Unless there is an agreement between countries and you can redeem itFor example, Spain signed it not long ago with the United Kingdom after Brexit, going to live in a foreign country means get your driving license again. Even more so if you change continents. This Vietnamese man, who has lived in Denmark for almost a year and a half, is working on it.
After passing the theory and having already paid for a few practical classes, A change in regulations recently released in January prevents the pilot from presenting himself with a translator. Which means you won’t be able to get permission. The reason? He doesn’t speak Danish or English.
“I don’t know English or Danish”
Teen Van Tran, 34, born in Vietnam, works at Danepork, a meat company. Their factory is in the middle of nowherein a rural area south of Jutland. And it does not have public transport service as such: the option is to walk to the nearest small towns (between half an hour and an hour depending on the location) and take the bus. Another is to request the service from Flex traffica kind of Uber but collective transport. In short: You need a car and therefore a driving license.
Since he started working there, he got to work. In December he took the theoretical exam, which he passed and which he was able to attend with a translator. And he has already given a good number of practical classes. But the turn of the year has brought him bad news: since January 1, a change in the regulation has come into effect that prohibits taking the driving test with an interpreter.
For Van Tran this is a problem. He does not speak any of the languages in which the exam is allowed: Danish, Faroese, Greenlandic or English, as well as German which will be included later.
“I don’t know English or Danish. So here, in 2025, I don’t know how I’m going to take my practical exam”, he laments to local media TV Sydand always through his interpreter, Dung Thanh Nguyen.
Thanh Nguyen has several clients in this same situation. “Without a driving license everything becomes more difficult,” he points out. And it’s not that Danish is easy to learn: the interpreter explains that to learn Danish to the level necessary to obtain a driving license, which includes traffic technicalities, it can take up to three years.
Another option is to learn English, which is simpler, but still useful when we talk about traffic instructions. Van Tran comments that he is going to choose to try it in this friendlier language. But time is against him: You have until December 4 to obtain the licensewhich implies not only learning English but also passing the exam itself.
If you don’t get it, you will have thrown the money invested in the trash, which is no small thing: about 25,000 Danish crowns, which at the exchange rate is about 3,350 euros. To which he will add the English classes and the internships that he will have to continue giving. In addition to the cost of the exam, or exams if you don’t get it the first time.
Traps thanks to the help of the translator. The change in regulations was approved in the summer of 2024 and came into force on January 1. The prohibition of not being able to use an interpreter is exclusive to exams, whether theoretical or practical: you can continue attending classes without problems.
This new regulatory imposition is one of 12 changes approved by the Ministry of Transport and Transportstyrelsen (the Danish Transport Agency). The reason is that there have been reported cases in which the examinee has cheated thanks to the translator.
For example, the interpreter would have given the answer to his client instead of translating the question. Something that, however, is difficult to prove unless the examiner or teacher speaks the language of the examinee. In any case, Transportstyrelsen considers that the reported cases have been numerous enough to impose this new requirement.
The organization understands that by giving the possibility of taking the exam in English, the international wildcard language par excellence, is enough so that it does not constitute a grievance for immigrants who want to obtain a driving license in Denmark.
Source: www.motorpasion.com
