Living with Swedish in the Vaasa area?

Cinead · Post by **Cinead** » Tue Sep 17, 2019 8:31 am

Hello everyone.

I know it is a subject prone to being mocked or dismissed among Finns and foreigners living in Finland alike, but I have a question about Vaasa and the overall Ostrobothnia province.

I am wondering if any of you knows if there's any actual real possibility of living (as in living, not ”surviving”) in this area of the country using swedish only? Meaning, in terms of job or getting friends or anything...?

I just cannot do with finnish, makes me borderline suicidal, while I actually really enjoy swedish. T
Most of what I've read online about that is always the same old ”Well you're in Finland so learn finnish you bugger!” ”Swedish is useless in Finland, speak english instead if you don't know finnish”, ”Swedish shouldn't even be considered an official language in Finland and has to go away!” Bla bla.
It seems these are the majority opinions, and that the vast majority of Finns and Finland living foreigners think alike on the subject.

But I still read on Wikipedia that there are in fact a respectable amount of towns and municipalities in the Ostrobothnia region where swedish is the majority language...

Also Åland or Sweden is a no for us, my fiancée is finnish and finnish speaking and not really interested in learning swedish, I can tell (although she says she'd be ok to do it for my sake (as she sees how depressed finnish makes me)).

**Sponsor:**

agroot · Post by **agroot** » Wed Sep 18, 2019 1:17 am

I know Finns from there who don't speak Finnish at all. So yes?

Life is fine for me with English alone and I can't think of any reason to learn aside from citizenship.

Cinead · Post by **Cinead** » Thu Sep 19, 2019 3:04 pm

agroot wrote: ↑
Wed Sep 18, 2019 1:17 am
I know Finns from there who don't speak Finnish at all. So yes?

Life is fine for me with English alone and I can't think of any reason to learn aside from citizenship.

Ok thanks.
Well to give you an example, all professional life aside, I'm a drummer, I want to be in a band. So yeah, a group of let's say five Finns, all speaking finnish with each other and suddenly I arrive like "hey guys, I'm here so speak english now!" I can't see that happening and I don't want to run into situations like that...

vla · Post by **vla** » Thu Sep 19, 2019 7:13 pm

agroot wrote: ↑
Wed Sep 18, 2019 1:17 am
I know Finns from there who don't speak Finnish at all. So yes?

Life is fine for me with English alone and I can't think of any reason to learn aside from citizenship.

How many friends do you have?

agroot · Post by **agroot** » Thu Sep 19, 2019 9:16 pm

vla wrote: ↑
Thu Sep 19, 2019 7:13 pm
How many friends do you have?

Finns? No more than a handful.

Jordi · Post by **Jordi** » Wed Sep 25, 2019 1:01 am

Hey

I've recently moved to Vaasa as my partner is from here and is also both a Swedish and Finnish speaker. I'd say that it's definitely possible, and a few of my friends here really speak very little to no Finnish at all and haven't really ever encountered situations where they couldn't get by with Swedish. For myself, I've chosen Finnish as my integration language, simply because I think it's easier as an English speaker to pick Swedish up passively through day-to-day life here in Vaasa.

You know yourself better than anyone, so if you feel you'll flourish learning Swedish as opposed to Finnish and you're living in the area, sure why not? You might encounter instances where you'll notice the limitations of not being able to speak Finnish, especially outside of Ostrobothnia, but you can always learn Finnish sometime down the line if you feel more confident with it.

Good luck!

latikajamal · Post by **latikajamal** » Fri Sep 27, 2019 5:14 pm

Hi I'm from vaasa

I can't speak and understand swedish/Finnish.
My husband is a Finnish/swedish, he's talking more on swedish to his friends, the reason why he wants me to learn swedish.
All the people around me even kids can speak English, so it's not hard for me to communicate.
Hope we can see each other and say hi to each other, im living in suvilahtti

Cinead · Post by **Cinead** » Mon Sep 30, 2019 2:16 pm

Thanks a lot for the answers!

I currently live in Helsinki but Vaasa and the surroundings are an attractive potential place to move to, because I certainly am more attracted to Swedish in every way... Maybe my fiancee could still use het native finnish there as well. ..

It does make the future a bit brighter to know that there might be a place where I might be able to actually connect with some people outside of my home...

Jordi · Post by **Jordi** » Fri Nov 01, 2019 2:59 am

latikajamal wrote: ↑
Fri Sep 27, 2019 5:14 pm
Hi I'm from vaasa
I can't speak and understand swedish/Finnish.
My husband is a Finnish/swedish, he's talking more on swedish to his friends, the reason why he wants me to learn swedish.
All the people around me even kids can speak English, so it's not hard for me to communicate.
Hope we can see each other and say hi to each other, im living in suvilahtti

That's awesome, I'm also living pretty close to Suvilahti in Vaasa!

I suppose it's a small country.

drk · Post by **drk** » Wed Nov 13, 2019 6:12 pm

Well, this reply is very late compared to the opening post ... but, yes, sure you can. There are many Swedish speakers here in Vaasa. Actually 1 in 3 is Swedish speaking. At work there are many who speak Swedish among each other, but mostly it's mixed.

I don't speak the near impossible elvish language either, and only have decent notions of Swedish. But I get along just fine in English and I have so for several years. The fact that there are multiple high schools/universities with a very international character means that you can get along in English just fine. The very few people I have met that do not speak English are usually older people, I'm talking 50+ at least. And I only met 1 person who didn't speak English or Swedish, only Finnish, in all those years.

So, welcome to Vaasa, if you have moved here already. If not, feel free to come over

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