Croatia / Denmark – a heart-warming story of dedication and linguistic success
Marija Siminn is a young, highly-eduated doctor from Croatia, who was extremely motivated in her wish to learn Danish for both professional reasons – she works for the medical firm Nycomed in Roskilde, as well as private ones – her boyfriend is Danish.
Marija had tried taking Danish classes at Studieskolen but frequent business trips made it difficult for her to attend on a regular basis. The best solution for her was to take a series of one-to-one lessons at her office at Nycomed after working hours. This meant that she could schedule her lessons to suit her and the course content could be tailored to her individual needs.
We chose to follow a beginners’ text book, as it offered a very structured and methodical approach. As Marija’s vocabulary grew, we could also work with other materials such as books, newspapers, TV, novels, magazines and so on. Marija’s goal was to be able to speak Danish proficiently, using a wide range of nuanced vocabulary and have good pronunciation. Grammar and written skills also had to come into it!
The course we created was great. With each small success along the way, Marija’s confidence and aptitude in Danish grew. For example, it was a triumph to move from reading the classified ads in the free newspapers to tackling longer and more complicated articles in Politiken. We had excellent discussions on subjects ranging from politics and labour market problems to films, fashion, holidays and café society.
The battle with pronunciation and mastering the difficult soft ‘d’ in Danish took time and practice. Things began to make more sense when Marija used a mirror to study the correct positioning of the tongue when producing these sounds. Such exercises were always accompanied by much laughter.
It is a huge commitment and very demanding to do a 3-hour language class after a long working day, but when the motivation is there and lessons can follow a personalised schedule, it is possible to make excellent progress.
After a total of 240 lessons, Marija now speaks beautiful, expressive Danish and can communicate in any kind of situation. And even though Marija’s focus was on spoken Danish, she still managed to pass the Prøve i dansk 3 examination in all four disciplines (speaking, listening, writing and reading) with a very good mark.
Hanne Friborg
Instructor
"I can definitely recommend Studieskolen’s individual Danish tuition. Although my lessons took place at the end of a long working day, I was extremely happy with my course. Hanne was always brilliant at coming up with really interesting subjects and material. Her patience was limitless when it came to helping me with Danish pronunciation. Thanks Hanne. You opened up the world of Danish to me."
Marija Siminn Geertsen, Nycomed