A big problem in Finland is widely practiced linguistic apartheid. I can’t understand why English is not more widely adopted in the workplace. Of course Nokia is one exception and officially at least TietoEnator, although in the latter case I was told Finnish is still the main language and English is only mentioned as being company language because it is a nice marketing trick. Finns speak English anyways and if the Finnish economy wants to successfully globalize, adopting English as a working language more broadly would be extremely beneficial. In Holland or Sweden that is also no problem. So why can’t Finland do the same?

So why can’t Finland do the same?

In white collar industries, Finland has massive high unemployment, they don’t need to cater to outsiders as there’s a long queue of Finnish speakers waiting at the door.

Finland’s economy is designed in a centralized fashion to attract large foreign corporations. But at the same time, punishingly high income and VAT taxation discourages small business ventures that would otherwise comprise the service sector. In other countries, the service economy is precisely where many immigrants work.

Not only do immigrants suffer, but also Finns. Just look at the grotesquely overpriced….well, let’s face it, just about everything is overpriced in Finland.

I think the problem is that Finland tries to copy it’s Nordic Model neighbors, WW2-rich Sweden and oil-rich Norway; however, Finland should more realistically compare itself to its eastern European neighbors. And have an aggressive economic system modeled after theirs.

Oh, and by the way, Sweden is also feeling the pinch of having a less-than-dynamic welfare state economy combined with less-than-desirable immigrants. Nice going, Sweden.

Kristian:

“Oh, and by the way, Sweden is also feeling the pinch of having a less-than-dynamic welfare state economy combined with less-than-desirable immigrants. Nice going, Sweden.”

Interesting that you should note that Sweden has a lot of less-than-desireable immigrants. I think that fact has a hell of a lot to do with the fact that Sweden has fallen behind Finland in purchasing power parity per capita. All that money spent on having fire engines escorted by the police – a necessity in some cities – is money totally wasted.

ll that money spent on having fire engines escorted by the police – a necessity in some cities – is money totally wasted.

Swedish police are probably just prejudiced and as soon as they seen brown people, they get scared.

That video is a nice piece of propaganda for voting Sverigedemokraterna. It’s a usual “fair and balanced” Fox News report! It’s a shame that the YouTube clip does not show what the panelists on Gomorron Sverige had to say when they debated it afterwards.

Swedish police are probably just prejudiced and as soon as they seen brown people, they get scared.
To some extent, doubtless slightly true – but don’t forget there are a lot of “brown people” everywhere in Sweden, it is not like Finland – so they really would not leave their police station if they had this attitude. And in Malmö, the police force itself is relatively diverse in its ethnicity. Buses have also been stoned for no reason in RosengÃ¥rd (as on occasion they have been in the immigrant districts around Stockholm).

“Finland has massive high unemployment” due to what?

High TAXES

it is that simple. Get rich, get a Hummer, get the Government to lower the taxes and it will all happen.

Plus as a bonus, you get your first Billionaire.

Finding an English-speaking job here in Finland is a lot like living in Hollywood: it’s all about who you know.

All in all I don’t think it’s that bad here, though–but don’t even get me started on the shit salaries here…

So, Swedish firemen just ought to accept stones hitting their heads in a completely unprejudiced manner? LOL

Certainly, immigrant workers (and everybody) should be subject to less red tape, but Sweden’s immigration policy is not for Finland, hopefully.

The only consequence of not having restrictions vis-a-vis Bulgarian and Romanian immigrants seems to be that there are now Gipsy beggars in Helsinki.

It is rapidly becoming less and less attractive as well, as it is becoming widespread knowledge that if you live in Finland, your personal financial details from the tax office will end up in magazines, the Internet, and any ticket issuing policeman’s cell phone. Only Finns seem to think this is alright. Finland is the only country in the world where the government allows the selling and publishing of private peoples’ tax records. It dates back to the days of belonging to the totalitarian monarchy of Sweden. Incidentally, Sweden just put a stop this sort of buffoonery on June 16, 2007.

Incidentally, Sweden just put a stop this sort of buffoonery on June 16, 2007.

It won’t be long till it’s history in Finland, then.

And the joy of being a female immigrant of child-bearing age as that factors fairly heavily into the equation since I guess they’re terrified you’re going just looking to get preggers and take a ‘vacation’.

