What does it take to be included in Finnish society?

Welcome to our third guest blog post, in which we explore topics related to the languages of Finland and feature insights from guest contributors. This time around, we are delighted to introduce you to Jisun, a University of Jyväskylä MA graduate who shares her experience as a foreigner living, studying, and attempting to settle in Finland. 

Thank you Jisun, for contributing to the LAIF project!

Jisun enjoying wintery Jyväskylä

Are My Language Skills My Identity?

The first time that I noticed it was after I’d been in Finland for only a month or two. I had gone shopping and was paying for my things. Instead of speaking English, as I had assumed she would, the cashier spoke Finnish. Luckily, by then, I could understand basic conversation. But it surprised me that, although many Finns spoke English at an advanced level, people still spoke Finnish to me. No assumptions. No weird “trying to help” moments; they just spoke to me as though they knew I spoke Finnish. But over the years I’ve studied, lived, and attempted to establish myself in Finland, I've questioned whether it’s an act of inclusion or an expectation of me when people assume I speak Finnish.

It was nice not having people assume which languages I spoke and which I didn’t. In South Korea, I had had so many encounters where I was made—intentionally and unintentionally—to feel ashamed for not being able to speak Korean fluently. 

Having spent my entire childhood and teenage years outside Korea, English was my default language since I was four or five, and while I did use Korean at home with my parents, I’ve come to use Korean as a receptively bilingual heritage speaker, meaning that my parents would speak to me in Korean, and I would speak to them in English. My Korean comprehension, for this reason, has always been high, but my ability to speak Korean has remained limited. And for a very long time, Korea has functioned under the Myth of Ethnic Homogeneity, a national myth that denotes one bloodline, one people, one culture. This, of course, includes language, and third culture kids like me who lived between cultures and languages, as well as Korean adoptees, and bi- and multiracial children, didn’t fit with the national myth that Korea has so long tried to maintain. Admittedly, this is improving as Korea opens up internationally and becomes more globalized.

But when I visited Korea during summer and winter vacation, I’d gotten questions from strangers, questions that made me question if I belonged in Korean society, questions along the lines of, “Why can’t you speak Korean perfectly?”, “If you’re Korean, shouldn’t you be able to speak Korean?”, and “Aren’t you ashamed of not being able to speak Korean?”. Even after I explained that I grew up outside of Korea, many people still didn’t understand. Sometimes, this act of linguistic gatekeeping would be in the form of silent judgment when, for example, I’m trying to tell a shopkeeper what I’m looking for, or when I tell an acquaintance that I don’t speak Korean fluently. They would ask, confused, “But aren’t you Korean?”, a question that echoed a nationalistic language ideology that says that one country should have a single, “legitimate” language. Questions like this reinforced the expectation that, just because I’m Korean, I should be able to speak Korean. Here, linguistic gatekeeping signifies the use of a language, dialect, or accent to control access to information or power (Fiveable n.d.). In my case, the Korean language has been used to gatekeep what it means to be a “real” Korean and exclude me from this ideal.

And this doesn’t always stay within the national borders; I met a Korean person at my undergraduate university in the US who told me that I should speak Korean because I am Korean. Again, it wasn’t a helpful suggestion. It wasn’t neutral. Rather, it was him trying to push the idea onto me that my Koreanness requires Korean language proficiency. 

The Normativity of Finnish

In contrast to my experiences with linguistic gatekeeping from other Koreans, my experiences in Finland were a breath of fresh air. I felt like Finnish people didn’t speak English to me because they undermined my Finnish skills. I never felt judged or put in a "foreigner box" for not speaking Finnish well, and I never felt like I had to prove myself to Finns like I’ve had to prove myself to Koreans.

After the shopping experience, I started to notice the dominance of Finnish in other settings. I was at my first student event, and I noticed that the Finnish students spoke only Finnish, so it was hard to start a conversation with them. There were international students around, but the Finnish students stayed in their own circle. It wasn’t group time. The event wasn’t organized by language groups either. Regardless, there was a clear distinction between the Finnish and international crowds. 

I thought that this division between Finnish-speakers and non-Finnish speakers would disappear when gathering casually with friends, but no, I also noticed this pattern even at a hangout with friends. Half the group would be Finnish speakers, while the other half would be international non-Finnish speakers; yet the dominant language was still Finnish. As a genuine language enthusiast, I enjoyed hearing different languages in their natural habitat, even if I couldn’t participate, so I didn’t mind the dynamic much. Only when it was pointed out to me did I notice it happening again and again. I started to question why they wouldn’t include us, even though they knew not all of us spoke Finnish. I have seen this sort of in-group clique form before in Hong Kong, the US, and Korea. In fact, Koreans are notorious for keeping to themselves while abroad, rarely, if ever, opening up to non-Koreans. I didn’t expect to see it to the same extent in Finland.

