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Swedish for Programmers: the secret to getting a job

It can be hard to find a job in a foreign country – even if you have skills that are in-demand. The Local spoke with an employer about what they look for – and a few expats who solved the problem.

Published: 21 March 2017 08:41 CET
Swedish for Programmers: the secret to getting a job
Zhiqin Yu found a job in Sweden after taking Swedish for Programmers

When Gizil Oguz arrived in Sweden from Turkey last year, she was determined to learn the language as quickly as possible.

“I always believed that I need to speak Swedish well in order to be a part of society,” she explains. “Even though most Swedes speak English, they are more confident in Swedish, and chit-chat at work is in Swedish.”

She eagerly enrolled in Swedish for Immigrants (SFI) classes, but quickly found that the pace was too slow.

“The classes were crowded, and I had already learned many of the concepts while the teacher had to repeat them for new students,” she says.

And Bence Dala, a programmer from Hungary, didn't think he'd have any trouble finding a job in Sweden when he moved here with his wife.

“But after a year of contacting companies, I didn’t even usually get an answer,” he recalls.

Meanwhile Chinese engineer Zhiqin Yu felt he was using Google translate “all the time”, simply didn’t feel integrated in daily life in Sweden, and – most frustrating of all – couldn’t find a job.

But today, Gizil, Bence, and Zhiqin all speak fluent Swedish and have full-time jobs. All thanks to discovering a common solution for their individual challenges: Swedish for Programmers.

“I found out about the programme through The Local – it was really my only way to know what’s happening in Sweden,” says Zhiqin. “But I wanted to learn Swedish and get a chance to know the country.”

Gizil and Bence had heard classmates at SFI mention more specific language programmes, such as Swedish for Engineers, and their interest was piqued.

“The normal SFI courses weren’t great for programmers,” Bence says. “The IT terms are much different than other workplace jargon, and Swedish for Programmers also offers the chance to get Java certification.”

“In the software development market it’s always good to improve your knowledge and to learn new programming languages,” Gizil agrees. “I wanted to improve my programming knowledge and also hoped to learn more advanced Swedish concepts that they don’t teach in SFI.”

Swedish for Programmers, or SFX-IT, is a language course designed to prepare educated immigrants to work in IT in Sweden, and is offered by the C3L community learning centre In Tyresö near Stockholm.

In addition to learning Swedish about 15 hours per week, students are offered classes in programming languages such as Java, C#, and Python.

“I love that there are different levels available, so everyone can choose the one suitable,” Zhiqin says. “Writing was the most challenging part for me personally. But the small class sizes also make it a perfect learning environment. I highly recommended the programme if you want to learn Swedish rapidly.”

Students also receive support preparing their CVs and practicing for interviews.

“We learned how to write a CV in Swedish and how to present ourselves, and of course that really helped with finding an internship,” Bence says. “Doing an internship is part of the programme, and thanks to that, I was able to find a job.”

The programme is highly tailored and personalized, and can also be done online, making it perfect for expats in Sweden who already are working as well.

Find out more about Swedish for Programmers

“I actually found my job before starting my SFX-IT course, but before I started working I enrolled,” Gizil says. “Since I started working I’ve continued my classes online. And I believe it helps me a lot with my daily activities in the office. I write all my emails in Swedish and try to communicate in Swedish as much as possible.”

Jimmy Lundström, Gizil’s supervisor at global IT consultancy company Sogeti says he is “absolutely” more likely to hire a candidate who has taken Swedish for Programmers.

“The programme has high demands for the technical capabilities of their students, such as hands-on experience with programming, as well as a very challenging course setup,” he explains. “We know we’ll find people there who are high-energy and very motivated, and those are important qualities we look at during recruitment.”

Bence is now an AX developer at Sigma ITC, and Zhiniq recently got a job as a software engineer. Lundström says that Swedish for Programmers is filling a gap in the market, and giving educated immigrants the opportunity to satisfy Sweden’s growing demand for talent in the IT industry.

“There’s definitely a need of more technically skilled people in the IT-area today. It’s also obvious that there are too many people who are having a tough time finding a job within IT when they don’t know Swedish,” he says.

“Offering Swedish classes small enough for each student to get the individual help they need to learn the language as fast as possible and also focusing on the IT perspective – that’s something C3L does really well.”

Of course the programme is challenging – but it could just change your life. It certainly did for Gizil.

“The SFX-IT courses aren’t a piece of cake. You need to get your hands dirty and put a lot of effort in,” she says. “But it fulfilled all my expectations – there’s no end to what you can learn.”

 This article was produced by The Local Client Studio and sponsored by C3L Tyresö. 

For members

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.

Published: 30 November 2021 13:04 CET
Updated: 4 December 2021 17:47 CET
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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