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The Suomi Train (My Crazy Finnish Log) | ||
Tags: Finnish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| ruskivyetr Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5485 days ago 769 posts - 962 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Russian, Polish, Modern Hebrew | Message 1 of 12 03 January 2010 at 8:35am | IP Logged | ||
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So I was looking through some files on my computer, and I was pretty much cleaning house. I got rid of a bunch of schoolwork from the previous year, and I started organizing all my papers and notes from this year. I happened across my FSI folder which has all the FSI courses of major languages (list of them: Arabic, Bulgarian, Cantonese, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Swahili, Swedish, and Turkish). These are only the texts. My next step is to get the audio and pair it with it's respective texts.
Anyways, when I saw Finnish, I remembered the days when I studied Finnish, and was just overwhelmed by it. I remembered the times that I broke down crying because of all the inflections, and I couldn't get them all to snap into place, much less get into my head. And then I remembered the flow of the words on the FSI tape. I remembered the softness, the light contrast of the letters. The ability to make your voice sing just by saying the most simple things in this language. It's kind of poetic and cheesy, but it made me want to drop Hebrew, and take Finnish back up. It's not a TAC language so I'm going to make a long term goal for the next few years. I know it is a very hard language, but I would like to be relatively conversationally fluent by the middle of 2011. Hopefully I can accomplish this without pulling my hair out with nostalgia. So, for all those folks who enjoy a weird and entertaining log, hop on the Suomi train :). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| anni_online Tetraglot Newbie Germany Joined 5615 days ago 14 posts - 17 votes Speaks: German*, English, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Spanish, Finnish, Icelandic | Message 2 of 12 03 January 2010 at 4:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm definitely hopping on the train! And I'm very curious to see what approach you are choosing with learning Finnish. Instead of breaking down crying, I keep asking myself, "Why would anyone ever learn this VOLUNTARILY???" ;-) Anyway, I haven't given up and have even made Finnish one of my TAC languages for 2010 because I love the language just like you do. I'll be going to Finland next week for a one-week-immersion which will hopefully give me the impetus that is needed to finally advance in my studies.
So good luck to you and stay strong ;-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| cathrynm Senior Member United States junglevision.co Joined 6129 days ago 910 posts - 1232 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Finnish | Message 3 of 12 03 January 2010 at 10:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm starting Finnish also, though Japanese still has priority. It's my mother's side ethnic heritage. I also have nostalgia issues with Finnish as my grandmother and mother spoke Finnish. I'd like to be able to read old letters and postcards in Finnish.
This year, my goals are modest. I'm just trying to get through 'Teach Yourself Finnish' and reach the beginner level. I have 'Finnish Essential Grammar' -- which I do find endlessly fascinating, a pocket dictionary and a Berlitz phrase book I found at a bookstore. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ruskivyetr Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5485 days ago 769 posts - 962 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Russian, Polish, Modern Hebrew | Message 4 of 12 04 January 2010 at 4:13am | IP Logged | ||
LUCKKYY!!! :D I wish I had a reason to go in the near future :/. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ruskivyetr Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5485 days ago 769 posts - 962 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Russian, Polish, Modern Hebrew | Message 5 of 12 04 January 2010 at 4:14am | IP Logged | ||
Modest goals are the best I find. My TAC goals are modest, although I know I will surpass them. My Finnish goals are just for basic fluency in the next two years, then after that I can make an effort to become more and more fluent. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kyssäkaali Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5557 days ago 203 posts - 376 votes Speaks: English*, Finnish | Message 6 of 12 04 January 2010 at 4:35am | IP Logged | ||
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Do it, all of you! :D Tsemppiä! You should all go for it! I took up Finnish when I was 16. I'm now 18, have lived in Finland for 4 months and can speak, understand and read the language conversationally. So it's definitely possible to learn Finnish even with all the inflections, case endings, and alien vocabulary! I tell you, for the first year nothing made sense, and then one day everything just clicked into place and I began learning at an incredible rate.
Good luck to you all! It's a new year, a new decade and everything is in the future. Onnea matkaan! Useful links: http://www.finlandforum.org/ - Finland forum, for discussion of the country and the language http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Main_Page - a great online dictionary with hundreds of thousands of Finnish entries, including tons of obscure words and phrases that would never be found in a paper dictionary http://www.uusikielemme.fi/grammar.html - Uusi Kielemme (Our New Language). A great resource for Finnish grammar. http://listenlive.eu/finland.html - Live Finnish radio I also recommend the program Before You Know It (http://www.byki.com/). With the pay version, you can create your own flash cards. This is the only way I study! Whenever I watch a new movie in Finnish or with Finnish subs, all new vocabulary gets converted into flash cards with this program. Hyvää uutta vuotta kaikille! Edited by kyssäkaali on 04 January 2010 at 4:38am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ruskivyetr Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5485 days ago 769 posts - 962 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Russian, Polish, Modern Hebrew | Message 7 of 12 04 January 2010 at 5:37am | IP Logged | ||
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Ok, so I have decided to use FSI Finnis.
@kyssaaali: Thank you so much for those resources! I will most definitely use some of them in the near future. I can't wait to really get started. I can't start where I left off, but I can definitely get through what I had learned before a bit faster. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ruskivyetr Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5485 days ago 769 posts - 962 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Russian, Polish, Modern Hebrew | Message 8 of 12 05 January 2010 at 11:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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Ok. I am about to do some FSI. I think I may print it out lesson by lesson, because the whole situation with the screen really bugs me. I plan to do it until I have to leave for something in about 45 minutes, and then when I come back I'll probably do Russian but you never know... I might end up doing FINNISH!
1 person has voted this message useful |
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