10 messages over 2 pages: 1 2
tarvos
Super Polyglot
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Senior Member
China
likeapolyglot.wordpr
Joined 4698 days ago
5310 posts - 9399 votes 
Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans
Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish
| Message 9 of 10 25 October 2013 at 11:42am | IP Logged |
Chris13 wrote:
Hey guys,
I have had a passion for languages for a long time now though I've never fully
committed to learning one to fluency, I always dabbled in various languages so as to be
able to communicate with people from around the globe and pick up cultural information
from various countries.
I recently moved from England to Finland, I know a reasonable amount of Finnish, at
least enough to get the gist of conversations with a little context at hand, etc. The
trouble is, I am finding the grammar very difficult for my first proper foreign
language - I say "proper" as I learned a little Spanish at school, though those of you
familiar with the English education system will know that language-wise it's a bit of a
joke.
After looking at various learning methods and trying to find one that would fit my
needs and allocated time, I decided to go further with flash cards and word lists. I've
always used Byki for key words and found that it has worked wonders with basic vocab in
Finnish. Now, for the main question; where exactly do you get your lists of words from
to learn?
I have searched the web for frequency lists and usually come up with nothing that would
be that useful. I was wondering if somebody could, perhaps, put up a list of what would
be the first 5 - 10,000 words to try and commit to memory. I have often read that, yes,
it obviously depends on the specific learner, however there must still be a generalised
list of the most frequently used words out there somewhere, surely?
I realise that even if there is, a lot of you probably wouldn't advise trying to learn
them all in that way, but it's something that I'd like to have. I could still pick out
the words I deem most useful to me out of those words. I found a list of the most
frequently used words in English, for the top 500 which I have already made flashcards
of. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Also, I realise that due to Finnish having a lot of suffixes, etc that there will be
words that cannot be translated. I mention this as I am also attempting to teach myself
Swedish, spending a little more time on Swedish currently than Finnish so that I'm able
to communicate with at least a couple of people.
P.S Apologies for rambling, this is my first post and I've never really written in a
forum like this before. |
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Generally if you want the most common vocabulary you would use a frequency list.
If you want specific vocabularly, look in textbooks, handbooks, manuals, websites that
deal with that particular topic. For example if you are an ornithologist then buy a
Finnish book on birds. Voila, c'est simple.
1 person has voted this message useful
| Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6588 days ago
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Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
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| Message 10 of 10 26 October 2013 at 2:16am | IP Logged |
Chris13 wrote:
The main problem I have with Finnish is the fact that, as you say, words that have been learned are not always useful for understanding conversation. Finnish has a different way of writing in book language anyway, with endings that one would never use in spoken language. It's even crazier with colloquialisms which could turn a sentence that you know into seemingly another completely different language.
I really liked your suggestion of Googling a word instead of just straight up translating it. It sounds as if it is far more likely to be retained if I find it in context like you said. |
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When you're comfortable with kirjakieli, get the book "Kato hei" if possible. Or a guide to dialects/slang/colloquial language.
Edited by Serpent on 26 October 2013 at 2:16am
3 persons have voted this message useful
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