thanks for sharing Ines! Its always fun to hear from others that have had positive SFI stories and experiences🤗my teachers have all been super great and helpful too🤩 where did you study SFI? and did you continue onto SVA? :)
It's definitely a great service indeed, and being free is incredible! My class is fortunately fairly small, I was originally placed higher (3C) after completing an introductory test/interview, but I actually don't feel particularly suited at that level and so have asked to move down a place where I feel much more comfortable.
Thanks for sharing your story! And I'm glad to hear your experience has also been positive🤗 a great example of taking control of your learning and really working out what you want to get out of it and what pace works best for you😊 you'll go far with Swedish, I'm sure🙌🏻 and the fact its free will never fail to impress me!
I worked a bit extra as supply teacher at SFI (a long time ago). Some problems and maybe part cause of its bad rep was ... A lot of students (where and when I was there) were unemployed immigrants who only spoke swedish at school, at other times they would never meet anyone to talk swedish with. Add that many lacked experience of higher studies, were 30+ y old and some had worries from fleeing troubled areas or relatives and friends still there in trouble. So as a middle class european who are used to a school system, the latin alfabet and have friends to practice the language with, the experience and results of SFI will naturally be different.
Oh really Anders? How interesting that you worked with SFI for a while. As you say, its understandable that the level and experience is so difference, on the basis that people come to SFI with so many different backgrounds and experiences. Either way, I just think its fantastic to have the opportunity to study Swedish for free, whatever your background! Its a really nice offer to help people integrate!
@@JustaBritAbroad Mind you, this was also before the internet and mobile break through, something that hopefully helps ppl in a similar situation today.
Very interesting. How you described your test experience summed up my entire Swedish school experience. Lots of cramming before tests and still feeling underprepared and very stressed and sometimes we had 3 tests the same week and one time 3 tests the same day. It gets pretty crazy and I think this is just our school culture and not a payroll method but I can see how it might feel that way. With the success with teaching English this way I think they decided to teach Swedish the same way too. I love the giveaway idea! Lycka till to the participants! :)
Thanks for dropping by Ambi! I'm sure, as you say, that its got a lot to do with how the system is setup here as opposed to cashing in on a student completing their courses. I was trying to be really fair and balanced in this video so I felt like in the interests of transparency, I had to give that a mention as its something that circulates, but I agree with you that there's got to be a lot more too it than that. In that way, our school systems are fairly similar I think, because we also start quite young in England and the pressure mounts very quickly, with bigger tests defining whether you can continue and get the programmes and choices you want fairly frequently, so I can definitely relate to the feelings you describe! But as you say, if it gets results, why not! It makes sense, right👌 And so fun to hear that you thought the giveaway was a good idea! I just thought it would be a fun way to help people looking to get started, as I've had lots of comments from learners asking about books and resources I used, so why not pass them on to a new home🤗 thanks for watching though and I hope you have a great week🙌🏻
Wow, I had no idea that this was all free! Maybe I WILL look into this... hmmm. Thank you so much for another great video and for all the information! ☺️
No problem at all Ellary! I'm glad to hear that you found it useful🤩 yeah, that's right - SFI is entirely free, you just need to sign up and wait to be allocated a place! Can't really complain about that right🙌🏻 let me know if anything doesn't make sense!
All of you wonderful people wanting to learn Swedish, please remember that immersion is very helpful and can come from many sources. Yes, speaking is important and you can talk to yourself or record yourself, but listening to the language through music, movies or tvshows also help as get them in a context! As a swede I've also learnt English - fluent and certified in Cambridge advanced English through my school - Spanish, Italian, some Latin and I'm currently learning Japanese by myself and the Japanese from zero videos and books. There are many ways to learn and languages are a wonderful thing to know! Hope you all succeed with your goals!
Some really useful words here Cat! and I completely agree with you, speaking is one thing but its also about understanding the context and how to apply different colloquialisms because that's what really allows you to integrate and to express yourself properly, and give a flavour of your personality. It certainly sounds like you have an interesting journey when it comes to languages. Would you like to learn anymore after Japanese and if so, what might be next?
@@JustaBritAbroad I guess Japanese will take up a lot of years to reach fluency haha but I love languages and would love to learn maybe hindi or Korean and maybe give Russian a try. It actually gets easier the more languages one knows as they are a lot similar and it gets easier to understand the mechanics 🙂 how about you?
@@catsarkioja7423 I only speak English, Swedish and beginners Spanish but I'd love to learn more once I feel like I've fully mastered Swedish. Such a fun skill to have!
It is interesting how motivation works, in your case you have to learn the language to properly interact and be a part of the Swedish system. Also at a young age learning is easier, the older you get the less cooperative your brain gets as it ages! You can of course learn a language at an older age but look at the Swedish queen, she has a german accent that she couldn't get out of her Swedish speaking part! Ha en trevlig söndag!
You're right Sina, it certainly doesn't get easier the older you get! I wish I'd started learning a second language earlier actually, that would have been fun🤗 but you got to love a challenge right😉thanks for stopping by, and I'm glad to hear you found it interesting🤩🙌🏻 hoppas att du ha en trevlig eftermiddag!
Completely agree with that, I'm 40 and I'm finding it fairly hard to learn a second language, but it's also about how your brain works in regards to learning language, mine isn't very "evolved" 😜
Croatian girlfriend completed all available levels of SFI and SVA in probs 6month, being all fluent. She even corrects me. She had the luck of living with a swede.
Very impressive, well done her! I'd love to have been that fast, but its hard to fit in around working full-time and stuff, so I've probably done it in 1.5yrs or something so far. Very impressive dedication from her though, way to go!
I'm curious about your working relationship. Do you have many colleagues you meet daily, (maybe not right now in these times) and who talks to you in Swedish? If, for your convenience, they switch to English, they are only doing you a disservice. The best way to learn a language after learning the basics of grammar is to be surrounded by it and use it daily.
Good question! Work isn't something I've really got into much yet on this channel, but I'm getting quite a few questions about it at the moment, so perhaps I'll have to do a follow up sometime with more detail! But what I can say for now is that, in normal times, I work in an office with about 15-20 others, all of whom are Swedish. When we work, for the most part we only speak Swedish together, same at lunchtimes. There's certain people or meetings that I take in English, but only when its needed because, for example, we're preparing for a meeting with an international customer, for example. But you're right, I definitely didn't start to notice the difference with my Swedish until I was using the language daily, but it took me some time to pluck up the courage to use it! This is my second job since arriving in Sweden, and at the first one I barely spoke Swedish until almost when I decided to leave, when I finally plucked up the courage to do some fika/lunch conversation. But since moving, I just decided to throw myself in at the deep end and really give it a go. And I'm so glad I have!
