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Hi HeatherJ and welcome to ½ûÂþÌìÌÃ!

Do not hesitate to browse through the forum, it may help.

Harmonie.

Hello,
Tell me more about yourself. I could be of help. I have a 6 yrs old son who also attends an English school. My email address is ifyokany@hotmail.com. Keep in touch!

A grasp of the language.

This is touched on in lots of the Forums but often not given the priority it needs. 

In my view Finnish society, certainly its bureaucracy, does not help the English speaker.  As an example 4 out of 5 of the web pages you look at that have an  'In English' button (many dont) if you click it most of the info in Finnish simply disappears.  Many government web sites do this.  I find it frustrating, if you go into these places there is ALWAYS someone who can speak a modicum of English.  If i'm honest it comes across as a wall or barrier to foreigners.

Is it fear or laziness? I dont know, information is hard to obtain for the non speaker. All the know how is there. Finland is small nation someone somewhere has made this decision

The country is generally highly educated and a great number of young people speak embarrassingly good English! A lot of them 'drop this' as they get older.

I love the country and people, we are moving  there ourselves this year :-), it is just something to be aware of

Good luck


Hyvää suomi!



Your child is still at a great age to learn as well, but you will need to get on with it sooner rather than later as it will ultimately only get harder for them

Ducatis, it is a question of resources. I think you greatly underestimate the level of expertise needed to produce reliable translations, the effort, the time and the price.

By law, all official documents have to be translated into Swedish for the benefit of our 5% language minority, which is already a burden in itself. Now the added burden of translating everything into English? For a handful of foreigners? For you?

I can't think of any country that would extend such hospitality to foreigners. Think of it as a generous and kind gesture from Finnish government bodies that they bother at all to provide material in English. There is no malicious conspiracy to keep you from reaching information.

Wow

We could discuss this for hours.

In the UK you are able to insist on help or a translator for most of the languages around the world!  The UK has probably gone too far with this and is one of a lot of reasons as to why the country has an immigration problem.

I hate to burst anyones bubble but despite being in the EU there is a lot of 'protectionism' applied by the Finnish authorities - and quite frankly I dont blame them.

As an example look at the importing of cars - if they applied the true spirit of the EU charter Finlands second hand car market would collapse (as well as values) there would be uproar from the public, jobs would also be affected.

Another example would be alcohol sales, business start ups, and many more things.

I am looking forward to once again living in a society that values its people.

I am fortunate that I have a basic grasp of Finnish and my lovely wife to help us.

I was merely replying to someone who wanted a frank answer about Finland

I went to Nope, I did not see a "Finnish" button. I did see a "Cymraeg" button, however. Clicked on Education. Still, no Finnish pages, everything was in English.

Well as Finland has two official languages (Finnish and Swedish), you click the Swedish language and then use Google Translator. Swedish sentence is easier to translate in English, then Finnish sentence. You should be able to understand most of the information and so on.

Janne, that is a practical solution to Ducatis' problem. However, I think the principal that everything is not provided in English is what is bothering him.

±á±ð¾±±è±èä
You are right and it is still frustrating...
I have been back in Finland for 5 weeks now - soon to return to UK :-(
Not for long though :-)
My wife went to the tax office yesterday in Kouvola - you would have no chance if you were not a Finnish or Swedish speaking!!!
Interesting to see so much now available in Russian - this was unusual when I lived here 11 years ago.
It is in all walks of life leisure centre, supermarkets, cinema, etc...
Soon to move near to Porvoo - I'll need to learn Swedish there!
PS Finland has been beautiful