Swedish Lessons Begin!

Kris and I attended our first Swedish language lesson today. While it is not necessary to do so, because the majority of adult Swedes speak excellent English, we both feel that learning the language is a critical part of integrating into the country. Not only that, but Kris' colleagues have graciously been holding their management meetings in English and he is aware that that is not going to last! The kids are keen to learn some Swedish as well, and hopefully I can find a teacher close by and get them started too. They are hoping to be able to communicate with their Swedish neighbours, Samuel and Sophie, rather than talking English to them and having them talk back in Swedish (with no understanding on either part!)

The lessons we are attending are being held at the Företags Universitetet, in downtown Stockholm. This school specializes in business training of all types, and languages comprise just a small portion of what they teach. Our teacher is a lovely woman who made us feel at ease right away. We began by learning some common courtesies, and ventured into the alphabet and numbers. To speak Swedish properly you need to be able to make some very subtle changes in the sounds of some of the vowels and Kris and I found ourselves slightly challenged in this! The song that goes...Eww, eee, eww, ah, ah, bing, bang, walla, walla, bing, bang...comes to mind! We did say some things well and earned a, "Bra!" from our teacher, but we both found that once we left our class, everything we had learned that morning seemed to have disappeared. She told us that it takes saying something over and over twenty-one times before you can remember it, so now we have some practising to do!

So, now I am going to go and brush up on my Swedish. I think I'll begin by doing some lip exercises so that I might be able to achieve some of those sounds I've learned. I just hope that the dogs in the neighbourhood can't hear me, because they will surely start howling!