The world’s largest expat survey opens its annual questionnaire today. It remains open until May 31st and encourages expatriates to share their experiences to form the much appreciated and award-winning comparison of expat life in different countries. To take part go here.
In 2012 more than 5300 expats took part in the HSBC Expat Explorer survey.
Having moved to Sweden with children your family might want to listen to Swedish children’s music. Kid’s music is very much part of the cultural context, and apart from having fun a few bonuses to listening to it include
Barnplaneten (Children’s planet) provides lists in Spotify such as lists for classics, nap time, animals, play and dance as well as a teacher’s list.
Do you want to know how a word in a foreign language is pronounced? I found a website – Acapela – ; providing native speaking voices for 30 different languages; often also different local dialects. I tried Swedish and it worked well. So go ahead and listen to pronunciation of Swedish.
Learning English, Swedish, French or Chinese? Or any other language?
To work on your vocabulary when learning a new language I want to share the following tip with you. Put washi tape on items, drawers, shelves and boxes and write the object’s name on it. Remove when you have learnt the word and choose new objects.
Great for bilingual kids too, expanding their vocabulary! At home I use it for my children (TCKs) to not forget words after returning to passport country after expat life.
Washi tape is pretty masking tape, originating from Japan. It is removable and reusable, slightly transparent with a paper feel to it (made from rice paper). It comes in all sorts of patterns and colors; select one that goes well with text for this language learning project! Washi tape is commonly used for scrapbooking, art journaling and other creative projects.
Ready, craft, go! Learn!
To teach children a language, native or second, I find the app My Playhome useful. It’s a dolls house app complete with a family home and a set of characters that you by drag and drop move around the house, letting them do different things. It is simple yet detailed, which makes it suitable for young kids as well as older ones. Sit next to your child and play together; asking the child to talk about what is happening, describing both the actions and the settings. You can also give instructions to the child from easy ones as “put the book on the table” to “go into the kitchen, open the top right cupboard door and take out a cupcake, have the boy eat half of it and put the other half in the trash can”.
Practice verbs by opening the refrigerator door, pour water in a glass, feed the baby and set the table.
Work on prepositions by putting objects or people in different places.
Vocabulary training is obvious, and don’t forget the adjectives! Turn the lights on and off, bring a red apple from the garden into the living room, and find the most colorful necklace in the master bedroom or put on some soft music.
Don’t forget the silly stuff – like putting dad in the fish tank or letting mom jump on the couch!
The app in itself does not contain words, only pictures.
My Playhome is available in a free Lite version and a regular version. It’s also available for Androids.
The regular version comes with characters of different ethnicity – which I think is a plus – more rooms and a garden.
Have fun!
Listening to the radio you probably can’t avoid the news. The news are usually read in a fast pace, and what I find after having returned to Sweden, contain a lot of slang words that didn’t use to belong there. Only the other day I heard them use the Swenglish word “hosta” as in “to host” talking about a major sports event on the news.
If you are learning Swedish you might want to try to listen to Klartext. Klartext is a news program by the Swedish Radio channel P4. The news is easier to follow than regular news since the pace is slower and the words used are easier to understand.
You can either listen to the radio (18-18.10 on weekdays), via the web page, as a podcast or via an app on your phone. The app is called SR Play. Listening to Klartext is a good way of practicing your understanding of spoken Swedish, perhaps in addition to your Swedish classes.
You can also read their news on the website.
Visit Klartext’s website to practice your Swedish! You will find links to the news, the app and pod casts here, as well as the written news.
For English info on Klartext go here.
Please leave a comment – have you tried it? Did you find it difficult?
It was believed that the Easter witches during the week of Easter flew to a place called Blåkulla and then back again. In order to try and scare them away on their return bon fires were lit. We still have the tradition of the fires, mostly on the West coast and south of Sweden. Fires are lit on the Saturday of Easter.
Last year I remember we had a very vivid discussion in my expat network about the Swedish tradition of dressing up as an Easter witch. People were appalled by the thought of it; seeing Easter witches as something dark and scary. It can be hard to understand and accept other culture’s traditions and it can be equally hard for a person familiar to them to get why they can be provoking or upsetting. We are usually so caught up with and used to the traditions (hence the word) that we don’t really think about the whys and hows and what it can possible look like to an outsider.
I tried to explain that the Easter dressing up is like Halloween – kids knock on doors, sometimes leaving a homemade Easter card and hope for candy in return. But we all have different references to witches (come on, we do!) and it wasn’t until I googled pictures of cute little Easter witches that we all agreed that it wasn’t such a bad thing after all! Boys and girls dress up in long colorful skirts and headscarves (the most important attribute) and red colored cheeks and lots of freckles. Lately we also see little Easter Men and Bunnies.
The word “påskkärring” actually does not even mean Easter witch but rather “Easter Old Woman”. There is very little in common with the witches people believed in during the 17th Century – also people did not drink coffee in Sweden at the time, and a dressed up kid usually carries a coffee pot around accompanying the broomstick; sometimes even a black cat.
So, when can you expect them to arrive – the kids, not the witches? On the West coast of Sweden it is mostly common to be visited by påskkärringar during Easter Saturday, whereas Thursday is more common in the rest of the country.
