Hi all!
We’re very excited to move to Denmark soon as lifelong Americans. I have a good job lined up, and we’re set on a place to live for a while.
Any advice from people who have done it, looked it up, had friends who have done it, etc? Just in general :)
The danish people will maybe say a lot of things about us swedes, but don’t believe the lies.
Do not believe this liar. Danes speak the truth.
Too bad nobody can understand what they are saying
Could a Dane confirm any of this or review it?
Am Danish. This is fairly accurate, a solid 60% of Danish is just random guttural sounds. This documentary however misses that the remainder is 30% raw deadpan sarcasm, and 10% English words pronounced in an awful accent.
To contrast and compare, this is an average modern Swedish television quiz show: https://youtu.be/lzv6ljgwgzs
Frederick,
Thank you very much for this quality review, comment, and link. I’ll have a look this evening.
Euro-fight!
Scandi-fight is even better. All the Danes, Swedes and Norwegians secretly love each other (basically the same people and the same societies) but they’ve made an international sport of dissing each other. It’s like three brothers come home for Christmas.
“Finnish him!”
Denmark isn’t real, it’s a fabrication of big pork to keep us in line. Don’t believe their lies.
In the middle now.
Wife is already Swedish so I’m doing it on easy mode, plus job is remote.
Politeness, wow, that’s tough to get used to. Trying to fix my silicon valley manners and I’m still coming off as the biggest asshole.
Government is more involved in your life, but it’s not too bad, just something you get used to, ups and downs, they mostly try to help.
Amazon is shit, thats a thing for me, but you manage.
They have a food culture.
No, you may have misunderstood me, I did not say they have food in their culture, I mean a significant part of their societal culture revolves around food.
Did not understand this, used to Door dashing and eating to get by, they don’t do that, food matters to them, spending half a day cooking is just a thing you do, it’s not work to them anymore than watching YouTube is.
Otherwise you’ll get by, just try to tone down your socialization reflexes, they’re more reserved and our outgoing nature can scare them shitless if they’re not ready for it.
Think of other topics and questions than work, Americans care too much about work outside of work.
Switch your phone apps to celsius and start your brain switching ASAP.
Knowing what country or region you’re going to would help
Oh switching to metric is a great idea.
Denmark :)
American here, got stationed in Italy for a few years. Learning Celsius was easy with this in mind:
0 freezing
10 cool
20 nice
30 hot
40 swelteringIf you need to do the actual calculation, double the celsius value, subtract the tens digit (i.e. -10%), add 32. For example:
Double it: 20 * 2 = 40
Subtract the tens digit: 40 - 4 = 36
Add 32: 36+32 = 68Cool!!
Or a “good enough” rough estimate is: double (the Celsius number) + 30
(0 * 2) + 30 = 30F freezing
(10 * 2) + 30 = 50F cool
(20 * 2) + 30 = 70F nice
(30 * 2) + 30 = 90F hot
(40 * 2) + 30 = 110F sweltering
In reverse: subtract 30 (from the Fahrenheit number), and divide by 2
(30F - 30) / 2 = 0 C freezing
(40F - 30) / 2 = 5 C freezing
(50F - 30) / 2 = 10 C cool
(60F - 30) / 2 = 15 C cool
(70F - 30) / 2 = 20 C nice
(80F - 30) / 2 = 25 C nice
(90F - 30) / 2 = 30 C hot
(100F - 30) / 2 = 35 C hot
(110F - 30) / 2 = 40 C sweltering
(120F - 30) / 2 = 45 C start praying
It’s easier to just remember a few key values and estimate based on those. I know the conversions for every ten degrees Celsius from -10 to 30
Never met an American who wants to “talk about work” out here. They all prefer to keep their free time work-discussion free.
- Language is by far the most important door opener, so put in one hour of learning every day for at least a year.
- Mingle to get out of your comfort zone: Go to after-work parties and flea markets, take public transit. Use hobbyist/ meet-up apps. Read/ watch the local news.
- Don’t expect to be invited, especially not to people’s homes. People might also be uncomfortable being invited to your home. Meeting in a public place is almost always the better option, unless you’ve gotten to know someone really well.
- Irony/ sarcasm don’t translate very well between cultures.
- Europe has some lousy weather, so get watertight coats and waterproof your shoes and backpacks.
- Take it slow.
- Also: Enjoy it! Europe is a fantastic little place at the crossroads between Asia and Africa and I would never want to leave.
UK inhabitant here. Is being invited to someone’s house a casual thing in the US? I don’t think I’ve ever been invited by someone who isn’t a close friend.
Greece here, we invite people to our homes all the time, even if we don’t know them very well.
I lived in Italy and Germany and it does happen here. Mostly with friends you already know reasonably well though.
