10 days and 10 lunches later, I finished Swedish level B2
A conversation with Jens, a tailor-made course student learning Swedish at UvA Talen.
Can you tell us something about yourself?
My name is Jens. I was born in Germany and have been living abroad for more than 30 years now; first in France, then in The Netherlands. Now the next destination is calling: Sweden!
I work as an expert for international media business and human rights based development cooperation. As a trained journalist, I started my career working for renowned international broadcasters like Radio France International, ARTE TV and Radio Netherlands Worldwide. My Master of Business Administration came handy when reorienting myself towards the development cooperation sector. These past years, I have been advising, coaching and developing media organisations and their media workers in conflict-prone countries and regions, mainly in Africa, on how to build and develop home-grown strategies and solutions that enable the different media stakeholders to improve their capacities, resilience, safety and relevance in hostile or repressive environments.
In my current leadership role (until 31 May, 2025) for a Dutch based press freedom NGO (non-governmental organisation), I am responsible for developing and implementing media programmes in currently more than 50 countries worldwide. My proficiency in English, German, French and Dutch enable me to work seamlessly in multinational environments!
Why do you want to learn Swedish?
My partner and I have recently decided to move to Stockholm, the capital of Sweden.
After more than 17 wonderful years in The Netherlands, it’s the right moment for us to go North. Sweden is a beautiful country with breath-taking nature, something we miss living in Amsterdam. Even though my partner is Swedish-born and we both spend a lot of time there with family and friends, I never really managed to master the Swedish language fluently. The holiday-stays were too short to deepen the knowledge and the work-life back home is too intense to find time to dive into a language training. But thanks to my persistent family-in-law and my partner’s wish to listen every morning to the excellent news programme of Swedish public broadcaster P1, I understand quite a lot and have established a solid base to build on and to develop my Swedish to a level that will enable me to work in a Swedish- international setting.
What course have you taken with UvA Talen?
After some research and some very informative exchanges with UvA Talen, my preference was to learn alone, intensely and compact.
I remembered my experience back in 1992, when I spent several weeks at the Polytechnic Institute in Irkutsk (Siberia) in order to learn Russian. Full-day individual language classes with several teachers and on different topics- in combination with an unforgettable homestay in a loving family- made me master the language in a very short time. Even though I am not 21 anymore, this model triggered my interest and challenged me intellectually.
UvA Talen found two fantastic and inspiring teachers who took turns during the training days: Nanouk and Åsa complemented each other perfectly with regards to their methodologies and approaches. Beside grammar and vocabulary training, they both focussed a lot on providing every day a tailored plan that responded to the progress that I made the day before. Exercises, reading, listening and a lot of conversation made the days diverse and entertaining. We read interesting articles, watched videos, listened to songs and discussed all kind of topics: history, art, politics, governance, culture & mentality, belonging, societal issues, job interviews. Really, I never had a dull moment. 10 days and 10 delicious lunches later, I finished with level B2 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.
Tell us about some of the outings you went on during your course!
Every day, UvA Talen organized a lunch table in one of the nearby restaurants. Even though the provided classroom was spacious and cosy, it felt good to take some fresh air during the lunch break and to change the setting for the time of a more informal talk with the teachers. In this relaxed atmosphere, it was nice to discuss more personal every day issues, which allowed us to get to know each other even better around a delicious light meal. And even though these conversations were all held in Swedish, it didn’t feel like a burden. It was actually really enjoyable to have this rather informal way of improving the language.
What’s your favourite word or expression you’ve learned in Swedish?
The word that I remember most is ‘faktoider’, in English factoids. Those are items of unreliable and unverifiable information that are reported and repeated so often that they become accepted as facts. This is a phenomenon that we are not only witnessing in the social media, but also in politics.
What is your end-goal with learning Swedish?
I think there is never a real end-goal when talking about learning foreign languages, it’s a permanent and ongoing process of improvement. But in the case of acquiring the language of your future home country, it would be: to master Swedish at a level enabling me to be an active and valuable member of a multicultural and open society in which we all can learn from each other’s human experiences and in which we all feel home, despite and thanks to our differences.
Want to learn Swedish like Jens?