Understanding spoken language

[Aragon]

Hello dear friends,

I have been studying Finnish for while now (I actually started about a year and a half ago but only during the last half a year my studies have become more intense...). I am trying to enrich my vocabulary on daily basis by reading alot (mainly news sites) and I am already writing various texts in Finnish, since I dont actually have any Finns near by to speak with.
The problem is the spoken language, I just cant understand it... I dont mean necessarily the one spoken by people met on the street, rather even radio broadcasts I hear still sound to me like "halala talalala... Word I know... Kalala malala...".
I know it is obvious In am not supposed to understand it immediately, but I have also been studying German and Lithuanian, and if I hear those languages, I can pretty much understand everything (Eventhough for example my German vocabulary is pretty limited...), so I don't remember having such difficulties while learning those languages, and I started Understanding them pretty fast.
Any advices you might give me on how could I actually start understanding what I hear? Would constant listening to Finnish might help me improve?
And one more question, any idea on where can I find content to watch with Finnish subtitles (doesn't really matter if in Finnish or English), would really help

Thank you very much in advance,
Kiitoksia avusta

P.S I apologise for any mistakes I might have done in English, it is not my native language...

[lindemaar]

Hey Aragon,

I was used to learn swedish by watching some swedish speaking children series with swedish subtitles on YouTube. It seemed the easiest way of improving my comprehensive . There may not be many of that kinda videos though, but i have seen that kinda finnish stuff as well. Watching of interviews with english subtitles might be useful and they are more near to spoken language. Some kinda voice chatting with a finn on Skype or somewhere would be nice too. . .

Personally, 'Yle Puhe' is only finnish radio channel what I like to listen to. The way of their speaking is proper and calm, even though the topics may be difficult to understand from view of a foreigner. Usually they speak finnish very fast on commercial channels and moreover, I never understand their topics either; their stuff sounds balahaaha to me . But seriously it feels like watching some series,interviews maybe documentaries with subtitles and esp. chatting with native ones have been useful ways of learning to me at least ..