A Stepping Stone Toward Finnish Integration

After graduating with my Master’s degree, I decided to try to establish myself in Finland. To do that, I needed to find work and study Finnish earnestly. I got placed into a Finnish integration program, where I would learn Finnish with other immigrants. It was a language program I attended for 4 hours, Monday to Friday. The language of instruction was Finnish, and the use of English was discouraged during class time. We would even have a kahvitauko, or coffee break, allowing us to observe an essential part of Finnish work culture. Broadly speaking, the course aimed to get immigrants from an A1 level to a comfortable B1 by the end of the year. If we did manage to achieve a solid B1 level, which increased our chances of finding work in Finland, they would pay for our official YKI test, the national language proficiency test. In addition, during the year, we were expected to complete three internships to expand our vocabulary and to practice using Finnish in professional work settings. Overall, it was a fun experience, and if not for all the bureaucracy, I would recommend it as a decent language-learning program. Something kept bothering me, though. As with my experiences before, there was an expectation to use Finnish, but not in the same way as when traveling to another country. There, I have the freedom and the option to choose when to speak the local language. During my integration program, I didn’t feel I had a choice. I had to speak Finnish or else fall behind in the language lessons and miss out on social bonding with the other students.

And while my prior experiences as a student were relatively small and had little real-world impact, my decision to stay in Finland and pursue work brought practical challenges common to immigrants seeking to build a life there. I began to learn more about how the Finnish system works for immigrants. It opened my eyes to the less sparkly parts of life in Finland, especially as a non-Finnish citizen. 

I learned, through meeting and befriending other immigrants, that there seems to be a wall that prevents them not only from fully integrating into Finnish society but also from getting work outside kindergarten, cleaning, construction, or nursing roles, even though they would be highly skilled across a variety of industries (Ndomo, 2024, p. 32). My friends cite the language barrier, as well as racism and discrimination, as the biggest reasons. “Finnish employers want Finnish employees,” they would say with a wistful sigh. Job ads after job ads would require a high level of Finnish to qualify, and even then, there is no guarantee that Finnish employers would hire us over a native Finnish speaker. Jobseeking seminars and workshops aimed at unemployed immigrants would be conducted more often in Finnish than in English. Many websites offer only Finnish and Swedish as language options. It seemed like everywhere I looked, Finnish was the de facto default language. Not only did this present the Finnish language as the standard and a requirement for participation in Finnish society, but it also discouraged many immigrants who felt excluded or ostracized because of their lack of Finnish language skills; even if someone’s Finnish language skills were advanced, there was always something else in the way.

The importance placed on the everyday use of the Finnish language also extends to academia, where foreign educators and researchers must obtain Finnish-grade certification. About a year before I returned to Korea, my friend, who was trained as an adult educator in England, told me she was looking for adult education programs in Finland. She needed to demonstrate her competence in accordance with Finnish standards. This was my first time hearing about qualified professionals who had to retrain or recertify because they had obtained their degrees outside Finland. According to the Information for a holder of a foreign qualification page of the Finnish National Agency for Education website, foreign professionals need to show their competence in “local terms” to Finnish employers. In other words, degrees earned outside Finland aren’t automatically considered equivalent. Many other countries also require foreign degrees to be validated for certain, regulated professions. However, few combine this requirement with the expectation of daily use of a local language, as Finland does. The combination of Finland’s high language standards and the need to localize foreign qualifications can make it challenging, even for highly skilled professionals, to access jobs that match their expertise.

From my own experience and observations, these professional and language hurdles reflect the structural barriers identified by researchers studying immigrant integration in Finland. According to Nshom et al. (2022), four main factors contribute to this: the language barrier, discrimination in employment opportunities, racism and inequality, and fewer opportunities for integration. I have discussed all of these with my friends over my four years in Finland, and in my opinion, these barriers are deeply interconnected. In hindsight, I also agree with Koskela’s description of Finnish immigration policy as labor-market-oriented (Koskela, 2014, as cited in Nshom et al., 2022, p. 33). That is, the government determines the value of immigrants based on its views of their ability to contribute to the Finnish economy and labor market. In recent years, policies have undergone several changes, most of which relate to the types of visas immigrants hold. For example, when I returned to Korea, the law required immigrants in Finland to have a steady income and full-time employment, and if they became unemployed, they were given three months to find another job. Failing to do so meant they would have to leave the country. This illustrates how closely linguistic, professional, and legal requirements are tied to immigrant stability and integration. This also shows that these can serve to exclude immigrants from fully integrating into Finnish society. It also tells immigrants that they’re wanted in Finland only if they can create meaningful output.