All of this sounds so exciting. Thanks for the reply.
Do everything you can to learn the language quickly. Take any language class offer you get. It will make life much easier in a new country, especially if you’re looking to make friends. Immerse yourself in the culture immediately.
Remember that Europeans, especially Scandinavians, are not as openly friendly as Americans. They can seem cold and distant at first. It’s not because they are not friendly, it’s just a cultural feature. Once you get to know them, most open up and they are awesome.
On financials, keep all your bank accounts and credit cards open in the US and use a US address for them (and get a credit card with no foreign transaction fees). Don’t advertise to the US banks that you moved overseas. Just use a family member’s or friend’s address. Also note that European banks don’t have rewards credit cards, so I only use US rewards cards with no foreign transaction fees when living overseas. They’ll send you replacement cards overseas if you ask them to, even when your account address is in the US.
If you don’t already have retirement IRA accounts set up (not just 401k), do it before you leave the US. Also, open a brokerage account (e.g. Schwab or Fidelity) with a US address before you leave and don’t change the address to your overseas address, ever. Leave as is. It can be very hard for Americans to invest because foreign banks are required to report different things to US authorities about customers who are American citizens. They don’t want the bother, so they may not allow you to open an account there. And once you move it will be much harder to open the account in the US. Use a service like Wise to move funds cheaply to your US accounts for investments and paying off credit cards.
Get a cheap eSIM phone subscription with a US phone number for two-step verification abroad. You can use Wifi-calling to connect.
Finally, remember that you are eligible to vote in the US as a US citizen living overseas. You’ll still be registered as a voter in the state and county you moved overseas from. You’ll use your most recent address, and you don’t have to have any attachment to that address any longer. It’s only for voting purposes. If you’re not already registered to vote when you move overseas, you’ll also use your most recent address to register to vote. More information here: https://www.fvap.gov/citizen-voter.
Good luck!
Do your best to immerse yourself . When you view the USA from the outside or return to visit, you will ask yourself, “WTF is going on here?”
I’m in it asking this.
- learn the language AND CUSTOMS
- don’t hang out in foreigner/english bubbles
- don’t assume anything works the way it does in the US (from gasoline and driving to medical to government). There are lots of little things that seem like they obviously must be done X way but aren’t in other countries
- be careful with any investments. It’s very easy to end up with PFICs which are punitively taxed (making retirement vehicles here in Japan outside of the national pension prohibitive for me, for instance).
- celebrate
- bring any snacks that you can legally bring but they can’t legally sell (some things with food dyes, etc. if you really like them are banned in some countries to produce/sell but not eat).
I got to disagree with the “learn the language and customs” thing. I live (also born and raised) in one of the most culturally diverse cities in America: Germantown, Maryland. I couldn’t be prouder, and I also couldn’t care less if you don’t speak English.
Be yourself. You are welcome here.
That probably depends on the country, but I don’t think you should omit learning language, even as English native, even if everyone around you speak your native one.
I’ve seen that several times already in Poland. Been around a guy from India who was practically monolingual English speaker (his local language is fading away, he should technically still speak it due to his grandparents, but doesn’t or speaks very little) and he straight up refused to learn Polish because he „seen no value” in it, it’s not an easy language to learn and he’d rather just put that time and effort into a MMO game. He only attended lessons to learn to pass an exam that will allow him staying in the country, with no intention to actually learn how to speak. Poles are quite often excited to speak English with somebody as everyone knows importance of it and wants to practice IRL. Everyone around him, like his gf, her family, coworkers in corpo, accept that and they all speak English well, so no obligation on his side. He only knows how to tell cashier that he’ll pay with a debit card and it takes a single word. Well, that’s his choice you can say, but then it was pretty annoying at times to have him around. Imagine standing in a circle joking around and every two sentences that guy asks „What? What did he/she say?”, and someone attempts to translate it to English, but the joke doesn’t work or is not understandable even after translating because it refers to something else in the language, culture, memes, slang etc. Either learn it or expect to be disconnected and excluded at times. That’s all good to tolerate newcomers who don’t yet know much about the culture and language, but it doesn’t look very good to me if that’s a guy who lives here for 8 years and doesn’t have plans moving away anytime soon.
This is the absolute worst advice for coming to a European country. It’s probably different in Denmark but for some countries or cities at least you won’t be able to get through the bureaucracy needed to legally immigrate without speaking the language. Even in offices that mainly help foreigners you may find the employees don’t speak English. And if you want to be there long-term, good luck making real connections if you don’t speak the language.
It’s not just communicating, it’s also stuff for general living, like recognizing road signs, paying bills, dealing with government paperwork, ordering food in restaurants, etc. They won’t always have an English translation beside it, nor do they have an obligation to have it. Same goes for people too.