My SFI experience has been so far: August 2020 - Applied to SFI November 2020 - Start course (only 2 weeks it was a joke) December 2020 - SFI C (one month in this course) April 2021 - SFI D (one month in this course) August 2021 - I will start SVA delkurs 3 day course I think it really varies where you live.... the waiting times are ridiculous I think I have waited a total of 8 months with only 2ish months being in SFI. They also put me in a distance course which was the only one available so I can barely speak because we only had class 2 hours a week. They told us SVA grund distance has no meetings whatsoever so I am taking the daytime class (15 hours per week of lessons for free 😍) which will really help me so I’m looking forward to it! The teachers I had were amazing, kind and really try to help out the students as much as possible, however the administration behind it all is very questionable... it’s hard to complain cause it’s free but I honestly feel like I’d be much more ahead and integrated with society if there were no waiting times :(
sorry to hear that your experience has been such a mixed bag! I actually really enjoyed learning on distance, because I could progress at my own pace and rate, but I can appreciate that that's not for everyone! where are you living? I guess its Gothenburg, Stockholm or Malmö to have such mental wait times?
@@JustaBritAbroad Yeah, I think largely because of corona I felt a bit isolated. Now I go on italki and talk with Swedish tutors :) I'm actually living in Umeå!
@@caesarsalad8484 yeah I can understand that to be honest! the pandemic made everything so much more difficult. But fun that you've managed to get back on track again now! Umeå's lovely too - I've only been once - in the summer, when it snowed actually😆 hoppas att du trivs där!
@@caesarsalad8484 jaså? så kul!! jag har en video planerat i juli när jag kommer att prata om min resa i Skåne och Blekinge i lite mer detalj och sen delar lite tips om vad man skulle besöka och uppleva. Det låter som det kommer att vara användbart och intressant för dig! hur kul att du ska resa där också snart!
I have been trying to learn Swedish but what makes it hard is that nobody where I live speaks Swedish! So I do my best to slowly learn as much as I can (or relearn, since I did have some knowledge of the language when my sister lived in Stockholm).
@@JustaBritAbroad sadly my sister passed away. I bought several books to help and find that watching videos in Swedish - such as Hampus Hedstrom or singers singing in Swedish with closed captioning on - helps! (:
@@freemangriffin4953 ah no I'm so sorry to hear that, how dreadful. I'd really recommend listening to Radio Sweden på lätt svenska if you're not already doing that? That was a really helpful way for me to get started at least!
#FreeEducation I am hyped. Lets go Sweden, we are on a roll! Oh and btw, the school for the younglings are completely free of charge aswell. Each studen/child costs around 2 119 800 KR. So yeah, remember that when you go to school and think it is hell. :D (I learnt that number in school btw. I don't know if it is true but it's what my teacher told me.)
Who knew that was the cost?!? I certainly didn't! So interesting to be able to put a figure on it haha very impressive! Free education is defiinitely a great plus though!
As a native Swedish speaker I have no personal experience of SFI, but I have heard loads of rumours floating around, probably because some tend to jump to conclusions. A few immigrants they may have met with... ummmm let's say not too impressive knowledge of Swedish does not necessarily mean that SFI is a waste of tax payers' money. In the end, it is always up to the individual to learn the new language and put some effort into the process. It cannot be easy at all times; perhaps it is necessary to learn a new alphabet, the grammar is different and many of the sounds are new. Still, the homework has to be done and I hope they take every chance they get to practise and develop their Swedish further. Probably needless to say that the vast majority will speak the language with an accent and that is, of course, ok but if they try, it will also improve over time. While I'm at it: not everybody has a talent for languages, but as long as they do their best, they deserve respect for it.
Thanks for your thoughts Staffan! and you're right, there's certainly a lot of rumours that whirl around, and that was actually part of the reason why I thought this video might be a good idea, to try and explain to people that its worth giving it a shot for yourself and making your own conclusions, because the rumours aren't always entirely fair😊but you're right, as long as people are trying their best and have an interest and desire to learn, that's a great start!
SFI is kommun based so they have zero incentive for pushing students for money. I’ve obviously never studied there being a Swede but I can tell you in general that our school/education system and post school education is demanding. Students need to work hard and devote the time to pass. Our teachers expect us to make the effort, after all, they are there for us. They have a curriculum for a reason. Especially adults are treated as responsible individuals. I can’t imagine SFI being different. People expect to be spoon fed Swedish or what? 🤣 Sweden values education. Great thing. To Swedish learners. Please speak Swedish. I only post in English here now but IRL I speak Swedish to learners, unless they specifically approach me in English/don’t speak any Swedish. Speaking several languages myself, I’d never have learned them if people didn’t use them with me. We don’t care about accents or language perfection. We hear that you’re new in 🇸🇪 so make the best and most of it. I think it’s a serious issue as not learning the language makes people much more dependent, heavily reliant on others, not understanding the society/culture and do you want that as a 18-20+? And it’s kind of rude to expect to be catered to in English 😉 Link English here utbildningsguiden.skolverket.se/utbildning-for-vuxna/om-utbildning-for-vuxna/sfi---svenska-for-invandrare
Thanks for sharing Anna! This was actually one of the reasons I made this video, to help others who are also looking to get started but find themselves a bit confused about the options available to them. As you probably heard when I spoke in the video, I'm quite a dedicated and motivated learner, so having a strong curriculum that demanded a lot of me, worked for me. But I agree with you, its great to be able to pick up something of the language to begin to communicate and really take part in the society. Its actually thee reason I started the channel to hep others also looking to get started🤗 because as you probably heard from the video, I for one don't want or expect to be catered for in English😅 har en bra kväll!
@@JustaBritAbroad du skulle göra en video om bostadsstandard i England vs Sverige. Du hittar nog ingen svensk som inte är chockad? Jag visste inte det här om SFI?
@@bosse1998 oooh det kunde vara intressand! Menar du lägenhet kvalitiet t.ex eller hur BRF funkar i Sverige vs England? Kul att du lärde dig något nytt om SFI från videon då🤩
@@JustaBritAbroad kvalitet. I Sverige delar man aldrig lägenhet. Man bor inte trångt. Inget mögel. Treglasfönster. Jag fick en chock när jag kom hit 2001!
