Foreign Exchange in Finland...

crustacean · Post by **crustacean** » Sun Mar 22, 2009 10:45 pm

Hello everyone!
I am Anna from the USA, and I'm going to Finland for a year-long exchange program through Rotary. It will be for my junior year of high school.
Any information or tips about Finland would be great!

Thank you!

**Sponsor:**

raamv · Post by **raamv** » Sun Mar 22, 2009 11:08 pm

www.suomi.fi
www.infopankki.fi
http://www.expatfinland.com/

EP · Post by EP » Sun Mar 22, 2009 11:52 pm

http://www.virtual.finland.fi/

Pursuivant · Post by **Pursuivant** » Mon Mar 23, 2009 10:17 am

http://www.ilmatar.net/~np/misc/foreign ... nland.html

pres589 · Post by **pres589** » Mon Mar 23, 2009 4:08 pm

Do you know what part of the country you'll be going to? When do you leave for Finland?

crustacean · Post by **crustacean** » Thu Mar 26, 2009 3:55 am

No, I don't know yet...hopefully I'll find out soon.
I leave around August 3rd.
Thanks for the websites!

crustacean · Post by **crustacean** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 2:07 am

(so sorry for the double post)

I have a new question. So, I may have the chance to request placement in the Swedish-speaking part of Finland...does anyone have any opinions or information?

I'm thinking about it because Swedish is a much more practical language (it's related to other languages, etc), but I don't know much about the region. It'd be the west coast, by the way. I don't think I could go to the Aland Islands.
So, any advice would (once again) be greatly appreciated!

biscayne · Post by **biscayne** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 10:22 am

You'lll have a fab time. All the Americans who come as high-school exchangers do, trust me. You'll be able to drink, so you'll be pissed every weekend and you'll be able to get laid in an environment where everyone thinks it's completely normal to do so and your host family probably won't even mind or care if you have your boyfriend to stay over. There are no Sarah Palins here, and noone thinks Adam and Eve were real people. Enjoy

sammy · Post by **sammy** » Sat Mar 28, 2009 10:43 am

crustacean wrote:(so sorry for the double post)

I have a new question. So, I may have the chance to request placement in the Swedish-speaking part of Finland...does anyone have any opinions or information?
I'm thinking about it because Swedish is a much more practical language (it's related to other languages, etc), but I don't know much about the region. It'd be the west coast, by the way. I don't think I could go to the Aland Islands.
So, any advice would (once again) be greatly appreciated!

I think you should actually ask about this from the Rotary exchange coordinators, it probably depends on what sort of a network they have (?)

Anyway... most likely, Swedish would be easier for you to learn (since as a Germanic language it's much 'closer' to English than the fenno-ugric Finnish) - whether it's more practical I'm not sure, maybe if you wish to learn German (but even then the question is, why not just start learning German

) or if you'd be planning to live in the Scandinavian countries... just in case you didn't know, Finnish is also "related to other languages", most notably Estonian and in a much more distant way, Hungarian... But both Finnish and Swedish are minority languages if we compare them with the "big" European ones like English, Spanish, French and German.

If you need something to base your choice on, there are several features that make Finnish superior to Swedish, for example... erm... and... erm... and then, additionally... erm... well at least Finnish has a much more effective selection of swearwords than Swedish.

As for Swedish-speaking areas, check out this map

The blue areas denote bilingual municipalities, the darkest blue means that Swedish is the majority language. So if you're interested, head for those areas. Pietarsaari/Jakobstad for example

But I guess you could also apply to some Swedish-speaking lukio (upper secondary school) in the Helsinki area. As said it rather depends on what options the Rotary exchange provides for you.

raamv · Post by **raamv** » Sun Mar 29, 2009 2:23 pm

If you end up going to a village, then the only fun will be with school friends who will be racing with Tractors..even in the winter!!
So make sure that you go to a place which is close to a big town...or have access to Helsinki/Turku/Tampere within easy reach by bus/train..
and all things American will be 5-10 times more expensive than there so come prepared to live in very basic "simple life" kinda life here..

charline34980 · Post by **charline34980** » Sun Mar 29, 2009 9:49 pm

Hello anna!

I'm french and I'm going to study next year for one year at the university in Helsinki. It would be great we could speak about it! Are you going to helsinki?
I live in Montpellier, I'm 20 years old and I study buisiness!
Excuse my poor english!!!

Bye bye!
Charline

crustacean · Post by **crustacean** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 6:31 am

Wow, thanks so much for the information!
Yeah, I did know that Finnish was related to Estonian/Hungarian, actually...must've slipped my mind

I still don't know where I'm going, Charline, so I'll let you know when I find out.

And wow, biscayne, that sounds perfect to me.

Finland Forum

Find information about moving to, living in and life in Finland