tiia's log (FIN, SPA, SWE, EUS)

[tiia]

Finland, is it? Which part?

Metropolian region.

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Getting outside was great. As I'm at the campus area again, I indeed made some finns talking to me. (Yep, that way round.) There was some kind of gathering because of the new prospective students writing their entrance exams.

[jeff_lindqvist]

I just came to think of this link:
https://www.quora.com/What-would-me-the ... -foreigner

(Scroll down to the story about the student who got fluent in 9 months.)

[tiia]

I just came to think of this link:
https://www.quora.com/What-would-me-the ... -foreigner

(Scroll down to the story about the student who got fluent in 9 months.)

I actually happen to have a friend like that here in Finland. If I would not have met her in the very beginning, when she barely spoke any Finnish, I would not have believed what she could do already after 3 or 6 months. After 9-12 months her Finnish probabaly surpassed mine and she was speaking fluently. Regarding the accent I'm not so sure. I think after one year she didn't study it that intensely anymore, but well.. she could already speak by then.


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Travelling from Germany to Finland
I had chosen the option of taking the train+ferry because of all my luggage. I had (rough) made a calculation for both ways together* that resulted in the ferry being around 150€ cheaper than a plane due to the amount of luggage. (Two suitcases, one of them weighting more than 23kg).

*Booking one-way plane tickets is so much more expensive, that comparing only one-way tickets would have led to an even larger difference.

So at the first train station the escalator I needed was broken. Luckily someone offered me their help, when I was trying to get up the stairs. (You basically need two hands to get the heavier suitcase up the stairs, so it was pretty obvious I needed help.)
The first train was of course delayed, half of the wagons had a broken air condition and therefore were closed for passengers. But I had estimated such a delay when booking the ticket, so I didn't have to worry. There was only one wagon left for disabled people and bicycles (meaning there's more space where one can also put some luggage) and I was a bit worried that this might be completely overcrowded, but it was okay. I could a least sit comfortably on the floor and later even got a seat. (I remember situations, where there wasn't enough space for people to sit on the floor.) Surprisingly I felt quite relaxed in that train.
The second train and the bus to the ferry were not making any problems.

On the ferry it was extremly windy, making eating outside rather difficult, but inside there weren't really any good places to eat your own food either. So this resulted in a small discussion with some crew member (note: my Finnish skills decline immediately when I'm feeling stressed). I'm still considering to make a complainment to the company, not about the crew member, but about the fact that there's pretty much no suitable space left. (They had changed the interior a bit since I took the connection the last time. Back then the situation was better, plus it wasn't so windy, but that's not the company's fault.)
But the other passengers were nice. No incidents here. In total I spend a lot of the time inside the sauna and the whirlpool, because there's not much one can do otherwise. (And in contrast to food on board, this is always included.)

Not so much to say between the arrival at the harbour and the flat. I already wrote something about the afternoon/evening.

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Now I signed my work contract, had a visit at the registration office and got a tax card. Did all that in Finnish.** I didn't feel stressed and got answers to all my questions. Especially the person at the tax counter was really helpful.
Btw. it was interesting to see, who was talking in Finnish to the officials and who used English.

** Except one official telling me immediately in English that she was busy. (She obviously was.)


Later I kind of ran into my new flatmate again and really had struggles finding all the words in English, they only came up in Finnish and maybe German (unfortunately the flatmate doesn't speak Finnish).


What about the feel? It's like being welcomed to a big nice family, that is not stressing you out, but supporting you. I feel home again. There's also the smell, the birds singing and the sea nearby. My heart is telling me, that this is just right thing here.
I'm really looking forward to how my first work day will be tomorrow.

[tiia]

I've had a first complete week of work now. It's really nice and I am so happy that the took me for the three months. I can speak Finnish and English at work and have been introduced as the "Finnish speaking German". Sometimes I even get a few bits of German for the moment.
However, work leads to not getting too much other stuff done, because I still want to get outside of my room as well. So still no Swedish so far. But I have the book here.

