On Thursday I’m running a breakfast seminar in Malmö and it’s in Swedish. This makes me a little scared. Scared of not coming across professional and of being that person who can’t find the words and reverts to speaking Swenglish. Because the thing is, I don’t know UX related Swedish.
I’ve never worked within UX in Sweden. I’ve never studied anything UX related in Sweden. I did all of that in Denmark and learnt the words, the language and expressions in danish, or english. After 6 years I moved to London and reverted solely to working in english. I’m very comfortable speaking UX lingo in english but not at all in Swedish. I don’t know what anything is called.
Industry languages is very different from everyday language and the online dictionaries are not completely reliable. There are nuances and commonly used expressions which are hard to find in a field as recent and as involving as UX and cross channel experiences. When writing the description of my breakfast seminar I had to consult my brothers. Now when I’m sat polishing off my slides in Swedish I’m getting a little bit nervous. I know the subject I’m talking about really well, but *gulp* talking about it in Swedish. Help!
I’m exaggerating a little, of course. It’ll be fine and it’ll be a good Swedish lesson for me, but without a doubt most of the prepping for the seminar will be around speaking Swedish more than anything else.
Tomorrow – Day 239 | Week 34 summary
Image: Swedish fish bought from Ikea