Thank you for the video. Can you also make a video about svenska som andra språk? How was your experience? What materials they use? How do they plan it according to your needs if they even do that? How time consuming it can be and other stuff, I know you briefly mentioned it in another video; but maybe in more detail this time? I’ll start grundläggande delkurs4 in a couple of weeks and have no idea how it works, since it will be my first Swedish course ever:))
good idea Sara! It's actuallly something that was on my list to put together, but I thought I'd start at the beginning with SFI first and see if people found it useful and interesting🤗 are you doing it at diistance or with a group? as my experience was that this would affect how tailored it can be for you and your needs! To give you some perspective and a brief answer for now, as it could be a while until I can get around to following up, if you are pursuing at distance like I did, I found grundläggande fairly well paced! They gave you some suggestions on how much you would need to study a week, and suggested term schedules based on whether you wanted to commit 8 hours a week, 4 hours a week etc. If I remember correctly, you had to buy your textbooks yourself at that level too, but they'll acvise you of all of that :) since I was a dstance student, I had to book teacher time when I felt like I needed it, otherwise it was quite self-directed to progress at the rate that worked best for you. But that worked for me quite well actually. Lycka till!!🇸🇪👌
@@JustaBritAbroad Thanks for your reply🙂Mine is at distance. Sounds very good that you can book a session with a teacher, I wonder if there is any limit to that in terms of how many sessions per week🧐 Im also in the region Östergötland 🇸🇪
@@Sara-su1bi anytime Sara! Its so fun that you decided to write, so the least I can do is try and reply and get back to you🙌🏻 good question about whether there's a limit or not, I'm not actually sure to be honest. But the way the course worked meant that you booked a session when you wanted feedback or to discuss a particular issue, because of course its a self-booked workshop, instead of a tailored lesson with lesson plan, so i guess they would assume that you might not have questions every week and will save them up for the times you do? I think I only ever booked 1-2 lessons to be honest, because the majority of the information I needed was available on theeplatform we used, ItsLearning, which I imagine you'll be using too if you're down here in Östergötland as well😅🙌🏻 fun to meet a fellow Östergötland liver!!
About text books; I know that if you buy them through / from SFI they can be really expensive. I think that you can borrow them too, but then of course you can't mark words or note anything in them. However, a year something ago I helped a woman from Syria to buy from one of the leading on line book stores, her Arabic - Swedish books were around A THIRD of the costs SFI wanted. Talk to your supervisor and ask for the ISBN number, and search on for example A d L i b r i s. As a mostly self taught English speaking Swede I have a suggestion for any person who like to try to read in their new language. Have one copy of the book in your own first language AND the one in the new language. Use the one in your first language as dictionary! Or read them parallell. That will give you a much better oppertunity to understand how things are expressed differently, how to get around when there're words that either can't be translated exactly or just is expressed differently. It's time consuming, but if you have the patience you will much faster have a better understanding of the new language.
@@annabackman3028 Good tip about Ad-libris! As I understand it though, the SFI books are supposed to be available for free in most kommuns. I remember being given a copy of my textbooks and it was to keep, they didn't expect them back. But you're right that after SFI (SVA-grund, SVA-1 etc) you have to pay for your own books, and they aren't cheap at all. I always try to use a comparison website to get the cheapest deal, but its still not always that cheap!
I've heard that native swedes like to speak English to non swedes if they hear any accent or see you struggling. Have you experienced this? If yes how have you handled the situation?
Good question!! Yes, that's something I've experienced many times actually! Its a tricky situation really, because I know the chances are they've only switched to English to try and make me comfortable and to help me to participate in the conversation, but as a non-Swede it can also make you complacent and end up not practising your Swedish😅 So my answer is, it really depends on the situation and how I'm feeling. These days when I'm more confident, if someone answers me in English in a supermarket for example, I try to answer back in Swedish, and usually they understand I want to practise and switch back. But if its a social situation and it feels like I've broken the flow of the conversation by not being able to answer properly, then maybe I'll switch to English for that particular sentence or topic that I'm struggling with, and then switch back again as soon as I'm comfortabe so we can continue😊
I think we do that partly to make it easier for the non-swedish person and partly for ourselves cause "broken" swedish can be quite hard to understand even for native swedes. It´s not always a big deal if people´s grammar is a bit off but if they struggle with pronounciation it can be tricky to understand, at least in my experience, so i would say if you want to learn swedish pronounciation is very important. I understand that switching to english is kinda counter-productive for the non-swedish person though.
@@draug7966 that's a good point actually! I can completely appreciate that it can be a bit tough if a non-Swede is trying to practise their Swedish and be understood but it just becomes too difficult to follow and understand. There's definitely a balance! And as you quite rightly mention, we can't forget the importance of focussing on pronunciation. A really good tip here for others also learning, thank you!!
@@JustaBritAbroad I´m glad you found it helpful. It´s kinda strange how different english and swedish is in that sense, if someone speaks english with a heavy accent it´s still easy to understand but swedish with a heavy accent can sound really weird. With that said, it doesn´t have to be perfect to be understandable.
yeah I know exactly what you mean actually! because in the beginning, I applied the. same principles here and was kinda shocked when people couldn't follow the meaning I was trying to get across haha. but now that I have a better grasp on the language, I kind of see what you guys meant!! haha but you're right, there's a difference between being understood and conversation and being perfect - my Swedish is faaaaar from perfect haha
I'm doing well enough learning Swedish, but have some issues with forgetting some of it and having no real way to use it in order to keep it in my head better. It's good this is a free course, but I wish I were able to come to Sweden and take advantage of it. I think everyone deserves a chance, but it seems so hard to get your foot in the door in moving to Sweden. Having to get a job first from America doesn't help haha. If only I could use this as a class to move and then find a job, that would make this the perfect opportunity for learning Swedish in a better way.
sorry to hear that Swedish training is not available where you are Herk! I did a whole other video about the resources and study I used before I lived in Sweden to help get me started. Might include some tips and ideas that can help you! But I agree and totally relate - its not the same as talking and using the language daily!
@@JustaBritAbroad I'm using Duolingo, but as I said, keep forgetting parts. At least if I were able to learn Swedish in Sweden, I could use it better to help me keep it in my stupid head hahaha. Thanks so much.