There are still private companies making tax returns available in Sweden for payment (I know of at least one). The only difference after June is that the person enquired about is informed that an enquiry took place and by whom. There is also supposed to be a “legitimate need” for making the enquiry, but what this means has not been defined so effectively doesn’t make any difference.

@Kristian: That’s some heavy shit, but it’s just like everywhere else. Here in Belgium at some schools the balance between foreign & Belgian is 1/5 Belgian, 4/5 foreign. It’s not going to get better imho.

@the article: Hope things will change in the future, but indeed, the language is still a big barrier. :/ Too bad imho.

Many of the old people and young people don’t have a problem with foreigners. I’ve noticed it’s usually people in their mid-40s who seem to grump the most about immigrants.

Native Finns have a hard time getting a job without 4 years of college, so most immigrants don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell here. Granted, being on KELA benefits here in Finland is a dream compared to the poverty in their homelands.

I think alot of the immigrants lack the will to assimulate to Finnish society. I can’t blame them in some ways because the first couple of years I was here, I had Finnish culture practially shoved in every orifice. It sucked and made me not want to assimulate more.

“being on KELA benefits here in Finland is a dream compared to the poverty in their homelands.”

so 45% of the poor, who own their own homes, in the USA need to move to Finland, the welfare mother state? And get what?

But then we would have a lot of extra double wides.

By the way my black neighbor had her town-house in downtown DC appraised. It came in at 1/2 a Mill. Gee, and she is considered poor? Shw owns it, with no payments, but taxes are killin her.

By the way if she sells, then her free Electric, free food stamps, all go away.

So she is not in a hurry to lose all those free things, by yuk, actually making some money.

Clearly the Finns should change their language to English, the way Estonia is planning to do. That way they could be mute in three languages. The climate will not change, unfortunately, until after 50 years or so, and even after that this country will be in the middle of nowhere. But who cares, nobody wants to live in this socialist country whose economy is a joke anyway.

Clearly the Finns should change their language to English, the way Estonia is planning to do. That way they could be mute in three languages. The climate will not change, unfortunately, until after 50 years or so, and even after that this country will be in the middle of nowhere. But who cares, nobody wants to live in this socialist country whose economy is a joke anyway.

Well didn’t they just announce a program to fill some shortages in labour from China? But I guess greens or reds will shoot that down as some kind of “unfair favouritism” and equal opportunize us some more african multitalents.

As far as I know they also feel like they can find people in China who will want to work and live in Finland (I guess they’re used to soviet nightmares like ours).

Btw. when was the last time you heard of chinese robbing, gang raping, honour killing, rioting or hanging out unemployed at the railway station whining that the language is too hard and everybody is too racist?

#19 Absolutely. I mean who has ever heard of Chinese organized crime?

(Hint, find out something about Triad society and take a look around a few so called “China Towns”)

#20

A fair point, but we’ve had estonian/russian mafia operations here for years and the truth is that they very seldomly present any danger to so called ordinary people, and certainly haven’t created ethnic slums that suck tax money anywhere.

Agreed. I’m not against immigration (hell no) and don’t agree with crime and immigration as such. Just found your comment about Chinese and the suggestion behind it strange

Bafana whined about “linguistic apartheid” at the workplace in Finland, meaning that English should be more widely adopted. I don’t know what he means, but I’m wondering why he thinks he should get away with living and working somewhere and not knowing the local language anywhere.

> when was the last time you heard of chinese robbing, gang raping,
> honour killing…

Dunno. Last time I heard them selling heroin wholesale was in New York some ten years ago though

Not putting the Chinese down at all, mind you. It’s just that when there’s big money to be made someone’s gonna make it regardless of their race, religion, culture or whatever…

Ahem. Heard _OF_ them selling, etc. of course!

Is sirkuspelle just another foamy mouthed alias for Kristian?

@Markku: I know at least some country where people think they can.

Markko – That’s a cop out. I can’t remember how many jobs I might have gotten but was bluntly told that I was “not Finnish” or the customer wanted “someone Finnish.” It never got as far as the language. Not to mention all the times I tried speaking Finnish only to have the Finn immediately change into English to either practice their English or to signal that my attempts were too horrible to bear. Few want to suffer the beginners and god only knows what the poor bastards who don’t know any English have to go through. Even at work when I’d have to call a vendor for something, I’d try to speak and either I’d hear a *click* or some paniced person on the other end suddenly change to English and tell me to hold while they found someone to speak to me. The majority simply hung up on me though which would force me to go get one of my coworkers to make the call for me. The language can be and often is a weapon of ethnic solidarity.

