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On my way towards fluency in Finnish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| uliuliuli Triglot Newbie Finland Joined 6304 days ago 22 posts - 22 votes Speaks: German*, English, French Studies: Norwegian, Finnish | Message 1 of 6 17 September 2008 at 7:51am | IP Logged | ||
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A little more than a year ago, my boyfriend and I decided that we'd rather move to Finland than to Sweden. I'd always liked the idea of coming to Finland, but I was afraid of that weird and supposedly very difficult or even "impossible to learn" language... until I read its description on Wikipedia and figured that - at least for me - there was a big difference between difficult and different. I was intrigued by the logic of Finnish. The more I read about it, the more I became enthusiastic, and soon I started to study like a maniac. That is, I wrote a lot of flashcards with vocabulary, of which I usually learned at least 50 during work/lunch break, and I had a look at the grammar rules every now and then. The structure just made total sense to me, and even many basic words seemed strangely familiar. I found a few free courses with sound files, and the pronunciation wasn't a problem either.
After a couple of months, I changed from flashcards to writing with a native and looking up the missing words in an online dictionary. It was quite difficult to identify the basic forms of the words at first, but I got better every day. I often had a Finnish (online) radio station running more or less in the background. With all the other languages I'd learned, it took me a long time to understand people talking, and I found it hard to even recognize words I was familiar with. When listening to Finnish, however, I'd understand quite a few words I'd never heard or read before so I could look them up in a dictionary. So now I've just moved to Finland. I was a bit afraid I wouldn't manage to have actual conversations with people, because I hadn't really practiced speaking at all. Also, I'd read that Finns would have trouble understanding non-natives and always switch to English with foreigners. Yet it seems to work out quite well. My first real try was asking for a job at a hotel; the person I was talking to a) understood my question and b) replied in Finnish! Too bad I didn't quite understand his reply... But today I was asking for a prescription for my thyroid hormones (ok, I had to look up this one...), and if there hadn't been some strange problems then I probably would have managed to keep the entire conversation in Finnish. And, unlike with Icelandic, nobody can say "oh well, for you it should be quite easy to learn because of your native language", harhar... I'm so much better at fresh starts than at coming up to expectations. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| sei Diglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 5933 days ago 178 posts - 191 votes  Speaks: Portuguese*, English Studies: German, Japanese | Message 2 of 6 17 September 2008 at 10:12am | IP Logged | ||
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Yay! Another Finnish learner! I wish You good luck with it, though you already seem to have a basic command over it. ^^
There are other people learning Finnish in this forum, who also have logs if you'd like to check them out. There's mine, Evita's and Serpent's (though she hasn't posted in awhile). I'll be checking your log often since I plan to eventually move to Finland and would like to know how your experiences go. Good luck! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6589 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 3 of 6 18 September 2008 at 5:19pm | IP Logged | ||
Good luck from me too! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6886 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 6 18 September 2008 at 5:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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Congratulations, and GOOD LUCK from me too !
I'll just remind you that you are welcome to write in the Finnish thread on this site. By the sound of it you are already at a level where you can make an interesting contribution. I'm looking forward to it ! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| badger2 Senior Member Finland Joined 6603 days ago 156 posts - 156 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Swedish, Finnish | Message 5 of 6 30 October 2008 at 5:15am | IP Logged | ||
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Welcome!
This is definitely the worst time of year... from now until Christmas when some snow stays on the ground. Don't let it get to you. Buy a "day lamp" from Stockmann. And you should definitely check out some of these free language schools for foreigners. (To what city did you move?) As a bonus, they teach *completely* in Finnish, so your comprehension will skyrocket. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| uliuliuli Triglot Newbie Finland Joined 6304 days ago 22 posts - 22 votes Speaks: German*, English, French Studies: Norwegian, Finnish | Message 6 of 6 19 November 2008 at 5:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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Oops oops... Been out in real life, gotten a job and had to improve my Finnish to make myself understood. Apparently I can say that I don't speak so much Finnish and don't understand and whether they speak English so well that people think my Finnish is better than their English, so they claim they don't speak it... so I have to learn more. Doing that by asking people how to say this and that, and by occasionally using a dictionary.
@badger, uhm, nothing will skyrocket for me in a language course, except boredom and demotivation. And time of year... I've spent three winters in Iceland, no need to worry about me ;) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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