I've finally finished the remedial phonetics stuff and am back on the main (fast) track at Danish school, meaning Monday/Wednesday/Friday, 5:15 pm to 8:45 pm. I ran into somebody who was in my original class; he's now in level four. I'm starting level 2. He said most of that class did not pass, so I feel a bit better. In my heart I still believe that missing that connection at SFO by a few minutes (the plane was still at the gate!) cost me six weeks. Anyway, the new class is fine. I actually grew fond of the people in my phonetics class, but I don't see them any more because they are all on the Tuesday/Thursday track. My friend Qin Xia changed to M/W/F for level two but she got put into the other level 2 class, so we only see each other in the hallway.

With level 2, lession 3, we are finally starting to count above fifteen. If you know anything about Danish and you have been following this story, you are probably eager to hear what I have to say about Danish counting. I vaguely remember the psychotic American helicopter pilot we met in Malmö ranting about Danish numbers, but he was the ranting sort.

Anyway, all I'm going to say is this. In Danish, 75 is pronounced with the syllables: "fem-o-ha-fears." This is written femoghalvfjerds, and has the meaning, 'five, plus half of a twenty less than four twenties'. That's all I have to say about Danish numbers.

In my opinion, a best-of-breed language would use Chinese numbering, which is strictly regular, strictly base ten, and comprises almost exclusively monosyllablic components (not counting a few dipthongs).