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My journey through Finnish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| sei Diglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 5940 days ago 178 posts - 191 votes  Speaks: Portuguese*, English Studies: German, Japanese | Message 1 of 39 20 August 2008 at 1:46pm | IP Logged |
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Hello everyone!
As you probably guessed, this is a Journal for my Finnish studying. I have just started to learn it. Not quite sure what appears on my profile to the side while I'm typing (cause I can't see it), but I am studying Japanese and had started on Russian awhile back too. But unfortunately (or maybe not), Russian as been stalled, because Finnish has taken the top of my priorities now. Let me explain... Before, I merely took Japanese and Russian as a hobbie. I love languages and just can't imagine not always being busy learning one. Well, Japanese had another reason, which I will not tell. ^^ Finnish was always a language I knew I'd eventually learn (as a hobbie or because I needed it), but now it has taken my top priority. Mainly because the person I am seeing is a native in the language and we have talked about eventually living together in Finland. Of course, that'd be in a few years time (3 or 4...), but considering my passion for languages, I figured, what the hell, just learn it now and I can enjoy the pleasure of talking to him in his own beautiful language earlier. So here I am. I have read a bit through Uuno site (if you don't know the site, tell me and I'll get the link later... lazy to do it now...) and honestly, cases and that way of doing the negative don't scare me that much... I'm not sure where but I feel I have seen that way of doing the negative before too. The books I currently have are the FSI Finnish Textbook, Workbook and Tapes, and I got my hands on "Finnish - An essential Grammar" (which is said to be good, but for more intermediate learning). Also have a program called Anki, which I started using for Japanese and suppose I can use for Finnish as well if necessary. Oh, and I have the Native Person to help me. ^^ One thing I would like to know is everyone's opinion on these books. Specially the FSI course. It's old and the form it's done is not very appealing, so I would be interested in knowing if this course is good for me to use as my basic manual (it's hard to find ANY sorts of books in Finnish - or any other language besides English, French and German - in Portugal, so I'd really be great if this one was good enough to use). Also, if someone is using sort of the same books, or even if you aren't, I'd be interested in knowing how you organize your study - when you study, what you study, for how long...etc etc. Ahmm... I think I have said everything. ^^ Never did this sort of Journal's before. Oh, and by the way, I'd like to know what the other options when doing these topics mean - "Milestone", "Brick Wall", "Goal", cause I was confused at what would be the difference. Thank you for taking the time to read all of this! ^^ Patricia Edited by sei on 01 September 2008 at 11:49am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| hyij Triglot Newbie Sweden Joined 5936 days ago 5 posts - 5 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Mandarin, English Studies: Finnish, Arabic (Written) | Message 2 of 39 23 August 2008 at 8:07pm | IP Logged |
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Hey, I'm studying it too. I don't use the FSI so i can't comment on it, but they're usually very boring!
News in simple Finnish (very useful): http://yle.fi/ulkomailla/index.php?id=1332 Text-to-speech engine: www.mikropuhe.com/demo.asp Finnish Morphological Analyzer: http://www2.lingsoft.fi/cgi-bin/fintwol Also, small online course: http://donnerwetter.kielikeskus.helsinki.fi/FinnishForForeig ners/ 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| sei Diglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 5940 days ago 178 posts - 191 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English Studies: German, Japanese | Message 3 of 39 24 August 2008 at 7:41am | IP Logged |
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Hey,
I have heard they are boring yes, but what really interests me is to know if they are good. I don't have access to almost any courses here (still waiting for my bookstore to tell me if they can import anything), so FSI is basically the only thing I can acquire. Just want to know if I should be waiting longer to try and get anything or just go with this one and I can start. Thanks for your help though. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| hyij Triglot Newbie Sweden Joined 5936 days ago 5 posts - 5 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Mandarin, English Studies: Finnish, Arabic (Written) | Message 4 of 39 24 August 2008 at 9:11am | IP Logged |
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I personally don't use any workbooks. All you really need is good dictionaries and a grammar to get going. But if you prefer workbooks then I'd just make do with what I had (FSI), it's not gonna hurt your progress or anything.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
 Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6893 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 5 of 39 24 August 2008 at 9:56am | IP Logged |
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Hello and welcome to the fascinating Finnish language ! I wish you the best of luck with it. Hope your motivation stays as strong as it apparently is now, and that you keep enjoying your studies ! You will find many useful links and other stuff by searching in this forum, especially in the posts by Serpent. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| sei Diglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 5940 days ago 178 posts - 191 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English Studies: German, Japanese | Message 6 of 39 24 August 2008 at 7:39pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks for the replies everyone!
hyij: I just usually think doing it with a grammar and dictionary gets... "dry". And I think dictionaries aren't a great use for beginners anyway. But thanks! I'll just start with FSI and see how it goes. ^^ Hencke: I hope it stays as strong as well! Hope not to get too frustrated over time. Started through FSI's introduction on pronunciation, and realized the Finnish R is the only one I can't produce! It's actually used in normal Portuguese in some areas of Portugal but a bit rare to find here still. When I studied Phonology at College last year, we went over the sounds a human could produce, and that was really one of the few I just couldn't make... What bad luck! Will try and work on it more though. And yeah, I have looked over anything related to Finnish in this Forum and found Serpents posts. Though I had made my own research in Finnish material before even coming here, so most of the sites were already known to me. I still found the comments on them useful though. ^^ Hehe, I guess I just made my first real Journal post. =P Let's keep them coming. ^^ 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| sei Diglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 5940 days ago 178 posts - 191 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English Studies: German, Japanese | Message 7 of 39 26 August 2008 at 6:44pm | IP Logged |
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Finished going through the "Notes on Pronunciation" from FSI. The Consonant Gradation is giving me headaches. But at least I got it a little bit better when I read it over the second time. I am hoping the rest I'll pick up as I go through the lessons.
Today there's no more time, but tomorrow I'll go over the alphabet again and write it in my notebook with whatever notes I need from this Introductory part and then start on Unit 1. Wish me luck! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| sei Diglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 5940 days ago 178 posts - 191 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English Studies: German, Japanese | Message 8 of 39 27 August 2008 at 6:40pm | IP Logged |
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Took the notes on the "Notes on Pronunciation" part and read through the vocabulary lists provided before the actual dialogs on Unit 1 (but I think I will ignore these vocabulary lists for now, maybe just take a few simple greetings once I ask my boyfriend to explain to me the context they are used in).
Though now, as I was downloading the audio for Unit 1 (I'm downloading as I go) I noticed there's a section of the workbook dedicated to Pronunciation... So I will have to go through that tomorrow before I actually start on Unit 1 for real. I just want to move on! But must stay patient, yes I know. ^^ 1 person has voted this message useful |
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