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Apr 13, 2003 I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I am currently studying Swedish. I thought that this week I would explain a bit about the course I attended last year, and the one I’m currently studying. The Swedish government encourages immigrants to learn Swedish and provides courses for immigrants free of charge. I enrolled in my first course just two weeks after my arrival here in Sweden. Appropriately enough it was called “Swedish for Immigrants” or SFI as it’s known here. That’s another thing to get used to – everything is reduced to TLA’s (sorry, three letter acronyms) where possible – and sometimes when it’s not really possible. I had already attempted to learn Swedish through a self study cassette/book course called “Colloquial Swedish” before I left Australia and although that was useful, attending class was so much better, even if was a very daunting prospect at first. We had around sixteen different nationalities in my class of twenty three pupils – from (in no particular order) Irak, Iran, Turkey, USA, Russia, Austria, Haiti, Bulgaria, Finland, England, Afghanistan, Thailand, Canada, Jordan, Kosovo and Australia. To ensure that we all learned Swedish as quickly as possible, all lessons, apart from the first day, were in Swedish. I learned to treat my Swedish-English dictionary as my most precious possession – well, after my Rickenbacker guitar, anyway. It usually takes between six and eighteen months to complete the SFI course, so I guess I was about average when I took and passed the examination after one year. The SFI exam is a national test and consists of five parts – a spoken, conversational test and four written tests of grammar, word recognition and understanding, taken over two days. Part of the written test was also to listen to recordings of radio broadcasts and telephone answering service messages, and then answer questions on the content. Not so difficult and we had been looking at previous years tests closely to get an idea of what to expect. The next stage of Swedish is the course I’m currently studying, Swedish as a second language, or abbreviated it becomes SAS (Svenska som Andra Språk). This consists of three parts, culminating in another national examination at the end of the third part. After three months of studying, three days a week, on this course, I am now into part two and beginning to be able to read books in Swedish and understand maybe 70% and guess the rest! SAS is a mixture of grammatical rules and Swedish literature and we are being introduced to Swedish authors through their best-known books and stories. Authors such as Stig Dagerman (nominated as “Mr. Depression” by the class because of his melancholic and tragic stories – and personal life), Henning Mankell (a favourite of mine) and Theodore Kalifatides, a Greek who emigrated to Sweden in the middle of the 1960’s. The class this year is much smaller – only twelve of us - so the teaching is much more individual and personal. It is, however, quite intensive and we have a lot of work to do at home most nights. I think most of us in the class get the feeling from time to time that we will never master this language, with it’s multiple rules and even more multiple exceptions to those rules, but, as the teachers often say, “it will come”. We all hope that’s true... Another part of the assimilation process into Swedish society, which also helps to learn the language, is to get a job. And that’s proving to be the hardest part of all. I had my own computer software company in Australia, but here I find it next to impossible to find work. I have applied for positions ranging from computer programmer, tractor driver, potato picker, office cleaner, newspaper deliverer and office machine repairer, among others. If I’m lucky I have got a polite “no thanks” response, but usually it is no response at all. Today I have applied for a position as a car dismantler for a second hand spare parts company (I had a five- year apprenticeship with a car manufacturer in the dawn of time so maybe this time I’ll be lucky). I’ll let you know... There is a government department called Arbetsförmedlingen (sorry, no abbreviation on this one) which is basically a labour exchange trying to match people with jobs. Despite registering with them, both on-line and in their offices, and weekly visits to their office, they have not been able to come up with anything, either. So until I can find a job I’ll keep searching, applying, studying and writing... Oh yes, I promised to write about the ice-hockey championships, didn’t I? Sorry to say that there was no fairy tale ending for Färjestad this year. The fourth game in the championship was played on Monday evening and it turned out to be a thriller. With two minutes to go at the end of the third and final quarter, Färjestad were leading 3 – 2. But then Frölunda scored to tie the game and force a sudden death play off to determine the winner. Two more periods of sudden death were played without a “golden goal”. Then, at around ten minutes to midnight, in the 41st minute of sudden death play, Frölunda scored the winning goal and thus became Swedish Champions for 2003 by taking the series 4 games to nil. Congratulations to Frölunda and commiseration to Färjestad. Hälsningar till nästa vecka, About the author: Robin Alan Bell is an Englishman by birth, but migrated to Australia back in '72. Married and divorced there. Spent the last 3 years living by myself on a remote farm in rural New South Wales with no mains electricity, water etc. All power, heating was from natural resources (solar, wind, wood). "Met" a Swedish girl on the internet, came to Sweden for a holiday, loved the place (and the girl), moved to Sweden permanently Christmas 2001 and married the girl in Easter 2002. Living happily ever after... Email Robin Alan Bell: sosoft@ozemail.com.au ------------ Comment on this column in the forum. ------------ |
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