|
 |
Finnish, Where do i start? | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6408 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 9 of 18 07 November 2013 at 10:20am | IP Logged | ||
|
Maanantaisin means 'on mondays'.
Do you actually mean that the OP shouldn't learn all the cases at once? That's certainly true, and any course will introduce them in small groups. I don't think there's a reason to go even slower than how your book guides you. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Chris13 Groupie FinlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 3862 days ago 53 posts - 64 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Swedish, Finnish | Message 10 of 18 07 November 2013 at 10:35am | IP Logged | ||
|
All I'm saying is that, if this is your first language, which I think it may well be for the OP, then I'd definitely take it slow a the beginning. Grammar is crucial in Finnish so it'd be stupid not to learn any grammar.
My point was that if you learn a decent word base then even knowing just one or two simple grammar points will significantly expand those words you already know. So in that sense, there isn't any need to confuse oneself trying to remember a lot of grammar that you might not even be using frequently at the start anyway. However one grammar point that I do think is imperative at the start would be vowel harmony, as this is where you might start to notice some words you do know changing and by observing this change it's possible to pick up on some aspects of the grammar without studying it, then when you do study it you've already got a passive knowledge of it. So, for the original poster; Vowel Harmony (*edit:To avoid confusion, this should be entitled consonant gradation) Rules concerning consonant gradation; Due to the number of suffixes used in Finnish, it is important to try and recognise the suffixes and/or the route words. The route word is what we have to change depending on which suffix we need to use. Below I've listed what characters change and to what; KK – K PP – p TT – T K - - (In other words, this letter is omitted) P – V T – D NK – NG MP – MM NT – NN LT – LL RT – RR ST, SK ja TK Eivät muutu – ST, SK and TK remain unchanged. Edited by Chris13 on 07 November 2013 at 12:27pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| AIRBORNE_DELTA Newbie United Kingdom Joined 3854 days ago 11 posts - 12 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Dutch | Message 11 of 18 07 November 2013 at 11:28am | IP Logged | ||
Thank you very much this is quite helpful Are there many exceptions to these rules? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6408 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 12 of 18 07 November 2013 at 11:54am | IP Logged | ||
|
That's not vowel harmony, that's consonant gradation. OP needs a proper coursebook. (read more attentively though, it's not the OP's first foreign language. and German/Finnish is a great combination (though to me German is far less logical :P)
there are very few exceptions, mostly involving k. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Chris13 Groupie FinlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 3862 days ago 53 posts - 64 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Swedish, Finnish | Message 13 of 18 07 November 2013 at 12:24pm | IP Logged | ||
|
My apologies, I realised after I had posted that it was incorrectly labelled. Though, vowel harmony and consonant gradation do overlap in some ways.
I also did miss the mention of German, I often read several threads before commenting on a particular one, oftentimes muddling up segments from them all. True, it wouldn't really be possible to learn grammar properly without a course book. I still don't think one should try to learn too much grammar at the start though, it would get very confusing, but I guess if you've studied other languages this may not be an issue for you. As regards course books, I know that finding any in the UK is very difficult. I think you can find the "From start to Finnish" on Amazon though, but if you're lucky enough to find it I'd try and use "Suomen mestari" I've been told that it's the book you'd be taught with should you study Finnish here as a foreigner. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4450 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 14 of 18 07 November 2013 at 12:54pm | IP Logged | ||
As someone who has never studied Finish I hesitated to contribute to this thread, but as regards courses, have you had a look at Colloquial Finnish by Routledge? I have used the Colloquial courses for a couple of languages and have generally found their approach very good. There also exists a German-based Assimil course "Finnisch ohne Mühe", so if your German is good enough to use as a basis, it might be worth a try. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6967 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 15 of 18 07 November 2013 at 2:45pm | IP Logged | ||
|
AIRBORNE_DELTA, in addition to whatever introductory courses in the links that I had posted and which interest you enough, if you do come upon "From Start to Finnish", the book's publisher has released the audio for use, free of charge, according to this blog's entry.
I do strongly discourage anyone from making their first foray into Finnish using "Colloquial Finnish". 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| AIRBORNE_DELTA Newbie United Kingdom Joined 3854 days ago 11 posts - 12 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Dutch | Message 16 of 18 08 November 2013 at 12:03am | IP Logged | ||
Thanks very much. I have found the audio, i just need to get the book but it seems very helpful. 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
