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LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

English skills help Swedes go global

Language-learning has always been of great importance to a small country like Sweden, and good English proficiency is crucial in helping the country adapt to a globalized world, writes Olle Wästberg, Director-General of the Swedish Institute.

English skills help Swedes go global

A couple of years ago the American Stuart Graham was appointed CEO of the Swedish construction company Skanska and moved from New York to Stockholm. Asked by a journalist about the biggest differences between Stockholm and New York, Graham thought for a while and replied:

“Well, in Stockholm the taxi drivers speak English.”

It was funny, and also contained an essence of truth: Swedes –– cab drivers and school children alike –– usually speak English. Not as well as they think themselves, but thanks to education and American influence in popular culture Swedes generally have a decent level of English.

This is nothing new. Sweden has always been a country depending on exports –– even hundreds of years ago. Vikings spoke Saxon, Russian and other languages they were depending on for their trade. A man like Axel Oxenstierna –– founder of the Swedish administration and diplomacy during the 17th century –– spoke Latin, German and French, and maybe some English and Polish as well.

My own great-grandfather was a farmer in northern Sweden who didn’t get much education. But he learned some German to be able to travel and buy new forestry equipment. Learning languages is a part of the Swedish heritage.

In Sweden today, most kids start learning English when they’re seven, eight or nine years old –– some even earlier, in preschool. According to the “Eurobarometer” from the EU about “Europeans and their languages”, English is the most widely spoken foreign language in Europe. Thirty-eight per cent of EU citizens state that they have sufficient skills in English to have a conversation. In 19 out of 29 countries polled, English is the most widely known language apart from the mother tongue, this being particularly the case in Sweden (89%), Malta (88%) and the Netherlands (87%). So Sweden has the number one English-speaking population in Europe.

Ninety-nine percent of Swedes also acknowledge the benefits of knowing several languages. This figure is high for the whole of EU as well, with 83% of EU citizens considering that knowing foreign languages is or could be useful to them personally, more than half (53%) appreciating language skills as very useful. Only 16% of respondents fail to recognise the benefits of multilingualism. Even in the countries with the lowest support, Portugal and Greece, three out of four citizens consider language skills to be useful.

If the topic is foreign languages other than English, however, Swedes do not excel. We were only number seven in Europe in terms of German skills and number 14 in terms of French skills. Not that impressive.

English language skills are in any case an advantage in a globalized world, where English is key to most international communication. Some Swedish authorities fight the widespread use of English in companies and universities. I think it is a fight in vain. Of course, as a native Swede you will never know another language as well as Swedish, but you need English.

Interestingly enough, a lot of foreigners want to learn Swedish. The Swedish Institute encourages education in Swedish all over the world, and about 15,000 students at 200 universities in 41 countries study Swedish. Why? The reasons differ: business, research, love.

And as always: knowing a language means knowing a people. Languages skills are a tool for trade, peace and understanding.

Olle Wästberg, Director General of the Swedish Institute

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LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Le Havre rules: How to talk about French towns beginning with Le, La or Les

If you're into car racing, French politics or visits to seaside resorts you are likely at some point to need to talk about French towns with a 'Le' in the title. But how you talk about these places involves a slightly unexpected French grammar rule. Here's how it works.

An old WW2 photo taken in the French port town of Le Havre.
An old WW2 photo taken in the French port town of Le Havre. It can be difficult to know what prepositions to use for places like this - so we have explained it for you. (Photo by AFP)

If you’re listening to French chat about any of those topics, at some point you’re likely to hear the names of Mans, Havre and Touquet bandied about.

And this is because French towns that have a ‘Le’ ‘La’ or ‘Les’ in the title lose them when you begin constructing sentences. 

As a general rule, French town, commune and city names do not carry a gender. 

So if you wanted to describe Paris as beautiful, you could write: Paris est belle or Paris est beau. It doesn’t matter what adjectival agreement you use. 

For most towns and cities, you would use à to evoke movement to the place or explain that you are already there, and de to explain that you come from/are coming from that location:

Je vais à Marseille – I am going to Marseille

Je suis à Marseille – I am in Marseille 

Je viens de Marseille – I come from Marseille 

But a select few settlements in France do carry a ‘Le’, a ‘La’ or a ‘Les’ as part of their name. 

In this case the preposition disappears when you begin formulating most sentences, and you structure the sentence as you would any other phrase with a ‘le’, ‘la’ or ‘les’ in it.

Masculine

Le is the most common preposition for two names (probably something to do with the patriarchy) with Le Havre, La Mans, Le Touquet and the town of Le Tampon on the French overseas territory of La Réunion (more on that later)

A good example of this is Le Havre, a city in northern France where former Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe, who is tipped to one day run for the French presidency, serves as mayor. 

Edouard Philippe’s twitter profile describes him as the ‘Maire du Havre’, using a masculine preposition

Here we can see that his location is Le Havre, and his Twitter handle is Philippe_LH (for Le Havre) but when he comes to describe his job the Le disappears.

Because Le Havre is masculine, he describes himself as the Maire du Havre rather than the Maire de Havre (Anne Hidalgo, for example would describe herself as the Maire de Paris). 

For place names with ‘Le’ in front of them, you should use prepositions like this:

Ja vais au Touquet – I am going to Le Touquet

Je suis au Touquet – I am in Le Touquet 

Je viens du Touquet – I am from Le Touquet 

Je parle du Touquet – I am talking about Le Touquet

Le Traité du Touquet – the Le Touquet Treaty

Feminine

Some towns carry ‘La’ as part of their name. La Rochelle, the scenic town on the west coast of France known for its great seafood and rugby team, is one such example.

In French ‘à la‘ or ‘de la‘ is allowed, while ‘à le‘ becomes au and ‘de le’ becomes du. So for ‘feminine’ towns such as this, you should use the following prepositions:

Je vais à La Rochelle – I am going to La Rochelle

Je viens de La Rochelle – I am coming from La Rochelle 

Plural

And some places have ‘Les’ in front of their name, like Les Lilas, a commune in the suburbs of Paris. The name of this commune literally translates as ‘The Lilacs’ and was made famous by Serge Gainsbourg’s song Le Poinçonneur des Lilas, about a ticket puncher at the Metro station there. 

When talking about a place with ‘Les’ as part of the name, you must use a plural preposition like so:

Je suis le poinçonneur des Lilas – I am the ticket puncher of Lilas 

Je vais aux Lilas – I am going to Les Lilas

Il est né aux Lilas – He was born in Les Lilas  

Islands 

Islands follow more complicated rules. 

If you are talking about going to one island in particular, you would use à or en. This has nothing to do with gender and is entirely randomised. For example:

Je vais à La Réunion – I am going to La Réunion 

Je vais en Corse – I am going to Corsica 

Generally speaking, when talking about one of the en islands, you would use the following structure to suggest movement from the place: 

Je viens de Corse – I am coming from Corsica 

For the à Islands, you would say:

Je viens de La Réunion – I am coming from La Réunion 

When talking about territories composed of multiple islands, you should use aux.

Je vais aux Maldives – I am going to the Maldives. 

No preposition needed 

There are some phrases in French which don’t require any a preposition at all. This doesn’t change when dealing with ‘Le’ places, such as Le Mans – which is famous for its car-racing track and Motorcycle Grand Prix. Phrases that don’t need a preposition include: 

Je visite Le Mans – I am visiting Le Mans

J’aime Le Mans – I like Le Mans

But for a preposition phrase, the town becomes simply Mans, as in Je vais au Mans.

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