SFI – Svenska för Invandare

What is SFI?
SFI (Svenska för Invandrare), also popularly known as Swedish for Immigrants, is a national free Swedish language course offered to immigrants of most categories. A simple way to understand this is that if you have a valid national registration number from Skatteverket and hold a valid Swedish residence permit (any residence permit – work or study or dependent) you can join SFI. This is a course that is funded by the state and their primary aim is to help immigrants learn the language without having to spend a fortune on it.

There are many SFI schools across each city in Sweden but since I know more about Stockholm, I will stick to that region in this article.

There is actually a lot of information available about SFI at this website, but in this blog post, I want to share my experience with you and share some practical advice to get you going.

Who can join?
Any immigrant who:
Is 16-yrs. or above
Has a valid national registration number
Has a valid residence permit

How to join?
When my wife and I decided to register for SFI, we read the instructions on SFI website and went to SFI Centrum (Hornsgatan 124 on Södermalm) – which is the main office responsible for all information and admissions to SFI in Stokcholm city. It turned out to be a mistake for us because what we did not realize at that time was that we were residing in Solna kommun, whereas SFI centrum was where you went to register if you were residing in Stockholm kommun. I know this kommun thing can be a bit tricky for new-comers so more on this later.

There, we were told that since we belonged to Solna kommun, we must go to Solna kommun office in order to register for SFI. Another reason why we made this mistake was that the SFI page on stockholm.se says: “If you are registered in Stockholm City, you can apply by paying a personal visit to the SFI Centre at Hornsgatan 124. Here you can test your knowledge and choose where to study.”

So, at least for us, it did not imply that they meant Stockholm kommun specifically, which was different from Solna kommun. But then, we were in Sweden less than a month.

Now, we were given the address to Solna kommun office and we went there to register for SFI. When you go there, they basically ask you to fill a simple form online (the computers are available in their office) and then they sit with you, counsel you on the best timing and location for your SFI course. You will have the option for choosing the timings and school location. Just carry an ID with you which shows your personal number.

Practical Advice
SFI Free Courses vs. Paid Courses outside SFI
This is a question that probably haunts you when you decide to learn Swedish. should you go for the SFI courses which are free?

Or, should you join one of the many paid courses that are offered by universities such as Folkuniversitetet. It is of course, a bit difficult to answer this question definitively because when you search online and read about people’s views, they will have both good and bad things to say about SFI. Some people might say that teachers may not be very serious, or that students just come and go as they please, etc. I have heard some people say that the paid courses are not that great because, first of all, they are expensive. I think there are five levels (?) and each level costs 2700 SEK, so that seems a very huge price. On the other hand, the number of classes per level are just about 10 with a lot of homework so it might seem too fast for some.

But enough of technicalities. My own experience? SFI has been great. I started going to SFI classes at Folkuniveritetet (yes, SFI has classes in various locations including Folkuniversitetet and, mind you, this is different from Folkuniv.’s own paid classes) and had a really great time. The teachers that taught us were all very dedicated and even the batch of students in my class were all quite serious. At SFI, you get to meet so many people form so many different backgrounds and nationalities that you can, for a while, forget that you are in Sweden. For me, it has been great because I have got to meet some very nice people and made some very good friends.

So, what is the open class culture that people talk about when they say that students just come and go? What this means is that nobody is forcing you to be there for the entire length of a class or for the entire duration of a course. It is not that only after attending a certain number of classes or topics do you become eligible for the next level. Anybody, whoever can put in more effort in their own time and learn faster than others can progress to the next level whenever they decide to. So, if I give more time at home and learn faster than others, I can go and tell my teacher that I would like to move forward to the next level. The teacher then decides if you can move forward (for lower levels) or can allow you to sit for the next national test for clearing levels C and D.

If you really ask me, I would definitely recommend joining SFI. They teach well but it is also a good thing to get to know a large number of people who are coming to SFI by choice and not just because their employer is paying money to send them to a paid course.

Conclusion:
To join SFI, go to your kommun’s office and register, but make sure you have a residence permit and an ID with your personnummer. If you belong to Stockholm kommun, go to Hornsgatan 124, otherwise search for the address of your kommun’s office online and go there.

Should you join SFI? – absolut!

If you have any questions that you Think I might have missed answering, do write back to me and I will try to answer them as best as I can.

