John Gunther Dean
Dean speaks four languages: English, French, German and Danish. He was the first U.S. Ambassador to Denmark who learned and spoke Danish, thus gaining significant respect from its people. He is married to the French-born Martine Duphenieux, and they have three grown children. He now lives in Switzerland and France but remains active on foreign affairs issues and comes to the U.S. often.
Danish language
Danish is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Swedish. Proficient speakers of any of the three languages can often understand the others fairly well, though studies have shown that speakers of Norwegian generally understand both Danish and Swedish far better than Swedes or Danes understand each other. Both Swedes and Danes also understand Norwegian better than they understand each other's languages. The reason Norwegian occupies a middle position in terms of intelligibility is because of its shared border with Sweden resulting in a similarity in pronunciation, combined with the long tradition of having Danish as a written language which has led to similarities in vocabulary. Among younger Danes, Copenhageners are worse at understanding Swedish than Danes from the provinces, and in general, younger Danes are not as good at understanding the neighboring languages as are Norwegian and Swedish youths.