Episode 93
Swedish is one of Finland’s official languages and is spoken by about 5% of the population.
Veronica is natively Finnish and grew up in a Swedish speaking family and community in eastern Helsinki, with limited exposure to the Finnish language. In this podcast episode she explains that she first learnt Finnish in the playground at school and then from the age of 9 began to study both Finnish and English languages at school. Although all her education was delivered in Swedish, the playground Finnish and her studies soon made her fluent. As Veronica’s family is fully Swedish speaking, she has also brought up her own children as Swedish speakers.
It’s not often that we have native Finnish guests that have had to Master Finland for themselves and Matt asks an important question: Is Finland really the happiest country in the world? Given it’s been awarded the title 6 times in a row. “Happiness is maybe not the right word..” Veronica answers, whilst pointing out all of the brilliant things about Finland such as the health care, education, social welfare, the summer cottages, lakes etc. There are lots of words for this but ‘happiness’ doesn’t quite fit.
Veronica works at Luckan Integration, an organisation that provides information and support for immigrants settling down in Finland, with special expertise in Swedish integration. In the days before the internet, the role of the organisation was partly to connect Swedish speakers with Swedish associations in Finland. Nowadays, Luckam has grown in terms of size and function and now serves much more of the wider community in Finland. As a team leader Veronica is part of a program that offers youth services, youth wellbeing support, children’s cultural activities and wider events aimed at engaging adults in culture.
Luckan services are available online across the whole of Finland and they have in person centres in Helsinki, Espoo, Porvoo and Kirkkonummi. Veronica goes on to explain that if you are based outside of Finland then they wouldn’t be able to help you as you need to be ‘in’ Finland to integrate with the community and culture.
She explains that Luckan Integration also help people by providing counselling in 8 different languages, networking opportunities and job hunting advice, social gatherings and senior workshops. Veronica says that she has been working with people towards integration in Finnish and Swedish cultures in Finland throughout her career, with people of different minorities and that she likes to see the Swedish speaking community of Finland open up.
Talking of opening up, Veronica tells us that Finnish people are not the most approachable for chit chat and small talk, but if you have a specific issue that you want advice to sort out then get ready - the Finn will talk about how to address the issue and will answer questions. So it is useful to have questions ready, to ask and be ready to listen to the answer. Mastering Finland regular listeners will be familiar with this advice from previous guests and whilst Veronica says that 70% of jobs in Finland are filled through networking, Matt adds that he thinks it is much higher than that.
In terms of travel tips for visitors to Finland, Veronica says that Helsinki is a must but otherwise beach or lake shore destinations in summer are the best and for a sense of adventure maybe some island hopping by ferry around that Ålånd Islands.
The podcast concludes with a brief discussion about the Finnish staples of new potatoes and salmon dishes, lamb, coffee, sauna and open water dipping which prompts a warming energy chat about getting old, being young and listening to mum’s advice or not! It takes a brave person to enter freezing cold water, it takes a brave person to move to Finland.
Be brave.
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