Important links:
SFI – Official website
SFI – Levels and Study options
SFI – Swedish for trained professionals
SFI – FAQs
Folkuniversitetet – Paid Courses

Renting an Apartment in Stockholm – Short Version

Okay, so you have probably read the longer version of this article over here and found you were not really interested in my detailed experience during my apartment hunt, so in this new shorter post, I will list the options that I think you have and describe them very briefly. If you want to know more about them and how my experience with them have been, read the detailed version of this post here:

Buying or renting?
You’ve probably already made up your mind about it. Here is the gist:
Buying an apartment becomes far cheaper in the long-term because the ease of getting housing loans from the banks means that you virtually end up paying the same amount in your monthly installments to the bank for buying an apartment as you would pay for second-hand rent. So, comparing the two options, at the end of 1 year, you would either have paid the rent and lost that money forever, or invested the same in a new home and that money is not lost because it is getting you an apartment permanently. Whether or not the real estate prices appreciate, you still get most – if not more – of your money back in case you decide to sell.

Getting a first-hand contract is virtually impossible unless you are willing to wait for 10+ years. So, you need to get a second hand contract through one of Sweden’s many online search databases.

Options for getting second-hand apartments:
1. Register with Blocket.se: (My rating: 1* / 5)
(http://www.blocket.se)
Pros:
a. It is free.
b. Apartments are not the only things you can search for so there are more options (but not really that relevant in this case)
c. Number of ads is huge compared to bostaddirekt.com

Cons:
a. Most of the ads are junk.
b. Most of the people putting up the ads do not publish their contact numbers. So, you just have to send them email with your details and hope for an answer, which never comes.
c. The website is only in Swedish language so you need to translate each ad to English manually.
d. Difficult to separate useful ads from the useless ones. For instance, many ads say the apartment is only available for stay during weekdays and the owner needs it back during weekend. Or, apartment is for sharing only. The problem here is that there is no easy way to filter the results so that you see only the useful ads.

2. Register with Bostaddirekt.com: (My rating: 4* / 5)
(http://www.bostaddirekt.com)
Pros:
a. Mostly genuine ads since the advertiser also has to pay for publishing the ads.
b. Very easy to filter ads according to your requirements, thus saving time which would be wasted if it were blocket.se
c. Almost all ads have a phone number published, so it is easier to contact the publishers.
d. Lots of pictures of the apartment are generally included in the ad along with the location.
e. Membership includes access to sample contract templates, inventory lists, deposit receipt as well as other good tips on apartment searching.
f. Option to change website language to English.

Cons:
a. You need to pay a fee of 700 kr, which is valid for 45 days. This lets you in order to see contact information in ads.

3. Search available options in Indica.se: (My rating: 4* / 5)
(http://www.indica.se)
Pros:
a. A large excel sheet of available apartments.
b. Easy to get pictures and arrange visits to the apartment
c. No charge for visiting apartments and talking to the owners. Pay only when apartment is finalized and contract is to be drawn.
d. Contract is drawn by Indica.se and you don’t have to bother with it.

Cons:
a. Cost of finalizing an apartment is 2,000 kr, which is quite high compared to bostaddirekt.com also. (but it is one-time and irrespective of how long you stay at the property)
b. Apartments seem to be slightly pricier than what you would expect.

How would I suggest you go about it?
1. Forget about blocket.se. Erase it from your memory.
2. Register with Bostaddirekt.com and pay the registration fees. It is worth it. Search for as long as you can afford (in terms of time). And remember to call up the advertiser as soon as ou see the ad. My expectation is that you should be able to find something good in less than a month. So, this is perhaps what you should give most effort to.
3. If you cannot afford to waste any more time, go to Indica.se and call up Kaushik (his number is published on the website). Pick the apartment that you like, visit it personally then pay the fees and its yours.

I hope my article was useful to you. I would love to hear your experiences and any corrections you might want to point out to my article. Happy hunting!

Renting an Apartment in Stockholm

The most important question for anyone who is new to Sweden in general and Stockholm in particular is how to find an apartment to rent?

(By the time I ended up writing this post, it became too long to read if all you wanted was plain facts. So, if you just want to know what the options are very briefly without time for my experience with each option, read this post instead. Otherwise continue reading below.)

