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Brittany Shoot
Copenhagen, DENMARK
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REPORTS:
PREVIOUS NEXT
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Sent to: AP, AFP, The Copenhagen Times
For the third time this week, Brittany Shoot left her home to buy groceries and flowers from local merchants. Despite previous attempts to break the language barrier with her neighborhood food sellers, Shoot remained unsuccessful.
She faced particular difficulty at the local flower stand, where she bought an unidentified red flower as a gift for a dinner party host, scheduled for that evening. The shop owner greeted her pleasantly, but once he began speaking and Shoot was forced to admit, "I'm sorry, I don't speak Danish," the pleasantries ended. Shoot paid for the flower and said, "Mange tak [many thanks]," to which the man behind the counter answered, "Bye."
Many people in Denmark speak English, especially younger people, and when asking friends about her uncomfortable encounters, they have attributed Shoot's failure to the smaller suburb where she lives. "People in the city won't act that way," one friend said when Shoot told of an experience with a particularly hostile wine merchant on her block.
"I did have a very nice cashier at the grocery downtown last week," she conceded. But despite other people's doubts about her experiences, Shoot remains firmly skeptical that her only solution is to learn better Danish. "I'm taking a class starting at the end of the month," she explains. "Soon, I'll be able to say more than 'Happy birthday' and 'Is this a vegetarian meal?'"
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