Finnish, Where do i start? (Specific Languages) Language Learning Forum

Finnish, Where do i start?
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Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages

18 messages over 3 pages: 1 2 3 Next >>

AIRBORNE_DELTA
Newbie
United Kingdom
Joined 3854 days ago
11 posts - 12 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: German, Dutch

Message 1 of 18

06 November 2013 at 4:42pm | IP Logged

I am beginning to learn Finnish, but unlike German I am finding it quite difficult. I did 2 years of German at school so when I decided to take it up again I found it easy enough. I used the Michel Thomas method and it helped me to get the basics of the German grammar without having to go through big lists of verb conjunctions etc. but with Finnish I have no background and I seem to be just confusing myself at the minute.

Are there any good courses I could use (Finnish has no Michel Thomas, Rosetta Stone or Pimsleur…)?

Should I start by learning words? or grammar?

Any advice would be appreciated :D

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Chung
Diglot
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Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish

Message 2 of 18

06 November 2013 at 5:36pm | IP Logged

See Learning Finnish and Learning Finnish, and... for some ideas before starting.
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Chris13
Groupie
FinlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name
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Speaks: English*
Studies: Swedish, Finnish

Message 3 of 18

06 November 2013 at 5:56pm | IP Logged

You have to be quite vigilant with your learning resources anyway. There really isn't so much available, and I honestly don't think I've come across anything that doesn't have mistakes (sometimes serious) that you'd never know at an early level.

I'd say to learn as many common words as you can, then when you feel like you have an okay word base, dabble a little with basic grammar.

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AIRBORNE_DELTA
Newbie
United Kingdom
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Speaks: English*
Studies: German, Dutch

Message 4 of 18

06 November 2013 at 7:53pm | IP Logged

Chung wrote:

See Learning Finnish and Learning Finnish, and... for some ideas before starting.

Thank you very much :) found a lot of stuff i did not know about!
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AIRBORNE_DELTA
Newbie
United Kingdom
Joined 3854 days ago
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Speaks: English*
Studies: German, Dutch

Message 5 of 18

06 November 2013 at 7:55pm | IP Logged

Chris13 wrote:

Do you know of any good word lists (like top 1000 words in Finnish etc.) that i could use?
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maucca
Diglot
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Finland
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Speaks: Finnish*, English
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Message 6 of 18

06 November 2013 at 8:56pm | IP Logged

The link to this list of the most common Finnish words was recently posted in another thread on this forum.

Wiktionary is an excellent resource also in that it has complete inflection tables for all the words.
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Serpent
Octoglot
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Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
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Message 7 of 18

06 November 2013 at 10:40pm | IP Logged

Chris13 wrote:

hm I wouldn't say it's that bad, really. the grammar is such a combination of complicated and logical that you really shouldn't "just dabble a little" with it. most coursebooks teach some things that nobody actually says, giving you a way to say them with the grammar you have (olla työssä, autot ovat mustat), but this will be fixed when you get out of the selkokieli/kirjakieli bubble.

Also, try to find some good music in Finnish. Since the pronunciation is quite clear, you'll remember a lot of words and forms. Although you won't automatically know the meaning, it will make it easier to learn them from the coursebook you use.
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Chris13
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Speaks: English*
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Message 8 of 18

07 November 2013 at 9:39am | IP Logged

Serpent: I meant to dabble in the early stages, once you've amassed a little more vocab then you can delve in a little deeper, and continue at your own pace from there.

At the start, for example, you could check very basic grammar rules such as;
Maanantai (Monday) Maanantaina (On Monday) Maanantaisin (Mondays)
Tiistai (Tuesday) Tiistaina (On Tuesday) Tiistaisin (Tuesdays)
Keskiviikko literally "middle of the week" (Wednesday) Keskiviikkona (On Wednesday) etc..

I guess we are all different, but personally if I'd attempted to look at multiple grammar rules from the very beginning I'd probably have had a breakdown.

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