Well, hfb. You did go back. See that dollar value? Maybe we Europeans knew that all along. You just are all yahoos. Bye Bye bye.

C’mon tim, take those pills again. I want to see what you write this time.

I have heard that since immigration is almost nil, they plan to go and get the immigrant i.e from Philipine and China.

This force immigration is a way to get labour with cheap salaries.

I just question the idea. First it’s out of question for those people to work in Helsinki or surounding as the cost of living and housing are so high or unnafordable.

Sad to say that Finland has been unable to control the cost of living thus inflation is out of control(ok it’s not their fault as they can’t control interest rates) and has become a very uncompetitive.

another thing…Fins (Government?) seems to think that they are smatter and will import labour to cover things that fin won’t do:
-Cleaning
-Bus Driving
-Taxi Driving
-Security

There was a time where it was reserved for Estonian/Russian/Somalian
As time goes those people got educated and wealthier and are now trying to compete in higher paid job..sometime in vain (as the usual finnish protectionism/patriotism surge).

So now they need to get emerging country (while it’s still emerging ..oot for long) i.e philipine and China

It is as well to say to the low income finnish worker that don’t ask higher salary (even if cost of living is spiraling or overshooting) ’cause we can inport cheap labor… They did that with the IT people.. now they try to do it with nurse/metal worker/ship builder….

Finland is Finland, so it should hardly take anyone by surprise that the languages most often used in the workspace are those that are native to the country. I don’t think it is really that fair to make a case that employers are being unfair by wanting to employ people fluent in the national language(s).

Our country does have small languages by global comparison, so it is of course necessary for us to have a strong knowledge of foreign languages as well. However, to suggest that more workplaces should switch to an English working language would be dangerous for the robustness of the national languages in Finland. A living language has to be present in all the variety of domains to remain dynamic and fresh. We can already see in academia that some students (in university) must use English language text books because there is no adequate material in their domestic language available. That is a sign that Finnish/Swedish are being eroded as academic languages in some disciplines already.

Finns speak English anyways
Many do, yes. Many do not. Many of us that do are not as confident in English or do not have the same degree of ability to express ourselves in it. It is sometimes quite limiting to expression (and thus consequently the flow of ideas) when you have to rely on a foreign language that does not come as naturally.

Not to mention all the times I tried speaking Finnish only to have the Finn immediately change into English to either practice their English or to signal that my attempts were too horrible to bear.
That I am afraid is a fair criticism I think. I think that those of you who have English as a mother tongue are very used to hearing all sorts of nationalities with all sorts of accents speaking English. So, a foreigner speaking English (such as us Finns, or a Chinese, or Indian or whoever) does not sound particularly odd or incorrect to you. Whereas for us with Finnish/Swedish as a mother tongue, we essentially only really hear our languages being spoken with “native” dialects; thus any “non-native” dialect can sound wrong and sometimes mistaken for that the speaker has a poorer command of the language than they in fact do have. That combined with a slight back of the mind disbelief that anyone foreign would concern themselves with learning Finnish/Swedish often leads us to switch to English. In a similar scenario, it has been known even for the Swedes to switch to English with those of us who speak finlandssvenska! Or indeed, I have more than once been congratulated by a Swede on “my good Swedish”. Patronising in the extreme, but born out of a complete naivety on the part of (a surprisingly high number of) Swedes that there is such a thing as finlandssvenska.

JG – But do you not see the paradox of employers ‘wanting to employ people fluent in the national language’ and the unwillingness of most to graciously suffer those non-natives making an earnest attempt to be fluent? Those who arrive in Finland at a young enough age, say high school or university, have a far greater chance to learn and practice the language before entering the workforce as opposed to those who arrive already highly educated professionals. And lets be realistic in that, if you remember the article in the HS a while back, even a Polish reporter who applied for the lowest of the low menial jobs was given the HAND. Who wants to spend years learning one of the more difficult languages in order to get a cleaner job with a crap salary in a place that isn’t very welcoming to foreigners to begin with?