But - and that might surprise you: My Spanish is impoving!
Remember, that I wrote several times that I feel like it is at a similar stage as my Finnish was when I started the exchange? Well, it seems I'm now doing the exact same thing with Spanish, that I did with Finnish. - Going to the very same language cafe and trying to speak. It's going surprisingly well! I'd say from understanding I'm quite furher than with Finnish back then. With speaking I'm not sure yet, but it might be also a bit better.
Honestly, it was not the main purpose of going there again, although I had kept that idea in mind. There I try to avoid the English and German tables. The English table is more like the last alternative, because you may end up speaking some English anyways. The Finnish table is a bit mixed, it depends for me a bit on each visit. Especially as I can now hear and speak Finnish at work, it's not so urgent to practise, because basically I'm already practising everyday. Swedish is not always spoken and my Swedish skills are really not yet far enough to make use out of this. So then there's Spanish left and that is, like I've already written above, exactly in the state that it can profit a lot from this.
(Btw. also Spanish may not be found during the whole evening.)

[tiia]

It has been a whole month since I wrote here last time...

How do you translate your CV's?

I am especially looking for people who grew up or were educated in a non-English speaking country and are writing it in another non-English language. It seems to me most of the CV-in-another-language stuff is either translating it into English (I have already done that) or from English into another language.

The thing is, I have to get my CV done in Finnish. Translating the tasks or single words is not the thing. The layout isn't too different either.
My problem is: What to do with names?
When I wrote the CV in English, I translated the name of my University, as there is some kind of official English name, so I don't see a problem in using it. The name of my last school, however, I left in German, as there's no such easy way of translating it (+ short explanation, what kind of certification I got from that school).

Now as a few things are clear such as:
- Names of schools, clubs, that don't have another name than the one in German, will stay in German. People have to be able to identify the organisations, when typing the name into Google. The only option would be to give a rough transaltion of the name, if needed. (It's usually not.)
- The title of my thesis, will be in English as I have an official English title for it. Translating this into Finnish would also be a bit complicated. Took my already 2-3 weeks (!) to find more or less a translation for one of the words. Leaving it in German would make sure, no one has a chance to understand, what it is about. Using English here makes sense also, because that will be the name visible on the certificate from the university. (We got English and German versions of the certificate.) As a recent graduate, I'm definitely still including the thesis title in the CV. I would maybe neglect it, if I already had years of work experience.

The main thing I'm now thinking about is the name of the university. Their English name is just "[Name of the city] University of Technology", in German "Technische Universität [Name of the city]", in everyday use or when there's not much space "TU [name of the city]". This is a name one actually can translate into nearly any language.

In the end it's just one line of the CV, but still I can get myself hung up on such details too easily. Considering the factors above (some names in German, thesis title in English), which language would you use for the name in a Finnish CV?


If anyone with Finnish skills knows, how to translate "pre-diploma" ("Vordiplom") into Finnish, that would be great to know as well. It's some kind of certificate you get during your studies, when you have done the most basic courses, so usually after 4 semesters. It is not a degree and is also still lower level than a Bachelor's degree would be. Most likely that's a line I will just delete.

[tiia]

Oh I just saw your edit Bones. I had encountered the word välitodistus and even left the original German word with explanation for the first 1-2 applications. Let's see how I'll do it for the next ones.
Still translating the CV is a lot of more work than I had imagined, but at least I have now something I can use, though I'm not completely happy with it.

Listened to a few Swedish words, but in general poor Swedish doesn't get enough attention. There's also a useful Swedish document at work. I mean, really, I learned with this document vocabulary such as sjuvhållfasthet, odränerad and jord. Very useful for someone with A1 skills, right?

