Facing the language barrier [Swedish language update]

Yesterday we have encountered the language barrier for the first time and it happened where we least expected it (as it always does): At the shops!

When we've decided to move to Sweden everybody we spoke to told us not to sweat it about learning Swedish. "Everybody speaks English" they said. And the proverbial they were right, everybody does speak English. And I do mean everybody: Bus drivers, shelf fillers, waiters etc. Everybody we talked to so far spoke English well enough to help us in whatever way we required and some even impressed us with their proficiency.

At that point we thought this living abroad thing will be a piece of cake and all we will have to worry about will be culture shock and home sickness. But then we did our first shopping and Sweden banged our heads together and set us straight!

It turns out English will do whenever you have an interlocutor. But whenever you have to read something you better know your Swedish.

None of the products in our local supermarket has any English labels at the back, they are all Swedish only. That meant we almost made some awkward mistakes - like buying the softener instead of laundry detergent. Others, not quite as bad did happen: We couldn't find any plain yogurt at all, and then mistakenly bought sour-milk cream/yogurt thing instead.

No confusion in this aisle, but
not getting fat just got harder.

Mostly we can take such incidents and close calls with a good natured spirit, but it made us realize Swedish would come very handy! Especially when the time for opening bank accounts and signing legal documents comes round...

On the other hand we met with an Australian couple here in Lund. They are living here for about 9 months now and they haven't learned much Swedish yet. They told us that living here is doable with English only.

Nevertheless in our last month before the move, we're hitting the Swedish books - hard!