004: Why Duolingo Failed, Paying for 100 Lunches, and More - Erik

I even tried to become a refugee from Sweden and it didn't work. So I wrote the message on LinkedIn I am home one year and I wanna speak Finnish and I am willing to pay lunch for anybody that speaks Finnish for one hour with me that's another thing I would maybe do to fool yourself. Uh, or to force yourself or to motivate yourself, make irreplaceable and non reversible promises. But immigration, , the integration of immigrants into Finland could be solved. But that you have free lunches paid for as long as, finn that wants to teach meets up with an immigrants and wants to learn. Right. And they eat and speak. Only Finnish there. Right. Government should pay these lunches. I agreed with her every Thursday at 11, I'll buy her coffee there. So I did that. Awesome. Yeah, I, I had another, now she actually disappeared. You know, she's quite old. She's like 85.

Oh,

she stopped coming.

Meet Eric Åkesson, he moved to Finland with his family and. After a while decided to learn, finnish, and he had very interesting reasons for why he chose to do that. Profile does not usually fit the usual profile that I look for in this interview because he still has a bit of distance to. reach the level of fluency that I usually look for. However, I wanted to interview him because he had very interesting ways of improving the finnish language, his finnish language, so I was really curious about hearing the full story and sharing that with you guys. In case you know his methods work for some of you. Alright, episode with Erik Åkesson. Am I pronouncing it correctly?

Yes, that's pretty good.

, How does Finland show up in your life story?

, Yeah. So I, um, back in the day when I was studying I was like 25. I got a Finnish girlfriend. Yeah. And then we moved around the world a bit. We moved to study in Switzerland and then we moved to London, both of us, to work for banks. we did banking, both of us there for six years. And then she got pregnant. And that was very nice. Of course. And then we decided that we didn't want the kids to grow up in London because it's too polluted and bad air and you know, we have to work insane hours so you don't, right. Yeah. You know, sort of 15, 18 hour days always. So you wouldn't know your kids essentially. Right. and school fees are sort of 40,000 euro per kid per semester. Yeah.and a house like this is 5 million, or at least in London. Yeah. so the living costs are just insane. And that means that you had to work insanely much and you don't have time for your kids. So it wasn't the place for us. So then we moved back, and then actually I got the job in Copenhagen, so we moved there because it seemed nice. Then we had another kid there and then we wanted to move back from there and we figured we would move to Stockholm because it's halfway between Finland where her family was and Gothenburg, where my family is. Yeah. And that's where I worked for five years and we had another kid there. And then we moved to, and then I got a good, I worked for Danske Bank, which is a bank that exists in all the Nordic countries. And suddenly there was a big job opening in Finland. we had tried to move to Finland earlier at some point actually. But it was very hard for me to find a job here. Because I don't speak the language. And then suddenly there was an opening within Danske Bank so I could move within the firm, and then the language didn't matter. So then I thought, okay, let's go for this, because I can always move back to Sweden. Right, right. There are many of jobs in Sweden for me, but there are not so many jobs in Finland for me. Right. So we took an opportunity, another thing that was a pull factor for us was the education of the kids. So we have four kids and at that time the youngest guy, Ivar, he's now 17, he was then seven and he went to school. So Ivar at the time Ivar was seven years old. Yeah. And, and the school system in Sweden, something has gone wrong with that. Okay. And, but the Finnish school system is like the best in the world and everybody knows that. Right? Right. And when the chance then came to move to Finland, it was a career move for me. I can always move back. But also for the family, we perceived it better that the kids go and Finnish school than Swedish school. So I'm really happy with that move in that sense.

Just, let me just look in the camera for the Swedish people just, yeah, you heard it from a swede

I say it and I'm Swedish Swede from Sweden, so I can say it. Yeah, yeah. But something has gone wrong with, my feeling is that something has gone wrong with the Swedish, education.

Okay.

Yeah. Okay. But the Finnish hasn't. Right, right. And there. Yeah. So that's where we are here. And that was 10 years ago that we moved here. Then I knew very, very little Finnish.

Yeah.

I figured out that when I'm negotiating this deal with the bank, they will always be generous when they're trying to get to move. But once I have moved, I will just be just another employee. Yeah. So negotiate before when you can still negotiate. So I negotiated the language teacher, I had in my contract at Danske would pay for my own teacher So when I moved over, it was quite a big job. I was global head of foreign exchange trading at Danske Bank and I was heading up a trade floor here in Finland with 50 people. So it was two kind of big jobs that I had. And it was quite stressful in the sense that they are high performing jobs that you don't just do on the side.

Right.

All around with the world doing foreign exchange sales.

Mm-hmm.

And I was traveling a lot, so I was you know, the stress levels were quite high. And when I started to study, Finnish, it was very difficult. Essentially my brain capacity was used, and whatever I learned, I just forgot. It was real, really difficult. And I started together with another guy from India, Great guy. You should interview him too. him and I had, lessons together. And then we learned a lot of Finnish, but not as much as we would want, and it was really difficult. So I sort of gave up. But then after, what, five years here, four years here, we had another kid in Finland. We have four in total. One born in London, one in Copenhagen, one in Sweden, and one in Finland. All in different countries. They all have different

No, they're, they're actually

all Finnish and Swedish. Okay. But they're in different, all of them. The youngest daughter then, and since I was working so much with the other three, I didn't take enough paternity leave with them. Ah. And then I decided now it's gonna be done differently. Right. So I took a whole year off, actually 15 months. Right. and then after a little bit of being home with the daughter, I realized that I am very busy with simple tasks. Like I change nappies and I cook food, and I clean and I do things. But my brain isn't really occupied. So I remember things now that I learned. It was a very different experience. After a few months when the stress started to wear out. And then I realized, okay, now I'm gonna learn the Finnish. So I hired my own Finnish teacher where I would study a little bit over teams, you know, an hour or two a week just to get the grammar in.

Mm-hmm.

But what I knew that my real problem was that I couldn't ever speak. Right. So, and that's the big problem I think for every foreigner here is that you move here and everyone speaks English to you and it's really hard to get to use. So what I did and what I would recommend sort of everyone to do is, so essentially if you hire a Finnish teacher for 90 minutes, that's because you at least have years. It's quite expensive. but I was thinking, who can I speak to that doesn't speak English? And I was thinking. First actually I was thinking like homeless people and drug addicts, they don't, and it's a little bit funny because yeah, I was in, uh, I was in the church and I had singing classes with my daughter, it's called. Yeah. So you are going there and you sing kids songs with other Finnish parents and then you know, you don't understand anything but you sing songs. And in the church, I walked past the poster on the wall and it said that there is soup lunch, 4 99 euro for lunch for poor people.