@@herkcollins4263 yeah you're right, it helps to be able to practise daily for sure! I just used to try and watch loads of Swedish TV to make up for it haha
As a swede and language aficionado I suggest that you try to find songs in Swedish - music is a great way to solidify your vocabulary - watch Swedish movies with English subtitles or cartoons with Swedish dub. I'm sure there are lots of books for young adults you could try in time as well to see the words in context. I find that cramming them in won't necessarily mean that I remember the words, but hearing them from different media helps 🙂 hope you get to visit us sometime and enjoy some fika 😀
Is SFI rushed? Absolutely, as it is SVA grund. At least in my school the very first moment you show a bit of competence, which one can easily have from having previously learnt a second language since those skills are transferable, they rush you out or make you skip levels, hindering constantly the learning process and taking away any intrinsic motivation one could have to learn Swedish, because at this point, due to their authoritarian approach and not having a single say in my learning process, I just want to get the final "betyg" and forget I ever went there... This is the first time in my life I see a school treating good students so badly.
My experience hasn't been good. I'm at the point of deciding whether to quit or see if I can be moved down a course. I'm not good at learning languages and have zero Swedish ability but for some reason they decided just because I have a higher education they would start me on course C, the third level. I'm doing a distant course with around 15 other people. I'm now half way though the course and really struggling. On top of that the tutors are not good, they are very disorganised and not very computer savy, they are boring and one of them gets frustrated with people fast if they get things wrong. Sometimes lessons get cancelled at the last minute, once one of them just completely forget about the lesson. The other weird thing is that one tutor only speaks Swedish and the second tutor only speaks English when she has too. To me being taught a language predominantly in the language you are being taught just makes it even more difficult. The course material is strange too as we have a lot of weird texts to study. For example I expected to learn about daily things, maybe going shopping, meeting friends work related stuff etc but a lot of texts focus on topics that are not really that important to learn straight away such as buying a house or claiming benefits, or reading about a women that has had her husband die and is now a widow. We even had one text about a middle eastern immigrant family that had their kid fall off a balcony and then have to go to hospital with a bleeding head whilst his parents argued with each other. It's just a whole bunch of words that are unnecessary, why do I need to know the word for widow or concussion just a couple of weeks into learning Swedish. One of the tutors also uses the method of putting people on the spot by constantly picking people at random to answer questions so not only do you waste a lot of learning time just listening to other people trying to answer them but if you're not very good then you're continually made to look stupid infront of everyone else. I think the courses range quite a bit from good to bad depending on where you do them, who your tutors are, and what course they decide to put you on.
one day me and my friends were just sitting and thinking out loud, what is the longest word we could think of? - maybe flaggstångsknoppspolerare? but then it hit me: Multiplikationstabellsproblemlösningsassistansgruppsmedlemmarna. Swedish is an easy language to learn but a very hard one to master
How did you go about finding a job in Sweden? I want to move there in the near future but struggling to find things about it! Did your job expect you to speak Swedish when you started?
Dialects can be a hassle. A friends sons girlfriend. If I remember right she is from Greece and she learned Swedish. She didn’t understand what he was saying because of his dialect. Östgötska.
SFI...hmm...yeah! Walking into a class of 20 yr olds with laptops and phones, with me pushing 48 with a 1 ton English to Swedish dictionary.....was never going to end well! Missed 2 days with my Crohns disease and that was the end of that. They were too far in front to ever catch up!
oh really? how did you decide to pick up the language instead? I noticed you said on another video that ordering in Skånska doesn't go that well, but I guess you still studied by some other means?
@@JustaBritAbroad - My Swedish is the bare minimum and mostly I ask people to speak English...or I'm bolloxed! lol. My Swedish GF at the time never had the patience to try teaching me and just spoke English. Our 6 years together were spent on our PC's, no TV, no newspapers, no Swedish. After giving up SFI I decided English would have to do and I'd learn Swedish by ear sooner or later. Being deaf in one ear didn't help with that plan though lol. I mis-hear or don't hear words at all, add in Skånska and....yeah, not good! Seems my old arsed brain has given up the ghost on the subject.
From my experience if you tell them that you are not an absolute beginner, and already speak some Swedish, they offer you an exam to see which level you should start from. For example I could jump over SFI overall.
Hej Leticia! Good question😊 nope, I didn't need to take a test when I got placed at Level 4. I think they asked to see a certificate from the programme I'd taken, but the programme I was on in London didn't provide us with any formal qualifications so I couldn't "prove" it but they didn't seem to mind, they were up for putting me forward if I felt up to it🤗 inga fara!
I think the exam applies where you want to skip a whole "level" (i.e. SFI, SVA-grund, SVA-1 etc), or perhaps its different in different kommuns? As I didn't have to take any exams to qualify my level :) but impressive that was an option for you!
@@JustaBritAbroad Yeah maybe I should also add that I told them I speak some Swedish but am not sure how much I know!:D Probably that’s the reason they offered me the test, because I really had no idea about my level:)
@@Sara-su1bi to be honest, I'm not sure I had that much idea about my level either😅but the program I'd taken in England was A1/A2, so I assume they figured out the rest for themselves based on that information. But like you, I didn't really have any idea what my Swedish level was😂😂
My experience is super positive with SFI too!
I´m impressed by the teachers level
thanks for sharing Ines! Its always fun to hear from others that have had positive SFI stories and experiences🤗my teachers have all been super great and helpful too🤩 where did you study SFI? and did you continue onto SVA? :)
It's definitely a great service indeed, and being free is incredible! My class is fortunately fairly small, I was originally placed higher (3C) after completing an introductory test/interview, but I actually don't feel particularly suited at that level and so have asked to move down a place where I feel much more comfortable.
Thanks for sharing your story! And I'm glad to hear your experience has also been positive🤗 a great example of taking control of your learning and really working out what you want to get out of it and what pace works best for you😊 you'll go far with Swedish, I'm sure🙌🏻 and the fact its free will never fail to impress me!
I worked a bit extra as supply teacher at SFI (a long time ago).
Some problems and maybe part cause of its bad rep was ...
A lot of students (where and when I was there) were unemployed immigrants who only spoke swedish at school, at other times they would never meet anyone to talk swedish with.
Add that many lacked experience of higher studies, were 30+ y old and some had worries from fleeing troubled areas or relatives and friends still there in trouble.
