Just moved to Vaasa

Gavin Harper · Post by **Gavin Harper** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 1:16 am

Ayye, jumped in at the deep end! haha!
I've moved in with my Finnish girlfriend and will be starting university at next possible chance... i've spent the last while touring with my band.

I'm from Scotland so i'm a native english speaker and have a pretty good grasp at Swedish but need to improve a lot of course.

I realise my chances are essentially nil, just, what SORT of work could i do?
Iäve made some friends locally in the bar trade and hope to get a job if someone quits, but does anyone know any good starting points?

Appreciated!

**Sponsor:**

Cloudberry · Post by **Cloudberry** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 2:04 am

Gavin Harper wrote:I'm from Scotland so i'm a native english speaker and have a pretty good grasp at Swedish but need to improve a lot of course.

I didn't know Swedish was the official language in Vaasa

otyikondo · Post by **otyikondo** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 2:10 am

Cloudberry wrote:
Gavin Harper wrote:I'm from Scotland so i'm a native english speaker and have a pretty good grasp at Swedish but need to improve a lot of course.
I didn't know Swedish was the official language in Vaasa

As it happens, the poster could have picked one hell of a lot of other places where it would be of less use to him. A quarter of the population are Swedish-speakers, and the surrounding area is even more densely populated with Swedish-speakers. So the remark was a bit overly snarky.

Best of luck up there, Gavin, but get weaving on the Finnish, and quick.

Alicia · Post by **Alicia** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 8:07 am

Great to hear that you have jumped in the deep end! You'll get very far in Vaasa with just Swedish. I've coped just fine. Get going to Arbis or Vaasan Opisto. Courses have just started last week. Get signed up for Finnish or Swedish lessons.

Try:

Kalles Inn
Sports Bar (former Koti)
Strampen

I know that these places have foreigners working there and they are happy with them.

Otherwise there are plenty and I mean PLENTY of jobs floating around in technology, Wärtsilä, ABB, Vacon, Vaasa Engineering etc.

annekmc · Post by **annekmc** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 9:15 am

Welcome to Finland

As Alicia said you should try out Wärtsilä, ABB, Vacon, Vaasa Engineering etc. Most of these places can be happy with just English depending on the job available, so Swedish is a big help.

You should try to pick up some Finnish though, ask at the unemployment office about courses, they had very good maahanmuutaja courses available when I first moved here and from there you do work experience, I was offered work in every work experience place I had, once people realise you have a good work ethic they are more than willing to take you on. Must be something to do with how great us Scots are

Anyway in this area, as you probably already know you really need Swedish as well as Finnish, so you are half way there. Good luck, hope all goes well.

Gavin Harper · Post by **Gavin Harper** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 10:08 am

Brilliant, thanks guys!

what sort of skills/degrees are required for a job at Wärtsilä, ABB, Vacon, Vaasa Engineering?

Or is it a, they hire you and you pick it up?

jas_rho · Post by **jas_rho** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 11:59 am

Cloudberry wrote:
Gavin Harper wrote:I'm from Scotland so i'm a native english speaker and have a pretty good grasp at Swedish but need to improve a lot of course.
I didn't know Swedish was the official language in Vaasa

Yeah what kind of comment was that? Swedish is the 2nd official language of all of Finland. And like someone else pointed out, there is a large percentage of Swedish speakers there in Vaasa. It should help you a lot that you speak Swedish.

sinikettu · Post by **sinikettu** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 12:36 pm

Gavin Harper wrote:
what sort of skills/degrees are required for a job at Wärtsilä, ABB, Vacon, Vaasa Engineering?

Or is it a, they hire you and you pick it up?

These are heavy power/electical enginering/ship builders..check their web sites.
The first two are big and international and are more likely to be less fussy about language skills.
But problem will be the social chit chat in the coffee rooms .
Start with your table manners and basics in Swedish and work hard on your Finnish.

TampereOwl · Post by **TampereOwl** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 12:39 pm

Swedish is very widely spoken there, and will get you pretty far. Plenty of the local Swedish population aren't that great at Finnish either (but that's no reason not to learn it as well as you possibly can).

I vaguely remember reading there are a lot of agricultural jobs around Southern Ostrobothnia, many taken by immigrants. Places like Närpes and Jakobstad, maybe?

EP · Post by EP » Tue Sep 30, 2008 1:35 pm

There are plenty of monolingual Swedish-speakers in that area. According to my bi-lingual (Swedish-Finnish) daughter-in-law-to-be Vaasa is the only place in Finland (except of course Åland) where you can live your life speaking only Swedish.

TampereOwl · Post by **TampereOwl** » Tue Sep 30, 2008 3:10 pm

EP wrote:There are plenty of monolingual Swedish-speakers in that area. According to my bi-lingual (Swedish-Finnish) daughter-in-law-to-be Vaasa is the only place in Finland (except of course Åland) where you can live your life speaking only Swedish.

I would add Jakobstad to that. That actually has a majority of Swedish speakers.

Upphew · Post by **Upphew** » Thu Oct 02, 2008 10:55 am

jas_rho wrote:
Cloudberry wrote: Yeah what kind of comment was that? Swedish is the 2nd official language of all of Finland. And like someone else pointed out, there is a large percentage of Swedish speakers there in Vaasa. It should help you a lot that you speak Swedish.

I think Swedish is the 1st _official_ language because you have right to use it anywhere in Finland... Finnish is not official language in Åland... unofficially its of course mob rule and the biggest mob is speaking Finnish.

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