Välkommen and welcome to Sweden where the coffee is hot & black but plenty and the winters are cold & dark but cozy! Disclaimer: In this article, I will focus on vegan food in Sweden, not on clothing, cosmetics, or free-time activities.

Having lived in the small Swedish town of Jönköping for half a year, I can state that being on a plant-based diet in a Swedish city is very easy. Almost every Swede knows about vegetarianism and veganism and many are very open-minded, although the relative number of vegan people is far from mind-blowing (2 % in 2018). …

First of all, check out my previous article about numerous resources that I will not repeat in this article:

Ja ja, I know, you could probably also read this article in German, my mother tongue. Even though you might not understand every single word, you’d get the message (jawohl). Your German is good enough to hear that a person from Bavaria is a little bit harder to understand than you anticipated when learning standard German (And did she just greet me with “Grüß Gott”, Greet God?!). Nevertheless, I’ll stick to English, the language of most Medium readers.

#1 Listen to Podcasts

I must admit…

Upon entering a lecture hall, you’d see more than 200 students, most of them sitting behind a laptop. You’d hear the incessant, rhythmic sound of keyboards and a professor speaking French into a microphone. A PowerPoint presentation full of information would be projected to the wall. If you took a glimpse at the students’ laptop screens, you’d either see an open text file being filled diligently, a private Facebook feed or an shopping website.

Welcome to a typical lecture of mine in France! Studying a French-German bachelor’s that ended with a double degree allowed me to spend three semesters in…

Most language learners have been there: We’ve learned a language and achieved a level that made us pretty proud — and suddenly, we had to move away from that country, we learned another language, we had too much work or other time-consuming projects. The treasured language that we spoke with more or less ease seems to fade away like the color of those black jeans we thought would never turn this grey.

Like clothing dye, languages we’ve once learned won’t stay forever — they are not self-sustaining.

For me, it’s my beloved French that I don’t get to practice as…

“Writing a diary in a foreign language?”, you might think. “I don’t even write one in my own mother tongue! Isn’t that for a thing for teenage schoolgirls?” No! Let me convince you that journaling is an amazing opportunity to make you more confident in any foreign language you are trying to learn.

How I got into journaling in Italian

The reason I started writing my diary in languages other than my mother tongue (German) was an Italian tandem partner that I had more than three years ago. …

When I first moved to France, I was blown away: Whenever I walked through Paris, Lyon or even smaller cities, I saw French flags — and the national motto Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité (Freedom, Equality, Fraternity). On bridges, buildings owned by the State, or schools — the French made sure you didn’t forget in which country you were. (Disclaimer: I’ve never been to the U.S. but it would sure be a mind-boggling experience from what I can say by watching American movies. Long Live America!)

A not-so patriotic Germany

The reason I was so astonished is a simple one: I’m German and have lived in…

“Other students binge-watch shows on Netflix on the weekend, while you attend a conference.” Those were the joking words of a friend and fellow student of mine. She was right: I spent a whole weekend diving deep into the world of languages and “fangirling” over the amazing speakers at the “Women in Language” (WiL) Conference.

WiL is an online conference that first took place in 2018 and was held from September 17 to 20 this year. …

If one thing was unimaginable in April 2020 for almost everybody in the world, it was taking the plane. The outbreak of COVID-19 in Europe led to international travel restrictions and airlines had to cancel most of their flights. Globally, the number of passengers traveling by plane halved in April 2020 compared to the same month of the previous year — and went down by about 90 percent in countries like France, Germany and Spain where restrictions were particularly strict then (Mazereanu, 2020).

For some people, this came at the right time. The Swedish neologism flygskam (“flight shame”) had only…