Svenska

Today is my last lesson in Swedish class.. isnt it sad to know that everything is coming to an end soon?

And also realized with a start that the SFI exam is less than a week away! Since the SFI exam is end of April (when my MBA exam is end March), I've always imagined that I have alot of time to prepare.. so I've no idea what happened to the 2-3 weeks that flew past?!

SFI is like primary school level Swedish for Immigrants. Anyway, the exam is a 4 hours written paper, then the oral the following day. Oral is my weakest, and because its conducted in a conversation-style with a partner where both of you will be given a topic to talk non-stop on, if the other 'partner' is someone who can speak fluently, I will just sit there and grin for 30min, ha. We have also been practising on past year written papers and its very tough; half the time I'm guessing because there are too many vocabulary that I dont know. Oh well.

Staying in a country where their first language is not English/Chinese is something that I've hoped to do, and I'm really grateful for this opportunity in Sweden. One of the 遗憾 of only staying 1 year here, is that I've not achieved fluency in Swedish. I've always been envious of YQ, who can speak French fluently after studying/working in France for a year, and I've used him as a benchmark right at the beginning of my stay. I got frustrated when I took the part-time course which was only once a week for Masters students in the uni, because I felt I wasnt learning anything much. That's why I switched to the full time course which is 4-6 hrs , 4 times a week.

After 6 months, I've probably learnt more than what I have achieved in 3 years for Japanese, and it definitely beats paying $800 over 6 months at Alliance Français afterwhich only remembering how to say "Je m'appelle Wei Ping". I can communicate my needs or strike up a meaningful conversation with my classmates, or read simple newspaper articles; but I can only catch bits and pieces of TV programmes or radio, and definitely not carry out a conversation with a Swede. For example, I've requested Eva to speak to me in Swedish during violin.. but she goes so fast that I have to ask her to repeat or say it in English sometimes. Other times, I pick up words and then piece it together.

I do really hope I can make use of Swedish in my job or elsewhere next time, it will be nice to keep in contact. A couple of days back, was chatting with Veron who is a Singaporean staying in Gothenberg. She was complaining about work, as her command of Swedish is a huge impedance and she is frustrated that she cannot express herself well in Swedish at times. I told her I'm envious of her despite that, because although it is very tough for her now, give her a few more months and she'll be able to speak it fluently. She called me crazy, and told me next time she will rethink about coming to a country where English is not their 1st language.

In Sweden, although most technical/engineering companies like Ericsson or Volvo state that Swedish is not a requirement at work (in fact, they encourage resumes to be written in English), the communication language at meetings or informal gatherings will be in Swedish. So in a way, you have to know it if you do not want to be left out. Veron's hubby, Vinc is in Volvo and that's the kind of 'treatment' he gets. Was chatting with Nattaya's Swede hubby, Miguel last night over dinner, who is in Ericsson, he also said he did not even know how to tell the time in English until he started going for overseas assignments.

In any case, Swedish, Dannish and Norwegian language is very similar; Swedes can understand their Scandinavia neighbours very well, apart from Finland. (But then, many Finnish can speak Swedish.) Have been watching the Scandinavian version of "So you think you can dance". The 3 judges comes from Sweden, Denmark and Norway, and I cant tell the difference when they speak 'coz it sounds so similar! My classmates from Germany have also told me they find it easy to learn Swedish because the grammar is similar. I hope that works the other way- knowing Swedish would help me to learn other European languages next time, ha.

Was watching a Jap-anime series last week, which unfortunately did not have subtitles. What surprised me was that I could still catch a few Jap words here and there, and sometimes piecing them together to 'tikam' some parts of conversation. And that was like 13-14 yrs ago since I picked it up. Hopefully I dont forget too much of Swedish when I get back to Singapore.

Meanwhile, its Swedish TV, Swedish music, eavesdropping, pretending I cant speak English.. in my last few weeks here.