As an aside…maybe it’s the lack of diversity in Finland that leads to the difficulty with accents as I remember quite a few Finns mentioning the English curriculum in school and how much they hated the audio portions of exams where speakers from India, etc. would speak and they’d have to show that they understood what was said. Particularly frequent mention of loathing for the Indian and Irish or Scots accents were made. It’s curious as I adapted to hearing Finnglish fairly quickly and didn’t have much problem understanding all but the most horrible speakers. I still giggle at certain trademark idioms, too. Accents aren’t what signal a firm grasp of a language, it’s the idioms especially in English. Then again, I also seem to recall that Finns complained reasonably often about how they couldn’t understand half of the (native) people outside Kehä III. It does seem odd that the tolerance for various accents in Finnish is so low and I have always wondered why that is.

The naïveté of the Swedes might just be disbelief since it doesn’t sound anything at all like swedish except for a few kind of recognizeable words here and there. I remember first hearing it on some TV show on a Saturday and couldn’t for the life of me figure out wtf it was until my husband enlightened me.

If I could have used Swedish on a daily basis in Finland, i.e. not just a second language on paper and in the books and Åland, I would have been functional in about 2 or 3 months given that with my German I was already able to read cookbooks without much effort. Unfortunately, I suspect Finns would sooner suffer an English invasion than really admit that a far smaller number of Finns can speak Swedish very well at all since they spent more time in English classes knowing that it was far more widely spoken language.

It is correct that Finns often switch to English when they hear a foreigner struggle with Finnish. It is deplorable and it is fair to criticize that.

Yesterday, I bought ice cream from an Australian girl who worked in the Siperia shopping mall in Tampere. Her Finnish vocabulary was small but she was practically accent-free. She switched to English herself after she found out she just couldn’t express herself in Finnish to say that the soft ice machine was not being used because of overheating problems. I did, however, try to speak Finnish with her as much as possible.

Nah, it is genuine naivety on the part of a lot of Swedes. I know that is hard to believe, I scarcely believe it myself. But, some just can’t seem to understand the concept that there could be a group of people who have Swedish as their mother tongue outside of Sweden’s borders. Surprisingly, a lot of Swedish people think finlandssvenska denotes the way a Finnish-speaker speaks Swedish (as a foreign language, rather than mother tongue). Of course, this does not apply to all Swedes – but many more than you would reasonably expect! I always think that if one has Swedish (or any small language as mother tongue), you would be naturally interested in the limited number of people who share your native language… but there you go. There again, I remember when I was studying at uni (in swedish in fin), we had an exchange student from SkÃ¥ne and she had to put up with being asked “Where in Denmark are you from?” quite often, so it goes both ways!

It is true it is harder to understand certain accents in other languages (even within your own– SkÃ¥nska for me is harder to understand than a lot of Norwegians for instance!). I think that is just natural, I still find it harder to understand Indians/Irish/Scots speak English as you point to. It’s not me being deliberately discriminatory, it’s just a fact.

But of course, I do see the paradox you point out. But, I would say that I don’t think it is often actually an “unwillingness” to listen to people trying to improve their Finnish. It is more sometimes a sympathy, I think we think it is easier for us to change to English (or even a kind of duty for us) because we have some back-of-the-mind thought that no-one would really be wishing to try to learn Finnish and that therefore we should change to the default lingua franca of the world rather than you trying to speak Finnish (which we assume is harder for you, than for us to speak English – not always a correct assumption). So, it is more out of disbelief than unwillingness! I hope that makes sense, but I realise it is bad because there are people who naturally do want to learn Finnish (or Swedish) if they live here! And rightly so. Do you ever explain this to them?

HFB, you can use Swedish on a daily basis outside Åland! Although not in so many places and not really in any “big” places where it is easier for immigrants to get a job. But, move to Österbotten or Ekenäs even. But, of course, here in the south it is impossible to live one’s life 100% in Swedish and certainly not in the huvudstadsregion!

