Norrland Newbie – ’I was so embarrassed’

Tisha Cox, who recently moved with her family from the United States to northern Sweden, is striving to speak Swedish but finding it a little troublesome. 

As the weeks have progressed, I’ve moved past my initial homesickness and life in Sweden has felt like an exciting adventure! 

Before coming to Sweden, I thought a lot about what it might be like to experience the dark winters, but I didn’t spend much time thinking about the endless light of summers here in the north. 

During my first few weeks, I was totally surprised by how much sunlight there was at bedtime. More than once I woke up in the middle of the night, thinking I had overslept. One day, my son and I were so confused, we thought we might have slept through an entire day! It took a few minutes for us to come out of our sleep-clouded state enough to realize that, even though it looked like it was after noon, it was only 5am, not 5pm. 

During the height of summer, I noticed that we, and many of our neighbors, were outside late into the night enjoying the extra sunshine. It made me wish there were no external obligations, and we could just stay up with the sun all summer long. 

Over the weeks, we’ve continued to meet several of our neighbors. Each one has been so warm and welcoming. One couple even took us to special places along the river and showed us a good fishing spot. They brought juice, we brought cookies, and we had a little fika right there beside the river.

I’ve been so pleasantly surprised by the kindness of the people around us. We had heard that it would be difficult to get to know people in Sweden, but people here seem very friendly and inviting. Our neighbors have been so lovely to us. 

I was unsure of what to expect as an immigrant to another country. Where I’m from, some people have a very anti-immigrant mentality. I don’t completely understand it, but I guess  people could have fears about a large influx of outsiders. But so far, we haven’t encountered ill-feeling of any kind. In any case, can be good representatives of who immigrants are. We can be respectful of Sweden, for allowing us to live here. We want to embrace the culture and contribute to society. In keeping with that endeavor, one area I’m hoping to greatly improve on is my Swedish language. I have learned a lot of basic words and phrases, but I feel a lack of confidence in speaking. The US is a big monolingual country and it’s difficult (in many parts of the country) to ever get the opportunity to speak another language on any kind of consistent basis. Learning languages in a vacuum, without any substantial oral practice, has been my only experience until now. 

So, I’ve been trying to set small goals for myself to use words and phrases I’ve practised. 

I was so proud of myself when I asked the woman at the store, “Talar du engelska?” 

However, I was very embarrassed when a man at a restaurant was asking if we needed “mer tid,” and my English-speaking brain kept thinking he was saying something about teeth, rather than offering to give us more time to choose. I was extremely confused. 

One neighbor advised me to just speak and they would understand, even if I made mistakes. 

And if they laugh, they’re not laughing at me, just at my mistake. Haha! That made me feel a little better. I’m going to try, and I’m going to make mistakes.  And I’ll just have to laugh at myself, too. 

My next goal is to start a proper conversation with a neighbor in Swedish and not give them enough time to start speaking to me in English first! We can all dream.