I first became aware of the existence of Swedish in 2013. Of course, I had known before that people in Scandinavian countries spoke other languages different from any language I had ever bothered to investigate. But the realness of Swedish was never in front of me. Until C and I had decided to move to Sweden, Swedish was the language that was spoken by Vikings and possibly elves, maybe Father Christmas? But that was all the thought I ever gave to that form of communication.
Of course, once the decision was made, I understood that to be a doctor in Sweden and communicate with my sick patients, I would have to learn their language, so I took the same approach I usually take with any challenge, I went all in.
I downloaded an online Swedish course for C and myself and started listening to the lessons and repeating all the answers faithfully on my way to work every morning. I could see the smiles on some people’s faces as I was inviting some imaginary person out for a coffee while riding the Roosevelt Island tram. I realized the futility of this course for my intended objective when C asked me innocently why I had bought a course that was teaching him to flirt with Swedish women… was I trying to tell him something? It was then that it dawned on me that I would not be using any of my newly learned “fun talk” to actually address anybody at work. Who wanted to share a glass of wine with a Spaniard at the “restaurang”? or grab a cup of coffee at the “teater kafeet”? Also, who was I kidding? Swedish was not just a mix of mostly English-sounding words peppered with some German.
Being Spanish myself, my universe has revolved around Latin-based languages (Catalan being my mother tongue, Spanish my schooling language). I had managed to learn French in a record time thanks to dating a French guy and Italian trying to communicate with the woman who would become my mother-in-law. English I was forced to learn at a fast pace when I was 10 years old when my parents moved to the UK, so I was (am) considered one of those polyglots. At 34, I thought learning Swedish might not be a walk in the park, but maybe just a hike in a forest? And I could not be more wrong. Once I landed in Sweden, I was faced with situations and conversations where smiling and inviting people for a coffee would be seen as odd. What people do not know about me is that to get my point across, I usually have to use a whole lot of body language. In quiet Sweden, moving my hands around frantically, trying to mutter something Swedish before inevitably reverting to English, just made me look like I was having some kind of epileptic attack. People seemed more concerned about my health than informed about a work-related issue I needed to communicate.
Eight years ago this week I started working for Skånes University Hospital, a hospital in Lund, Sweden. Back then, the rules for Swedish proficiency were somewhat lose, or the breast oncology team that hired me was really desperate for some back up. In any case, I got placed in the ward where an extremely kind resident took pains to explain to me the concept of the Swedish double negative (kan inte ingenting* is not a thing, apparently) and I am sure more than one nurse had thoughts about my capacities as a doctor.
Most of the Swedish I had “learnt” at that point was from an online course for tourists, so when I got my introduction schedule and saw that I would be meeting ÖL* Dr. Olsson I thought- wow, we are going out for beers? And I was half concerned about the inappropriateness of drinking beers in the morning and half very happy I had landed in such a department (for clarification, there were no beers involved and Dr. Olsson was extremely professional).
Time went by and soon I started to feel discouraged when opening my Swedish as a foreign language books. I also started to obsess about an episode I had heard on this radio program called “Radiolab”. In this particular episode I recalled, entitled “9-volt Nirvana” the reporter went to a super-secret army lab in California (ok, maybe I am embellishing the circumstances), and she was zapped in the brain with electrodes delivering in very specific areas of her brain just 9 volts. This is all it took to transform her from a lame shooter into a killing machine (virtually, I mean, she just became really good at killing people in a video game), more focused and really sharp. The episode left such a deep impression on me that I have never been able to shake the feeling that all the potential in my brain is just 9 volts away, a mere trip to the supermarket. I fantasized about buying a 9-volt battery and constructing a brain electrode device to stimulate my Swedish learning curve. I could imagine myself in engineering mode, building this contraption from scratch, and then zapping my neurons into full Scandinavian mode.
I have sometimes found myself in the supermarket isle holding one such battery in my hand before shaking my head, leaving it where I found it, and thinking- “Ana, you were way too bad in physics to even contemplate fabricating this.” And it is true, I could never understand the difference between volts, amps, ohms, and watts, so all things electric inspire fear and respect in me. In any case, I thought it best to leave brain enhancement experiments to the US military and learn Swedish the old-fashioned way.
Now, after nine years in Sweden my Swedish is anything but good. I suspect it is because my “Swedish trip” was and still is associated with always having a baby around. Focusing while bringing up children is hard. In fact, being the resourceful person I am, I have come up with my own diagnosis. Making up diagnoses that can be taken seriously is one of the perks of being a doctor. I have TAD- which stands for “Toddler Associated Dementia”. And it totally fits, my Swedish trip was and still is associated with always having a toddler around me. My last boy is almost three and I can feel the mental fog lifting. Any time now I will reveal myself as a true Swedish scholar… I cannot wait for that to happen.
* “kan inte ingenting” in English translates to “I do not know nothing” which is Spanish is the correct “no sé nada”.
*ÖL in Swedish means Beer but it is also the short form for Överläkare which translates into “Senior Consultant”.
Hahahah! 17 feels like spiting!
Cool! Beer is 'olut' in Finnish. Maybe its related / borrowed