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Jag heter Stephen. Vad heter du? |
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Written by Stephen Baines
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Wednesday, 23 August 2006 |
After last week Nigel getting his cast of, and us failing in our desperate attempts to catch crayfish (more on that anon hopefully when we've actually caught some or given up and bought a box of frozen ones), yesterday was a really quite important day for us in Sweden. Yesterday we went to our first Swedish for Immigrants lesson.
After a while of trying to find out information, hampered mainly by the fact that all the information on how to get information on the courses, enrol, etc was all in Swedish (chicken and egg springs to mind), we got a call on Monday afternoon to say that the course started Tuesday evening and we could attend. Nigel asked where it is "you can't miss is, everyone knows where it is", yes but where is it? "everyone in Eslöv knows where it is!". With that helpful information, and that it was behind a gymansium, we set off in the expectation of probably having to give up and raid the ICA or System Bolaget insttead.
The heavens well and truly opened for us, and the roads were awash with water. We wondered at times if we'd actually get to Eslöv, let alone find the place. The rain disappeared on the outskirts, and we found a school and a gymnasium. This proved to be a false dawn, as it was the wrong gymansium and school on the right road. One very helpful woman pointed us in the right direction "turn right" she said whilst pointing left... We trusted the hand, and it got us to the place.
We stood outside the building, and hoped it was the right one. We finally spotted a tiny little sign "SFI" and waited. A friendly woman came to the door and introduced herself to us, and invited us in, whilst explaining she was expecting a Canadian. I'm not sure if she was disappointed or not to have 2 Englishmen instead.
The first few minutes were real bunny in the headlights stuff. No idea what was going on, but it eventually ended up with most of the Poles in one room doing Svenska B and C (I think), a Pole and a Nigerian doing D, and us and another Pole in the remedial class with the picture books :) "Fill in this form" was our first instruction, I think it was an enrollment form, but I can't be sure! Second was "write about yourself". Erm... We've not learnt any Swedish yet, how can we? "No, in English". Ok...
So we wrote about ourselves and handed our work in, proud that our first lesson in Swedish was all written in English. Damn! That was too easy... "Jag heter Eva. Vad heter du?". Erm! Aargh! Straight into attempting to speak Swedish badly. Very badly. We learnt new sounds - we learnt that "sj" is someone blowing out a candle, whilst "sk" is someone almost trying to spit on a candle. Work have warned me today that "sg" is even more fun. I can't wait. "i" and "y" are totally different sounds in Swedish, but to an English ear I couldn't tell the difference. "Watch the mouth" was the hint given - "i" involves looking like Cheri Blair, whilst "y" involves some serious pouting that a supermodel would be proud of. We learnt that there is a difference between saying "glas" with a short "a" and "glass" with a long "a" - the difference between an ice cream and something to put it in. Oh, and I am never going to use the number 7 - I just cannot pronounce it. Who could have thought 3 letters could be so tough.
The lessons have proved worth it. Today at the coffee machine I was complimented by an American for my language skills "your English is very good, I couldn't tell you were Swedish". Sadly, neither could my Swedish teacher. |
