Hangin' out at the castle

First Sunday of each month, it is free to ride the S-train. More than 100 international Humanities students made good use of this offer last Sunday, 6 March, and took a day trip to Frederiksborg Castle in Hillerød.

Having the entire castle mostly to themselves, the students and their Danish mentors had a great time. See the photo gallery of their exploits here.

Everyone loves slumdog millionaires

Over a million viewers were well entertained when the TV quiz Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? hit the Danish screens on 12 March.

Not only was the DKK 1 million won for only the seventh time in the history of the Danish version of the programme - the winning team, Jon Mikkel Hansen and Lars-Ole Jørgensen, both students of Danish lit, made disarmingly charming and cool television.

A. Atlanta

All of their lifelines were used when the million kroner question came:

Students score million on TV game show

Two sharp dudes from the Faculty of Humanities got a nice addition to their student income Monday night. Jon and Lars-Ole, who both studied at the south campus, KUA used to host the quizshow Mødestedet [The Meeting Place, ed.] there.

»Of course: Now the sports question,« said Lars-Ole, as the host Hans Pilgaard delivered the DKK million question:

»At which of the following Olympics did Denmark win the most gold medals - A. Atlanta 1996, B. Sydney 2000, C. Athens 2004 or D. Beijing 2008?«

Brain dead gambling

Comment: Reply to 'Non-Danes kicked out of ...

The main purpose of the mentor programme is to introduce international exchange as well as full-degree students to the Danish society.

According to this the Faculty of Humanities has decided on a new routine; to put more weight on the knowledge of the Danish society, as well as Danish language skills in our mentor programme. The decision has nothing to do with the question of nationality, and does not exclude Non-Danish students.

Colombian student: We were ‘better mentors’

We did not have to wait long to see the reaction to a Faculty of Humanities Mentor Group decision to no longer use international students as mentors.

Colombian student Mauro Castaño is one of the international mentors who has been kicked out, and he finds the decision rude.

He himself had a Danish mentor when he arrived to Denmark and it was, he says, a complete disaster. The mentor couldn’t care less about him, he says.

International students valuable mentors

Non-Danes kicked out of mentor group

For three semesters now, international students have, together with Danes, been mentors of exchange students at the Faculty of Humanities.

International mentors proved to be good mentors as they already had experienced the same coming-to-Denmark situation.

But now, the Faculty of Humanities has got rid of all non-Danish mentors. Danes are more appropriate for the task due to their knowledge of Denmark and, therefore, they can integrate better the newcomers, the Faculty argues.

Danes know Denmark

Danish students leave you out of the conversation

'I'm sorry. Could you please speak in English?'

For international students in Denmark, this is a phrase they are sick of repeating.

In many classes taught in English, Danish students suddenly slip into discussions in high-speed, complicated Danish, leaving international students completely in the dark.

No point in learning Danish

For full-degree student Riccardo Mioli from Italy, learning Danish seemed like a good idea when he first arrived in Copenhagen. Now, one year later, he has changed his mind.

»In the beginning I wanted to learn Danish. But after 6 or 7 months here, when I still didn’t know any Danish, it seemed like a waste of time to start. Now I have given up.«

It is easy to survive in Copenhagen only speaking in English, and the Danes quickly switch over if they hear someone struggling with the tricky guttural Danish pronunciation, he says.

Revealing the beauty of your own language

»Danish is often considered an ugly language. Foreigners are probably not allowed to say so openly, but Danes may admit it. And that’s exactly the reason why we translate into Danish. To prove that its back-throated sounds can compose their own peculiarly beautiful music.«

Confessing such an unflattering opinion about your own native tongue doesn’t come easy. Therefore Judyta Preis and Jørgen Herman Monrad challenge this unfavourable impression with a well-chosen argument – they turn for support to the eighteenth-century German aphorist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg: