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| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6617 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes  Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish | Message 17 of 27 06 July 2014 at 11:09am | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you, Cristina! Hugs to you too!
Cristina is so sweet. She sent me text messages when I was gone to try to get me to come back. Well, I'm still studying. I know I'm learning a lot, but it doesn't feel like I'm making much progress. That's just my impatience. I want to know everything now! So every once in a while I need to remind myself that I've only been studying for a month and a half and that I really have made a lot of progress and actually take a look at how much I do understand rather than how much I don't understand. For example, this morning I listened to all of Korvat auki. I actually understood most of it. I'd listened to the first two chapters before and they were pretty easy, but this was the first time I'd listened to the whole thing. I guess I understood 90+% of the first few episodes and maybe 70+% of the last few. I was trying to download them at the same time as I listened, so it might have been better if I'd paid closer attention. (I always understand best with my eyes closed.) I got a bit confused a couple of places because of a lack of vocabulary. I didn't understand that he wanted to get a haircut, for example, and just connected the part where they were talking about the student discount to the part before that where they talked about movies and thought that they were planning to go to the movies, but that didn't really seem to fit the rest of what they were saying, so I got confused. I also didn't know the word for getting engaged, but that was easy enough to understand from context. One thing I wondered about: it says on the website that it is for "Level Suomi 1 - 3." Really?! Level 3!? I assume that refers to Finnish classes for foreigners in Finland, but it doesn't make any sense to me that Korvat auki could be Level 3 unless there are a whole lot of levels. It seems too easy to be level 3 unless there are 20 levels or something. I'm not sure there's much more to say about Finnish, I'm still working slowly through FSI and Supisuomea. I watched all the episodes of Supisuomea, but I haven't done the exercises beyond episode 6 yet. I think Supisuomea is a great program and probably the reason I'm able to understand as much as I do, but I do wish they'd picked foreigners who spoke better Finnish to be the hosts. I do understand (sort of) their reasoning behind choosing foreigners (to prove that it is possible to learn Finnish). I just think that some of them speak it so badly that it's not really proving the point. I think the Italian guy in episode 5 was fantastic. I'm not Finnish, so I could be wrong, but I thought he sounded very good, and I was impressed by some of the others too. But I really don't like episode 2 with the Vietnamese guy who sounds like he's struggling for every word. And the poor guy can't seem to pronounce matkustus (travel) and the episode was about traveling. And then there is the crazy Russian guy in episode 9 that almost makes you wonder if that's his real accent or if it's some kind of parody. Part of it is just that he is so overly dramatic the whole time. This has nothing to do with languages, but I also tried kayaking for the first time and loved it. I was a little skeptical to the idea of a boat you have to wear, but it's great! I'd done a bit of canoeing in the USA and also rowed rowboats, and my brother used to have a sailboat, but this was my first time in a kayak. I got invited because I had found a waterproof bag floating in the fjord and fished it out with my umbrella. It held a camera, sunglasses and some mittens and things, but no address. So I took it to the police hoping that they might find the owner though the pictures on the camera. Anyway, the owner called the police herself and was reunited with her bag. She then called me to offer me a kayak trip as a reward. I was completely hooked as soon as I sat in the kayak and I was so excited I couldn't even sleep afterward. Now I've joined the kayak club, but I'm not sure how much kayaking I will get to do, since I have to borrow a kayak every time and thus can only go on trips when they have one available for me. I also just found out that my ex is moving to Harstad. That's kind of sad. We are good friends and I don't really want him to move away. He had been talking about his girlfriend moving down here, but then suddenly they bought a house up there instead. So now I need to find some new friends around here. Maybe friends with kayaks ;) Or even better, Finnish friends with kayaks :D 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6700 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 18 of 27 06 July 2014 at 10:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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I can't imagine a country which is better suited to kayaking than Finland with all their thousands of lakes. Though the mosquitoes there are reputed to be the size of cows.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6617 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish | Message 19 of 27 07 July 2014 at 8:03am | IP Logged | ||
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Yes. Finland should be good for kayaking. Norway's pretty good too with all the fjords and luckily I live by a nice fjord.
