| I'm a native Swedish speaker in Finland[1], blessed with the rights that come with a second official national language. Growing up, I was something of a bookish basement dweller
and didn't speak the majority Finnish language outside lessons in school. I did, thank goodness, read Finnish literature, comics, computer magazines. So, when it was time to move away from home and I got my first real job that involved speaking a lot of Finnish, I had a couple of very awkward and terrible weeks at a corporate service desk call center. After that, I was fine, and grew more confident with Finnish as I developed a social life. At the end of the day, it's all about speaking. Languages are meant to be utilized for communicating with other people, so you just have to find some way of doing that, I think. I'm used to being clever and quick in my native language - and English - so I had to fight a lot of frustration with Finnish. I learned English and was comfortable speaking it in less than a school year, but English is also an easy language for a bookish and pop culture drenched Swedish speaker to pick up. Finnish has no relation to Germanic, or Indo-European languages, so it's a bit of an adventure.[2] What I can say is that being the kind of person who can sit around and listen to conversations for a while and chime in with a joke or question always helped me fit in in situations where I don't feel like taking charge. So, try and find your own social strengths and play to that. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish-speaking_population_of... 2. http://tasteoffinnish.fi/finnish/ |