And

I was thinking, that's great. They will not know Finnish. So I went there meaning English? Yeah, sorry. Yeah. They won't speak English with me or they won't speak English at all. 'cause they are, you know, drug and that, that, so I went to that soup lunch for, for free in the church, but it was literally me and lots of homeless or. You know, it was a criteria, certain kind of people simply didn't speak at all. Right? Like no language. And they, or you know, God knows, but they were not social with me for sure. Okay. So I showed up there with my pink pram and a daughter, and people just looked at me with suspicion. I, I made one friend there, a lady that was retired, and then I was thinking, okay, so it didn't work to have Learn Finnishfrom the homeless and. Where else can I find them? Yeah. What about retired people? Mm. Yeah. And because they won't, they will be old, right? 'cause I know my wi my ex-wife's grandma, she's 93, doesn't speak a word of English right? With her, I had to sort of speak, Finnish and I was thinking, that's the thing, but where can I find retired people? So I wrote the message on LinkedIn with my own really poor Finnish, that, dear all, everyone, I want an, I live in tapiola and I am home one year and I wanna speak Finnish and I am willing to pay lunch for anybody that speaks Finnish for one hour with me and doesn't swap language. Right? And then I had about, I had 14 people responding to that. obviously some of them were my friends, my sort of people I know that work in Finland. And they said, Hey, this is a brilliant thing. My mom or dad lives very near you. the dad died some years ago and she's a bit lonely and it'll be great if you had lunch with her. so can I connect you with her? So I got four retired Finnish people, well, three plus that lady I met on the drug addict lunch. And then I had 10 other people that I met a little bit less frequently, but these four people, I booked a weekly lunch with them. So I had more than 100 lunches in that year. So I booked the same table in the hotel in Ola, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, every day for the whole year. And then I fed Inis at 11. I fed her the food and then I put her in the pram and I walked her 20 minutes walk to the hotel, and then she would fall asleep. And as anybody with kids would know that once they have eaten them, they will sleep like for three hours. Mm. So I parked her outside the window and she slept and I had a baby alarm in the Bram, and then I was sitting on the other side of the window inside eating. Right. So, and that would cost them, you know, 9 99 euro, I think it was for a lunch for me and one for them. Yeah. And then you would speak for, I don't know, 90 minutes until Inis would wake up. Wow. Yeah. And that was very nice. and it was, it was very, in the beginning it was really awkward because I couldn't really say much. and actually they were really highly educated, smart people. They all spoke really good English, really good Finnish. They were Swedish. So, one of them was like a professor of economics and the other one had been, like the secretary to the Ministry of Education or something like that. So they were really highly paid smart people. And, but they were now 80 or so. Yeah. But the deal was that we will never switch language. Right. and somehow that worked really well because sort of we met for that reason. And the deal was that I paid lunch for that. And I think one experience that I have with the learning is that once you start to speak a language with someone, that's the default setting with that person. And you can't change it. Right. It's impossible. Yeah. So once you speak English, it's impossible. So, but with these people, the default setting was Finnish and, and that, and it stick, it, it, it would be like that. So, well, I had, in the beginning of the year it was really sort of, you know, simple discussions, but it was the end of the year. It kind of worked to talk. Right. and then I put also a very great effort into whenever I would went, go for like the hairdresser, take a taxi. Shop food. I, I really tried to force Finnishinto every social situation I could. Right, right. And I simply learned to say that I want to speak in, Finnish. Like, please don't change. Let's speak slowly and nicely. Right. So once you do that thing, the things are quite nice in sort of taking care of that.

Yeah. Because when we were talking, you immediately said that that was the, like the first thing you said to me. Yes. Yeah. But, this thing with the LinkedIn post and the fact that you met people who are really interesting and also like really highly educated. Yeah. It's a very underrated thing that I realized like this year. Yeah. last year in November, I went on another learning journey again. I was trying to learn how to renovate apartments. Oh, okay. So I went on a real estate Facebook, real estate investors. Page. And then I posted there like, Hey. I wanna learn how to do this, so I'll come and help you for free. And the kind of people who reached out to me, I'm friends with some of them. Shout out to, there's one who is a, like a professor of marketing at, Haaga Helia Yeah. And, uh, another guy who's same age as me, but he is like. His eyes have been open for a long time. He's been on, he's been doing things for quite a while. we're friends now. it's a very underrated, method of kind of just getting mentored in a specific field. Just ask like, Hey, I'll do something for you for free. But this is, yeah, I digress. But, the economics of the 90 minutes where the teacher is a hundred euros. And the same thing talking to That's equal to what, nine

lunches? Yeah. Yeah. With a stranger. So it's, of course it costs a bit of money, but it's far cheaper than hiring a teacher.

Right.

But I think you have the teachers for different purposes. I had a teacher to learn the grammar from the books. Yeah. But if you want sort of quantity of training Yeah, of course you could. If you are really rich, you can just hire your own Finnish person, you know, if you don't have any problems. But no, you know, I couldn't afford, I couldn't afford that. I was on paternity. Yeah. But,so to get sort of the quantity of discussion going Yeah. Then I couldn't do that, with the teacher. So then you get it at, at 10% of the price from a retired person. Right. And I think also that is sort of, like you solve, there are two big problems. Society that is solving the same. You, you know, there are many immigrants. They are often unemployed. So they have time, they don't have money and they want to learn the language. Then you have the Nordic old people and because of the societies here, people don't take care of their old, old people. Yeah. Because, you know, you pay a lot of tax to the government. They are then supposed to take care of every aspect of everything. So for example, the young kids, you send them to kindergarten so you can work more and pay more taxes. And the old people, you send them to an old people's home when they sit. So back in the day, they're young and the old people would sort of cancel out as a problem. The old people would take care of your young. Yeah. So they are busy over there. Yeah. but now we send them to different homes and they don't meet, which is sort of another problem.

Mm-hmm.

But the old Nordic people are very isolated. Right. So what you have is old lonely people that want to meet people. They have lots of time and they know the language. And then you have immigrants that have a lot of time. They want to learn the language and they don't have a lot of money. And so this is a perfect, these two groups should meet all the time. So old people. Yeah. And then just immigrants. Yes. Yes. All the people that have old people have a lot of time and they want to meet people and they know the language. Yeah. And immigrants have, uh, time and they want to learn the language. Yeah. So these two groups could, it's the perfect match. Right. So what I think should happen in, and I think some places it does happen, but in every Finnish city there or any city, Sweden should have even more of it actually, because Sweden has big problems with this. But immigration, , the integration of immigrants into Finland could be solved. But that you have free lunches paid for as long as, finn that wants to teach meets up with an immigrants and wants to learn. Right. And they eat and speak. Only Finnish there. Right. Government should pay these lunches. That would be actually very, yeah,

that would be a. And one thing that would also solve is the old people loneliness. Yes. That's a big help

structural problem in the Nordic, but it come that, that's a separate discussion, which is very big about Yeah. How the Nordic sort of, society is structured and Yeah.

