Helsinki School of Economics

I wanted to improve my English and I think I improved it because the courses were in English and because I spoke English every day with Finnish and foreign students. I could not speak Finnish so I tried to learn the language but it is very different from every other languages and it is very difficult to learn. So I know basic words to be able to go shopping. But Finnish people speak english very well so it was not a problem.

This experience will remain something that changed my vision of the world forever. I hadn't had the opportunity to travel before, and there, I met people from the whole world. I spend hours talking with friends, exchanging ideas on the way e see the world and our future...Though we came from different cultures, we found out we had to answer the same questions ..I also learned a little bit of tchech and korean, since my roomates came from Praha and Seoul...and guess what, I am just about to meet Lenka (my roomate) again! This trip was a very humanly rich experience for me!

Well, in Finland almost everybody speaks English. So there are, in general, no communication problems. I participated in two Finnish language courses but did not really used the language because everybody speaks English. Another thing is that most of the exchange students don't speak Finnish but English and usually you spend most of your time with them.

Basically nordic countries have a high level of english so it´s quite easy to interact there with all sort of people, i haven´t many problems in that sense. Of course be bale to speak finnish can be quite interesting in order to interact completelu with people, but you can manage there withou problems just speaking english.

Finnish is a very difficult language! I was disappointed that the school did not require we study finnish in the school. I would have liked to learn the basics. However, it was not neccesary as most people in Finland speak English, and one could get by quite easily without speaking any Finnish.

During my stay I got the chance to practice my English as well as German language skills. I spoke both of them very good before. The international environment gave me the opportunity to become more fluent and switch back and fort between them.