April 25, 2023
Is it important to learn Swedish as an international student?
Hej hej!
In this post I want to talk about my experience of learning Swedish and give you points in favor and against this decision, to help you reach a conclusion as an international student. I started learning Swedish shortly after I arrived in the country. Soon I will finish my second Swedish course and obtain the level A2. I’m doing my Swedish courses at the university, which is free for EU students, but there are free options for non-EU students, like SFI (Swedish for Immigrants).
The first point I want to mention is that: Swedish is not really necessary! Swedes in general speak english very well, so you will get by in your daily life just fine without knowing swedish. There is no need to stress yourself about learning the language when you know you might struggle with it or you don’t enjoy learning languages.
Another point to consider is that learning Swedish will take a lot of time. You will have a busy schedule full of lectures, assignments and exams and finding the time on top of that to learn a new language can be challenging. I certainly struggled with it sometimes and this is fine. You just have to be aware of the fact and prioritise accordingly. I decided that I keep going with learning Swedish as long as it does not seriously impact my academic and professional work and this has worked well for me.
Now after I mentioned the downsides I want to get into the positives. Because in fact I think learning Swedish is a great experience and it can be very useful for everybody.
The first thing I want to mention is that learning Swedish can be very important if you are considering to find a job in Sweden after you finish your studies. While it is possible to find jobs where it is not a necessity (this is especially common in remote roles or in tech jobs), having at least a beginner level understanding of the language will be very appreciated by your potential employers. It is way easier to integrate in the work environment if you can understand the small talk and take part in other little conversations around the office.
The next upside to knowing Swedish is that while almost everybody in Sweden speaks English on a very good level, from time to time you will come in situations where you cannot communicate with just English. This happened for me when I went to a bike workshop to get my bike fixed and it was very useful to be able to communicate here, even if it was a lot of improvisation with my basic Swedish skills.
But the most important point in my regard is that speaking Swedish opens up a whole new world for you. As an international student there are some associations and clubs that converse in English. But if your language levels progress enough you can try to join some activities where the main language is Swedish. There are seemingly infinite student clubs and activities in the city for every topic that you can imagine. This gives you many new opportunities to meet new people, do your favorite hobbies and find local friends. It’s also a great way to force yourself to learn even more, as you will be surrounded by the language constantly. This is my main motivation to learn Swedish right now, as I feel like speaking the language better will enable me to feel completely integrated here.
What do you think? Do you want to learn Swedish? If you have any questions about the topic, you can always leave a comment!
Hej då,
Niko
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