Yeah. This is, this has been great so far. and okay, so soup kitchen with old people and then, as you mentioned, James Basard. Okay. okay, so my next question is actually like, so walk me through your learning journey and like what worked and what didn't.

what worked for me. I think we all learn, people learn different languages in different ways. I am sort of very structured and I need because if I don't have a structure, I won't do it. So I. I decided, I get my talking done with the retired people and I tried to force every simple social situation to be Finnish. That was sort of one leg of the journey.

Mm-hmm.

the other one was to start study the grammar. Grammar. And then I had these formal, my study books, right. And I made it all the way to number four. I got 10% into number four. And then I ran out of steam and I got a new job and things went to hell with that. But still, I finished book number three and the way I had a great teacher that studied online and, essentially we would have lessons on Skype where she would teach me sort of, here is chapter one, grammar is this. And she would explain it. And then I would have to do homework and I would do it in Word in the computer. And then the things I didn't understand, we would start the next, next we'd going through them until we had cleared it all out. Then we took another chapter.

it was

one-on-one. Yeah. Right. Okay. One-on-one on Skype. So one go through the grammar. Two, I do all the exercises. Three, we go together through all the things I didn't get and we correct them. And when I understood all that, Next chapter, right. Exercises correct them. Next chapter. Right. So I was very sort of militant with that.

Right. And from this I was just gonna ask how much would this cost? But then from this, I guess, you know, that each hour is what Yeah,

it was something. Yeah. It was, you know, an hour, maybe an hour. But this was a, about five, six years ago, I think an hour I got some special deal with her at maybe 60 euros an hour or something like that.

Okay. And That's not nothing.

Okay. But I, I tried to, I really wanted to, and I think this is said, I really wanted to learn, Finnish. So I tried to get, I tried to be signed up. you know, as a refugee, you know, to go to these classes for people that arrive here. So I would go and get, you know, this sort of language bot experience where you really Ah, right. Okay. Return. No, no, no. That, you know, it was really difficult. It was impossible for me as a Swedish person working here to get that. They said, no, you need to be a refugee to do that. Oh yeah. But I'm not a refugee. I am a Swedish person that has moved here voluntarily. And then you can't get anything. And beside you order have a job, so you are getting no training. So because I came here voluntarily and I had a job.

Yeah.

There was no way I could get any help to learn, Finnish. Even though I offered to resign from my job and do it for free. Right nor way. Interesting.

And through which organizations were the ones that were kind of denying,

oh, well everyone, I can't remember what I tried. I even tried to become a refugee from Sweden and it didn't work. Well

what was your your

No, I tried to say that Sweden is become like, you have to leave political reasons. They were like, you cannot be a political refugee from Sweden. So, no, it didn't work. But if I had managed to pursue that long enough and become a refugee from Sweden, maybe that would've done stranded in the fact that I already had a job. Right. But I tried every route to get treated as an immigrant. To learn Finnish well, yeah. Was impossible.

I feel like this is gonna be a good clip.

Yeah. I, it's quite sad. Like, hi, I'm Swedish. I am 45. I have a well-paid job, and I just want to learn the language and I want to identify as some refugee right now. and they're like, no, you have to pay yourself. Yeah. But I want to, I want quit my job. Yeah. And study full-time for some months. Right. because I can do that now. There was like a time gap in between where my wife could still be home, or ex-wife could be still home for a little while, and I could have studied full-time for two months. Right. that was impossible. And to pay for full-time yourself, that means that you have to hire your own teacher full-time. Yeah. That sort of, it's just too expensive. But the fact that it was impossible to be allowed, I think is a little bit sad.

Right? Yeah.

Yeah.

Because that, it clearly showed you have the, the will and then that you were able to, you wanted, you wanted get Yeah. Yeah.

I would've learned Perfect. Finnish that. Right. I would've been extremely determined about it, but, right. Yeah. And now actually, you know, I, you know, as a. And it is a bit sad and I still have motivation to learn proper Finnish. The thing is that there is this, um, you know the boats, the rescue boats, Uhhuh? Yeah. So I have two educations. Yeah. Uh, I have a masters's of finance, but before then I have a captain's degree I can drive. So I grew up in Sweden, but I moved to Norway and I studied the captain's degree and I was out one year at no ships. So I can drive all ships in the world, like . The super, super tiny Yeah, the big ones. Yeah. Yeah. I can buy anything. Oh wow. I have a piece of paper somewhere that, with a certificate of that, and then I have worked as a sailing instructor. I have a boat, I have. I've been boating since I was, I had my first own boat when I was three. My dad built one for me. Right. So I, my entire life has been about being on boats. And so I wanted to work on the rescue boats here. 'cause they need volunteers to drive the boats. Yeah. But my Finnish isn't perfect, so I can't do that.

Oh. 'cause on these

boats, all the radars and everything is second Finnish. Yeah. And the radio communications is in Finnish with the Coast Guard naturally. And they're like, you need to be perfect. Finnish or you're out. Yeah. So the fact that I am a fully certified captain and that I will be one of the most proficient volunteers they will have. Yeah. No, this,

this, this is one of those things that comes, even though this is not about employment in Finland. Yeah. But this is one of those things that comes up quite a lot. Like we have so many, like very highly educated, very talented people here who are doing things that are not aligned with what they're. What? No.

I'm lucky that my professional I work for, uh, bearing Point here is my laptop. We are trusted, confident, and easy to work with. Bearing point. Yeah. So it's uh, quick Flood right there, but it's uh, it's a techno tech consulting firm. And that is sort of, you can work in English all over the world and we are 6,000 people all over the world. So that's not a problem. And I'm lucky to have landed that job, but I am also a captain. And if I had only been Finnish, I would probably been welcome with open arms from Trusi Vene. Right. You know?

Right,

right. And, you know, I'm a captain and I'm not allowed to be part of that. I think it's really sad. Yeah, it

is. It is. For sure. For sure.

Yeah.

where

it's called Meri Pelastus Sarja these books, boats, the Boat, Meri pelastus sarja.

