Greetings from the summer-heat. (Hah, suck it Aussies!)
As you might know, I am Danish (not a danish, just Danish) and being of the superior Scandinavian heritage grants me the awe-inspiring power to understand several languages beyond my native tongue.
What I’m saying is; since I speak Danish, I also mostly understand Norwegian and Swedish. Growing up very close to Sweden taught me to become pretty proficient in what I would call Scandinavian. A mix of all three languages in an attempt to make myself understood. This comes in handy since one of my jobs is in tourism and Swedes (for some reason) love taking their summer holiday in Denmark.
This morning, I was awoken by the jangling sound of my phone ringing (actually it doesn’t really jangle as much as it plays the Dr. Who theme). Bleary-eyed and hoarse-voiced I answered with my, perhaps more guttural than usual, ” ‘s Neo”. A voice replied in what was more a question than a statement “Hallo?”.
I quickly recovered “Hi, what can I do for ya” (in Danish). The voice, now more sure of itself replied “Jag ville veta om det var så att vi kunde komma ut på en guidad tur idag?”
Aaaaand my brain was nowhere near awake enough to understand anything she said. So I did the only thing I could think of, I asked her to repeat, in english. Slightly embarrassed I booked their tour and hung up.
10 minutes later she called back, she hadn’t received the booking email I’d sent yet. This time I was awake enough to rock some Scandinavian and I think I only confused her further going from Danish, to English, to Scandinavian, but we managed.
Language is fun :)
Tales From The Gay Bar 