CultureShock! Denmark

In Denmark, a showy car is regarded as slightly tasteless, even vulgar.

Denmark, your utility consumption is not monitored and calculated each month, often only once or twice a year. Your payments are then averaged out on a monthly basis which means that you pay the same in heating on a hot summer month as you do during the coldest winter period! That makes it difficult to gauge and reduce your consumption, but it is all part of the Danish ‘pocket-money’ mentality; few people are prepared to save up money during fat times and spend less during lean. The Danes prefer each month and each year to be just like all the other ones.

On top of that comes cold weather clothes and footwear for the people and excessive wear and tear on buildings, cars and equipment. These are all factors that beef up the GNP of northern countries on paper but in actual fact they do very little to enhance the quality of life.

In Denmark, it costs between US$ 1,500 and US$ 2,500 per year to heat a home, depending on the size of the place and fuel efficiency.

With 900,000 people between 16 and 65 on social benefits of some kind, finding candidates ought not to be a problem. I could not figure out, and I still cannot, why an intelligent people like the Danes have one group of people working extremely hard to support another group, equally large, doing absolutely nothing.

must say that the D.I.Y. thing is one aspect of living in Denmark that will quickly give you an inferiority complex, unless you happen to be an expert carpenter, bricklayer, electrician, car mechanic, computer technician, gardener and cook all rolled into one.

Smoking is regarded as some kind of human right—and human rights are sacred stuff.

you just wander down Vesterbro or Nørrebro in Copenhagen and think that this is Denmark, you might be slightly shocked. The clean, well ordered streets of your expectations may be hard to find and the reality is something closer to what you will see in most big cities.

As in English, adjectives come in three forms—positive, comparative and superlative:

Langsom, langsommere, langsomst. (Slow, slower, slowest.)

And likewise, there are a number of exceptions:

Mange, flere, flest. (Many, more, most.)

Adverbs can also be irregular:

Jeg vil gerne, jeg vil hellere, jeg vil helst. (I would like, I would rather, I would preferably.)

You can even get paid leave from your job to start a new course, even if it is in no way related to your present job and the state will pick up the tab. Check out your local municipality for details.