It annoys me that at a time when I should be thinking of more weighty matters like the earthquake in Pakistan, the bird flu crisis, the outcome of the EU enquiry into labour laws, whether the apartment renovations will ever finish; in short, when I am trying to devote my brain power to these important issues but instead my brain is rebelling and has decided to devote its considerable efforts to singing "We're Off to See the Wizard" from The Wizard of Oz and especially that bit where Judy Garland does that whole because, because, because, because, BECAAAUUUUUSE... thing. I find myself humming it constantly and even silently singing that bit, then glancing guiltily around in case it may have slipped out loud. It’s driving me crazy and making me want to skip like Dorothy along the street.

Last week it was Doris Day’s Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps - God I wasn’t even born when that song came out! Over summer, it was Tequila (and I even managed to infect Lars-Göran with that one). What is happening to me? Well, at least I haven’t sunk as low as Chitty, Chitty Bang Bang.... yet.....

Following on from the thoughts about friendship among expats, I also wanted to say that I have several good Swedish friends, despite the much repeated myth in some expat circles that Swedes are generally cold, closed, unfriendly and difficult to get to know. I’ve actually found the opposite to be true, with people being warm, welcoming and very accepting of me.

I think one reason is that I try and speak Swedish as much as possible to them and they feel more relaxed and confident in their own language. Again, there is the myth that “everybody in Sweden speaks English” which is patently untrue. I’ve met many people who could not speak any English, even quite young people who panic if you ask them anything in English. I’ve also met people who may have studied English at school, but have forgotten it all as they never used it in later life. I recognise that well. I studied French for five years in high school but I would be unable to hold any sort of conversation in French today, though I can read the subtitles on French films.

And even if some Swedes do speak English, why should they? They are after all in SWEDEN! I think it’s quite appropriate that they speak Swedish and highly arrogant of English speakers to expect that they need not bother to learn Swedish as the Swedes already understand English. I found it a burden to be a native English speaker as you just know that you can always ask in English if you have to (especially in the big cities), so there is less incentive to try and speak Swedish.

I hadn’t thought about this much before, but in the last couple of weeks I’ve been told on a few occasions by people here that I speak really good Swedish now. I don’t consider that I do, as I know I speak with a strong Australian accent and mix up the order of words, but nobody seems to mind. And yes, it was a bit scary to attempt to speak the language with a native speaker. I made many, many errors that I can laugh about today, but were mortifying at the time. Lars-Göran, however, found it all highly amusing! For example, I remember telling people I had a purple (lila) dog instead of a little (lilla) dog, that I was standing on a cow (ko) instead of a queue (kö), that the train was horny (kåt) instead of short (kort), sayng I wasn’t a whore (hora) instead of saying I couldn’t hear them (höra), telling them I went to Operan to see some testicles (balle) rather than the ballet (balett) and calling a cinnamon bun (kanelbulle) something I won’t translate (knullbulle), but believe me it ain’t the same thing at all!

What really helped me to begin to speak Swedish was going to the government run Swedish classes. I had already been in Sweden for a while before I was eligible for classes (long, boring story), so I could in fact read a little and understand a bit of what was going on around me, but up to that point I had made no real effort to speak. After the hilarity my early efforts provoked, I was determined to only speak once my Swedish was grammatically perfect. Which meant that I’d have to be silent for at least ten years. Not really my style, is it?

What was so liberating about these classes was that everyone else there spoke Swedish as badly as I did, so I felt less self conscious and the native Swedish speakers there (my four teachers) were used to hearing mangled Swedish and didn’t bat an eyelid when I made howling errors. Within a few weeks I was much more confident and began to try out my new language with the people I met in town when I was out walking with the dog. I then progressed to talking in Swedish with shop assistants, people at the post office, library, friends and even Lars-Göran who speaks far more Swedish to me nowadays and seems more at ease in his native language.

Of course I still have problems getting my tongue around words like bekvämlighetsbefrämjande but I’m getting there.