What resources do you use? Okay. Which ones did you find? What resources did you find to be quite like useless or didn't, just didn't work for you?

useless. ah duolingo Du duolingo. Yeah. Bullshit. You know, sorry Du duolingo. nothing against duolingo. I'm sure they're great for something, but it's just, I don't know, it's just too much games. I don't like the gamification of stuff and I sort of the, I don't think it's a time efficient way to study. For me. I use something that unfortunately doesn't work anymore. It's called voc lab which was the brilliant best ever app. Essentially it was an app that would, um, you could put all, you know, you bought for 10 euros. And it would come with 5,000 words and it would question you on them with a certain, uh, you know, interval. And as you got to know them better and better, there would be a longer and longer in between many of them. And then you add my own words as well. So after a while I knew that I had sort of 7,856 words. Wow. Yeah. It was like close to 8,000 book club. Yeah. That doesn't exist anymore. Really bad. Yeah. And I put an enormous amount of effort. All my kids have recorded small, empty threes with all the words that I learned. Learned.

Right.

So that's really bad. And the book club disappeared. But that was my most important thing. The VOC lab. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. The, the, the, yeah. duolingo doesn't, no, it didn't work for me.

Okay.

And I think maybe though that Finnish was a new language on duolingo when I started. So there was a lot of, you know, and as all of us that have tried to study, uh, like Finnish, you know, there are so many cases, and if you get something wrong, you have to start all over again. And sort of, well, maybe duolingo duolingo is when they have fixed some of these sentences, but,

uh, well, I mean, so this thing you said, I, I have an unreleased, episode where I talk about this about misconceptions that people have about this. And a lot of, one of the ones was duolingo. So I, I completely agree with you, maybe for slightly different reasons. Um, my thing, my take on it was that when people do duolingo, they're like just doing it for the streak to

Yeah, I know. Yeah. And I hate the streaks.

Yeah. And then, and then, or they're doing like, oh, there's this kind of myth about, oh, you just do 10 minutes a day and it's gonna be fine. It's, it's not enough. No, you do, if you do duolingo consistently two hours a day, I, I'm sure you're gonna be golden. Yeah. But the tell 10 minutes or, and if you just wanna keep up your streak, it's probably like a two minute thing that just do. Yes. Yeah. And it, it's, it's. I, I will say it's, it's bullshit.

Yeah. And, but I also, I hate, I have four kids and there's one thing I observe with them. They spend, all, the kids spend way too much time on their phones. And one of the reasons are the streaks in games. Yeah. And the streaks should be banned. You know, there should be regulation on that. Yeah. Before all the kids are obese and stupid and dumb and nearsighted.

Yeah.

And I will not have me locked into a stupid app by a streak. . No fucking way. I'm not the type of person that does that

Right.

So I actually wanted to rebel against the streak bullshit also.

Right, right.

I think it's outright super dangerous.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's, it's one of the mechanisms they use to make all the kids e addicts.

Right. What observations have you made about like. People learning in, in general, just

like in Finnish?

Yeah. People journal, learn. What observations have you made about just

Yeah. My, well, so the people that managed, first of all, age is a problem, of course. Like if you come when you're young, it's a lot easier, but there's nothing you can do with that really. So you are as old as you are when you come here, but the people that succeed are the ones that are forced to speak the language. Like somebody I spoke to had arrived here and started to work in a flower shop. That seemed to be like the ideal thing. Yeah. Because, you know, it. Well, you can speak, Finnish all day long and a lot of old ladies buy flowers from you and chitchat with you. Yeah. My problem was that my first job here was on a trade floor and you know, if I accidentally trade off 30 million Euro instead of three, then that would be very expensive. So you don't really have the ability to sort of fail a little bit.

Yeah.

Yeah. Because the impact of errors are insanely costly. Right. Lot of money. So you can't do that. But if, you know, get yourself in situations where you are forced to speak the language the problem is then if you have a job already that we consume most of the time, then you are gonna have to find other ways and then I would recommend this launch thing. And actually I have, so I dropped out of that, because, you know, many things happened and I got a new job and things. I did a start up and things were a bit crazy for a while, and then I didn't have time. Yeah. So what I would recommend is this, like, don't think too much about it, just do it. I was standing in the island halfway between Espoo and Helsinki and in this cafe and I was standing in there and I was thinking about this I couldn't work at the meripelastus sarja vene and I was sort of thinking, I need to start study, Finnish again. Where can I find now new retired people? And then I heard behind me, some old lady, she was trying to speak to the other people in the cafe and nobody wanted to speak to her. And I thought, that's it. Her, I wanna speak to her. Yeah. So I just turned around and, you know, hi. And I started to speak, Finnish with her, and I said, what's your name? Can I buy you coffee? If I speak Finnish for half an hour. And then she was super happy I spoke to her. It turned out that it was her daily routine. Every day she would wake up, eat breakfast, read the newspaper, and then at 11 she would go down to that cafe, buy coffee and a Croissant, and then read the Swedish newspaper there. Okay. Every single day at 11, she was there. and I had a client meeting at 11, , every Thursday I had to be at in ruohalahti, and so there was something, for some reason I had to be there. And then I agreed with her every Thursday at 11, I'll buy her coffee there. So I did that. Awesome. Yeah, I, I had another, now she actually disappeared. You know, she's quite old. She's like 85.

Oh,

she stopped coming. I need to figure out what happened to her.

Yeah. I hope, I hope she's okay.

but you know, I have, almost every week per year with her super lovely lady. And then also, one of the other things with this is that it puts things in perspective, in the sense that. When you are like young, like you are only 26 and that's beautiful and you know, you may have some

7, 7

27, 27, 27. Yeah. But I'm 51 and so

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, you're really old. But it's, the thing is that you, you have problems. You know, you, you break something, you have an injury, you have cancer, something happens, something bad happens. You think you have problems.

Mm.

Then when you sit and you talk with people that are 84 that grew up during the wartime

Yeah.

They have had hip replacement surgery, cancer, some grandkid has died, they have had everything. So your problems are not as big as you think. Yeah. And you don't know because you rarely speak to people of that age anymore.

Right.

My grandparents are dead, and the Nordic society is not organized so that you never meet old people.

Right.

Unless it's your own relatives and if they are dead like mine or you don't meet any old people.

Right,

If you ask if anybody watching this thing. That is a Nordic citizen ask themselves the question, when did I last meet the person that is 80 years old? That is not my own relative. And they also would be never.

So I'm thinking about that now as I think it's been a while.

But if you go home to where you, you know, your home country Most likely.

Oh yeah, yeah.

Family are more extended and you stay with 'em.

Yeah. A hundred percent.

