1. stand your ground when using said language in the real world

it's becoming more and more of a (langauge-learning) privilege to go to a place where absolutely no one speaks even a little english. danes speak english very well. therefore, they'll want to default to english when you mess up while practicing danish. don't back down. be polite, perhaps explain you are trying your danish out, add a smile, and keep on keepin' on.

2. ...and this is easier when you start with the local language right off the bat.

trying out a new language involves confidence and a bit of acting. i have to resist the temptation to preface my conversation with, 'okay, i'm going to try this in danish' because in some twisted way it seems more polite to me to warn others of the struggle bus that is about to go down. but the fact that i even view this as 'struggling' when i in fact should have the confidence to speak a language i do know a little of is telling. jump into it. if you mess up, avoid the urge to abandon ship.

3. when it comes to danish, speaking really quickly and slurring your words slightly will work in your favor.

danish is a weird mouth gurgle language. you'll hear even danes asking other danes 'hvad siger du?' (what are you saying?) when you do speak danish, it helps if you speak it quickly and mumble a little bit. chances are they'll understand you better than if you took the time to carefully pronounce every word correctly. simply throw your best jumble at the barista, stand back, and smile with a patient but expectant look as you wait for the chicken sandwich you just ordered (or was it a kitten?)*

4. it's better to ask 'what do you say in this scenario?' than 'how do you say ____?'

I hit a breakthrough in my mental language learning process when i realized that it is pretty much worthless to try to translate your culture's sayings and phrases into another language. for a while i asked my language teacher, 'but when someone does this in the US, we say &&&, for example. so how do you say &&& in danish?' he would try to translate it, but ultimately told me 'well, in denmark you wouldn't say that, you would actually just say ###.' avoid the mindset of translating everything from your language and culture so literally. throw that out the window. just take the time to learn what you do or say in scenarios within the new language and culture.

5. be ridiculous.

the only way you'll get better and feel comfortable saying everything in practice is to practice out loud. practice with whatever you got. in my language class we have different vocabulary and phrase themes. sometimes this is great, such as when we learned how to order food. sometimes it is random, such as when we learned all these medical/sick terms that i'm not sure i would feel comfortable admitting to someone in english, much less danish.** i still tried to use these phrases with my roommate and some of my co-workers. pretend you have a stomach ache and talk about it. comment on someone's shoes. make up a conversation about a blizzard in march for no reason. just keep talking.

*chicken is kylling. kitten is killing. to the untrained ear, these sound very familiar.

**with every module you learn, however, more aspects of danish life open up to you. thanks to my newly-learned medical terms, i was able to understand when the man on the regional train went into graphic detail about his drunk friend's session with the toilet the past Saturday!