Archive for 'Living in Sweden'
Collective over individual Posted by Katja on Oct 10, 2011
Let us take the case of how we look at progress in school in Sweden as an example of this. The whole gets focused more on than the individual’s progress and level in today’s school system. Instead of dividing up an age group into A, B and C classes for math, English and Swedish for…
Staying in Sweden longer than three months Posted by Stephen Maconi on Oct 6, 2011
If you’re planning to visit Sweden for any given period of time, depending on which country you’re from, you may need a visum, or visa, to get into the country. EU citizens/residents don’t need any form of visa, regardless of how long they stay, because they have what is known as uppehållsrätt, or right of…
I Love You in Swedish Posted by jennie on Oct 5, 2011
Ah those magic words, so lovely to hear and sometimes so hard to say. Well, especially if you don’t know HOW to say them. Therefore, we decided that a blog post about these three little words would be absolutely essential. So here goes: I love you = Jag älskar dig (“dig” is pronounced “dej”)…
Tips and tricks for Swedes in friendliness Posted by Katja on Oct 3, 2011
Not too long ago I wrote a post on how physical I experienced Swedes being after I came back from Japan. A lot of the responses were that you did not at all feel Swedes were particularly physical and had on the contrary felt that they were rather cold and quite distant. I can understand…
Opening hours Posted by Katja on Sep 29, 2011
The chances that you will be battling people right after work for groceries are quite high in Sweden. Probably less so now then a couple of years ago when almost all shops closed at 5 PM, but I think you would still be hard-pressed to find a shops that is open after 9pm on a…
Age in Sweden Posted by Katja on Sep 16, 2011
The almighty ‘personnummer’ (your birthdate) makes everyones ages’ public and this may explain why Swedes do not mind giving their age when introducing themselves. For example when a group of people introduce themselves for each other, they say what their name is and how old they are. You age is a kind of ‘taboo’ subject…
What’s wrong with Stockholm? Posted by jennie on Sep 9, 2011
Just came across this article from the CNN.com travel column “The State I’m In” by Brendan Francis Newnam. It’s about Stockholm and thought I’d share it with you. It’s spot on in so many ways, and fun and useful as well. A snippet: “In fact, Stockholm is so attractive and so user-friendly that your feelings about it…