Nowadays, the Swedish language is becoming more popular in Belarus. The students at the Faculty of Humanities study Swedish and any person willing to learn this Scandinavian language, may make the dream come true with the help of the Centre for Foreign Languages Study “Universum”. Thanks to active cooperation of PSU with the Svenska institutet (Swedish Institute), our students have a unique opportunity to take free summer language courses in Sweden. The students of the Faculty of Humanities, Anastasia Mishechkina and Sofia Slizhikova were lucky to take free language courses this summer.
Anastasia spent 3 weeks at Axevalla Folk High School: “How was my trip to Sweden? I'm afraid it will not be enough to say that it was unforgettable. It was not just a trip abroad. It was a journey into another life for me. For a person who visited only Latvia in a company of familiar people, the trip to Sweden was a great challenge. A completely new environment, a different culture, a third foreign language that you hear not for a couple of hours a week, but for a whole month and people from all over the world will remain in my heart forever. I am very grateful for this wonderful opportunity! It will always be something more than a summer language school for me. It will be the whole chapter in the history of my life, because now I know much better not only the world, but also myself!”
Sofia studied at Hola Folk High School: “Thanks to the Swedish scholarship, I came across a completely new and unique culture and country this summer. I was impressed by the Swedish size and scope, freedom and at the same time an amazing order and steady pace of life. We lived in a boarding school in the middle of the forest together with people from different countries, enjoyed the nature and worked hard improving our language skills. Under the guidance of the teachers, everyone made significant progress, besides, we communicated with each other in Swedish. It's amazing how quickly people of different cultures, nationalities (from Mexicans to South Koreans) and ages (our oldest friend was 35) can make contact and find a common language, which was Swedish of course.
Moreover, we traveled a lot and got acquainted with the sights and significant places of our region, swam in the northern rivers and the Gulf of the Baltic Sea (because the abnormally hot weather allowed us to do that), visited ancient libraries and historical sites, communicated with the Swedish moose and tried a traditional Swedish dish Surströmming.
All summer language courses have one scenario: you meet incredibly interesting people, who later become your close friends, you pour yourself into the culture of the country you are in, you get new knowledge with incredible speed and greed, you sing to the guitar and play strange sports and table-top games that could not even enter your head. But each country and each course leaves its special and unique feelings and memories, which motivate you not only to study and improve your language skills, but also to form the understanding and love for people, “alien” cultures and their uniqueness.”
Thanks to cooperation with the Swedish Institute, 15 students and lecturers of our University have won scholarships for study in Sweden.
Yauhen Papakul, Senior Lecturer at the Department of World Literature and Foreign Languages