Ei, eeih, oh, ooh, uh-oh - Danish for beginners

Oh Danish. 

You are a tasty thing to eat,  but not a tasty language to speak. 

So I'm a little on struggle street with Danish lessons. Far from the bludge subject I anticipated, the language course is intense, with daily homework and impossible pronunciation. I'm in a class full of Germans, who are all vastly better at Danish than I am due to my woefully underdeveloped hacking, coughing, spluttering and guttural growling throat muscles. 

The sounds for the letters E and I are nearly identical (kinda "e" and "ei" [as in the sound the "i" makes in "itchy"] respectively), the sounds for U and Y are equally indiscernible differentiations on the sound "ooh" (as in the "o" sound in "food") and don't even get me started on Æ ("aye"), Ø ("uh" as in "Uno") and Å (oh, but kinda a lower sounding...thing... sorta). 

Hedder. Except it's not pronounced "head-der".
It's like "Hiller".
But not with an "ll".
With a "th" crossed with an "ll" crossed with a "dd" sound.
Danish. W.T.F.
Apparently if you stick a pen under your tongue it's easier. I can fairly safely say that it is not. 

"e"

"i"

" Æ"

"Ø"

"Å"

 Our teacher, Rikke (pronounced "Reggae") is lovely, but speaks mostly in Danish to us, which is tops on the immersion front, but turns each lesson into an extended version of charades. Take, for example, the following exchange from earlier this week. 

Rikke: *flurry of instructions in Danish*. Hvad hedder du?

Me: Jer er hedder Lucy. 

Rikke: John. 

Me: no, Lucy. 

Rikke: no, John. 

Me: ( falling into that awful awful habit of repeating the same word louder and slower) Lu- see.

Rikke: no, John. 

Me: *looks blank*

Rikke: picks up her book and shows me the dialogue page that she is referring to. 

Me: ooooooooh. Jer er hedder John. 

To add insult to injury, we have not-insignificant amounts of daily homework which only serves to reinforce how completely incompetent I am. 

But after 3 days of lessons, I can tell you my name, where I come from, how many languages I (don't) speak, the time (so long as it is only quarter past, half past or quarter to), the alphabet and the numbers up to 20. I can also apologise to people, which is probably the most important thing I've learnt this week.