Or you visit them, but here it doesn't happen. Yeah. Disconnect. And that's really sad. For many, uh, for, you know, sort of everyone, but your own problems become a little bit less difficult to handle when you realize that. One of the people that I had, coffees with, she was sent to Sweden at the age of two as a war child. And then she grew up in Sweden until she was eight. And then she speak, she spoke only Swedish, and she was sent back to her mom, and her mom said, I don't want her back. Yep. And so they said, can they adopt her in Sweden? But the Swedish family had already adopted a new kid, so they couldn't take her. So they just said, your mom has to take you. And that's that. So just imagine the trauma of being too sent to another country. You probably think a lot about your mom and you come back at age of eight and the mom says, I don't want you. You know, so you think you have problems? No, you don't.

Yes. Less less

so. And these are the kind of stories that you will never be exposed to.

Yeah.

but, but these have given me insight into a completely different generations problems.

Yeah.

And it has also relativized my petty problems.

Yeah. Right, right. Damn.

Yeah.

That's, that's cool.

Yeah, it is quite cool. I recommend it for many reasons. Right.

Um. Well, this is definitely answers one part of my next question. So I was gonna ask like, are there any surprising or unconventional things that you did that most people might not think of? And definitely pretty much everything you've done has been, has been in that bucket of unconventional, surprising, but are there any others that you have not mentioned so far?

How do you mean? In like,

uh, like, so any, any, anything that you, you, when people are trying to learn, Finnish

Yeah.

Or well support any language really. Are there, um, things that you did in order to learn it? That's,

yeah.

It might not come to other people. Ah, okay. Yeah. I mean the, the old people thing is already

Yeah. Yeah. That's the, that, that, that is the one that I would say had the biggest impact.

Mm-hmm.

No, no. That would probably be the thing that made a difference. and it was that, that voc lab was a big thing for me. Right. So I'm really annoyed that it's gone. But,

so I'm only now hearing about this VOC lab I've heard of.

Uh, no, no, that would be it.

Okay. Alright. And, what are like the, the passive things you did, like, um, things that have already been set up or just happen to be in a certain way, which helped you on along with the journey?

Now that I speak decent Finnish, I try to make, I, I tried to sort of encourage, like I, I started CrossFit recently and I asked the, all the coaches to don't switch to English just 'cause I'm there.

Right.

So I try to now make a deliberate effort into really keeping things Finnish

right

when I can. Okay. Um, um, at work it doesn't really work. The problem is that. If I would do it at work, I would end up not being able to express myself good enough to add value. So it doesn't work, but in CrossFit it works. It doesn't really matter if I understand it properly or not, and I lift a bit wrong and it doesn't matter.

Yeah.

Somebody tells me, you know?

Yeah, fair, fair point, fair point. Yeah. But I think this, I think this fits because once you've told them, then you don't have to keep reminding them. So it becomes a passive way of forcing yourself to

Yes. Yeah. So that is, so the deal is that they speak Finnish. And they try until I don't get it. Then we try a bit of English, but you know, it generally works quite well,

right? Yeah. And then things like, so by, by the question I meant like that is actually good. The example and then maybe things like, oh, I sent my phone in a certain language, okay. Those kind of things. Yeah. Okay. And what about the, what are the active things? Like you made sure things were a certain way. To learn. Yeah. So that you would Yeah.

Well I made sure I had these lunches and I made sure I studied in that way that I did. And I forced myself to speak Finnish in all simple social situations like hairdresser, taxi, buying food. Yeah. I tried to always speak really, like I always speak Finnish in these situations, right. That I have to, but I still have this strong, I would for like a bit off topic, but I'm trying to learn German now because I have to because of work.

Okay.

And that complicates things a little bit. Now, I've, I've noticed that when I start to study German. You know I speak, of course Swedish is mother tongue. Yeah. And I speak decent English 'cause I lived in London for six years and then I speak half, half good German because I'm a sort of, from a genetic point of view, I'm 25% German. Okay. And then, so I speak half, half good German and half good Finnish. And these two languages start to mix when I track. So when I, I feel when I go down to Germany and have to interact in German, it often comes out so Finnish every now then.

Right.

I really confusing. So, it is hard to have two new languages

Yeah.

I'm going have to learn new German now because I have to present, I have to present about legacy management in the conference about insurance in September, 2026.

Okay.

In Germany. Yeah.

Okay.

(inaudible German) Yes.

And you have to do it in German.

In Germany, yeah. So I started, yeah, no. So now, and I sort of, I made that promise. I, yeah, that's another thing I would maybe do to fool yourself. Uh, or to force yourself or to motivate yourself, make irreplaceable and non reversible promises. you can't get away from

actually, now that you say that. Yeah. Me doing this today. Yeah. Like I literally, we literally had the conversation like an hour ago.

Yeah. Yeah.

That like, hey, I know you're very busy. And then you were like, well, I might not have time this week. And I was like, can I come like now? Yeah. So I just rushed over.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And now it's like I'm forced to be here and do this, and then we, and then do all, yeah. So that's actually, yeah. Thank you.

Just get stuff done. Yeah. But when it comes to this German thing, I want to learn German. And then I have just recently given up the new report at work about legacy management, you know, and we wanted to present it in Germany, and they wouldn't have it in English. They said it's in German and that's it. Yeah. Then I said, okay. And then again, just like when I spoke to that old lady, how am I gonna do it? And I heard behind me how he's now, now it's time. And the same thing happened with this German. I decided. So, okay, so you say, I can only present in German, but if I present in German, do I get the speaker slot then at that conference and they said, yeah. Then I said, September 25 is only five, four months off. It's too short time, but one and a half years off. Mm. If I do it in German, then do I get the slot? And I said yes. And I said, done. So next year. Yeah. So, you know, well, whatever, 18 months from now I have to present in German in a big crowd. Yeah. In summer. So, yeah. So box yourself now. I, yeah. So now I moderated, there's no escape from this.

So basically like box yourself into forcing yourself to do the thing.

Yeah. So make promises that you can't get away from.

Yeah.

Expose yourself to situations where you're gonna have to.

Right, right, right. I, I think it also kind of aligns with, with what I did, which was more like, if you know me in 2022 when I did the thing, it was like a, I made a LinkedIn post. And, and then also on Instagram and WhatsApp stories or wherever I could post it. That if you know me and you speak, Finnish, were only speaking Finn. Ah, okay. So like, I can't show up like the first time you see me and be like, I know we speak English. No. So it's, it's, yeah. So, yeah. I, I,

that was good because you essentially reset the default language to Finnish with everyone there.

