University of Helsinki
Are you ready to pack your stuff and move to this amazing country? New experiences, places and friends are waiting for you here! You’ll get to know this great university, you’ll become familiar with Helsinki, and you’ll surely meet other international students. But what about the locals?! This is actually a question that I’ve been asked pretty often during the last two years. How do you meet the locals?
I had the same question when I moved to Finland. In the end the answer came from another international girl – who then became my best friend – during a random Saturday night, and can be summed up in five words: go there and say “moi”! (Lesson number 1: “moi” means “hello”) Does it sound too easy? I thought exactly the same. However in the end I tried to put it in practice – and being the greatest introvert that I know, that was definitely hard for me! But you know what? It works!
Finns may look reserved and shy, but believe me, a simple “hello” on a Saturday night is enough to turn them into the greatest chatterers you’ve ever met (ok, maybe I’m overstating here, but still they talk a lot). So, if you’re brave enough to go to somebody and start a conversation out of nothing, chances are you will make a new friend – and Finns are nice, no matter what they say about themselves.
Try to believe! However, if you think that this kind of approach is not really your cup of tea, I will list some events and gatherings where it’s pretty much a guarantee that you will get to know the locals.
The Language Centre of the University of Helsinki offers:
– Language assistant programme.
“The idea of the Course Assistant Programme is to invite international students who are native speakers of certain languages to assist in Language Centre teaching and learning. This gives international students the opportunity to meet Finnish students, and it brings new aspects to language learning and teaching”.
– Language Club.
“The Language Centre also organizes Language Clubs where you have a chance to talk in relaxed surroundings with others who have studied the same language or are its native speakers”.
– ALICE programme.
“The basic idea of ALICE courses is to provide two language learners who speak different native languages the opportunity to learn about each other’s language and culture in an interactive way”.
These are just some short descriptions taken directly from the official intranet page of the Language Centre. If you want to find out more you can visit the page on Flamma at the following link: https://flamma.helsinki.fi/portal/units/kielikeskus
Outside the university you can find these events:
– Cafe Lingua.
A free and open international language exchange event which is held every Monday in the centre of Helsinki. You can choose which languages you want to practice and meet both Finns and foreigners. They gather around language tables, with signs marking the languages spoken and all languages are welcome.
You may want to join the group on Facebook at this link to get more information: https://www.facebook.com/groups/147968218893/
– CS meeting in Helsinki.
Meetings organized by the volunteers of Couch Surfing (www.couchsurfing.org) which is a non-profit organization that connects traveling people with locals in order to have local volunteers to host the travellers on their couch. The weekly meetings are then organized for their active locals and the foreigners in Helsinki.
Even if you don’t need or don’t want to host people, this is an excellent way to meet the locals because they are there with the aim of meeting and socializing with new people from all over the world.
This is the link of their group on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/54040862957/
– Helsinki meet ups.
This is a website were locals and foreigners living in Finland can organize public events related to any topic ranging from pugs to self-defence to whatever. They also have special meet ups for foreigners to talk with the locals.
Here’s the link: http://www.meetup.com/cities/fi/helsinki/
Feel free to let me know if my suggestions worked for you!
Have a good stay in Helsinki 😉
Giulia Pernisi