Don't be affraid to correct each other

Lene Russell switches daily between three languages, at home as well as at work. In this interview, she tells of her efforts to keep her Danish fluent.

How does the use of parallel languages affect your everyday life at the University of Copenhagen?

I have switched between three languages daily for years, in my private life as well as at work. I primarily speak Swedish at work, and at home, I speak Danish to my children and English to my husband. So I don't really focus on my parallel language use anymore.

What have your thoughts been about improving your Danish? 

My written Danish was gradually becoming very poor, and I began to experience that it was a problem professionally that I couldn't write an application or article in Danish without the risk of grammatical errors. Therefore, I contacted CIP before we moved to Copenhagen, and started my first web-based Danish course while still living in Stockholm. The reason why I chose a one-to-one language course is that I didn't really fit into any of the existing Danish courses.

What did you get/are you getting out of your course?

I'm on my second course now, and it has given me so much. I've started to feel more comfortable with writing in Danish even though it's still highly demanding compared to writing in Swedish or English.

Do you have any advice for international as well as Danish employees working in a work place with parallel languages?

Don't be afraid to correct each other, both in Danish and English. That's the only way to improve. It's a bit sad to discover that you have used the wrong word or pronounced a word incorrectly just because people are too polite to correct you.