can a swedish manage in finland?

[Dalmatinac]

yes you can

[interleukin]

Well, you could do your homework and find out which parts of the Finnish empire are monolingual Swedish speaking.

[biscayne]

You might be able to manage working in a "local" shop in a village miles (well kilometres....) from anywhere and where all the locals speak only swedish. For any decent jobs, much tougher. If you are a lecturer in a swedish language university, teacher in a swedish language school, kindergarten etc.......maybe. But for other jobs you still have to deal with the rest of Finland.....it just narrows your job search and possibilities a lot. Depends what your profession is too.

[biscayne]

Unless you get a job in the Aland islands......

[Pursuivant]

Titta på här http://www.mol.fi/mol/se/index.jsp Lediga jobb & platsvakten och så vidare.

Alla Finnar måste Svenska i skolan. Efter skolan de flesta vill inte Svenska.

[onkko]

Of course you can, you do limit area in really small tho.
There is some swedish speaking areas where finnish is not needed but.... Well if you like rural life behind of gods back Or you can move to ahvenanmaa where swedish is only language.

[Flossy1978]

Porvoo might be alright.

I was visiting there and some people couldn't even speak Finnish and they were obviously Finns, but Swedish speakers. I am not saying the whole place is Swedish speaking. But if I remember correctly, on all the signs etc, Swedish came before Finnish. We went to museums etc.... And some of the people just looked at us (my Finnish friends and I) when my friends would speak Finnish to them. They couldn't speak Finnish, the workers. Luckily one friend of mine could speak Swedish.

It's not impossible to live here knowing only Swedish, just got to find the right area. Like Vaasa. For instance there is Mustasaari which when I was living there had nothing but the odd little village here and there.... The one I lived in had 400 people who'd all have to drive 15km a day into Vaasa City for work, school etc. Every single one of them was a Swedish speaker. Yeah, I got to know and at least talk to just about everyone since I was such a 'cool Aussie' living there. Some kind of 'attraction' LOL. And they were Swedish speaking, so, so much friendlier than down south in Helsinki.

[browndude]

Of course you can, one of my Finnish colleague was telling me that he served in the Swedish regiment and was "horrified" to find that some of the Finns did not know a word of Finnish

[Upphew]

Of course you can, one of my Finnish colleague was telling me that he served in the Swedish regiment and was "horrified" to find that some of the Finns did not know a word of Finnish

They learn. The command language is Finnish even there.

[jahasjahas]

But if I remember correctly, on all the signs etc, Swedish came before Finnish.

Nope. The order depends on which language has the majority. Porvoo is 64.7% Finnish and 30.7% Swedish.

We went to museums etc.... And some of the people just looked at us (my Finnish friends and I) when my friends would speak Finnish to them. They couldn't speak Finnish, the workers. Luckily one friend of mine could speak Swedish.

I lived in Porvoo for ~15 years, and this sounds pretty strange to me.

[cors187]

I did a private job not long ago and the family is Swedish speaking, kids go to a swedish speaking school.
The father and I were trying to figure out which electricity fuse belonged to the lower sauna/bathroom, obviously he dont speak finnish at all , so he phones his wife whose a Finn, after some time the son walks in (maybe 10 years old) and says, I know some Finnish.
Classic, there must be loads of peeps who never bothered to learn Finnish.

[browndude]

I have heard/observed that for some Swedish Finns, not speaking Finnish (or pretending not to), is a badge of honor in their community. No one will say this out loud of course.