Hopefully Finnish mosquitoes don't bite. When I first came to Norway, the mosquitoes didn't bite me at all. Everyone kept complaining about the mosquitoes and flies and I would wonder why and say, "But they don't even bite!" Well, now that I've lived here for nearly 15 years, the mosquitoes have started to accept me and they do bite once in a while, but usually if I take a real Norwegian along as bait they will bite the Norwegian instead of me. Maybe Finnish mosquitoes are just as prejudiced as Norwegian ones. The mosquitoes, ticks, and other creepy crawlies are pretty bad where I come from, so Norway is a bit of a relief. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6617 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish | Message 20 of 27 08 July 2014 at 9:32am | IP Logged | ||
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OK. Finnish experts, I have a question: What is the difference in the usage of minne and mihin?
There is an exercise in FSI where you have to choose from various forms of mikä to complete the sentences and in some of them I think because of what I learned from Supisuomea that the answer could be either mihin or minne. Here are the sentences where the answer was either minne or mihin. 1. Minne he kääntyvät? 3. Minne hän soittaa? 4. Mihin te uskotte? 9. Minne te menette? Number 4 I think has to be mihin because you use the illative with usko. So that’s OK. Numbers 1 and 3 I thought could be either minne or mihin because that’s how I understood it from Supisuomea. And number 3 I’m not really sure of, but I thought that minne was only for movement in which case it should be mihin, but obviously I was wrong 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 21 of 27 09 July 2014 at 5:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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For the most part they're synonymous. However, mihin's being the illative form of mikä also emphasizes motion (figurative or physical) to the interior of something. It follows that verbs that frequently take complements in the illative may "sound better" when linked to mihin rather than minne.
When expressing "((in)to) which?", mihin is also the usual choice since mihin is acting like an adjective complete with the illative ending rather than an adverb (minne is now interpreted as an undeclined adverb although it's basically mikä in the sublative which is no longer part of the canonical list of cases in Finnish). See also the following from a native speaker on Unilang:
"Korvat auki" is one of the sets of listening exercises offered by the University of Jyväskylä for independent learners. Based on the other links on the webpage, Suomi 2, 3, 4 and 5 are suitable for people at A2, B1, B2 and C1 respectively. Try some others if you're getting bored by Korvat auki. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6617 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish | Message 22 of 27 16 July 2014 at 9:05am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks, Chung! I've noticed also Supisuomea marks things wrong sometimes that aren't. It seems like anything you haven't learned yet is "wrong" even if it technically isn't. For example, they had some multiple choice questions using the plural/polite you. The possible answers included answers using I and we, but they wanted the answers with we because they hadn't taught it as being used for the singular, polite form of you. Since I'm using a variety of materials, I already knew this and thought it was strange that it should be wrong.
I haven't been studying so intensely lately. I'm a little stressed because I have to travel to the US next week. I'll stay with my parents and attempt to clean their house. They're supposed to be moving to a home, but they are dragging their feet. So I need to do what I can to help. It might be more fun than usual because my eldest nephew is staying there with his wife, daughter and dog in their camper for the summer. They're lots of fun and very adventuresome. The daughter spent last summer hiking the Appalachian trail to become the youngest solo thru hiker and two years before that they rode all around the eastern half of the US on their bikes. My nephew has also led several bike tours various places in the US and is looking into leading one in New Zealand. Now they've just sold their house (on a whim, I think) and who knows what they'll do next. Anyway, I can't anticipate much studying for the next few weeks when I'll be with my family. I've downloaded Harry Potter to listen to and I have the audio from Supisuomea and FSI so maybe I can listen a bit while I clean. I listened to the first 6 chapters of Harry Potter and understood quite a bit. I remember how amazed and pleased I was to understand so much in Japanese, but I understand nearly as much in Finnish, so I realize now that it is because of my familiarity with HP, not my language skills. There is a mistake in the recording of chapter 6. It just skips over the part where Harry first sees the Weasleys and asks Mrs Weasley how to get onto the platform. Then that part comes later when they are already on the train and Malfoy comes to Harry's and Ron's compartment. I hope there won't be too many mistakes. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6617 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish | Message 23 of 27 18 August 2014 at 9:28am | IP Logged | ||
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Well, I'm back from the US and I'm exhausted. I enjoyed being there very much. It was much more fun than usual because of my nephew and his family being there at the same time. And I managed to accomplish a lot as far as helping my parents. So I'm quite pleased with my trip. This was the first time I wasn't eager to come back to Norway by the end.
