The Finnish language is full of surprises, and learning it at work is rewarding

When Monira Khalid-Yousif saw a job advertisement by the City of Helsinki in which level B1 (intermediate) was set as the Finnish language skill requirement, she thought that this was her chance. Originally from Hungary, Khalid-Yousif had studied Finnish intensively for about a year.

“It took me a whole day, even more, to draw up my application. It was the first application that I have made in Finnish.”

Khalid-Yousif’s efforts paid off, as she was invited for a job interview. During the interview, it was emphasised that she would have to develop her language skills alongside her work, and that her working language would be Finnish. Khalid-Yousif was up to the challenge, as was her future employer, and Khalid-Yousif joined the City as a project planner in the HR department last August.

“I was really happy to get a job in Finnish. I like Helsinki and its atmosphere.”

“Language skills are not the same as professional skills” 

Khalid-Yousif moved to Finland back in 2023 when she got an English-language job in Helsinki. Although Finnish and Hungarian are related, there was nothing familiar to her about the Finnish language. With her Finnish-speaking boyfriend, Monira speaks English at home.

Khalid-Yousif has studied political science in the UK and has worked in HR and other fields. In addition to her first language, she speaks English and Spanish, and now Finnish as well.

At the City, Khalid-Yousif’s job involves charting the special characteristics of multicultural work communities and what is specific to their management.

“In Finnish, my work duties take more time than before. It has been surprising to have to double or even triple-check texts.”

Working in Finnish is hard, but progress becomes evident quickly. Khalid-Yousif’s adaptation to her work has been made easier by a few Finnish-speaking colleagues of hers having lived abroad and worked in a language other than Finnish.

“We all know that language skills are not the same as professional skills.”

The Finnish language is peculiar. For example, Khalid-Yousif often uses the word merkityksellisyys (‘relevance’) in her work, but the word is difficult to conjugate. She also tends to mix up kehittyä (‘develop’ in the intransitive form) and kehittää (‘develop’ in the transitive form). Khalid-Yousif says that one of her favourite Finnish words is simpukka (‘clam’ or ‘mussel’). The word sounds funny to Hungarian ears because it ends in -ka, which means ‘small’ in Hungarian.

Language sparring and support from the work community

Monira Khalid-Yousif receives support from her employer for developing her Finnish language skills. For example, she has language sparring sessions with Tanja Kallio, during which the two combine exchanging news with practising Finnish.

“We go with what Monira wants to talk about. Sometimes we talk about grammar; other times, we talk about something else,” says Kallio, who works as a staff availability specialist.

During the language sparring sessions, Khalid-Yousif sometimes uses an English word in a Finnish sentence because she cannot remember its Finnish equivalent. Kallio then says the word in Finnish and writes it down for Khalid-Yousif. As the conversation continues, Khalid-Yousif’s vocabulary grows and strengthens.

Khalid-Yousif says that she has also received invaluable support from her colleagues in developing her language skills. A close colleague has been patiently correcting her grammar or individual words.

“At my colleague’s suggestion, I also started keeping a learning diary, which has been a great help in managing my vocabulary and organising new information,” Khalid-Yousif explains.

Language skills developing in everyday work

The City of Helsinki has published language principles for all work communities. The City’s goal is to make it easy for people with different linguistic and cultural backgrounds to come to work with the City and gain the language skills they need to work.

In 2024, around 19% of Helsinki residents spoke a first language other than Sami, Finnish or Swedish. Last year, the corresponding figure was around 11% of the City’s roughly 38,000 employees. More and more people with developing language skills are applying for work at the City.

“It is a good idea to indicate in the recruitment advertisement what level of proficiency in Finnish and Swedish is expected of the applicant,” says Tanja Kallio.

Anonymous recruitment ensures that the applicant’s background or name does not influence the initial assessment phase of the recruitment process. Positive discrimination can also be used in recruitment processes. This means that if the final shortlist includes a candidate whose skills are equal to those of a native speaker of Finnish or Swedish in terms of knowledge and aptitude, a candidate from an under-represented group is selected. Such a group may consist of applicants with developing language skills, if this has been decided in advance.

Familiarisation is provided and, where possible, an employee learning a new working language is assigned a support person to help them start their new job.

“We support learning the language needed in the work, and we understand that learning a new language takes time,” Kallio comments.

In Monira Khalid-Yousif’s work, Finnish language skills are driven forward especially by oral presentations. They require a lot of preparation. Khalid-Yousif often asks for general feedback on her work.

“The most rewarding thing is getting good feedback on my work. I know that I always give a hundred per cent, even though sometimes 80 would be enough.”