As an international student do I need to know Finnish to study in Finland
Author: Dhruv Post Date: 24 Nov 2023 No, it is not mandatory to know the Finnish language to study a higher education program in Finland. There are many institutes in this Nordic country, where some of the courses are in English. Since most Finns are familiar with the English language, knowledge of English is enough even for most day-to-day situations outside the college campus. However, one should note that not every course is in English. Also, there are many institutes, where the education is solely in Finnish or Swedish. It is worth noting that in Finland 87% of the population have Finnish as their native language and 5% Swedish. Thus your scope of choosing the best institute or the right course gets limited if you are not familiar with the Finnish or the Swedish language.
In the job field, though, it helps if you are proficient in Finnish. Most employers in Finland prefer candidates with knowledge of Finnish or Swedish. As such, if you are a foreign student, it is advisable that you take up a Finnish language learning course either at your institute of study or any other language training school. There are also many online courses that help you learn the language. These online materials are in the form of videos, podcasts, and applications. Through them, you get to study Finnish grammar, vocabulary, sentence making, and so on. Some of the applications that help you learn most foreign languages, including Finnish, are Suomipassi, Duolingo, and WordDive. In this respect would like to add I have friends who went to Finland to study without any skills in the Finnish language. But over the years during their period of stay there, they learned the language pretty well and are now working and living there as permanent citizens.
Apart from learning the Finnish language it also helps if you learn about the Finnish people, society, and its culture. It comes good when you enter the job market in Finland as it helps you make friends faster, network with them, and socialize. And in case you are looking for citizenship of the country then knowing the language is a must.
Author: DR.N.V. Srinivasa Rao Post Date: 20 Nov 2023 Finnish and Swedish are the two official languages of Finland. There are many institutes where English is the medium of instruction but you should remember that the language of instruction in many higher education institutions is Finnish. So you have to select an institution that has English medium programs. There are many educational institutes in which Finnish and Swedish languages are taught to the students who wish to learn those languages. So it is better to learn these languages, I feel. It will be very important for the students who want to settle there after their education.