So as a middle class european who are used to a school system, the latin alfabet and have friends to practice the language with, the experience and results of SFI will naturally be different.
Oh really Anders? How interesting that you worked with SFI for a while. As you say, its understandable that the level and experience is so difference, on the basis that people come to SFI with so many different backgrounds and experiences. Either way, I just think its fantastic to have the opportunity to study Swedish for free, whatever your background! Its a really nice offer to help people integrate!
@@JustaBritAbroad Mind you, this was also before the internet and mobile break through, something that hopefully helps ppl in a similar situation today.
yeah you're right, we can certainly hope so!
You're such a star Gregg. Happy I could help. 🤗
It was definitely a team effort🤩 thanks for the part you played!! and for your continued positivity and support of my channel🤩
Very interesting. How you described your test experience summed up my entire Swedish school experience. Lots of cramming before tests and still feeling underprepared and very stressed and sometimes we had 3 tests the same week and one time 3 tests the same day. It gets pretty crazy and I think this is just our school culture and not a payroll method but I can see how it might feel that way. With the success with teaching English this way I think they decided to teach Swedish the same way too. I love the giveaway idea! Lycka till to the participants! :)
Thanks for dropping by Ambi! I'm sure, as you say, that its got a lot to do with how the system is setup here as opposed to cashing in on a student completing their courses. I was trying to be really fair and balanced in this video so I felt like in the interests of transparency, I had to give that a mention as its something that circulates, but I agree with you that there's got to be a lot more too it than that.
In that way, our school systems are fairly similar I think, because we also start quite young in England and the pressure mounts very quickly, with bigger tests defining whether you can continue and get the programmes and choices you want fairly frequently, so I can definitely relate to the feelings you describe! But as you say, if it gets results, why not! It makes sense, right👌
And so fun to hear that you thought the giveaway was a good idea! I just thought it would be a fun way to help people looking to get started, as I've had lots of comments from learners asking about books and resources I used, so why not pass them on to a new home🤗 thanks for watching though and I hope you have a great week🙌🏻
Wow, I had no idea that this was all free! Maybe I WILL look into this... hmmm. Thank you so much for another great video and for all the information! ☺️
No problem at all Ellary! I'm glad to hear that you found it useful🤩 yeah, that's right - SFI is entirely free, you just need to sign up and wait to be allocated a place! Can't really complain about that right🙌🏻 let me know if anything doesn't make sense!
All of you wonderful people wanting to learn Swedish, please remember that immersion is very helpful and can come from many sources. Yes, speaking is important and you can talk to yourself or record yourself, but listening to the language through music, movies or tvshows also help as get them in a context! As a swede I've also learnt English - fluent and certified in Cambridge advanced English through my school - Spanish, Italian, some Latin and I'm currently learning Japanese by myself and the Japanese from zero videos and books. There are many ways to learn and languages are a wonderful thing to know! Hope you all succeed with your goals!
Some really useful words here Cat! and I completely agree with you, speaking is one thing but its also about understanding the context and how to apply different colloquialisms because that's what really allows you to integrate and to express yourself properly, and give a flavour of your personality. It certainly sounds like you have an interesting journey when it comes to languages. Would you like to learn anymore after Japanese and if so, what might be next?
@@JustaBritAbroad I guess Japanese will take up a lot of years to reach fluency haha but I love languages and would love to learn maybe hindi or Korean and maybe give Russian a try. It actually gets easier the more languages one knows as they are a lot similar and it gets easier to understand the mechanics 🙂 how about you?
@@catsarkioja7423 I only speak English, Swedish and beginners Spanish but I'd love to learn more once I feel like I've fully mastered Swedish. Such a fun skill to have!
It is interesting how motivation works, in your case you have to learn the language to properly interact and be a part of the Swedish system.
Also at a young age learning is easier, the older you get the less cooperative your brain gets as it ages!
You can of course learn a language at an older age but look at the Swedish queen, she has a german accent that she couldn't get out of her Swedish speaking part!
Ha en trevlig söndag!
You're right Sina, it certainly doesn't get easier the older you get! I wish I'd started learning a second language earlier actually, that would have been fun🤗 but you got to love a challenge right😉thanks for stopping by, and I'm glad to hear you found it interesting🤩🙌🏻 hoppas att du ha en trevlig eftermiddag!
Completely agree with that, I'm 40 and I'm finding it fairly hard to learn a second language, but it's also about how your brain works in regards to learning language, mine isn't very "evolved" 😜
haha I'm sure that's not true! you're doing yourself a disjustice😉 I've heard your Swedish, you're doing great🇸🇪👌
@@JustaBritAbroad awww tack buddy, but I'm a long way away from your skills!! We must chat soon about Collab, sorry that I've been useless.
Croatian girlfriend completed all available levels of SFI and SVA in probs 6month, being all fluent. She even corrects me.
She had the luck of living with a swede.
Very impressive, well done her! I'd love to have been that fast, but its hard to fit in around working full-time and stuff, so I've probably done it in 1.5yrs or something so far. Very impressive dedication from her though, way to go!
I'm curious about your working relationship. Do you have many colleagues you meet daily, (maybe not right now in these times) and who talks to you in Swedish?
If, for your convenience, they switch to English, they are only doing you a disservice. The best way to learn a language after learning the basics of grammar
is to be surrounded by it and use it daily.
Good question! Work isn't something I've really got into much yet on this channel, but I'm getting quite a few questions about it at the moment, so perhaps I'll have to do a follow up sometime with more detail! But what I can say for now is that, in normal times, I work in an office with about 15-20 others, all of whom are Swedish. When we work, for the most part we only speak Swedish together, same at lunchtimes. There's certain people or meetings that I take in English, but only when its needed because, for example, we're preparing for a meeting with an international customer, for example. But you're right, I definitely didn't start to notice the difference with my Swedish until I was using the language daily, but it took me some time to pluck up the courage to use it! This is my second job since arriving in Sweden, and at the first one I barely spoke Swedish until almost when I decided to leave, when I finally plucked up the courage to do some fika/lunch conversation. But since moving, I just decided to throw myself in at the deep end and really give it a go. And I'm so glad I have!
Also, didn't realize that I wasn't following you on Instagram. Just did and entered the contest! 😁
ah you did?🤩 thank you!! looking forward to chatting more over there!
