crazycraic

Morning

I have been in a long-distance relationship with my Swedish partner for a few years now, and i am now considering a potential move to Sweden to live with her.

She has just graduated from her studies and will be returning to Stockholm to start looking for work, living with her parents (both retired) for the time being. As for me, i am currently working and saving as much money as possible for this anticpated move.

Yesterday i applied for the 'based on family ties in Sweden' residency permit, as this is the only option available to me as i will not be moving to Sweden for work, studies or have enough funds to support myself long-term... i am pretty much aware she will need to find full time work soon to even have this application considered, and i set the expected arrival date for next year.

Do i have much chance of getting this residency permit granted?

We do see each other often, and i earn enough money to travel to Sweden on a monthly basis... i'm just wondering if the best route would be to continue saving in the near-future, using my British passport to move to Sweden and apply for residency permit while i'm there?

It's my every intention to start learning the Swedish language, if i were to get granted a residency permit, and hopefully secure some form of employment in the long-term.

I will appreciate any and all advice, along with anything else you may recommend me needing to do or get

Thanks for reading!

Jamie.

Gordon Barlow

Jamie. It's not all that easy getting a job in Sweden, even if you could speak Swedish. My advice would be to find a job there before you go there to live.

Mike1001

Hi Jamie,
I have lived in Sweden and Norway for over 3 years. My very strong advice to anyone independant of age occupation or qualific� tions who is considering a move to either of these countries is: Think again! You MUST have a job, and you MUST have at least rudimentary Swedish language. Do not think because you plan to live in Sweden the language will follow.
The UK for all its problems is still IMHO a better place to live than Scandinavia.
If you decide to move expect to use most of your energy in overcoming the many challenges you will have to face, expect to be frustrated, upset, disappointed, skint and isolated. I paint a picture only of the stark realities. Swedes are not like British people, they are fundementally different. You are not going to Australia, Canada etc where there are massive expat support communities. You would be going to a sparsly populated large and mainly cold country who do things their way, without the flexibility and make do attitude of the average Brit. You have been warned. Oh and good luck!

scot47

You will always be an outsider - even after acquiring near-native competence in Swedish.

Gordon Barlow

That's a shame, Scot, isn't it? Why are they like that, do you think? My son has lived in Norway for the past 13 years, and although all his Norskie acquaintances know he's foreign, they don't hold it against him. He has never felt discriminated against, except in the early days because of his lack of fluency. Norwegians are a lot more easy-going than I expected they would be - but when I travelled around Scandinavia in my young days I much preferred the Swedes. Not any more, eh?

Mike1001

Well in spite of my flagging up warnings for anyone wishing to deal with Swedish systems and demands, I have to say Norway is worse! Hence returning to Blighty at earliest opportunity!

Magnus_63

It depends on what kind of job you're looking for. Highly qualified jobs with little or no external contacts, (programmer, engineer, that kind of jobs) no one bothers. I've been working at companies where I have had colleagues who don't speak a word swedish. If you're applying for a job in the service sector, salesman etc. then you probably need to speak swedish.
On the flip sida though, the language isn't THAT far from english, I'd guess that 40% of the vocabulary is of common proto-germanic heritage. Grammar isn't that complicated either, the biggest difference is probably that nouns are gendered, so any noun is either neuter or ambigen (feminine and maculine gender merged into ambigen sometimes in the 15th century, same as in dutch, danish and norwegian. Only humans and some mammals have masculine and feminine gender.).

I you have any linguistic questions on swedish, ask me. I speak it fluently.