I’ve been told I speak good Danish - mostly grammatically correct with good vocabulary. BUT - I ‘unfortunately’ have an accent that is typical of an English speaker. In non-professional environments, I feel more than anything that I am judged because of this. (Funnily enough, in work situations, it is not so much of an issue. I wonder why?)

No Londoner or New Yorker would be at all surprised at the sound of a non-native-English accent. It’s a natural part of everyday life - and many people view it as enriching.

Why should it be different in Denmark? Any ideas?

When I was studying Danish, I was struggling through a pronunciation exercise and my teacher came up to me and said, “The problem is you have an English accent.” I was shocked. I like my English accent. It says something about where I come from (not that it gets a positive response from Danes very often - it normally prompts a sad smile).

One of the few language skills that English speakers have is the ability to understand a foreign accent – due to the fact that we hear so many non-natives speaking English. But speakers of ’small’ languages like Danish have difficulty understanding anything other than ‘correct’ Danish. It’s a real shame, because often it makes us accented foreigners not want to bother.