Gab
enjoys being in the woods  
was surprised how people opened up   
little sister doesn’t speak English   
isn’t very motivated to learn Finnish  

Laura
interested in artistic things  
was concerned about how to cope with lessons at schools  
host father is British  
likes languages  

Miguel
likes water sports
was worried about how to make friends in Finland
somewhat motivated to learn Finnish.

Laura: My name is Laura. I’m from Italy, to be specific, from Sicily. I have been in Finland since August, which is six months, or five. I’m really interested in theater and singing and all the artistic things in general. 

Gab: My name is Gab. I’m from Canada, specifically the French part of Canada, so Quebec. I’m eighteen, and I would say my interest would be mostly camping, going out indoors, pretty much anything in the forest I really really like. 

Miguel: Hey, I’m Miguel, I’m from Portugal, from Lisbon. I’m seventeen and have been in Finland for six months and I like sports – like especially in the sea – traveling and meeting new people also, and music also. I like music a lot. 

Coming to Finland

Laura: I was really anxious, like I was always dreaming about leaving, always, and at least one week before, or two weeks before coming here. Then when I came here it was easier than I expected it to be. I was like “Now, what can I do? How can I do this? How can I make friends? How can I start school?” I was so surprised about these English courses, like I was “How can I follow the lessons, they are in Finnish? Like, I don’t understand a word. Am I going to study it? Am I going to learn it just by listening to it?” Lots of doubts. And now it feels, I feel really comfortable here. We have been adapting after all this time, I guess. 

Miguel: I was also really nervous, because I heard that Finnish people are really closed and don’t talk too much. Not that that is a bad thing, but I heard that, and was kind of nervous, that it would be difficult to make friends or that I wouldn’t get along with people that well. But I think, after a while, I got used to it and I think it is a good thing. 

Gab: Yeah, me too. I think at first I really thought that they’re gonna leave me totally alone and nobody is ever gonna talk to me and I was like “that’s alright,” at first, but I want to make friends of course. I was surprised that people actually opened up more than I thought. And that’s quite nice. 

Communication

Miguel: When I arrived in Finland, I spoke mostly English with my family, especially with my parents and my older brother, because they spoke English. But I have two little brothers who don’t speak English at all so it was more difficult to communicate with them, so I tried to communicate by gestures or by something. But I think with time I got to learn the language better and use it to communicate with them. 

Gab: At first, I spoke mostly English with my family because I met them a little bit later, because I had to change my host family. Right now I still do, I do speak a lot of English with them, because it’s quite comfortable and they like to speak English with me. But when I can, and I try, I speak Finnish with them so they can understand me a little bit more. And my little sister doesn’t speak English either, so I have to communicate in Finnish with her. And they know they can speak a bit of Finnish to me, but they have to know that I might not understand, and they need to be able to translate what they have to say to me. But yeah, I’m getting there. 

Laura: For me the situation is a little bit different because my host father is from England, so my little sister speaks English so it’s easy to speak English at home with all the members of the family. So, we practically never speak Finnish, even though sometimes I want to speak a little bit Finnish because I want to improve it, just a little bit. But usually it’s mostly English, and with my friends, I could say that I never speak Finnish, like practically never. 

Finnish language

Gab: Personally, I think it’s- well I want to learn Finnish of course, but there’s not a lot of motivation there because it’s almost useless as a language, because there’s only this country here who speaks it. And I know that pretty much nobody in Canada who speaks Finnish. Unless I come to university here or something, I’m not really gonna speak Finnish. But I really want to learn it, anyways. 

Miguel: I think, because at the beginning, Finnish is such a different language from other languages, like it sounded so different to me. I was curious to learn and to understand that language because it was so different, so I think I got kind of motivated. I think it’s like a super power to know Finnish, because not many people speak it. So in final, for example, Portuguese and Finnish. There are not too many people that speak those two languages together so I think it’s really good. Maybe one day I can use it. I don’t know how the future goes, but yeah. 

Gab: I think that applies to most of us, because, well, who speaks Italian and Finnish? 

Laura: Yeah but I don’t know, how could I ever use it if I don’t come here after finishing high school. But still, I always like languages, and just for personal culture I would really like to learn Finnish and to be able to speak it or to understand it just a little bit.