Unfortunately, I didn't get any studying done at all. I kind of expected it would be rather limited, but I wasn't anticipating doing absolutely nothing. So I feel like I've forgotten all the Finnish I learned. I'd crammed a lot into my head in the weeks before, but it hadn't had time to settle and it all fell out again. Now, I'm having trouble getting started again. I've done a little, but I'm just so tired. I slept far too little the three weeks I was in the US and now I'm having difficulty getting back on track. One night I sleep 12 hours and the next night, three. Anyway, I've started studying again, but mostly fairly easy stuff. I haven't begun using FSI and such again yet as that kind of thing requires a brain and I can't seem to find mine at the moment. Being away from Finnish for three weeks has also helped to dull my infatuation for it and I'm ready to be less exclusive and start studying my other languages again. So these past couple of days, I've not been studying very hard, but what studying I've done has been spread over a variety of languages. Finnish: I've mostly been listening to the audio from Supisuomea while walking and also trying to catch up a little on my Anki decks that had been neglected for three weeks. As soon as I feel a bit more alive, I intend to get back to FSI and perhaps some other resources. I also want to buy some books to read. I might start with Donald Duck comics. I used them with great success when learning Norwegian. Japanese: I've been trying to review the kanji a little, but I seem to have forgotten a lot. Forgetting is one of my greatest talents. I'm having trouble deciding how to proceed with Japanese as I'm at that difficult intermediate stage and I'm not sure what materials to use. Textbook work is very boring and I don't usually find much new information there, but native materials are a little frustrating. I think native's probably the way to go though. I will probably try buying some more cat mysteries and maybe try to find something fun to watch. Too bad I'm not hooked on anime. Spanish: I got a free copy of Conversational Latin American Spanish from Language Audiobooks for answering some questions about a video, so I've been listening to that while taking walks. I'm not terribly impressed, but I'm not ready to do anything too intense, like FSI, so it will do for now. Later, I will get back to doing FSI and I might also buy some books in Spanish. Spanish is my "easy" language and it is kind of a relief to understand so much without having studied it simply because of the similarity to English. Chinese (Mandarin): I wasn't really intending to study Chinese right now, but my brother wanted us to learn it together. We found some Pimsleur courses that my father bought some years ago and it seemed like a good opportunity. I've never tried Pimsleur before, but it seems OK so far. I've only done the first two lessons though and there is nothing new there as I somehow recall enough from my short college course some 20 years ago. I'm not sure how Pimsleur would be if I knew nothing of the language beforehand, but so far I'm enjoying doing this. Each lesson is about 30 minutes and I can listen while I walk, so it's very convenient. I also have my DeFrancis books from that college course all those years ago and I will probably eventually use them as well. I only have the beginning series, but I will probably get the intermediate and advanced when I'm ready as I quite liked this series. Also there is a lot of audio and it's all available for free via iTunes University which is nice. Norwegian: I feel like I should polish my Norwegian a little now that I'm no longer using it for much. When I was studying economics, I had to write a lot of papers and my Norwegian got a good workout, but now I only use it for casual conversation and it's deteriorating. So I've been looking through a grammar book and I will also try to increase my vocabulary using Anki or something. I'll probably make an effort to read a little more too. English: It's the same story as with Norwegian and will be given the same treatment. I actually use English a lot more than Norwegian most days because I use the internet so much, but there is a lot of bad English out there and I need an inoculation of good grammar and more sophisticated vocabulary before I get infected with lol's and homophone confusion. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6617 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish | Message 24 of 27 30 August 2014 at 3:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm finally getting back on track. I was a little depressed after my vacation, but I had expected that and was prepared, so it wasn't so bad. I think it helped that I was able to convince my parents to move and to actually get them (mostly) moved into their new home while I still there. So now I don't have to worry about them so much.