Yes. Without having to have their separate concept with every single person. Yeah. There was actually some guy who was like, oh, where are you? Announcing this to everyone. What you just seeking attention And as much as I would like to say the F word, I don't wanna re-edit this, so

No. But then it is also, uh, it's a great marketing picture for you as trying to get jobs and all that. So, 'cause I think yeah. Oh yeah, bit definitely. So, you know, I think in to be, and I know so many foreigners that struggle finding jobs. And unfortunately, even though this is a topic that gets you into trouble every time, I think there is a, you know, let's just say it is gonna be far easier to be sort of have a, you know, my skin color from Sweden. Yeah. Than your skin color from somewhere else, right. It's just so much harder because the, you know, the. I don't know. There, there, there is just that level of, I, I wouldn't say it's an outright a racist thing, but there is definitely a lot harder for colored people. Like it's on prejudice, just Yeah, yeah, definitely. For sure. However you want. Yeah. Okay. And I think it's, it's super sad of course. And it's, you know, it's real hard to break. I know a lot of highly, I know a guy with a PhD in chemistry that works delivering post with the main man.

My dad was doing his PhD and could not find his,

no, I'm not surprised. It's insanely sad. So, you know, and, and this is then off topic slightly, but there is a big drive towards diversity. Yeah. Like, we need diversity, in the workforce. Okay. Why, why is that? Well, we need people to think differently because if people think differently, there will be better ideas than if everyone thinks the same. And I think I buy that story. So the conclusion is we need to think differently. What do we need then? We need more Finnish women. Uh, well, so, so we recruit more Finnish women, and then we believe we are very different thinkers now. I'm not so sure that on the margin, more Finnish women will give as much diversity as a priest and a nurse and someone from Botswana and somebody from China. So I think we have lost that, level there. There is too little diversity in the diversity.

Ah, right. Yeah. Too little. diversity

essentially diversity now boils down to more Finnish women, right? Like I The laws

just on the gender side, basically.

Yes. Yeah. And I think it basically gives us a very limited addition to the diversity thinking. Yeah. What we, what we really need is true diversity. And then we need people with different educational backgrounds. Different work paths and different cultural backgrounds. And we don't get that. And I think that's really a sad thing. And then I know a lot of really smart, educated, qualified foreigners really struggle.

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. And I think

that's you. And that's terribly really bad for di . None. But it's also bad for diversity.

Yeah. I completely agree with that one. That, that, that it's, yeah. A lot of people, it's getting people not being able to get the kind of jobs that Yeah. . I've realized that like integration is a huge factor. Yeah. At least with people I've talked to. How have you kind of integrated yourself with, uh, people who speak Finnish and do you have any groups of people in your life who you could force to speak Finnish with you?

No, no, that's a problem. I have four kids that all speak Perfect. Finnish.

Okay.

Uh, and they speak well. The oldest guy speak decent Swedish.

Yeah.

And then the next one speaks also Good Swedish. So, but the youngest one speaks Swedish, 'cause she was born here.

Right.

And she has only had Swedish for me and then from the grandparents every now and then the summer holidays. But if I don't speak Swedish to the kids, they will not learn Swedish from anyone really. So it is more important that they learn Swedish than that. I learn Finnish. I can't speak Finnish with them.

Right.

that would be the one place, and work doesn't work, so it's really hard to find an environment to speak, Finnish in.

Right.

And so you need to find it yourself. And the way I did was then I engineered it through these retired people. Right. And I think Yeah. That, that is the real hard one.

Yeah. It's a 'cause I've noticed this where a lot of people, when they come here and they find people from their same cultures or countries as them, they just kind of stick around them.

So that happens everywhere. I lived in London for six years and you have a lot of Swedish societies. We hang out with other Swedish people. It happens everywhere. It's quite natural. But I think maybe I'm weird like this. Uh Yeah. You, but you seem very extrovert and social. Right, right. So, and you're smart. Otherwise you wouldn't have learned Finnish so fast.

Thank you

So the, uh, but, but it is difficult to get, you know, my feeling is that the Finnish people are. Look, I don't have any stats on that, but my feeling is that if you would look at night spent abroad, on average in all countries, Finland would rank quite low because they take their holidays domestically, they all have a mökki (cottage) where they go.

Mm.

So, and the amount of Finns that have, like from Stockholm School of Economics, 40% of the students take their first job abroad.

Wow.

In Finland, they are the same number. Is like two. Yeah. That, I don't have the real stats on that, but sort of the amount of Finnish students that start their careers abroad is just minuscule compared to what is in Sweden. So you have very many Finns that have never lived abroad.

Okay.

And they don't understand what it's like to come to a new society. So, you know, I've had many discussions with this that people, they go like, yeah, but just do something. Just do, just, well, no. You know, they know it doesn't work when you come from abroad. Yeah. But they have never had to. And one thing is, if you go. That your company posts you somewhere for half a year. And you don't have to actually change domicile, but when you, you know, I have changed countries, seven times, and every time I have to set up, you have to go to the immigrant's office and you have to set up a CPR number and

yeah,

it's like a pain.

But what is the CPR number?

Like, uh, like

social security?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know. CPR is the one for the English term for it. I don't know what it means, but anyway. R number. Yeah. Yeah. It's the, so the birth plus the last digits. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. But you know, when you go to. Like when you go to Norway, you have to do it and it's easy 'cause in the Nordics, but then you move to Germany, you have to do it. And then I move to Switzerland and you have to show up at the to read register. And it's a thousand Francs just to remind that you are there. And then you go to London, and in London you sit with, and then you have to go to the social services office to get this done. So you sit there in your pinstriped suit with a bunch of drug addicts and you just wonder if you're gonna survive. And then they ask you for, for a utility bill to open a bank account. But you cannot open a bank account without in utility bill. And then you are like, what am I going to do now? And you know, you, and to move into a country and resettle completely is different from just bouncing in and out.

Right?

If you have never had that experience, you will not understand how hard it's

Right.

And I think that, so the finns are quite close in that sense that they have their friends, so they have all the friends they need. And after work, they go home and that's that. Yeah. So they don't mix very, you know, they don't really see a reason to be your friend. Right. They have their friends that need now.

Right. That, that's actually this, especially in Helsinki. I've heard, yeah. I had a friend who came from up north to here and, and they complain to me about a lot about this, that, people in Helsinki or in this capital region

Yeah.

Tend to have this thing where they already have their friends.

Yeah.

They don't, Nope. They don't need them. Yeah. They don't. Yeah. So amazing. But

Stockholm is the same, but London is not the same. Ah, because London is a city of, you know, if great London area sort of close to 20 million people, half of them are Brits and they live there and they do their thing. But then you have the other foreigners, 10 million. They are in a constant flux. There is always people that move in and the plan is to start your career, work really hard, make a lot of money, and move back home.

Mm.

