Swedish or Finnish?

Staying with Magnus and Cina, we were soon able to answer some burning questions about Finland and its relationship with the Swedish language.
We are always confused because we always assumed the road signs had the Finnish name first, then the Swedish name - but it sometimes seemed like the Swedish name comes first??
The answer: Which name comes first, depends what part of the country you are in.

Some towns are predominantly Finnish speaking, while some are Swedish. Magnus, Cina and family live in Helsinki of which the majority are Finnish speaking, but they have been brought up speaking Swedish (like 5% of other Finns).
Apparently Swedish was the only official language in Finland until the 1880's when both Swedish and Finnish became official languages and remain so today.
Now days only 5% of Finns speak Swedish as a first language and less and less as a second language but it is an important part of Finnish Culture.

As a guest, it is hard to get our heads around a proud Finnish family that love to hate the Swedes, especially at sport, but whose language and culture is predominantly Swedish (except when it comes to saunas). Still, we NZers ought to understand, after all we speak English…..