Spanish didn't get too much attention either. But: I sometimes speak it at the language cafe, I played even Spanish Scrabble twice! Today I also read a entry of eidos log and tried watching two TEDx talks in Spanish. Worked surprisingly well, and I may try to continue with it every now and then. (It's nice there are subtitles available for these videos, which are really just a transcription of the audio.)

---
I somehow started to try out running a few weeks ago. It's more like a midnight running, because, well I still don't like that others couldn see me. At least I improved already, but it's still so slow (but it has to be that slow, I know) and probably nothing compared to normal people. But it's something. - At least for me. (When I'm able to "run" 10mins in a row I really achieved something, as I cannot remember that I was ever able to do that.)

Well, and I need a permanent job and another flat, though the flat is more urgent. I don't want to have to return to Germany in September.

[jeff_lindqvist]

vocabulary such as sjuvhållfasthet

It's the first time I see this word (and I'm a native speaker). There's no way for me to figure out what it means without looking it up in a dictionary.

[tiia]

vocabulary such as sjuvhållfasthet

It's the first time I see this word (and I'm a native speaker). There's no way for me to figure out what it means without looking it up in a dictionary.

The thing is that in soil mechanics determinating the shear strength is quite important. But otherwise...

I remember how I was kind of complaining when I had had the one lecture in Finnish, that I could not use the words that I had learned there with anyone, because only students/engineers in that field would actually understand them.
But in the end, I can make use of those words now, because it is exactly the field I'm now having the job in.


Btw. the corresponding term in Finnish is leikkauslujuus and in German Scherfestigkeit. But I don't think anyone here (except me) will ever need those terms in those languages.

[tiia]

So no visiting of a flat today, but I have one for Friday and one for Saturday as it seems. Locationwise not too different, not the best connections, depending where I would have to get. Minimum rental time 5/6 months. I did for both cases a rough estimation of costs for the minimum time, to see whether I can take that risk or not. I mean you can never know, whether the job search will work out or not. Uhm. It's quite a number, but still what I can take.*

I'm actually hoping more for the more expensive flat (per month - the total risk for 5/6 months is actually quite the same) as my impression had been so far the better one. Meaning also I'd probably feel more relaxed with a female tenant and more forest directly next to the flat. I mean, it's not that I've been joking that it's the most inhabited forest, where I live. No, not at all.

*I had set myself more or less a maximum budget and had calculated backwards, how much I can still pay for rent, so it's not surprising it's close to that number.

Oh and just because - one of the most beautiful foresty parts, still belonging to the muncipality. Photo taken approx. 3 weeks ago.

FinnishForest.JPG

[tiia]

I'll just copy these quotes from the "Why bother and learn another language?"-thread.

Also, the "we've never hired 2nd language speakers for the job, only natives" experience calls for a follow up question: "and what kinds of candidates were you refusing,what were their language skills?". Perhaps only badly speaking 2nd language speakers were applying, or they were simply worse in other aspects than the successful candidates who also happened to be natives of the demanded language.

A company located in London is spoiled for choice. There were hundreds of applicants for the job, remember this was a call centre, so a position for Spanish speaker would get 100-200 applicants, so the first thing you do is strip out all applicants whose native language isn't Spanish and who don't already live in the country. Didn't matter what their level was, if it wasn't native then it wasn't enough to make the final cut. Even then we'd still have to go through 50-100 applicants who were native Spanish speakers and try to get it down to 10 people to interview then to 2-3 people for second interviews. I suppose if the job required more specialist skills like doctor or lawyer then 2nd language applicants would have been considered.

I know rdearmans example is about a call center and I'm more a specialist regarding my education. But exactly this kind of issue is forcing me to concentrate now on a flat search as a prospective job seeker, than just searching for a job. (I strongly assume that) if I don't have a flat in Finland lots of companies here wouldn't even consider me as a candidate. Not as a rather recent graduate without experience.
Plus, how can I work, when I don't have a place to live? (I know, there are ways to handle this.)