Buying or renting?
Digging deeper into this throws up the more important question of whether to buy an apartment or just rent one and the answer is not that simple. I have spoken to my colleagues, friends and other people here and what they are unanimous in their agreement with the fact that buying an apartment is easier and far cheaper than renting one. This is not to say that apartments are cheap  in Stockholm, in fact it is quite the opposite. The demand for apartments in Stockholm is many time greater than the supply since the Swedish authorities are painfully slow at building housing, so the prices of apartments are through the roof and it makes Stockholm as one of the most expensive cities in the world for buying apartments. And, due to rent control in first-hand contracts, the second-hand rental market as become criminally insane. An apartment that is supposed to cost, say, 4,000 kr/month in first-hand rent ends up costing as much as 10,000 kr/month. And again, this is due to the insane demand and supply mismatch for housing in Stockholm.

But, because of the same reason, buying an apartment becomes far cheaper in the long-term because the ease of getting housing loans from the banks means that you virtually end up paying the same amount in your monthly installments to the bank for buying an apartment as you would pay for second-hand rent. So, comparing the two options, at the end of 1 year, you would either have paid the rent and lost that money forever, or invested the same in a new home and that money is not lost because it is getting you an apartment permanently. Whether or not the real estate prices appreciate, you still get most – if not more – of your money back in case you decide to sell.

Anyway, I wouldn’t say any more about buying vs. renting because I haven’t decided to buy just yet so let us come back to renting.

Renting: First-hand vs. Second-hand
So, how do you go about renting an apartment in Stockholm? There are two kinds of contracts in Sweden: First-hand and Second-hand. As you might have read elsewhere, a first-hand contract is what you have directly with the owner of the building and a second-hand contract is what happens when you who is holding the first-hand contract, give sublet it further to a third person at an increased rent. So, a second-hand contract is not directly with the owner.

How do you get a first-hand contract? You don’t, unless you are ready to wait 10 years, thanks to the stupidly managed queue system in place. Anyway, I will not expand on this here. Let us focus on second-hand contracts.

Options for Second-hand renting:
There are many options that a new comer might contemplate. For instance, my wife was of the opinion that if she could find out who the owner of a building was, she could probably break the queue, but as it turns out, the vacancies are rare and people never really get back to your questions. You could register with one of the online databases: blocket.se and bostaddirekt.com. Or, you can go via Indica.se. More on that option later.

Okay, I was given a temporary apartment by my employer for 2-3 months so I could take my time in finding a more permanent place. So, this is what I did.

The most realistic options, to me, were either to search online on Blocket.se or Bostaddirekt.com.

1. Blocket.se: (My rating: 1* / 5)
For the first month of my stay in Stockholm I went through Blocket.se, since it is free to register and use. This website has dozens of ads in a day but it is quite a bit of hard work to separate the ads that suit you from most of the junk that makes up blocket. For instance, I found that a large percentage of the ads were either for weekday stays (and on weekends the apartment should go back to the present renter), or for very short period of 15-days or so only. Most of the other ads were for sharing accommodation and even those at quite high prices. From the remaining ads that I found suitable, up to 90 percent did not give contact numbers but asked you to simply send an email describing yourself and your background and the advertiser would pick and chose who to call for the viewing. I immediately knew it was going to be a waste of time sending these emails and waiting, but I thought I would give it a shot and, in the process, learn something about how things work here. I had no expectations of any replies and surely there were none.

But, there were a few ads (about 5 in a period of 10 days) that did mention a phone number, but their conditions were also surprising: housing only for Swedes. Fortunately for me, the first apartment ad that I considered and showed the person’s contact number so I called him up and was invited for a viewing the same day. I went and saw the apartment and was immediately struck by the stark contrast between the size of the apartment and the rent demanded. It was, I think, a 37 kvm apartment and the rent being asked was 10,000 kr/month. We did not like it at all and decided to look at other options.

That is when we hit the wall on blocket. Not a single ad after that got me any response at all. I went like this for about 15 more days and invariably understood that blocket.se is a junk website and none of the ads on it were to be taken seriously. One guy whom I called after reading his ad said that he could not rent his apartment to me because he did not know me. So, I got a bit irritated and asked him why he posted an ad which all strangers were going to respond to, to which he replied more rudely saying, “but I don’t know YOU.” Fine!

