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Learning Finnish | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Skandinavisk & Nordisk |  | |
| Emily96 Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4425 days ago 270 posts - 342 votes  Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Finnish, Latin | Message 1 of 9 17 July 2013 at 9:36pm | IP Logged | |||||
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So i've decided that i'm ready to start studying some finnish! I'd like to use the august 6WC as a jump start.
unfortunately, the only resources i have so far are my 83 year old grandmother, a native finn. actually that's not quite true - i have found some things online and taken a look at some of the excellent threads on this forum, but i haven't really decided on anything to use. also, i really know nothing about the language, except that it is very different from the other scandinavian languages. i was wondering if anyone could help me out with those two things - good resources (online and free would be great, but i'm willing to spend a bit of money) and general information about the language ( do i need to conjugate verbs? learn genders? make my adjectives agree? ). thanks! here are some of the materials i've looked at so far, let me know what you think: http://www.101languages.net/finnish/overview.html http://www.youtube.com/user/FinnishPod101/ http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=22300&PN=1 http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=21100&PN=1 http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=19463&PN=6 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| daegga Tetraglot Senior Member Austria lang-8.com/553301 Joined 4518 days ago 1076 posts - 1792 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic | Message 2 of 9 17 July 2013 at 10:07pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I've mined an Anki-deck with about 7900 high-frequency words from wiktionary, if you are interested. The deck is approximately in the right order of frequency, although words could be about 100 positions away from their actual rank because of my mindless use of concurrency.
do i need to conjugate verbs? yes, but this is relatively unproblematic learn genders? no genders, no articles make my adjectives agree? yes, but that shouldn't be an issue either if you get the declension of the noun right by the way: concerning resources, I liked Teach Yourself best. It just doesn't take you far, but it's a nice start. Edited by daegga on 17 July 2013 at 10:11pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7153 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 3 of 9 18 July 2013 at 6:23pm | IP Logged | |||||
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There's also this thread on the subject of resources (including ones that are available for free).
To ease yourself into the language and to fit in the 6WC, I'd consider using this set of 10 lessons (click on "Language School") or this primer for exchange students. Learning Finnish can be rewarding but it can take some time for you to get used to its characteristics since it does a lot of things that are unfamiliar or perhaps unfathomable to someone familiar with only Romance or Germanic languages. In addition to the daegga's answers, another thing to get used to is that Finnish inflection goes beyond just verb conjugation (which isn't overly difficult to learn). There's extensive case marking which is largely absent in the languages that you know or study. In my view the most trying time for a beginner in dealing with this characteristic happens when learning to mark the direct object which is a high-frequency concept. Figuring out which ending to use takes some practice and study since the ending for the direct object is drawn from a set of endings taken from 3 cases (personal pronouns as direct objects are a little different since they assume the shape from one of 2 cases). mä, minä "I" omena "apple", syödä "to eat" - I'm eating an apple. Mä syön omenaa - I'm not eating an apple. Mä en syö omenaa - I will eat [up] an apple. Mä syön omenan - I won't eat [up] an apple. Mä en syö omenaa - Eat an apple! Syö omena! - Don't eat an apple! Älä syö omenaa! - I ate an apple Söin omenan - I was eating an apple Söin omenaa - I didn't eat an apple En syönyt omenaa - I'm eating [some] apples. Mä syön omenoita - I'm not eating apples. Mä en syö omenoita - I will eat [up] [some] apples. Mä syön omenat - I won't eat [up] [some/the] apples. Mä en syö omenoita - Eat [up] [some] apples! Syö omenoita! - Eat [up] [the] apples! Syö omenat! - Don't eat the apples! Älä syö omenoita! - I ate [the] apples Söin omenat - I was eating [some/the] apples Söin omenoita - I didn't eat [the] apples En syönyt omenoita 7 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Emily96 Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4425 days ago 270 posts - 342 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Finnish, Latin | Message 4 of 9 18 July 2013 at 9:50pm | IP Logged | |||||
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thanks daegga! and yes, i would love to get the anki deck from you, even though i'm not ready to use it yet.
chung - that was really helpful! I think i'll start with the set of 10 lessons. i also looked at the threads you linked to - i hadn't seen a few of them before, so thanks for pointing them out. the finnish profile in particular is very thorough. that must have taken lots of work. well done! one last question for now: i've heard there's a considerable difference between spoken/colloquial finnish and written/formal finnish... do i need to worry about that? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7153 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 5 of 9 18 July 2013 at 10:13pm | IP Logged | |||||
Thank you.
I wouldn't worry too much about the difference yet and recommend that you focus on learning the standard language as a beginner. As a foreign novice (and by definition a stranger to native speakers), you will most likely be addressed by other Finns in standard language whenever you encounter them. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| daegga Tetraglot Senior Member Austria lang-8.com/553301 Joined 4518 days ago 1076 posts - 1792 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic | Message 6 of 9 19 July 2013 at 5:01pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Anki-Deck
It's the tab-separated textfile export from Anki. I hope it works. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Henkkles Triglot Senior Member Finland Joined 4250 days ago 544 posts - 1141 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English, Swedish Studies: Russian | Message 7 of 9 29 July 2013 at 11:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
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First of all I would suggest learning something about the language you're about to study. The history, relation to other languages and so on. That's what I love doing before I start any language and I'm happy because it sets my learning in a context.
Also if you or anyone else has questions to ask from a native speaker I will be happy to answer them as well and comprehensively as I can. From what I've seen of the skills of many of these Finnish-learners you can ask them quite freely about things, so not everything demands a native speaker though. Just some fun trivia; Finnish is not a Scandinavian language, it belongs to Uralic languaages, and that means it is not at all related to for example Swedish or Russian, but is a close relative of Estonian. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| AIRBORNE_DELTA Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4040 days ago 11 posts - 12 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Dutch | Message 8 of 9 06 November 2013 at 7:58pm | IP Logged | |||||
What way did you use teach yourself? i have tried it but found it quite heavy for a person with no experience of the Finnish language. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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