Hei ja mun kieliblogi!

by **syntax** » Mon Jun 04, 2012 9:36 am

Terve! Nimeni on Colm ja mä asun Tallinnassa, mutta minun kotimaani on Irlanti. Minun vaimoni on virolainen, joten mä asun Virossa. Olen opiskelija sekä englannin kielen opettaja. Opiskelen Tallinnan yliopistossa kielitiedettä. Opiskelen suomea koska haluan osata sitä mikäli joskus muutan Suomeen. Mulla on blogi, missä harjoittelen kieltä.

Hi! My name is Colm and I live in Tallinn though I am originally from Ireland. My wife is Estonian and that is why I live here in Estonia. I am a student as well as an English teacher. I study linguistics at Tallinn University. I'm learning Finnish because I'd like to be able to speak it if I ever decided to move to Finland. I have a blog where I practice the language.

**Sponsor:**

by **j.juuppeli** » Mon Jun 04, 2012 10:39 am

Hey Colm!
Hyvin osaat jo kieltä! Kuinka kauan olet suomea jo opiskellut?

Nice to learn some Estonian written and compare it to Finnish. Will check the blog from time to time - keep up the good work!

by **Pursuivant** » Mon Jun 04, 2012 10:47 am

Notice you are writing in Finnish "dialect" rather than "proper". Which is fine, just a warning - you can get by in a spoken job interview, but you won't be invited to one if you write like a chav. The comparative language is very nice, I've learned Estonian only by "listening" so I'm totally at loss if I need to write anything.

by **syntax** » Mon Jun 04, 2012 11:57 am

Thanks for the comments! I have been learning Finnish for 9 days now. I apologize if I come across as un(der)educated in Finnish. That is certainly not my intention. It will take me some months to learn how to keep the colloquial and written separate. I have been learning from reading dialogues in Colloquial Finnish so while it is written it's simply speech written down.

by **jahasjahas** » Mon Jun 04, 2012 6:13 pm

The only major problem I see is not being consistent between mä/mun/mulla and minä/minun/minulla within the same text. Also, using "mä" in an otherwise formal text makes you sound, well, Estonian :wink:

And a minor detail: make sure not to mix up "kun" and "kuin". I saw you had "ennen kun" in one of your examples. It's easy to get them confused, since both tend to become "ku" in speech. It actually took me years to notice that I was messing them up when writing. A bit like their/there/they're and than/then in English.

Good luck, I'll be following the blog!

by **Pursuivant** » Tue Jun 05, 2012 1:35 am

I have been learning Finnish for 9 days now.

Some people will cry blood hearing that... though Estonian is related... ummm... yeah...

I have been learning from reading dialogues in Colloquial Finnish so while it is written it's simply speech written down.

Fair does. A lot of people learning Finnish get first stumped by grammar, then learning "proper" Finnish and being able to understand f*all from even the tv, except maybe news. What is the suggestion in these parts is try YLE "Plain Finnish" news http://yle.fi/selkouutiset/ they also got podcasts, and its easier to "get" than a million miles normal radio.

by **jahasjahas** » Tue Jun 05, 2012 12:06 pm

Pursuivant wrote:Some people will cry blood hearing that... though Estonian is related... ummm... yeah...

Well, his blog posts did mention that he had native speakers(?) correcting his Finnish. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Oh, one more thing I forgot to mention: a Finn would say "kieliblogi", not "kielen blogi".

by **Upphew** » Tue Jun 05, 2012 1:56 pm

jahasjahas wrote:Oh, one more thing I forgot to mention: a Finn would say "kieliblogi", not "kielen blogi".

Indeed. I was about to post picture of tongue, but wandered to check the blog in question and kinda forgot.

by **syntax** » Tue Jun 05, 2012 7:45 pm

Yes. I have native speakers correcting my Finnish just like I have a native speaker correcting my Estonian. Just in case anyone thinks I am a language whiz I am not.

by **jahasjahas** » Thu Jun 07, 2012 11:16 pm

I couldn't comment on your blog without signing in, so I'll do it here.

