As part of a tandem project, Danish students of German language and literature came to Frankfurt to visit their German peers studying Danish language and literature. The intercultural exchange also addressed Danish literature.
Four online sessions were held last November, but the highlight of the seminar is always the “real” meeting, says Marlene Hastenplug, a lecturer in Danish at Goethe University Frankfurt. “The students on our tandem project are excited to meet one another and test their language skills. While the Germans practice their Danish, the Danes give their German a try.” Hastenplug, herself a Dane who has lived in Frankfurt for many years, says German is not particularly popular as a foreign language among young Danes, most of whom concentrate on English. Be that as it may, those who are interested in the language of their southern neighbors demonstrate huge enthusiasm for it, and for German culture. The program for the Danish visitors included a variety of topics, including a language course Hastenplug had organized through Goethe University’s Internationales Studienzentrum (ISZ). One highlight was Danish novelist Anne Cathrine Bomann’s visit to the seminar; accompanied by her German translator Franziska Hüther, Bomann presented her new novel, Akvariet. “This visit was all the more special since Franziska received her degree in Scandinavian Studies from Goethe University,” says Hastenplug. The novel tells the story of a young woman sent by the job center to work in a public aquarium (akvariet = the aquarium), where she strikes up a friendship with an octopus. This is where the challenges associated with translation come into play, Hastenplug explains. Whereas German has several terms for this animal (Oktopus, Krake, Tintenfisch), only one exists in Danish. “There are also linguistic and cultural aspects that require the translator to make some choices. In German, the forms of address Sie and Du express respect and familiarity. In Danish, however, most of the time only the familiar form is used, even if the formal address still exists. It’s probably only used in the Danish royal family,” Hastenplug says with a laugh. In addition to these linguistic aspects of translation, the seminar also covered other topics related to the teaching of literature. “Interestingly, the German title of Anne Cathrine Bomann’s novel, which was recently featured in the FAZ newspaper, is not ‘Aquarium’,” Hastenplug points out. The publishers decided to call it “Rosa” – after the name given to the octopus. The form book titles take, whether in terms of text or graphic elements, is usually decided by the publisher, Hüther told the students. Of course, this also has an influence on how a novel is received on the highly competitive book market.
The tandem seminar run by the universities of Copenhagen and Göttingen in the 2023/24 winter semester developed an app called “KulturSchmæck” (Culture Quiz), which takes a playful look at German-Danish differences. Some categories have been added to the app in the current seminar, including “use of the foreign language” and “politeness.” The app works in the following manner: the students feed real statements collected in German and Danish from passers-by into the system, and users are asked to assign them to one country or the other. Take, for example, the 25-year-old woman in the library, who says: “Am I always on time? That’s a rather sore point for me. I try to be on time, but unfortunately I don’t always manage it.” Is she from Denmark or Germany? The correct answers do not always match expectations, and some statements appear to contradict the cultural stereotypes Danes and Germans have about each other – another insight the seminar seeks to transmit, alongside the language. Frankfurt always proves popular with the Danish guests. “One of the students even coined the name ‘Traumfurt’ [‘Dreamfurt’],” Hastenplug says with a smile. A return visit by the Frankfurt students to Copenhagen is scheduled for this coming June. “We’re really interested to see what sort of program the Danes will devise for us in Copenhagen – a city that’s just as wonderful as our Main metropolis.”
