After a couple months of arranging all the necessary administrative tasks when moving to a new country (residency card, person number, ID card), I was able to register for SFI or Swedish for Immigrants. SFI is a free language class provided by the Swedish government to aid in the integration process. I currently go to class for three hours every morning, Monday through Friday.

Even though I couldn’t wait to start taking classes, I was really nervous for my first day. From everything that I read, classes would be conducted entirely in Swedish. This isn’t my first time learning a foreign language, but it would be the first time that things wouldn’t be explained in English if the class was struggling to understand. Also, Swedes have the highest proficiency in English as a second language in all of Europe so this would truly be the first time that I would not be able to communicate with people. At all.

The first thing the teacher had me do on my first day was introduce myself to the class, in Swedish of course. I also said where I came from (which seemed to shock a couple of my classmates) and how long I’d been in Sweden. One by one, my classmates introduced themselves; they were from Serbia, Morocco, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Chechnya. I was the only one from an English speaking country and probably the only one whose native tongue uses the same letters as Swedish. I can’t imagine how much more difficult that would make learning a new language.

Several of my classmates were still confused about my native country after my introduction. I can’t blame them, I was speaking so softly I’m pretty sure only the people sitting next to me could hear what I said. I was asked almost every day by a different student where I was from and I would always say USA with the Swedish pronunciation of the letters. One day, several students came up to me and asked if I was from Russia (or I think that’s what they were asking). I showed them the map of the world in our classroom and pointed out the US and they said yes, Russia. I suppose they are both big countries in the Northern Hemisphere, but I finally just said United States. Then everyone understood: Oh! United States! Obama! You speak English? And now half the class has nicknamed me United Nations….

The young woman from Iraq, who sits across from me in class, was very kind to me during my first week and we’ve become friends. She would explain the worksheets and ask to check my work when I finished. We discovered that we live on the same street when we were practicing writing our addresses! Sometimes after class, we talk for a little bit. Mostly it’s her speaking Swedish and me understanding, but not knowing enough Swedish to respond. So then I write my responses into Google translate and she reads them. Unfortunately, Google translate betrays me frequently; I once asked her how long she’s lived in Sweden and she responded by telling me that the winters are very cold. A lot gets lost in translation during our conversations, but friendship is a universal language.

A lot of times in class, students work on assignments together. Generally, students with similar first languages will work together so everyone completes their assignments. I’m on my own in that respect, but I’ve been able to handle the worksheets without outside help. Last week, I had just finished a practice test when a couple of students said “Titta! Titta!” to me, which meant they wanted to look at my paper. I handed over my test thinking they were going to compare their answers to mine to make sure they were on the right track. Instead, one student took out her phone and took pictures of each page of my practice test and started copying my answers. Umm, what exactly is going on here?? My blood was boiling and my face was hot! I need to illustrate this further:

This wasn’t the first time in my life someone tried copying my work, but I’ve never seen someone be so brazen about it! And since the beginning of time, I’ve HATED people cheating on schoolwork, especially if they’re trying to cheat off of me. They handed my test back and said “Jättebra!” meaning great! I couldn’t say a word. This unfortunately began a new trend among some students. They would just reach across the table, say “titta” and try to take my worksheets. It took me about a week, but I finally refused enough and instead tried to explain in my broken Swedish what to do. Now, the one who photographed my test has started to do the worksheets on her own and then show me when she’s done. I try to go over any mistakes with her, but it’s mostly me underlining certain words and trying to explain why that affects the spelling of other words later in the sentence. Of course, I’m explaining in English so who knows how helpful I actually am.

I really enjoy being in school again and having somewhere to be every day. Swedish isn’t an easy language to learn, mostly because it sounds very different from English. You’d be surprised how difficult it is to say some words when you’ve never used those particular sounds or tones before. Hopefully the frequency and length of the classes will make me a pro in no time, otherwise I’ll just resort to writing notes in Swedish like a middle schooler 😉