2. Bostaddirekt.com: (My rating: 4* / 5)
If you are serious about your chances, I discovered Bostaddirekt.com to be a far greater website. Of course, you need to pay 700 kr to register (membership period of 45 days) but it allows you to search ads and view contact numbers (YES!) of the advertisers. It also includes tips on apartment viewing and contract signing and contains sample contracts and inventory list documents (in English as well) that you can use. But most importantly, I found that:
a. It was easier to search and sort ads from Bostaddirekt.com according to your needs
b. There were no nonsensical ads wasting your time because even the advertiser has to pay
c. Almost all ads had a phone number that could be reached

So, I was a bit slow, due to my unsuccessful attempts with blocket.se and did not have the same confidence to call up the people who had posted ads on bostaddirekt.com. It was very easy for me to see which ads were suitable for me so I picked one and called the guy, who was sorry to inform me that he had already signed the contract with someone else that morning and wished me luck with my search. His attitude was very nice and I felt encouraged to continue my search. I called up a few people and in each case, I was too late in reaching out to them. I realized my mistake was that I was responding to ads that were a few days old, while I was trying not to be too impolite by calling up for ads that were posted the same day. So, I gave up all the conflicts in my mind and called up each ad that I liked, as soon as it was posted.

I got a good response from most of the people I called up. I visited a few apartments for viewing and they all seemed genuine and it was really up to me to strike a deal with one of them.

On the whole, my judgement is this: Don’t waste your time with Blocket. Register with Bostaddirekt.com immediately and start calling up as soon as you see an ad. You need to be quick here as the first few callers are taken seriously, after which it becomes a sort of headache for the advertiser to manage the hundreds of callers for one ad that they posted.

3. Indica.se: (My rating: 4* / 5)
There is, though, a very easier and safer alternative for finding an apartment if blocket and bostaddirekt aren’t working for you. It is this website Indica.se. Basically, it is being run by an Indian guy, Kaushik, who is settled in Sweden. The website posts of a huge excel sheet of available apartments and their features and expected rent and you drop a mail to Kaushik with the apartment that you are interested in and he can send you pictures of the apartment and also arrange a visit for you. There is no limit on how many apartments you show interest in and visit and it doesn’t cost a penny to do all this. The only downside is that in case you do finalize an apartment through him, you will need to pay a one time fees of 2,000 kr but the upside is that it saves you a lot of effort and he even draws up the contract for you. And rest assured that you will not be cheated by him as he has a good track record. I have spoken to a lot of people who have used this option, including myself, and I can tell you that it is 100% safe and you will have your piece of mind.

Wanna know my personal view on how to land an apartment with least hassle? I would suggest:
1. Forget about blocket.se. Erase it from your memory.
2. Register with Bostaddirekt.com and pay the registration fees. It is worth it. Search for as long as you can afford but my expectation is that you should be able to find something good in less than a month.
3. If you cannot afford to waste any more time, go to Indica.se and call up Kaushik (his number is published on the website). Pick the apartment that you like, visit it personally then pay the fees and its yours.

I hope my article was useful to you. I would love to hear your experiences and any corrections you might want to point out to my article. Happy hunting!

Welcome to Stockholm – Public Transport

So, I’ve finally reached Stockholm a few days back. The weather these days (first week of october 2014) is not so harsh, though winters are supposedly on their way in. It’s keeping about 13 degrees C during the day while dipping to 3-5 degrees during the night.

What to wear? A sweater with a jacket is enough for now.

Anyway, I got an appartment in Huvudsta and the connectivity by public transport is very good. Not only here, but the entire city has excellent transport so one does not need a personal vehicle to get around. I’ve stayed here twice in the past few years as well and never needed to use anything other than the public transport.

The public transport in Stockholm is managed by the local company: SL (official website http://sl.se). It includes Metro (Tunnelbana), Pendeltåg, Bus and Boat. I’ve never used boat in the past because I never had to go to any surrounding islands, but the use of Bus, Metro and Pendeltåg is sufficient to get anywhere in the city as well as the suburbs.

