“Even with a bit of German, a bit of Chaucer, and even a bit of nerdy research into Germanic linguistic drift, I still couldn't understand a smidgen of spoken Danish. I had passively tried for a month or so to learn some, but aside from a few basic words, I was a failure. Thanks to Rosetta Stone I knew how to say ‘The girl is on the horse’ and ‘The boy is next to the elephant,’ but nothing like ‘I’m sorry, officer, I don't have a watch so I didn’t realize the King’s Gardens were closed. I’m just an American, after all.’ ...“