The post: mennääks

Iso suomen kielioppi discusses the passive as a first person plural form here: § 1326 Passiivi me-muotona. The one thing worth noting, although it doesn't apply to any of your example sentences, is

Monikon 1. persoonaa ilmaiseva passiivimuoto ei silti ole kieliopillisesti kokonaan mukautunut muuhun persoonataivutukseen. Sen yksiköllinen totaaliobjekti on nominatiivissa kuten passiivissa yleensäkin, ei genetiivissä kuten aktiivissa: Me otetaan se, mutta Me otamme ~ te otatte sen.

All your passive forms are correct. I'll point out your typos anyway if you don't mind: Helsinigissä-> Helsingissä, ooperasta-> oopperasta

by **Pursuivant** » Fri Jun 08, 2012 1:17 am

See on selline lolli välismaa elänik

by **jahasjahas** » Fri Jun 15, 2012 12:23 pm

I haven't got much to add contentwise, so I guess I'll do some spellchecking.

more exercises
hiitämään -> hiihtämään

laktoositon: saying without in Finnish
liikumaton -> liikkumaton

privatives and past passive participles
virheeton -> virheetön

Finnish present perfect
hänella -> hänelle

exercises on perfect
avanut -> avannut
tarvitsenut -> tarvinnut (I actually had to check whether it's spelled tarvinut or tarvinnut. Writing ain't easy!)

"Mistä se saa rahan?" sounds a bit off. You'd either say "Mistä se saa rahaa?" or if you want to be more definite, "Mistä se saa rahat (siihen lomamatkaan)?"

Is there a reason you flipped the word order in "En mä ole vielä nähnyt sitä."? It's totally correct grammatically, of course, but it emphasizes the en for reasons that aren't apparent in this exercise.

"Mä olen tavannut häntä." would sound better if you added something like "Mä olen tavannut häntä silloin tällöin." Otherwise I'd prefer "Mä olen tavannut hänet." Unless you want to say "Mä olen tapaillut häntä.", "I have been dating him" :wink:

(Tavata <-> tapailla: does Estonian have a frequentative form? Wikipedia suggests it doesn't.)

by **syntax** » Fri Jun 15, 2012 5:38 pm

Thanks for the corrections! I have made the changes :-)

The only reason I use those sentences is that they are in my book. Colloquial Finnish is not written by a native speaker so I guess that is why some of the sample sentences sound strange to a native speaker.

Häntä and hänet.....mhm. I haven't read anywhere yet about the uses of acc. and part. of pronouns. I look forward to reading up on that. Maybe I can find a section on it in An Essential Grammar.

Pursuivant, what did you mean by See on selline lolli välismaa elänik? That's some silly foreign resident?

That's a good question about the frequentative. I haven't come across it. It might exist in some fossilised verb forms but I don't think it exists as a productive element.

by **Fasianos** » Fri Jun 15, 2012 10:28 pm

Terve! Minä olen australialainen ja puhun vähän suomea. Suomea olen opiskellut nyt noin neljä vuotta ja viime viikolla lainasin viron kielioppikirjan kirjastosta

Opiskelen myös irlannin kieltä yliopistossani koska minusta se on mielenkiintoinen kieli. Osaatko sinakäin irlantia? Niin kuin voit huomata, opiskelen mielelläni kieliä!

Hello. I am Australian and I speak some Finnish. I have been studying Finnish now for around four years. I am also studying Irish at University because I think it is an interesting language. Do you also speak Irish? As you can see, I like to learn languages!

by **syntax** » Fri Jun 15, 2012 11:41 pm

Tere! Jah, räägin küll iiri keelt!

Tore, et saad neid keeli Austraalis õpida. Ma olen nüüd eesti keelt ka juba neli aastat õpinud.

Dia duit! Tá Gaeilge agam cinnte!

Iontach go bhfuil tú in ann na teangacha sin a fhoghlaim thall san Astráil. Táim ag foghlaim na hEastóinise le ceithre bliana anois fosta.

Terve! Kyllä minä puhun irlannin kieltä.

On hienoa, että sinä voit oppia niitä kieliä Australiassa. Viroa olen opiskellut myös nyt neljä vuotta.