Tag: sweden

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Spreek je Engels?

When I wrote the first draft of this entry, it was on a two-day trip to the Netherlands with my pal Marc.

Athough I had a few phrases and a guidebook handy, English is a language that travels well. We were able to navigate the entire trip without a word of Dutch. For interest, I also brought my DAB+ radio and found two stations with English-speaking presenters: the BBC World Service for news, and Pidi for dance music. Last year, we visited Sweden and we enjoyed a similar experience.

While the prevalence of English was most helpful for us, I’m also concerned about playing into the stereotype of the monolingual Brit. (Caveat: I can fluently understand the Scots language, but since that doesn’t help outside the country, I’ll set it aside here.) English is the lingua franca of aviation, computer code, and a huge chunk of the world’s film industry. It’s not difficult to see the lack of incentive for learning a second language.

The only real way to make a difference is to learn one that I can keep in my back pocket for future trips to mainland Europe. There are three current contenders:

  1. As French is a working language of both NATO and the UN, this seems an obvious choice.
  2. However, the easiest to pick up personally would be Spanish, as I studied this at high school, and this is also a UN language.
  3. Or is there a case for taking up German instead? It should be relatively easy to find classes and learning resources for this.

Alternatively, is there some other language or some better solution I should consider? It feels like a small yet deliberate courtesy to make some sort of effort.

Meanwhile, at least Marc and I can be proud of not playing up to another stereotype: antisocial behaviour abroad. After a burger and a stroopwafel, we were back at the hotel by 8pm.

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Letter-Writing Season Again

Shortly before I left for Sweden last month, I received two letters from pen-pals on the same day: one from Wales and the other the Republic of Ireland. They don’t know each other, so the timing was entirely a coincidence.

I’d already planned to send postcards to both of them while I was away, along with selected other folks. Since the Swedish equivalent of the Post Office allows you to buy postage online, I was able to stamp and address them in advance; it was just a matter of writing them while I was there.

But it’s now time to reply to the actual letters, so I’ve been plugging away at this for the last week or so.

I keep lined notepads especially for this purpose, particularly the Nu Elite brand. The pages have perforations near the margin so they rip off into perfect A5 sheets and fold in half for a C6 envelope. It doesn’t have to be that brand, as long at the paper is reasonably thick and has similar properties.

It’s all practical, and certainly less stylish than the letters I received.

The one from Wales has a striped coloured border, but not feint ruling on the writing area. If you ask me, it’s quite a skill to write neatly on unruled paper, as mine would start sloping up or down, no matter how careful I was. I typically write mine by hand.

Then the letter from Ireland starts off in a notecard with an intricate Alice in Wonderland theme before continuing on A5 paper, similar to what I use.

And just as I was writing this paragraph, my Welsh friend sent me a message to say the letter had been received. That’s good news, as her very first one to me went missing without trace. Fortunately, she’d kept a copy of it, although I never remember to take a copy of mine before posting. That said, it barely matters, as long as I’m reasonably careful not to repeat the same news every time.

The one bound for Ireland is around 80% complete, and just needs a final push to complete it. As far as I’m aware, the recipient doesn’t read this blog, so there’s no hurry.

I can’t see it happening any time soon, but I’ll maybe one day be able to introduce the two pen-pals so they can write to each other and complete the circle.