What language do they speak in Denmark?
Is it Dutch?” Before I could open my mouth, my boss replied. “Which language do they speak in Denmark? Yes, definitely Dutch!” I was a little bit shocked by that. I’m quite interested in languages and that sort of misunderstanding annoys me a lot. So, I explained that no, in Denmark they usually speak Danish and Dutch is the language spoken in the Netherlands. “You’re wrong,” came the immediate response from my boss. “Can I see the document?” I asked politely. “I can understand a bit of Dutch because it’s quite similar to German”. Looking at the database I was soon completely sure that it was written in Danish and I repeated that several times. I assumed that I would succeed in convincing my colleagues that I was right. Not so. We disputed it for thirty minutes and in the end I didn’t win. *** Returning to my hotel that evening, I was still thinking over the business in my head. I wondered whether my colleagues were especially badly informed or whether this lack of knowledge was standa
