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Bergsjön, Gothenburg
I learned to read Swedish together with my son
Homework became Yusuf’s own schooling. Six years on they still read together at the kitchen table.
Person
Yusuf, age 41
Role
Parent
Told in
Arabic
Published
2025 · 8 min read
When we arrived Amir was seven. I could read Arabic well, but the Swedish letters sat wrong in my mouth. I was ashamed to ask.
”He thought I was helping him. It was really the other way around.”
So we did the homework together. He read aloud, I copied him. If he got something wrong I had no way of knowing, but we kept reading.
Today he is studying to be an engineer. I read novels in Swedish, slowly, with my finger under the line. It does not matter. Nobody is racing me.