So my family is most likely moving to Finland. I live in the United States in Georgia and the legal driving age here is sixteen. I heard it was eighteen over in Finland. Well if I'm already sixteen and have my license then can I still drive there with my U.S. license? Also what are some other laws I should know about that they have over there. If I'm in the tenth grade right now, how would school over there work for me? Would I have to learn a new language because I am already working on learning French. I heard that the main languages over in Finland are Swedish and Finnish. Does that mean that I couldn't like watch tv, go to the movie theatre, or be in school, without knowing Swedish or Finnish? Over here in the U.S. I am currently taking my two favorite classes which are Drama and French, would those still be available over there? Also I have a Verizon Wireless cellphone. What would I do with it I mean would I have to transfer to a different company or does anyone know if there is a way I can keep Verizon Wireless over in Finland?
Other - Europe - 3 Answers
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1 :
You have some really difficult questions, can't really answer all of them. But anyway, about the language, no you don't really need to know Finnish (Swedish is almost dead language in Finland nowadays, there were many speakers of it about a century ago but not anymore) if you wanna watch tv, it's easy to remove the subtitles from the broadcasts with the new digital tv receivers. And yes, in Finland the American tv-shows are not dubbed, so you'll be hearing a lot of your own language. But yes of course, you won't be able to watch the Finnish tv-shows, as they aren't even subtitled with English. French will be available here but I have no idea what drama is, somekinda theater?
2 :
When visiting or living in another country, you have to follow the local laws of that country So yes, the minium driving age in Finland is 18, and so you will not be able to drive until then. If you are living there for more than 185 days then you will have to obtain a Finnish driving licence after a year. As you are not 18 for over a year then this will not be possible then in your case. You can read the procedures here for more details: http://www.expat-finland.com/living_in_finland/driving.html Concerning schooling - fundementally you have two choices (a) to transfer to the mainstream education, but of course this will be in Finnish. Otherwise there are International Schools which offer education in English. Normally they are pretty expensive, but reading this http://www.expat-finland.com/living_in_finland/education.html it seems like this could be an option for you French is taught in Finnish schools yes (I was a student advisor here in NL for a course with international exchange students, and Finnish students attended in NL in English, but also in our French partner which required them to do the course in French), so this is possible. However I would say that if you are going to live in Finland, it would more sensible to concentrate on learning Finnish (it is difficult to learn several languages at the same time). Finland is like the Netherlands in that movies in the cinemas are imported in the original language and then subtitled in Finnish. So you can watch the English language ones no problem. This is the same of course for tv programs imported (and most of the major US series, comedies etc are imported - but you may find they are not as up to date as what is currently being shown in the US). I don't know about the mobile phone question,but you would have to transfer the subscription to Finland because otherwise you would pay astronomical roaming call charges. There are plenty of companies with different subscriptions to suit your needs. So I would stop your current contract before you leave and get a new phone and contract in Finland. Good luck
3 :
As has been said, the legal driving age in Finland is eighteen. Whether or not your US licence would be valid over here once you turn eighteen, I can’t say. Worst case scenario, you’d have to get a Finnish licence. Also, as a side-note, drinking age for most alcoholic drinks in Finland is eighteen. If one orders drinks in a bar, one has to be eighteen, but if one wants to buy strong alcohol from a store (there’s only one chain of liquor stores in the country) one has to be twenty years old. As for the issue of schools, like Bla Bla said, there are international schools, where the teaching is offered in English, but those are pretty limited to the largest cities. If you end up moving to a smaller city/town, you’ll most likely have that choice available to you. Regular schools only offer teaching in Finnish (and Swedish in certain areas), so you’d have to work with that. It’s always possible that the school could provide you with an assistant/interpreter (but that would be costly for them). As the curriculum in Finland can vary from the curriculum in the States, you may have to repeat some things. At sixteen most Finnish kids are either in ninth grade (the last grade of comprehensive school) or in the first year of upper secondary school (sort of like high school) or vocational school. Most large/midsized schools offer French as a foreign language (thought the primary foreign language is English). Drama might be harder to come by. I do know of a few schools that are characterized as theatre-centric schools. Those would be upper secondary schools that tend to be hard to get into (since they get a lot of applicants). There are lots of programs on Finnish television that come from the States (and the UK), and nearly all are subtitled, same with films. The only exception would be programs targeted to children, which tend to be dubbed. Of course, if you and family are going to be staying for a long time (or permanently), you’d want to learn Finnish, to be able to understand the Finnish programs (and the news and such). On cellphones, I think you’d be best off buying a new phone (we are the country of Nokia, so there’s shortage to cells here) and getting a subscription with a Finnish company. I’m not totally sure, but your current phone might not work with a Finnish sim-card, and a Finnish connection would certainly be cheaper (we don’t have Verizon here). Hopefully this info will be helpful. Go check out the Virtual Finland -site (virtual.finland.fi), it should provide you with some useful/interesting stuff on Finland.
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