Back to the basics?

I’m a bit hesitant to bring up the language question again, but I feel it is quite an important question – and certainly an issue that has taken up quite a bit of my working time lately.. I called a few foreign students, and one of them said in the very beginning of the phone call (right after I had introduced myself and before I got to asked him about the reason I was calling) that he did not speak English. I was baffled, because he had been intending to come and study at Laurea in English. How could he study without understanding the language?

This got me thinking of the basics of internationality again. Is it about speaking English? Or just a foreign language? Finland is bilingual, meaning that we have two official languages, Finnish and Swedish (to learn the reasons, read about the history of Finland at http://www.finland.fi/History/). Being a native Finnish speaker myself, did my internationality start at third grade when I started to learn Swedish (a foreign language to me despite of it being the second domestic language of my country) or later, when I learned to communicate in English? Being able to read in English opens many of doors to new knowledge, especially in the internet. Being able to communicate in English brings about more possibilities for intercultural communication and experiences. My language skills in Swedish or Russian - not to mention the very basics of Spanish that I knew long time ago – do not give me as many possibilities as my English skills do. So is mastering English a perquisite for internationalisation?

…

No, not necessarily. For example, there are many foreigners that are able to communicate in Finnish, and one can learn a lot from each other and of a foreign culture. But it’s more limited that way. A practical example (yay!): my uncle, who cannot speak any other languages besides Finnish, has a foregn friend who can speak Finnish pretty well, so they get along well. To me the friend seemed a bit quiet, so when I told her that I could speak her native Russian, she really started speaking and telling me about her self. So language really does matter. For better and for worse - since this week so far I’ve been very limited due to the fact I could not offer any other languages for communication over the phone besides English..