Swedish lessons take off across Europe
Published: 12 Feb 13 13:12 CET | Print version
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/46148/20130212/
An estimated 18,000 students worldwide are taking university lessons in Swedish in the hope of broadening their job horizons to include the Nordic nation.
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The biggest interest stems from Germany, where 7,500 people study the language.
"There are more people who study Swedish in Germany than people studying German in Sweden," Monika Wirkkala, department head at the Swedish Institute (SI), told the TT news agency.
One student, Danny Marr, chose Swedish as her main language in her Scandinavian Relations course at Humboldt University in Berlin, and isn't having any troubles either.
"Your grammar is so easy," she trumpeted.
Over 200 universities in a 38 countries offer Swedish classes, with an estimated 18,000 students around the globe learning to get their lips around the ö:s, å:s and ä:s.
And the reason people are lapping up the language? To improve career possibilities in the Nordic nation.
However, the language courses haven’t spread to every corner of the globe, at least not yet.
Wirkkala at SI points out that the lessons have yet to take off in South America or Africa, but that the European market is well-covered.
"It’s only Albania that doesn't have some kind of Swedish course," she said.
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Swedish is insignificant outside of Sweden, and besides you can get by in English here
They want to learn Swedish because they think that Sweden is where they want to move...So what? Sweden is generally a nice country. Loads learn English to move to the US for example. Do all Americans think the US is a paradise? Of course not. Sweden might be better than their homelands (the students I mean) and it's up to them to get the best out of Sweden and learning the language is just one step forward.
If you have no other comments but moaning, please keep them for yourself and let people dream work on realizing their dreams.
Has it occurred to you that English might be a slightly larger language than Swedish?
Like the posts n° 3 & 4, I would like to move to Sverige and trying to speak the local tongue. This should be welcome as the person is keen to integrate into local society.
Thank you for help.