Dare to speak by Mira Helmiö

This summer I worked at Suomenlinna Sea Fortress in customer service. It was often that I was approached by native English speakers asking if I spoke English. “Of course I do!” I always thought. To me it seemed odd; is it not obvious that working in customer service at one of Finland’s most popular attractions, I should automatically be expected to speak fluent English. Not for foreigners.

We Finns take for granted being taught English. It is a privilege and an enormous advantage to be able to speak fluent English as most of us Finns do. In addition, we are also taught our other official language Swedish, and most students choose to learn a third foreign language, such as French or Spanish.  I speak four languages fluently; Finnish, English, Russian and Swedish. On top of that, I also am learning French, and would much like to learn Spanish. I have always thought of it as a natural thing for Finns to do; learn multiple foreign languages as our native language is not spoken anywhere else, and it is a disadvantage to not master more than two languages. I have found myself to be unaware of actually how much I should appreciate the skill I have in languages.

We have the skill, yet speaking is an issue. Even though we are given an excellent base in foreign languages, I feel like we Finns are still diffident about speaking up and using our skills. Working in an international environment has forced me to dare to use my knowledge of foreign languages to the best of my ability. At work I had to use all four languages I speak in the span of one day at best. And after a while, I even pushed myself to speak French in which I am not even adequate; I can barely count to 100! But still I wanted to use even the little skill I had, because I find that the only way to better yourself and become more confident in speaking a foreign language is if you actually use it in real life situations. No matter how many books you read or hours you spend sitting in class, you cannot gain the confidence to use the language naturally. When travelling abroad, one is forced to step out of one’s comfort zone and dare to speak. Making mistakes is only human and at least you are trying, right?

At 21 years, I now have the confidence to speak. Working and travelling have both taught me: do not be afraid to speak up. Most of us mess up in our first language too, so why are we so afraid to make a mistake in a completely foreign language?

Finns are given the incredible ability to speak foreign languages, so dare to speak; it is the only way to get better.

Wie viele Sprachen lernen Sie in Finnland? by Kirsimarja Blomqvist

Couple of weeks ago I participated a scientific symposium in Münster, a city that has been selected as one of the best cities to live and the best bicycling city in Germany.  I had made a very late hotel booking and ended up living in a hotel 8 km outside the city center.  Hotel rented bikes so I decided to try out how it is to bicycle in Münster. I took a small route by the channel “Kanalen promenaden” and on top of the fresh air and beautiful sights I got some exercise, much needed after sitting in the planes and trains! 

In the city I left the bike and started to walk around.  After couple of hours I had completely forgotten where I left my bike. As they say, getting lost is the best way to learn to know the city and the people…  It is for a long time since I have really used German language, but it was sure helpful when talking with the locals and finally finding my bicycle! For my surprise also young people seemed to be much more comfortable with German than with English. My broken German was not a problem, but even young people preferred speaking German.

When in China I have had the luxury of working with local people that has made work easy.Recently  I started a keynote speech to local academics and business people by saying “Nihao”. People clapped their hands and I was a bit embarrassed – but sometimes just a few words of the local language can make a big difference! 

Some of the languages that I have learned have become very rusty, as most of my work is in English and Finnish. Still, when in Spain I have this urge to talk with locals and also enjoy being able to read the signs, local newspapers etc. When in France I also use all my 20 French words (many of which may be Spanish), but that helps, too :)

This spring Veli-Matti Virolainen and I met Academics from Moscow Academy of Sciences who came to LUT to give a prestigious prize in physics to Professor Erkki Lähteenranta. I have learned some Russian in age of 13-15, but have forgotten it so completely that I cannot read the essays I have written! When listening to Russian presentations and feeling their eagerness and goodwill, I really would have wanted to be able to speak some Russian just to show how I appreciated their visit and the prize given.  Well, after this Veli-Matti and I decided to start learning Russian. I don’t expect to be fluent, but just to be able to socialize with the locals and know my way in Russia.

Swedish is pretty rusty, too. I used to use it when working with entrepreneurs in the Western part of Finland, but have not needed it in Eastern Finland. Tomorrow I will participate the Nordic Rectors’ meeting in Lund, so yesterday I brushed up my Swedish by listening to Swedish TV channel and a program on gardening.  Gardening is always a safe topic to start new cross-cultural relationships J

So you see that my level of ambition with languages is not very high. However, I believe we should worry much less if we cannot speak the languages perfectly, it is much more important to be understood and show the appreciation for people and culture.

Last but not least. I think it is very important for our international students to learn Finnish. Yes, Finnish a very small language but there are many opportunities for international experts knowing Finnish language.  A combination of Finnish and Russian would be even better! Even if Finnish people know English and it is easy to get by, Finns really appreciate if someone invests in learning Finnish. From what I have learned when talking about this issue with our former international students and people in business, small talk in Finnish around coffee tables and saunas could carry you quite far!  If you are really ambitious, learn so much Finnish that you can write your work application and do a work interview in Finnish! I believe it would be easier to find traineeships, master thesis jobs and work, when knowing some Finnish. Currently we offer some Finnish courses for foreigners at the university, but I hope we can offer some more Finnish courses in the near future.  In the meanwhile, enjoy the Finnish summer and people at their best!

Kirsimarja

Vice-rector for international affairs

Ps. If you want to follow what I am up to, you can find me in Twitter: KirsimarjaB

Do English and Internet bring us back to a time before the tower of Babel?

Many of us know the story of the tower of Babel. It went something like this: after the flood, Noah’s descendants travelled to an area of Iraq and started to build a tower in Babel. At that time, people had one language and one topic of conversation. This didn’t please God so God confused their language and scattered them all around the world. Since that time, people have had many different languages and a lack of a world language – according to the story.

There have been attempts to create world languages and one of them was in Poland in the late 19th century. At that time, Dr. Zamenhof published a man-made language which is today known as Esperanto. Esperanto was planned to be an easy-to-learn and politically neutral world language that would make communication between people with different national languages easier. However, for different reasons Esperanto didn’t become the world language. Nowadays, only 10 000 persons speak it fluently and only 10 000 000 persons have studied the rudiments of Esperanto world wide.

Anyhow, today, we have English. English is the most important language of science, business and culture. It’s estimated that English has about 320-380 million native speakers and 1.7 billion speakers altogether world wide. There are some reasons for the success of English; for example the British Empire which spread English language around the world. At the beginning of World War I, the British boasted that the sun never set on their empire, they had for instance areas of Canada, India and Australia. The second reason for the success of English was a rise of US in superpower after World War II and thirdly English has become a major language of the Internet.

Today, we are nearly in the same kind of situation that mankind was before the tower of Babel. We can speak about same news all around the world thanks to the Internet and satellite broadcasting. We can speak to a person who lives on other side of the world in real time via Skype or mobile phone. If you can speak English you can discuss at some level with a quarter of the world’s population. The world is much smaller nowadays than it was hundred years ago when our grandparents’ parents lived.

References:

Wikipedia

Text: Simo Keskinen, student of Independent Study in English -course