark, we were not sure we wanted to stay because of the weather, the language, etc. We thought that, if we are staying here only for a short time, the language is too difficult and not worth learning.
Why is Denmark the best country to live in?
Five years later, getting our permanent residence made us analyze the whole situation and decide that we actually want to stay. We know how it feels to leave a country in order to try your luck somewhere else. But we couldn’t imagine leaving Denmark and being happier somewhere else.
Yes, of course, we asked Caroline to explain what Denmark has that the other countries don’t. Why is Denmark the best country to live in?
I cannot really put it into a few words, even though I could talk about this for the next few hours. One of the things that continues to amaze me every single day is the whole trust system. It is truly unbelievable how reliable people are and how well all the things work. To make it clearer, in my country, in Brazil, each time you meet a new person, you don’t automatically trust them. Here, when I meet someone, they have my trust, and I have theirs. Of course, trust can be lost and affected, but initially, it doesn’t have to be built.
This is hard to explain to my Danish friends because they don’t know the other side of the coin. But, living in a system where you are not afraid that you might be scammed any minute means a lot to me. The “social contract” that Danes say they have with each other implies that everyone does what has to be done to make sure that a safe environment for each family is provided.
For someone that came from an individualist culture, where everyone thinks,” What’s in it for me?” I cannot but admire that. Even in comparison with Germany, Denmark is way more relaxed, open-minded, forward-thinking.
Why is Denmark the best country to live in? Denmark has a lot to offer. That is what makes it a place so many Internationals feel grateful for. Something that might be mentioned less than it deserves is gender equality. Denmark is among the countries with the world’s lowest-income inequality, according to the OECD. Additionally that, the Danish governing coalition almost always includes a Minister for Equality.
Another thing would be that, as a woman in a workplace, I have never been treated as equally as I am treated in Denmark. In other countries, you encounter the situation when you are told, “Oh, but she’s just a girl” or “Hi, sweetie.”
On learning the language
As mentioned before, Caroline joined Swap Language during this quarantine.
I absolutely love you guys. I could probably use an example to explain better how I feel about SwapLanguage. When you have a little child, you have to convince them to eat vegetables. You treated me to eating vegetables, and I even look forward to it, and I love it, and I have fun doing it. I hate traditional teaching methods, and I hate this system, where one person talks and everybody’s listening.
Your lessons are sufficiently silly and educational at the same time. I feel like I know you, and you make me laugh. I also love the chemistry of Swap’s team. You can feel that from the other side of the screen. You can feel that you really work as a team, that you are a unit. It seems like you have a lot of fun at the office. I feel a bit jealous.
What can I say, dear reader?! There surely are reasons to be jealous of the Swap team…
One of my favorite lessons was the ones about Danish Culture. I didn’t grow up in Denmark, so no matter how hard my Danish friends are trying to educate me, I have to learn many things.
As you probably already know, different regions in Denmark are characterized by different accents. And please, if an accent gives you a hard time, do not take it personally. Some of the accents are hard to understand, even for Danes! But, it will eventually be fine. It takes some time and a well-trained ear. During our lessons, we do our best to help you achieve that.
I also love the fact that I get to hear people with different accents because, of course, at some point, it becomes easy for you to understand everything the teacher says, but you won’t be communicating only with the teacher.
I try to always be in the live lessons and, besides that, I watch the on-demand lessons. Even if it’s an offline lesson, I still feel like I’m part of it. After each lesson, I download the materials and take notes. The live classes are really dynamic, while the on-demand ones give you the space to stop the lesson, rewatch some sequences, play around with words. At this point, I feel like I know enough vocabulary, but I still struggle with building sentences.
We are happy to know that our lessons bring both value and a laugh on our student’s faces. Join the next live lesson here.
Thank you, Caroline, for sharing your story.