JG – Well, maybe English is just butchered more often or English-speakers are more used to hearing a wider variety of accents but I do still find the very narrow band of accent, both in Finnish and in English, that many (most?) Finns seem to be willing to deal with very curious. Granted, I’m an armchair linguist with a fondness for the variety of American dialects and vocabularies but there comes a point where you have to find a way to communicate. Once when I was working on a botanical database, I was the ‘single without kids’ schlep in the office who was given the joy of taking a Chinese woman and a Brazilian woman for groceries since they were both resident researchers. Neither of them spoke English and at some point a problem came up and in desperation I tried using body language, sign language and then I finally remembered that Brazil used to teach German…and we were saved.

And while I understand, somewhat, the whole “I can’t believe you’re living in Finland and speaking my language” deal, it remains a catch-22 as people won’t speak it if you always cut to English as just as the Swede offended you by merely saying how good your Swedish is, just imagine how humiliating it is to have someone cut to English after you’ve managed only to say two words in Finnish. What it boils down to is that it is unrealistic to expect the vast majority of immigrants over the age of, say, 30, who move to Finland to speak the language very fluently in five years, if ever.

I have a far greater appreciation for Mexicans in the US in that there were many times in Finland that I felt like one.

How many jobs do you suppose are available for Swedish-only speakers in Finland?

“As the population ages, skilled labour is needed, especially in the service industry. Care work cannot be moved away from the places where it is needed,” Ms Cronberg said in a statement.

Ms Cronberg should first raise salaries to those who cannot be replaced easely by cheap labour. That will push more people into these type of work in the next few years and bring back home the one that have fled the country due to low salary and rising cost.

“In an interview with the Centre Party’s web publication Apila, Väyrynen said that rather than encourage immigration for work in Finland, it would be more sensible to move jobs for which there are not enough workers in Finland to other countries.“

Hello, how can Finland remain competitive if you have hig ranking bureaucrats spouting nonsense like this one?!!!

“Cronberg said on Sunday that Väyrynen is living in a bygone world. The Minister of Labour notes that nursing and caring work cannot be moved away from those who need the services. She notes that as the population ages, workers will be needed especially in the service sector.“

Smart lady, yes…after all, is Finland going to move all senior Finns to, say, Philippines, so they can be cared for professionally by low wage but highly skilled nurses?

With this debacle, one would think Finnish government officials lived in a secluded forest in Finland oblivious to the outside world…especially in light of comments made on Russia by Defence Minister Jyri Häkämies. Tsk, tsk…these guys should take a crash course on public speaking and international relations!

Hfb, I completely agree with you, it is a total catch 22 situation. I think it is very true though that English speakers are more used to hearing English spoken with a wide variety of non-native accents than Finnish speakers are of hearing Finnish with a wide variety of non-native accents; it’s really seldom that you really here a Chinese/Indian/Mexican etc speak Finnish, whereas you only need to watch the tv-news to see everyone speaking English in every accent imaginable.

I don’t suppose there are many jobs you could get away with being only Swedish-speaking in the south. But in many parts of Österbotten you could do so; and there are immigrants that do. There is (or was at least) a Chinese restaurant in Ekenäs where the Chinese owners could not speak Finnish but could get by in Swedish and there are quite a lot of agricultural workers immigrants in Österbotten who have learnt Swedish only, not Finnish. So, it is possible. That said, to get a “good” job, it would be very hard, next to impossible. It’s actually quite hard for me to judge though, as I really don’t know any Swedish-speakers, apart from a very few elderly people here in the south, who can’t speak Finnish fluently. Perhaps that fact answers the question though!

The percentage of immigrants in Sweden is 12(nearly it will be 13!) and not 11 as it was written.I think majority of Swedes are used with’Swedish-foreign accents,due to the fact that there are millions of immigrants live in Sweden.This has helped the level of racism in general,i can say Sweden is one the best place of immigrants to live,here there is many chances.I can see the differences when i used to live in Finland and now living in Sweden.Salaries are much more better especial in the health care field.

oops it should be read,this has helped to decrease racism.

I cant speak Finnish and thus (at least I was told) it is not possible to get work here. I have a Master degree and all I did so far was working as a cleaner in a Hotel. (I am in Finland since 2 years). Next year I will leave this country and go to an English speaking country. They just want foreigners here to do the shity jobs. It’s like a slave market!

Why is the government publishing such a crap video:
http://www.mol.fi/mol/fi/02_tyosuhteet_ja_lait/02_ulkom_suomessa/07_flash/Tyoministerio_WEB_ENG.html