Hi everyone, I’m Elena and for those of you who don’t know me, I’m studying the second year of the master’s programme in Design and this is my first post. In this first post, I would like to talk about something that scared me a bit when choosing a university and that was the language barrier.
I speak Spanish as my first language and I know English after several years of studying it but moving to a country where they don’t speak your first language and English is not the official language scared me a bit.
When you don’t speak a language, everyday activities can be complicated, but from the first day I arrived, everything was much easier than I thought it would be. Small things like calling a taxi, shopping, or asking for directions were no problem because everyone I met during my year living in Sweden has spoken English. I was personally surprised at how many people speak English fluently in Sweden.
Many of the TV programmes are in English and if you need to access a website or an app you can switch it to English. If you need medical assistance, you will also have the option of being attended to in English and this made me feel very secure.
Regarding life at the University, LIU offers many programmes in English and mine is one of them. In my classes, my classmates are from different countries, and we all speak English. The assignments, the documents given to us by the professors and even information signs around the campus are in English.
And although living in a country where you don’t speak the language can sometimes have its disadvantages, it also gives you the opportunity to learn the language more actively. I started practising on the Duolingo app to learn some basic vocabulary. When I arrived in Sweden, I met some of my Swedish corridor mates who taught me some phrases and I practice with them from time to time. The University also gives you the opportunity to join Swedish classes at different levels which are very entertaining as most of the students are international students like me. Another option is to join SFI classes which you will need a personal number to register for but which many people also recommend.
Although I communicate in English all the time, some of the basic phrases that I found useful were for example, Hej (Hello), hejdå (goodbye), god morgon (good morning), god eftermiddag (good afternoon), god kväl (good evening), tack så mycket (thank you very much) or ursäkta mig (excuse me).
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