My SFI experience has been so far:
August 2020 - Applied to SFI
November 2020 - Start course (only 2 weeks it was a joke)
December 2020 - SFI C (one month in this course)
April 2021 - SFI D (one month in this course)
August 2021 - I will start SVA delkurs 3 day course
I think it really varies where you live.... the waiting times are ridiculous I think I have waited a total of 8 months with only 2ish months being in SFI. They also put me in a distance course which was the only one available so I can barely speak because we only had class 2 hours a week. They told us SVA grund distance has no meetings whatsoever so I am taking the daytime class (15 hours per week of lessons for free 😍) which will really help me so I’m looking forward to it!
The teachers I had were amazing, kind and really try to help out the students as much as possible, however the administration behind it all is very questionable... it’s hard to complain cause it’s free but I honestly feel like I’d be much more ahead and integrated with society if there were no waiting times :(
sorry to hear that your experience has been such a mixed bag! I actually really enjoyed learning on distance, because I could progress at my own pace and rate, but I can appreciate that that's not for everyone! where are you living? I guess its Gothenburg, Stockholm or Malmö to have such mental wait times?
@@JustaBritAbroad Yeah, I think largely because of corona I felt a bit isolated. Now I go on italki and talk with Swedish tutors :) I'm actually living in Umeå!
@@caesarsalad8484 yeah I can understand that to be honest! the pandemic made everything so much more difficult. But fun that you've managed to get back on track again now! Umeå's lovely too - I've only been once - in the summer, when it snowed actually😆 hoppas att du trivs där!
@@JustaBritAbroad Tack så mycket! Jag älskar också dina stories på instagram om Skåne! Jag ska resa där i augusti :D Det blir spännande.
@@caesarsalad8484 jaså? så kul!! jag har en video planerat i juli när jag kommer att prata om min resa i Skåne och Blekinge i lite mer detalj och sen delar lite tips om vad man skulle besöka och uppleva. Det låter som det kommer att vara användbart och intressant för dig! hur kul att du ska resa där också snart!
I have been trying to learn Swedish but what makes it hard is that nobody where I live speaks Swedish! So I do my best to slowly learn as much as I can (or relearn, since I did have some knowledge of the language when my sister lived in Stockholm).
Must be someone online you can talk to ?
ah no, that sounds tricky! is it something your sister might be able to help with if she has some knowledge?
good tip!!
@@JustaBritAbroad sadly my sister passed away. I bought several books to help and find that watching videos in Swedish - such as Hampus Hedstrom or singers singing in Swedish with closed captioning on - helps! (:
@@freemangriffin4953 ah no I'm so sorry to hear that, how dreadful. I'd really recommend listening to Radio Sweden på lätt svenska if you're not already doing that? That was a really helpful way for me to get started at least!
#FreeEducation I am hyped. Lets go Sweden, we are on a roll! Oh and btw, the school for the younglings are completely free of charge aswell. Each studen/child costs around 2 119 800 KR. So yeah, remember that when you go to school and think it is hell. :D (I learnt that number in school btw. I don't know if it is true but it's what my teacher told me.)
Who knew that was the cost?!? I certainly didn't! So interesting to be able to put a figure on it haha very impressive! Free education is defiinitely a great plus though!
As a native Swedish speaker I have no personal experience of SFI, but I have heard loads of rumours floating around, probably because some tend to jump to conclusions. A few immigrants they may have met with... ummmm let's say not too impressive knowledge of Swedish does not necessarily mean that SFI is a waste of tax payers' money. In the end, it is always up to the individual to learn the new language and put some effort into the process. It cannot be easy at all times; perhaps it is necessary to learn a new alphabet, the grammar is different and many of the sounds are new. Still, the homework has to be done and I hope they take every chance they get to practise and develop their Swedish further. Probably needless to say that the vast majority will speak the language with an accent and that is, of course, ok but if they try, it will also improve over time. While I'm at it: not everybody has a talent for languages, but as long as they do their best, they deserve respect for it.
Thanks for your thoughts Staffan! and you're right, there's certainly a lot of rumours that whirl around, and that was actually part of the reason why I thought this video might be a good idea, to try and explain to people that its worth giving it a shot for yourself and making your own conclusions, because the rumours aren't always entirely fair😊but you're right, as long as people are trying their best and have an interest and desire to learn, that's a great start!
I think most of the time when you said it would be more fitting to say FolkuniversitetET.
SFI is kommun based so they have zero incentive for pushing students for money. I’ve obviously never studied there being a Swede but I can tell you in general that our school/education system and post school education is demanding. Students need to work hard and devote the time to pass. Our teachers expect us to make the effort, after all, they are there for us. They have a curriculum for a reason. Especially adults are treated as responsible individuals. I can’t imagine SFI being different. People expect to be spoon fed Swedish or what? 🤣
Sweden values education. Great thing.
To Swedish learners. Please speak Swedish. I only post in English here now but IRL I speak Swedish to learners, unless they specifically approach me in English/don’t speak any Swedish. Speaking several languages myself, I’d never have learned them if people didn’t use them with me.
We don’t care about accents or language perfection. We hear that you’re new in 🇸🇪 so make the best and most of it.
I think it’s a serious issue as not learning the language makes people much more dependent, heavily reliant on others, not understanding the society/culture and do you want that as a 18-20+?
And it’s kind of rude to expect to be catered to in English 😉
Link English here
utbildningsguiden.skolverket.se/utbildning-for-vuxna/om-utbildning-for-vuxna/sfi---svenska-for-invandrare
Thanks for sharing Anna! This was actually one of the reasons I made this video, to help others who are also looking to get started but find themselves a bit confused about the options available to them. As you probably heard when I spoke in the video, I'm quite a dedicated and motivated learner, so having a strong curriculum that demanded a lot of me, worked for me. But I agree with you, its great to be able to pick up something of the language to begin to communicate and really take part in the society. Its actually thee reason I started the channel to hep others also looking to get started🤗 because as you probably heard from the video, I for one don't want or expect to be catered for in English😅 har en bra kväll!
Bra video! Min mamma har undervisat I SFI.
Tack Bosse! Så kul att du tyckte så🤩 jaså? du får visa henne och ser vad hon tycker om mina upplevelser😅
@@JustaBritAbroad du skulle göra en video om bostadsstandard i England vs Sverige. Du hittar nog ingen svensk som inte är chockad? Jag visste inte det här om SFI?