You can find the rail map here:

Stockholm Rail Map

Details on what combination of public transport to use and at what times can be calculated very easily using the SL’s journey planner on their homepage (http://sl.se – Swedish version and http://sl.se/en – English version). Simply fill in the start and end points of the journey and click search (Sök). This homepage also shows you the current status of the various modes of transports so that any interruptions are known to the user immediately.

The public transport access card that I got made costs 790 SEK and is valid for travel for 30 days and across all zones in Stockholm. The cost of the smartcard itself is 20 SEK and is just a one-time fee and you can keep charging the card for 790 SEK when it expires. Like I said earlier also, all suburbs are included in this monthly plan. There is no limit to how much you can travel and the validity starts from the moment you first swipe it on the machines setup at entry to metro and pendeltåg stations as well as in the busses. There are price plans available for shorter terms such as 1 day, 1 week, etc. but my focus is on the 1 month plan because I am going to use this everyday for the rest of my time in Stockholm.

More information on journey tickets and smartcards here http://sl.se/en/fares–tickets.
More on Getting Around via public transport here: http://sl.se/en/getting-around.

Remember: you cannot buy journey tickets on board any of the vehicles and these must be bought or card recharged at various SL centres. Some local shops such as Pressbyrån and 24/7 sell the tickets and recharge your cards and charge no extra fees than the plans that you purchase. There is always the option of charging your card at many of the automated machines installed at all the stations and you can use your credit/debit or forex cards for this.

Overall, the public transport system in Stockholm is excellent and is really worth the price – which also happens to be a subsidized by the government.

In my next posts, I will discuss options for getting mobile connections, internet connections, etc.

Learning Swedish online

Hej,

OK, so I do know that I will be able to join Svenska (Swedish) language course once I am in Sweden and received my personnummer.

Basically, the Swedish government has this program called SFI (Swedish for Immigrants) which conducts free language courses for all immigrants. I think this is a really nice program and I hope it will really help me understand the language and understand Sweden better. You can read more on this here: http://www.stockholm.se/ForskolaSkola/Svenskundervisning-for-invandrare-sfi/Swedish-for-immigrants-/

But since that means I have to wait before I am registered in Sweden and that is still a few months away, I have found this really great website (http://ielanguages.com/swedish.html) for learning Swedish online.

This website gives you very good information on the Swedish language such as basic phrases, constructing sentences, using verbs, adverbs, nouns, making plurals, etc. I think this is extremely helpful and I have already learnt a bit from it. You should also give it a shot. Start with section Swedish I and then go on to Swedish II and III.

Thanks to this website, I have now memorized the basic phrases, numbers, days and many other basic things and I am also now able to understand structure of written swedish sentences a bit.

Kan jag tala Svenska? Can I speak Swedish?

Well, not so well right now but my effort towards learning the language still goes on. I hope this is helpful to you too.

Välkommen.

An Unexpected Journey

It is final now. I am about to move to Sweden for work later this year. I’ve got a job in Stockholm and, after months of deliberations, have finally accepted it. It wasn’t an easy decision as one needs to consider a lot of things. Salary, experience, economy, language, etc. For those of you who have gone through such a phase, I hope you will understand what I must be going through.

It was unexpected, to be frank. Up until a few months back, working in Sweden didn’t even cross my mind. Other things kept me occupied. My job back here in India. My life. My family. My books. That I would take up an unexpected offer to give all that up and work in Sweden, I had never imagined.

Let me say at the outset that I have heard many good and bad things about Sweden and so I don’t really know for sure what to expect. They say the grass always looks greener on the other side. True! But you never really know what lies on the other side unless you cross over to the side.

Honestly? I am scared. I am frightened. I am also equally thrilled.

As I prepare for the move, many thoughts enter my mind. How will it go? Will I like the country? True, I’ve visited Sweden before and spent a good amount of time there, but never really contemplated living there with a job. Will I be able to learn their language? Will I be accepted in the Swedish society? Is my salary good enough? Will I start hating the country after one round of its harsh winters?

I don’t know but I am ready to find out.

I am starting this blog to capture my thoughts, ideas, fears, and other experiences that I will be gathering as I prepare for my move. I will also post helpful resources that I gather during this phase. And later, as I start to settle down, I will share my experiences, comments and suggestions. I hope this blog will prove helpful for others who are planning to move to Sweden as well.

Have you moved to Sweden already? I would love to hear your experience. Do leave me your comments here.