Trilingual Day

Today I had a very exciting language adventure! I was sitting in the staffroom working on a lesson plan when one of my students came in and told me that there was a "Danish woman" in the hallway who wanted to meet me. She said that the woman's parents were Danish, but she was born here in Argentina. I guess she had seen my name on my conversation workshop poster and asked someone about me, thinking perhaps I was a Dane. I got all excited and ran right out.

At first I spoke to her in Spanish because that seemed the most natural and she was with a couple other Argentinian people. But then we started talking about Denmark, and she said København in a very Danish accent and I was like, "Ooooh, kan du tale dansk?" Turns out yes, she can tale dansk- and much better than I can. After we burned through the extent of my Danish skills it morphed into this kind of crazy Spanish, Danish, English mix of a conversation. She appears to be really good at all of them. jealous! Her English skills were like that of most Danes. I had quite the overload of languages for a few minutes there because then some of my students and various teachers walked by and spoke to me in a mix of Spanish and English. I accidentally responded to an hola with a very Danish-y "hej!"
 
The lady told me that there was actually a "Danish population" here in Argentina and they have different events and stuff going on, so I might just need to investigate that more closely. I got her email and phone number so hopefully we can get together to practice my dansk or something. Maybe I will surprise Rolf by being totally fluent when he comes. oops- surprise ruined!

In other news, my favorite student quote of the day: We were talking about swimming in the ocean and she said she doesn't like it because she can't see without her glasses and is worried she would lose her contact lenses. Another student suggested she wear goggles. She looked horrified and said, "No! That's ridiculous!" I was very impressed with her use of the word ridiculous.