@@bosse1998 oooh det kunde vara intressand! Menar du lägenhet kvalitiet t.ex eller hur BRF funkar i Sverige vs England? Kul att du lärde dig något nytt om SFI från videon då🤩
@@JustaBritAbroad kvalitet. I Sverige delar man aldrig lägenhet. Man bor inte trångt. Inget mögel. Treglasfönster. Jag fick en chock när jag kom hit 2001!
@@bosse1998 haha du gör en bra poäng! jag ska lägga det till listan!
Thank you for the video. Can you also make a video about svenska som andra språk? How was your experience? What materials they use? How do they plan it according to your needs if they even do that? How time consuming it can be and other stuff, I know you briefly mentioned it in another video; but maybe in more detail this time? I’ll start grundläggande delkurs4 in a couple of weeks and have no idea how it works, since it will be my first Swedish course ever:))
good idea Sara! It's actuallly something that was on my list to put together, but I thought I'd start at the beginning with SFI first and see if people found it useful and interesting🤗 are you doing it at diistance or with a group? as my experience was that this would affect how tailored it can be for you and your needs!
To give you some perspective and a brief answer for now, as it could be a while until I can get around to following up, if you are pursuing at distance like I did, I found grundläggande fairly well paced! They gave you some suggestions on how much you would need to study a week, and suggested term schedules based on whether you wanted to commit 8 hours a week, 4 hours a week etc. If I remember correctly, you had to buy your textbooks yourself at that level too, but they'll acvise you of all of that :) since I was a dstance student, I had to book teacher time when I felt like I needed it, otherwise it was quite self-directed to progress at the rate that worked best for you. But that worked for me quite well actually. Lycka till!!🇸🇪👌
@@JustaBritAbroad Thanks for your reply🙂Mine is at distance. Sounds very good that you can book a session with a teacher, I wonder if there is any limit to that in terms of how many sessions per week🧐 Im also in the region Östergötland 🇸🇪
@@Sara-su1bi anytime Sara! Its so fun that you decided to write, so the least I can do is try and reply and get back to you🙌🏻 good question about whether there's a limit or not, I'm not actually sure to be honest. But the way the course worked meant that you booked a session when you wanted feedback or to discuss a particular issue, because of course its a self-booked workshop, instead of a tailored lesson with lesson plan, so i guess they would assume that you might not have questions every week and will save them up for the times you do? I think I only ever booked 1-2 lessons to be honest, because the majority of the information I needed was available on theeplatform we used, ItsLearning, which I imagine you'll be using too if you're down here in Östergötland as well😅🙌🏻 fun to meet a fellow Östergötland liver!!
About text books; I know that if you buy them through / from SFI they can be really expensive.
I think that you can borrow them too, but then of course you can't mark words or note anything in them.
However, a year something ago I helped a woman from Syria to buy from one of the leading on line book stores, her Arabic - Swedish books were around A THIRD of the costs SFI wanted.
Talk to your supervisor and ask for the ISBN number, and search on for example A d L i b r i s.
As a mostly self taught English speaking Swede I have a suggestion for any person who like to try to read in their new language.
Have one copy of the book in your own first language AND the one in the new language.
Use the one in your first language as dictionary! Or read them parallell. That will give you a much better oppertunity to understand how things are expressed differently, how to get around when there're words that either can't be translated exactly or just is expressed differently. It's time consuming, but if you have the patience you will much faster have a better understanding of the new language.
@@annabackman3028 Good tip about Ad-libris! As I understand it though, the SFI books are supposed to be available for free in most kommuns. I remember being given a copy of my textbooks and it was to keep, they didn't expect them back. But you're right that after SFI (SVA-grund, SVA-1 etc) you have to pay for your own books, and they aren't cheap at all. I always try to use a comparison website to get the cheapest deal, but its still not always that cheap!
I've heard that native swedes like to speak English to non swedes if they hear any accent or see you struggling. Have you experienced this? If yes how have you handled the situation?
Good question!! Yes, that's something I've experienced many times actually! Its a tricky situation really, because I know the chances are they've only switched to English to try and make me comfortable and to help me to participate in the conversation, but as a non-Swede it can also make you complacent and end up not practising your Swedish😅
So my answer is, it really depends on the situation and how I'm feeling. These days when I'm more confident, if someone answers me in English in a supermarket for example, I try to answer back in Swedish, and usually they understand I want to practise and switch back. But if its a social situation and it feels like I've broken the flow of the conversation by not being able to answer properly, then maybe I'll switch to English for that particular sentence or topic that I'm struggling with, and then switch back again as soon as I'm comfortabe so we can continue😊
I think we do that partly to make it easier for the non-swedish person and partly for ourselves cause "broken" swedish can be quite hard to understand even for native swedes. It´s not always a big deal if people´s grammar is a bit off but if they struggle with pronounciation it can be tricky to understand, at least in my experience, so i would say if you want to learn swedish pronounciation is very important. I understand that switching to english is kinda counter-productive for the non-swedish person though.
@@draug7966 that's a good point actually! I can completely appreciate that it can be a bit tough if a non-Swede is trying to practise their Swedish and be understood but it just becomes too difficult to follow and understand. There's definitely a balance! And as you quite rightly mention, we can't forget the importance of focussing on pronunciation. A really good tip here for others also learning, thank you!!
@@JustaBritAbroad I´m glad you found it helpful. It´s kinda strange how different english and swedish is in that sense, if someone speaks english with a heavy accent it´s still easy to understand but swedish with a heavy accent can sound really weird. With that said, it doesn´t have to be perfect to be understandable.
yeah I know exactly what you mean actually! because in the beginning, I applied the. same principles here and was kinda shocked when people couldn't follow the meaning I was trying to get across haha. but now that I have a better grasp on the language, I kind of see what you guys meant!! haha but you're right, there's a difference between being understood and conversation and being perfect - my Swedish is faaaaar from perfect haha
Very interesting!
Thanks Todd! So fun to hear that you thought so🤩
I'm doing well enough learning Swedish, but have some issues with forgetting some of it and having no real way to use it in order to keep it in my head better. It's good this is a free course, but I wish I were able to come to Sweden and take advantage of it. I think everyone deserves a chance, but it seems so hard to get your foot in the door in moving to Sweden. Having to get a job first from America doesn't help haha. If only I could use this as a class to move and then find a job, that would make this the perfect opportunity for learning Swedish in a better way.
sorry to hear that Swedish training is not available where you are Herk! I did a whole other video about the resources and study I used before I lived in Sweden to help get me started. Might include some tips and ideas that can help you! But I agree and totally relate - its not the same as talking and using the language daily!
