[michaelleland]

I lived and worked in Sweden for a bit more than a year (I'm an American) and one thing helped me get native friends: learning the language. Everybody speaks English well, but I found that the Swedes I was around were much more open when I started the relationship in their native tongue. I really noticed this about 6 months in when my Swedish had attained a certain level.

Now, I'm married to a Swede, and we moved with the express intent of learning the language to speak it to our children. It is a commitment, but as languages go it is close to English.