So you have, you have 10 million people that are constantly in and out. Right. And all of these 10 million. Extremely keen to get to know people, right? 'cause nobody knows anyone and everyone knows they're gonna move on. Yeah. And that guy from India will be your network node when you need something later. Like I, I, you know, I also have a venture fund, so I am a, I'm an angel investor in early stage companies, and I just had a, an idea now sent to me by a guy in Mumbai, referred to me by the guy sat next to me, called Rajesh. You know, I haven't met Rajesh for 25 years. He is a great guy. I trust Rajesh and Rajesh says that, this other guy has a great startup and he can be trusted. And I'm like, okay, good. So now, you know.

Wow.

So that network that I had in London

Is still paying off. Right, right. Okay. So basically like the, the kind of takeaway from this is that, one of the difficulty obstacles with integration is just the way Finnish people tend to be

Yeah.

Makes it a bit difficult to integrate. Yeah.

I I think it's really hard to be a foreigner here. Okay. Yeah. And I think it's really sad because Finland is actually a great place, but Very, you know, and, and they are, um, you know, yeah. That, that I would say there's no way in hell I would move away from here with, with my kids. Absolutely not. Like,

wow,

okay. Maybe when they have grown up, I'll move somewhere. Who knows. But as long as my kids go to school, no way. Yeah. Finland is by far safer, right? Education is for free and great hospitals work. I had a terrible accident when I had to review a big operation to my shoulder. And that cost like 38 euros. And, uh, and it, uh, they have, you know, there's a big titanium plate, 13 big screws. Yeah. And, um, and it's nearly for free. And it works. That is not what would've happened in us. That would've coffee half a million dollars. And

for sure

in Sweden, you would've had to wait forever until that thing would've healed together in the wrong way. Right, right. Yeah. So, you know, a lot of things work here really well. Yeah. Look at this.

Oh, wow. Yeah. That's bad. Yeah. Thats a lot of internal work, a lot of stuff. So from your experience, when people don't succeed at learning Finnish, what is usually, what would you say is usually the reason from if you just predictive?

Uh, it's just they give up. It's not worth it. Essentially. They, you know, they, they, uh, strictly speaking, you don't need it, You don't need it. everybody will speak English and Swedish to you, but to me, I even have two languages that they all speak. Yeah. So I would only really, really need it when I spoke to my ex-wife's grandma, she's 93 and she doesn't speak. That is the only person that would not be able to speak English with me. So, in a strict sense, it is a wasted, and it's an insane amount of time you're gonna have to spend to learn it.

Right. So

The cost benefit calculation is strictly against doing it.

So, and that's a bit of a problem.

There's one observation I've made, which is a slightly defeatist, but, um, it's that it's similar to addiction. You know, in addiction you work so hard. At least my, I don't, I've never been addicted to anything that would ruin my life But my observer understanding of addiction is like you put in a lot of effort. Just so you can have a normal life. And it's the same with Finnish. You doing so much effort, so just so you can have a, just a baseline level of living. Yeah. It's, it's, and if you

have put the same amount of effort in other things. Yeah. Yeah. That's the thing, you know, you know, trade off becomes. Should I put this effort into learning Finnish? Or should I put the same amount of effort into learning to play violin, learn Spanish sailing and Russia.

Right.

the marginal benefit of learning Finnish is really crap.

Right? Right. but then, what is it called? The on the flip side though. A lot of people think that, oh, I'm only gonna be here a few years. At least, for example, with, my parents, for example, they thought they were gonna be here a few years. Ended up being 20.

if you think you're gonna be here for a little while, it's not worth it. Yeah.

but then it, it's one of those things that, it's very tricky because it has a Finland is way of growing on you. When you start seeing like, okay, things work here.

Yeah.

My alternatives are A, B and C. Yeah. And A, B, and C. Even though I don't speak the language here, this is still better.

Yeah.

Because every in here, everything works.

Yes.

Like, like you were saying.

And the moment you get kids, that equation goes even, even higher. Yeah.

Yeah. So it's like, it's a, it's a very, the. And then, and then at that point, then it becomes more like, okay, I didn't want to do this, but in order for me to, like in my situation, in order for me to thrive here, not just survive. Yeah. I, I need to know

this. Yeah. And, but you're different. In your case it's true because you're younger, so you have a longer period of time to carry cash in on this investment.

Right?

Yeah. So, you know, I think also the younger you are, the more, the easier you learn and the more benefit you'll have of it. 'cause you have more lifetime left.

Right.

You know, I am halfway there already, you know, I'm 51 too old, so.

Right.

but still I will, well first I learned German and then I will continue learn to Finnish. I'm gonna get on one of these, one day

Here is now I'm almost towards the end now. what did you do that others didn't? I think pretty much like majority of things you did are very, like, things I've never even heard of or thought of, but is there anything from there so far that you maybe haven't had an opportunity to mention?

Ah, not really.

Okay. Then I think we could maybe just skim that one. okay. This is more kind of rapid fire, but So with my minimal research that I've done on language learning, I know that I wrote it down to myself that there's like six parts. Yeah. So vocabulary, speaking, listening, grammar. Ah, reading.

Okay. Yeah. I love that. Yes. I love, sorry yle . Uh, there is yle uutiset selkomeksi

yes.

Hundred. That is the best thing. that is incredible. Yeah. So five minutes every day you can log onto yle areena. And there will be the news. As a radio and a tv. Yeah. Five minutes. And they speak like this, everything is correct and slow. Yeah. That is by far the best way to learn listening skills.

A hundred percent. Hundred percent. that was for me, podcasts were a huge part of, that was one of them that I listened to. Yeah. okay. right. Yeah. So the, the six parts thing, the five was reading and then six was writing. So just kind of rapid fire. I'll just say one, and then you say all of the things that, yeah. So let's start with vocabulary. What things did you do to improve vocabulary? voc lab. voc lab. And that was that. That was the only one. Yeah. That's what I

did. But that's gone now,

Okay. But what about in terms of, when would you, did you find new words

Everywhere? Okay, so I recorded, every time I have a new word, I recorded a small. Like you, I, I, I know I had a WhatsApp group with my language teacher, and every time I came across a word I didn't get, I wrote to her immediately. every time we had lesson, we would start off by looking, so she wouldn't respond to that. But at the beginning of every lesson, we would look at that group and. Clear out the backlog. Every time there was 10 words. Commercials are good because in commercials they often have to use a little bit of wordplay to make things sound nice and catchy. Right. word commercials are quite good to use, because there's a lot of word twisting in them.

Right,

That, that's what I did text it to her.

