Well, if you come to Helsinki from outside the Nordic countries you probably will register for courses held in English. For several of my friends back in Munich this is actually an issue while considering to go abroad. In most of the world English is not the native language and for most of us it is the first or second foreign language. Usually we put “Proficiency in English” in our CV, but feel unsure about having to use it at university and private life.
For me it was frustrating to come in September to Helsinki and literally searching for words in the most basic encouters. I spent a high school year in the USA, watch movies and series usually in English, and read my Terry Pratchett in his mother´s language. Still, for a few weeks I felt like a 6th grader trying to say, the he likes chocolate ice cream more then than vanilla ice cream. But it weasn´t actuallz a problem…
We deny it, but even in the tiniest hamlet all over Europe, from Ankara to Reykjavik, we are exposed to English and have, if we managed high school, quite an amount of passive English proficiency. The talkng, the phrases, the idiomatic language comes pice by pice by actually using it. I have a few colleagues (and lecturers) here at the University of Helsinki, whose pronunciation and grammar is a bit worse than mine. Still, they perform great in exams and with their papers, they manage to make friends and have a social life. It is really awesome, how fast a human being gets into a language.
Bonus: The Finnish accent when speaking English is rather hard and clear. If you might have trouble to understand a Welshman or a French lady, you wil be releaved hearing your first lecture by a Finnish docent. And as English is a common foreign language to most of us here (although we have a strangely big part of Australians in Helsinki), pronunciation errors, grammer mistakes, and other failings to emulate Oxford English are forgiven without raised eyebrows.
If you feel like brushing up on your English:
- use for a start the English version of Wikipedia
- read world (and Finnish) news in English
- make the effort and switch to English in your DVD´s menues (with subtitles, if necessary)
- switch to English when ordering a coffee or when shopping in your home town.
One Comment
Having spent some time with people whose mother tongue is English, I came to a conclusion that my grammar and writing skills are far more better than theirs. Basic things such as then – than or loose – lose or don’t – doesn;t are so commonly mistaken.. was funny to detect these mistakes: ))
annnd am definitely looking forward to hearing some Finnish guy explaining me .. well, something in English after your description (about Finnish docent), mate! Cheers! : – )