Writing this post, I reflected on my experiences in Korea and Finland, which, in my view, reveal two distinct sides of linguistic gatekeeping. They mirror each other, but have drastically different emotional and practical consequences. Linguistic gatekeeping by Koreans served to exclude me from the image of the “real” Korean. They used the language and the culture to push me out of the in-group. To them, I wasn’t one of them because, while I had a Korean passport, I was linguistically and culturally not perfectly Korean. On the other hand, coming from the Finnish system, linguistic gatekeeping felt like a set of impossibly high standards and tedious bureaucracy that kept me from becoming fully integrated into Finnish society.

My reflections, then, lead me back to the central question of this post: when Finns assume that I speak Finnish, is it because they see me learning and want to include me, or because they expect me to speak Finnish simply because we’re in Finland?

About the author

Jisun at the bottom of Namsam Tower, Seoul, South Korea

My name is Jisun Lee, and I’m originally from South Korea, though I grew up in Hong Kong and did my Bachelor’s studies in the United States. I studied language studies and intercultural communication at the University of Jyväskylä. After graduating with my Master's degree in 2023, I began studying Finnish and exploring the job market. I have a passion for people, society, languages, linguistics, and writing. My drive is seeing injustice in the world; whenever I see it, I am compelled to write. I returned to South Korea in June 2025, but I still have a strong desire to return to Finland.

Olen Jisun Lee ja olen eteläkorealainen, mutta varttuin Hongkongissa ja opiskelin korkeakoulututkinnon Amerikassa. Vuonna 2023 valmistuin maisteriksi kielitieteen ja kulttuurienvälisen viestinnän ohjelmasta Jyväskylän yliopistosta. Sen jälkeen opiskelin suomen kieltä kotoutumiskoulutuksessa ja tutustuin työmarkkinaan. Minulla on intohimo kaikkeen, mikä liittyy ihmisiin, yhteiskuntaan, kieliin, kielitieteeseen ja kirjoittamiseen. Kirjoitan vastauksena epäoikeudenmukaisuuteen. Palasin Etelä-Koreaan vuonna 2025 kesäkuussa ja olen halukas palata Suomeen uudelleen.

Pikkujoulu Jyväskylässä

Mun ensimmäistä joulua Suomessa opiskelijoiden pikkujoulussa. Kuva on otettu mun kavereiden kanssa mun yliopisto-ohjelmasta. My first Christmas in Finland. At a student Christmas party, this is some of my study cohort, students from both my year and the year above.

Yläkaupungin yö, 2025

Me and my friends trying out Acrylic Pouringtogether. Mä ja mun ystävät kokeilemassa yhdessä Acrylic Pouring.

One of my first photos taken in Finland, in Lutakko Park, Jyväskylä. 2021. Yksi mun ensimmäisistä kuvista Suomessa, Lutakon puistossa, Jyväskylässä. Vuonna 2021.

My farewell dinner, June 2025. Mun lähtöillallinen. Kesakuu 2025.

Works Cited

Finnish National Agency for Education. (n.d.). Retrieved March 6, 2026, from https://www.oph.fi/en

Linguistic gatekeeping | Language and Popular Culture... (n.d.). Fiveable. Retrieved March 2, 2026, from https://fiveable.me/language-popular-culture/unit-12/linguistic-gatekeeping/study-guide/gI3G1i2ZXGxSrcky

Ndomo, Q. (2024). The Working Underclass: Highly educated migrants on the fringes of the Finnish labour market.

Nshom, E., Sadaf, S., & Khalimzoda, I. (2022). Perceived challenges living and integrating into Finnish society: A study among immigrants in Finland. Journal of Intercultural Communication, 22, Article 3. https://doi.org/10.36923/jicc.v22i3.82

Further Readings

Cawley, K. N. (2016). Back to the future: Recalibrating the myth of Korea’s homogenous ethnicity. Asian Ethnicity, 17(1), 150–160. https://doi.org/10.1080/14631369.2015.1051510

Jeon, A. (2021). Growing Up (un)bounded: Globalization, Mobility and Belonging Among Korean Third Culture Kids. International Multilingual Research Journal, 0(0), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/19313152.2021.1951941

Park, N.-S. (1989). Language Purism in Korea Today. In B. H. Jernudd & M. J. Shapiro (Eds.), The Politics of Language Purism (pp. 133–139). DE GRUYTER MOUTON. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110868371.113

Disclaimer:

This blog post was 100% written by me. All reflections, experiences, and opinions are my own.  AI was used only after the entire draft was written to ensure a logical structure. AI was also used to source scholarship that would inform my writing and provide academic and real-life context and grounding to my lived experiences.