Right. Word. One of my favorite things in English Is wordplay. And it annoyed me so much when I can't because I like to make jokes. Yeah. And it was getting on my nerves that I couldn't make those kind of jokes in Finnish. Yeah. I mean, I still can't really very well, but like now when others make it, I kind of get it. When did you arrive here? I came initially in oh eight, yeah. 2008. And then I've been in international school or in English school? My entire time that I've been here. Okay. so how old were you then? Oh eight. I was 11. So, in 2013 I moved back to Ghana for high school.

Yeah.

Then when I came back, that was when I was like, I know another

guy from Ghana.

Oh, you working

with, no, no, Lets find his name Nana Yaw Ah, right. You know him? No, no, but it's, it's a relatively common Okay. He is great. he has been a pro basketball player. Oh, wow. Yeah. Okay. He's a great guy. He speaks perfect Finnish.

He does, yeah. Okay. That might be also somebody I can know. So Yeah, I

can, you know, Nana Yaw and James and Peter. Yeah.

Okay. And he, I guess he moved here later on in his life.

Don't know.

Okay. James and then, eto. Or eto, you said?

Peter.

Peter. Ah, Peter. Yes. Peter. Lovely. Yeah. I'll text you about them later.

we were old people. Yeah. Lunches with old people and to force the social situations, every single simple one, just start, peak, and Finnish. Okay. And then,

listening, would be the one. Okay. What things from u did you, so selko suomeksi news? Yeah. uutiset and then anything else?

No,

just the, okay. Alright. And then what about grammar was, yeah.

suomenmestari

and then teacher, I guess. Yeah. Okay. And reading?

it was the suomenmestari books that had text in them.

what about writing?

But writing that was also, suomenmestari

okay. And Now just a few more of the times when you found it like most difficult. what were the times where you found it most difficult to continue chasing the goal?

I know when I was tired. Yeah. I feel you some days. But you, you know, in the beginning it's just hopeless. You study and study and study and then you listen to something and you're just, you don't understand anything at all. And then every now you try, you try every now and then, you know, I remember I spoke to the kids, I, I can't remember. Oh, I was, it, yeah. There were two words huudella and suudella completely different. So one means to, if the listeners don't get it, means to rinse, for example, your hair. Ah, right. That one. Okay. And means to kiss. And I remember I went to the hairdresser and I asked if I could, if you could hold Ella. And then she looked at me like, you know, she, well I had actually asked her if I could kiss her. I tried to say, can you rinse my hair? And I remember like, oh, fuck it. no. Why do I continue myself like this? and then you have these sort of. Enormous situation just sort of goes really off rails. And I was thinking, I have to stop speaking this stupid language. I had another one with the kids. I made the difference between, uh, keito and keitiö. One is like a pot, sort of a, you know, I soup or salmon soup or something like that. And the other one is kitchen. Yeah. And I asked the kids in front of their friends if they wanted to have some soup, and apparently I asked if they wanted some kitchen. And then all the kids started to laugh

that, that's my, what is called my, nightmare where like I'll start talking to kids and then they start laughing at me.

I know, but it happens. So you need to simply keep pushing on.

Yeah. do you have any encouragement for people who are just in that kind of spot?

I just do it, you know, you just simply have to get over it. And actually, when I was in fraternity before I started with, retired people, yeah. I went to my mother-in-law, so my ex-wife's mom. Yeah. And had coffee every morning, not then once a week, every Thursday morning or something like that. It was like one day a week I went there. So then I think maybe that's a soft way to start that, that you, that you go and you find somebody you know already.

Yeah,

And then you have once a week where you just get started in a safe space. Right. I did that before I started to have the lunches with all the retired people. Right. So I was at least on a level where I could say one of my name was in accountings.

Okay. Uh, sounds good. Sounds good. how has your life become better now that you live in a country where you speak the language?

Yeah, well, I don't really speak so well, so, but it's sort of, yeah, well, I don't have a choice. I'm here. Yeah, divorced, I have four kids, what am I gonna do? You know, I'm not gonna leave the kids. I'll be where they are. Yeah. And so I, I'm gonna be here for 10 years and that's that. Then I will figure out what to do. But, who knows?

But in, in your day-today, you haven't found that it, it's make things, some things easier or better, or,

nah. If anything, it's sort of the social positive, you know, so in my job I interact a lot with C-level, bank executives.

Right.

So CEOs, that kind of things. CIOs. So CTOs,

yeah.

And I actually try to speak a bit of Finnish with them because it levels the play field a little bit. the fact that I have learned the language means commitment so that here comes another piece of information that might be good for this discussion. So when I moved here yeah. 10 years ago, the, the Finnish people are, they're quite used to that. Somebody sent from a head office to fix something and then leave Uhhuh.

Yeah.

They don't like that. and nobody likes, of course to be fixed by people from somewhere else that then leave.

Yeah.

You're just sort of a career step somehow, or they are just a career step for you. So what I noticed when I moved here in 15 to 10 years ago, and I was head of the trade floor and I was global head of FX at Danske, people wanted to ask me, are you here to stay or not?

Ah,

but you can't ask that to the boss. You cannot go and ask the new boss, like, are you gonna stay or not? But there are proxy questions for that. So they will speak to me for a little while and then they would ask, they would always, the question would often come up. And I realized later they tried to figure out if I was there to stay or not. So they asked, so where do you live? And I said, well, I live in, in pohjois-tapiola. And they knew then that's an area where there are houses. And they were like, okay, so have you, what kinda house do you have? Oh, I have this, ah, oh, could you rent that or did you buy? And I bought it From that moment, something changed. Because they knew that if you buy a house here, you are here to stay. So I noticed that quite a few people had that as a proxy question to ask if I was there to stay. And that actually changed something. And the language has a similar effect. If you have learned a language, people take you more seriously.

Mm-hmm.

Essentially, that guy has invested in us, then he's gotta be a good guy. Right. Okay. So it, it makes a difference. Yeah. Also for me, even if I don't speak perfect. it's a signal of commitment to them. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

And that makes a difference.

Okay. I'll start, I'll, I'll keep this in mind as a bargaining chip. Yeah. As like, as soon as I'm someone seems like they don't trust me, hey, I have learned Finnish that. Yes. That will make a massive difference. Yeah. I had a few questions which were like more just, 'cause now we're, we're talking only about the subject. Yeah. But more of like to humanize the other person. Ah, okay. You know? Yeah. But I mean, we've talked for quite a while, you know, you're busy, busy guy and you've already shared a lot of like life things by yourself. So I don't think I need to get into those, but yeah, this is the, yeah. Thank you for watching or listening to this episode of How I Learn. finnish with or tune in for the next one where we'll have a completely different. Very exciting guest with a total new background, different life story, circumstances, and obstacles, and most importantly, their own unique and creative way of how to achieve fluency in your target language. ​