I ordered some books from Amazon Japan about 10 days ago and they came on Tuesday. I started reading one of them, the easiest, but my level has definitely dropped a bit since I last read a book in Japanese. Amazon Japan is kind of funny. The day after I ordered the books, they sent me an e-mail saying that they were sending two of the books right away so they wouldn't be delayed and that the rest would be sent later. Two hours and 14 minutes later, they sent me another e-mail saying that they were now sending the rest of my books. Did they really think a 2 hour and 14 minute delay was that big a deal?! Both packages arrived at the same time anyway. Meanwhile, I also ordered some books from Finland the day after I ordered from Japan and they still haven't arrived even though Finland is hardly any distance away. But they ship economy, of course. So here's what I've been doing: Japanese: Not much. I've only read one chapter of 魔女館へようこそ, a book for middle school kids. I was also watching an episode per day of Doraemon on Youtube (Japanese with Vietnamese subtitles) and found to my surprise that I understood a lot of it, but I haven't watched for a few days now. I definitely need to make some room in my schedule for Japanese. It should be my most or second most important language since I'm so close to being at a comfortable level, but I've been ignoring it. Spanish: I just finished Conversational Latin American Spanish by Mark Frobose, which I'd been listening to while walking. I think I mentioned that I wouldn't recommend it. I got it for free, but I don't think I'd have wanted to pay money for it. There are some minutes here and there where it is OK, but mostly it seems poorly edited and haphazard. It tends to throw long, complex sentences at you with little preparation and after you've learned them, then it shows you how to build them up as if you'd not already learned them. And then suddenly, it goes through something really elementary over and over. And one hour-long lesson seemed to be repeated in its entirety for no apparent reason. I like review, but if it's just a matter of repeating the lesson, I can replay it on my own. Mandarin: Did I mention that my crazy father somehow managed to buy Pimsleur's Mandarin I-III? (We've blocked all the TV shop channels at his new place.) Well, since I got it free, I figured I'd give Pimsleur a try. So far I'm on lesson 9. Since I've been doing a lot of walking lately, I like the idea of having things I can learn from simply by listening. I'm not sure that I'm a huge fan of Pimsleur though. It seems too slow to me and if I were really eager about learning, I think I'd use something else, but since I'm not really trying that hard to learn Chinese right now, I figure if I get something out of it with little effort, that's fine and if not, that's also fine. I don't mean that there is anything wrong with Pimsleur, just that by itself, it would probably take forever and not get you very far. But I'm also only on lesson 9, so it might get more intense with time. Finnish: My infatuation/obsession with Finnish is back. It had been hidden by my exhaustion and depression after my trip, but now it's back and it's hard to resist spending most of my study time doing Finnish. I mentioned books. I ordered some Donald Duck comic books from Finland. Donald taught me Norwegian, so I figured I'd let him try to teach me Finnish as well. I also ordered the first two Harry Potter books. But since my books haven't come yet, I've been slowly working my way through my Anki backlog and reviewing FSI, and these past two days, I've started LRing Harry Potter. I have the Finnish audiobooks and I'm reading along in the English books. When I did LR in Japanese, I was more advanced and I mostly read and listened in Japanese. This is the first time I've done LR at such a low level and I love it. After a couple hours of LR, I find my brain is thinking in Finnish. And it's thinking things I didn't even know I knew how to think about in Finnish! It's pretty amazing! So, plans for the coming weeks: Finnish: Studying Finnish is not a problem. I'm kind of obsessed with it. The problem will be making time to study other languages. But my plans for Finnish are to continue LR and then read some Donald when my books arrive. I also want to catch up on Anki and finish reviewing the FSI units I'd done before so that I can start some new ones. Japanese: Continue 魔女館へようこそ. Maybe read 20-30 minutes per day. I might try to make an Anki deck, but I haven't quite decided how I want to do it yet, so I don't know. I also need to review the kanji as I've forgotten a lot. I think maybe I need to timebox them or something so that I do a little every day until I get through them. Mandarin: Continue Pimsleur. It's very convenient since it's something I can do when I'm walking and most of my other activities require me to sit at my computer or with a book. I was thinking of doing DeFrancis as well, but I think I will wait until later to put any real effort into Chinese. Spanish: I really don't know. I should go back to FSI, but that requires a lot of effort and since I have a limited amount of energy for "hard" studying, I prefer to save that energy for Japanese and Finnish. It was very convenient having something to listen to even if it wasn't that great, but since I'm finished, I need to find something else. I'd like to find some good stuff to listen to in Finnish and Japanese too. Now that I've sort of taught myself to learn by listening, I really like it and find it quite convenient. And I need the exercise I get when walking. I had been listening to the audio from Supisuomea, but I'm tired of it now and the foreigners with their bad accents are really starting to get on my nerves. Also, I'm afraid I'll pick up a bad accent, so I need something new. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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