Say for example, a Japanese just showed up in your hometown, knowing not a lick of English, and planning to live here long term. I’m sure people in your hometown are more than willing to help, but how much stuff in your general life is in English? Surely you can’t expect someone to be able to help them around 24/7, and with a language barrier too.
You gotta know that not everything is going to accommodate for you in foreign places. OP might be able to do well enough since people in Denmark probably speak English well in general. But if you want to truly know the people, their culture, or even form deep connections with some, you have to do some work, and language is a first big step.
The EU isn’t the US.
Most countries in Europe have this idea of integration where the foreigner learns and adopts the language and culture of the country. You’ll see lots of discussions of “failed” integration of foreigners, especially in Germany.
I think this is still a type of colonialism where they think there culture is better and the foreigner must change, rather than the other way around.
I think the US is a bit better in this regard as there is this idea of a cultural mixing pot and foreigners aren’t expected to “integrate”.
It’s not colonialism to prefer one culture (or certain cultural traits) to another. In fact, it’s natural.
I’ve lived in a number of countries and each had their own distinct cultural norms. Each has had aspects which I perceived as either positive or negative.
Add it all together and I definitely have preferred certain cultures, not because they are “better” but because they more closely match my own preferences. Other people would prefer different cultural norms.
The integration part is because we would like for anyone to fit in, and not be confined to your ‘hood’
We don’t mind you not speaking the language, but English is usually not a first language, sometimes not even a second, and sometimes omitted. Especially in rural areas.
So yeah, it’s nice if we can actually have a conversation about the local soccer team, or town buffoon who thinks the government is conspiring about pricing covid shots too high…
White people moving across the world, imposing their language and culture, is a “cultural mixing pot” ? Did you play a uno reverse card lol
I wasn’t referring to white people immigrating.
Here is an article today from Deutsche Welle covering this issue: https://www.dw.com/en/do-immigrants-have-to-learn-german-in-germany/a-70467984
Getting new friends in Denmark can be difficuelt at first. Many are reserved and needs to thaw up first. Do not expect colleagues to invite you home, if you are ysed to that. However, when people open up it is because they like and respect you. Danes are in general not superficial as Americans often can be. So remember, we are not unfriendly, just different from Americans :) Advise from a 100% Dane.
Lol, and Danes are definitely the most outgoing of the Nordics. I’ve found Danes to be pretty similar in terms of outgoing-ness to people from New England in the US; unlikely to start conversation with complete strangers, but certainly kind once you have that initial connection.
As a Norwegian: seconded. It’s tough to get real close and personal with Nordic people. We have smaller friend groups and don’t swap out friends often, but that is largely because we are quite loyal. So when you’re in, you’re in to stay.
That’s great, I like that a lot. As the commenter below said, sounds like New England to an extent. I’m fine with that and happy with less superficial
I don’t know if Denmark does it, but Norwegians love to use week numbers in corporate/education environments for scheduling instead of using dates like normal people, so you might end up in a situation where you have to check the calender to find out what date Monday week 42 might be.
… and once you’re used to it, you’ll realise how much easier that is :)
I’ve lived almost my entire life in Norway, and I don’t think it’s much easier than saying a date
Buy fancy feast and put in on some toast. Now you know what danish food is like.
Create a second gmail account when you get there. Many apps that you will need there don’t exist in the US app/playstore, so you will need the second account to download them.
It’s worth it. I’m almost two years in Germany. Wouldn’t move back for a million dollars (although at 3 I could be bought). Work on the local language, volunteer or other community involvement activities, treat it like the new home it is. We’re fortunate to be able to move to a new country, try to be a part of improving it and earning your spot there. I’m even more fortunate to be white, male, straight etc - assuming you’re at least some of those things, do your best to counter the anti-immigration fear mongering that comes out of the political right. It effects you now, but more importantly it’s ramping up and it’ll effect people less fortunate far worse.
Hope you love it and welcome to Europe.
That’s great advice. I’m really excited to experience it and really embrace it. Thank you!
Since you are moving to Denmark: flee! Take a car and drive north to seek refuge in Sweden. Once you make it there you are safe, but you never know, the Danes could invade any minute. Keep driving north until you start seeing reindeer walking around like they own the place. Move into a cabin in the woods and never look back. The Danes can’t reach you there.
We don’t really have to worry about the Danes invading. We can just move the inventory of all the Systembolaget stores in Scania to other parts of Sweden so they won’t get long.
It’s a trick. There are no roads north out of Denmark.
Just dont pull a gun when some gets unauthorized on your property.
Remember, they’re called just pastries over there.
What’s called pastries though.
Danish pastries…
