Have you been wondering why I’m writing in English? As you may have figured out by now I’m Swedish and I could just as well be writing in my native language. So why bother? Well, besides from the fact that what I write can be read by a larger amount of people, I also think it’s good to practice. To me, engineering is truly global in the sense that it opens up a lot of possibilities to work with other engineers from all around the world. Communication is key when working with other people and I think it’s wise to practice your English (well, any additional language is a great thing to practice) when you have the chance. You get exposed to a lot of English literature and writing in school, but the most challenging (and most fun part) is speaking.
I would say that my spoken English was decent two years ago but I still had a pretty strong Swedish accent. There was also the issue of fumbling with words sometimes when trying to express myself. What changed you may ask? I got the opportunity to practice! When I started my internship at Spotify I had to speak English at some point everyday. At the end of the summer my English was so much better. This summer, having to speak almost only English, my Swedish accent has started to disappear. Sometimes during the summer I even caught myself thinking in English which is pretty cool.
I must also admit that it is a huge ego boost when (yes, it has happened!) I get the question : “So, are you American or Canadian?”.
/Sofie
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