Danish is my mother language. I am born and have grown up in Denmark.  Danish, Swedish and Norwegian are closely related Scandinavian languages. In the 19th century, my great grandfather came from Sweden to live in Denmark. 

English was the 1st foreign language that I learned. I recall from my childhood that I learned to understand English not least by listening to various programs on Danish television, for example American movies. I remember there were subtitles in Danish. When English education started in 5th grade, I remember I knew some English already. After finishing primary education, I was a high school student in New Jersey, USA for a year. I remember that during this year, I improved my competencies in listening, writing, and speaking English significantly.  After just a couple of months, I remember that I started thinking in English. This was a turning for me in communicating in English. I believe that the ability to think in another language, which is important to communicate well, happens only after some weeks or months being in an enviroment, where that particular language is spoken and written continuously. During bachelor, masters as well as post masters education, English has been a key language for me, for example because many books, I have read, were written in English. Also, written as well as oral communication I have with other students and researchers is often conducted in English.

Both my mother language Danish as well as German are Germanic languages. When I started learning German in 7th grade at Elsted School, i.e. when I was about 13 years old, I quickly noticed that. I remember that I picked up the German language quite easily within a relatively short period of time. What helped me in primary school to speak German well was, I think, that I had a good German teacher who spoke German really well. Also, what helped me develop a good knowledge of German primary school was that many words in German and Danish are similar and that there are clear rules that help to learn German grammar. 

 In high school at Risskov Gymnasium, I improved my competencies to understand, read, speak and write in German additionally. As a part of my bachelor education, I studied at Hochschule Osnabrück University of applied sciences for a year. By reading books, which were written in German, writing reports including thesis in German as well as speaking with German students, with whom I lived, studied and did sports, I strengthened my competencies in understanding, writing and speaking German significantly.

French was the 3rd foreign language I learned - after English and German. I remember that when I attended primary school in Denmark in the 1970s and 1980s, Danish, English and German were compulsory languages. French, however, was optional. As I was happy to learn languages, there was no doubt in my mind that I wanted to learn French.  In high school, I developed an even stronger interest in French. The interest I had in communicating better in French became so strong that one Summer, I decided to go to Nice in France to participate in a language course which helped me deepen my competencies in understanding, speaking, reading and writing in French. I recall, it helped me a lot that I lived with a French family during that learning period.

After my bachelor education, I decided to do an internship in Nantes in France. Over a period of about 8 months, I helped French people and companies with various tasks. During this time, I remember that my competencies to understand, read, write and speak French improved considerably. During my masters education, I studied for some months at HEC Montréal in Canada and improved my French communication competencies a lot during this learning period. The accent of people, who lived in Montréal, was, I found, somewhat different from what I learned in France. It seemed to me that the English language, which was also spoken a lot in Montreal, had an influence on the pronounciation of more French words.

Since 2006, I have lived in Zürich, a city located in the German speaking part of Switzerland. Living in Zürich, Swiss German has for me become a key language, which I use every day. During the years I have lived in Switzerland, I have had the opportunity to communicate / learn / work people from different parts of Switzerland. Thereby, I have also learned about different dialects. I experience that many Swiss people are very polite and quickly adapt to languages they hear. For example, I experience that many Swiss people will relatively quickly switch to German when they hear that my accent is not completely like the accent of a person, whose family has lived in Switzerland for several generations. To learn to speak Swiss German even better, I have learned to ask Swiss German people to please keep speaking Swiss German when I communicate with them. That helps me develop courage to speak Swiss German more often.

Learning about love languages I discovered that there can be differences between love languages a person likes to a) speak and b) listen to.  I experience that for me, three love languages come natural to me: Acts of service, touch and kind words. For example, I like to do things for people I love. I also find a natural to touch people I feel sympathy for someone. When I hear and read kind words - including appreciation for what I do and how I do things - I feel joy.