@@JustaBritAbroad I'm using Duolingo, but as I said, keep forgetting parts. At least if I were able to learn Swedish in Sweden, I could use it better to help me keep it in my stupid head hahaha. Thanks so much.
@@herkcollins4263 yeah you're right, it helps to be able to practise daily for sure! I just used to try and watch loads of Swedish TV to make up for it haha
As a swede and language aficionado I suggest that you try to find songs in Swedish - music is a great way to solidify your vocabulary - watch Swedish movies with English subtitles or cartoons with Swedish dub. I'm sure there are lots of books for young adults you could try in time as well to see the words in context. I find that cramming them in won't necessarily mean that I remember the words, but hearing them from different media helps 🙂 hope you get to visit us sometime and enjoy some fika 😀
@@catsarkioja7423 thank you. I'm actually planning to move to Soderhamn.
the teacher is very good and carefull but its difficult to learn swedish🥺🥴
Is SFI rushed? Absolutely, as it is SVA grund. At least in my school the very first moment you show a bit of competence, which one can easily have from having previously learnt a second language since those skills are transferable, they rush you out or make you skip levels, hindering constantly the learning process and taking away any intrinsic motivation one could have to learn Swedish, because at this point, due to their authoritarian approach and not having a single say in my learning process, I just want to get the final "betyg" and forget I ever went there... This is the first time in my life I see a school treating good students so badly.
My experience hasn't been good. I'm at the point of deciding whether to quit or see if I can be moved down a course. I'm not good at learning languages and have zero Swedish ability but for some reason they decided just because I have a higher education they would start me on course C, the third level. I'm doing a distant course with around 15 other people. I'm now half way though the course and really struggling.
On top of that the tutors are not good, they are very disorganised and not very computer savy, they are boring and one of them gets frustrated with people fast if they get things wrong. Sometimes lessons get cancelled at the last minute, once one of them just completely forget about the lesson. The other weird thing is that one tutor only speaks Swedish and the second tutor only speaks English when she has too. To me being taught a language predominantly in the language you are being taught just makes it even more difficult.
The course material is strange too as we have a lot of weird texts to study. For example I expected to learn about daily things, maybe going shopping, meeting friends work related stuff etc but a lot of texts focus on topics that are not really that important to learn straight away such as buying a house or claiming benefits, or reading about a women that has had her husband die and is now a widow. We even had one text about a middle eastern immigrant family that had their kid fall off a balcony and then have to go to hospital with a bleeding head whilst his parents argued with each other. It's just a whole bunch of words that are unnecessary, why do I need to know the word for widow or concussion just a couple of weeks into learning Swedish. One of the tutors also uses the method of putting people on the spot by constantly picking people at random to answer questions so not only do you waste a lot of learning time just listening to other people trying to answer them but if you're not very good then you're continually made to look stupid infront of everyone else.
I think the courses range quite a bit from good to bad depending on where you do them, who your tutors are, and what course they decide to put you on.
one day me and my friends were just sitting and thinking out loud, what is the longest word we could think of? - maybe flaggstångsknoppspolerare? but then it hit me: Multiplikationstabellsproblemlösningsassistansgruppsmedlemmarna. Swedish is an easy language to learn but a very hard one to master
What’s the name of that Swedish teacher you mentioned? 😊
How did you go about finding a job in Sweden? I want to move there in the near future but struggling to find things about it! Did your job expect you to speak Swedish when you started?
Dialects can be a hassle. A friends sons girlfriend. If I remember right she is from Greece and she learned Swedish. She didn’t understand what he was saying because of his dialect. Östgötska.
haha oh really? I live in Östergötland, so I don't have that problem!
SFI...hmm...yeah! Walking into a class of 20 yr olds with laptops and phones, with me pushing 48 with a 1 ton English to Swedish dictionary.....was never going to end well! Missed 2 days with my Crohns disease and that was the end of that. They were too far in front to ever catch up!
oh really? how did you decide to pick up the language instead? I noticed you said on another video that ordering in Skånska doesn't go that well, but I guess you still studied by some other means?
@@JustaBritAbroad - My Swedish is the bare minimum and mostly I ask people to speak English...or I'm bolloxed! lol.
My Swedish GF at the time never had the patience to try teaching me and just spoke English. Our 6 years together were spent on our PC's, no TV, no newspapers, no Swedish. After giving up SFI I decided English would have to do and I'd learn Swedish by ear sooner or later. Being deaf in one ear didn't help with that plan though lol.
I mis-hear or don't hear words at all, add in Skånska and....yeah, not good! Seems my old arsed brain has given up the ghost on the subject.
Ah well, at least you gave it a try! And you clearly enjoy being here otherwise I guess you’d have moved back☺️
Hej jag är svensk
Hej Greg, Did u do a level test to be placed in Level 4 in SFI? Or did you only tell them that u have studied basic swedish back in England? Tack! :D
From my experience if you tell them that you are not an absolute beginner, and already speak some Swedish, they offer you an exam to see which level you should start from. For example I could jump over SFI overall.
Hej Leticia! Good question😊 nope, I didn't need to take a test when I got placed at Level 4. I think they asked to see a certificate from the programme I'd taken, but the programme I was on in London didn't provide us with any formal qualifications so I couldn't "prove" it but they didn't seem to mind, they were up for putting me forward if I felt up to it🤗 inga fara!
I think the exam applies where you want to skip a whole "level" (i.e. SFI, SVA-grund, SVA-1 etc), or perhaps its different in different kommuns? As I didn't have to take any exams to qualify my level :) but impressive that was an option for you!
@@JustaBritAbroad Yeah maybe I should also add that I told them I speak some Swedish but am not sure how much I know!:D Probably that’s the reason they offered me the test, because I really had no idea about my level:)
@@Sara-su1bi to be honest, I'm not sure I had that much idea about my level either😅but the program I'd taken in England was A1/A2, so I assume they figured out the rest for themselves based on that information. But like you, I didn't really have any idea what my Swedish level was😂😂
VERY DIFFICULT
👍
thanks Eyvind! Glad you enjoyed🤗 thanks for stopping by!
@@JustaBritAbroad No problem and thanks for answering again.
@@etvurd Always 🤗 have a great evening!
@@JustaBritAbroad You too! (And thanks)!