YKI language test and citizenship

[Auringon_kukka]

Excellent description and suggestions!

There are many pathways to YKI success. For starters, there are inexpensive online courses that cover the four areas of the YKI test (speaking, writing, listening comprehension and reading comprehension). I took such a course in Finnish (I lucked out in that it was offered at no charge), and it was immensely useful. The instructor gave us a lot of helpful tips and explained what to expect on test day. The multi-week course included practical exercises, and we also had the opportunity to book a one-on-one session with the teacher to practise the speaking part.

I also took a series of in-person Finnish courses prior to the test, and so had a fair bit of practice with reading, and some with writing. A good way to improve one's listening comprehension in Finnish is to turn subtitling on when watching Finnish-language programming. That way, what you are hearing is reinforced through the subtitles. I find it helps to train the ear.

All of the above would also of course apply to Swedish, which is another option for taking the YKI test as a pathway to citizenship. Some people--English-speakers especially--find learning Swedish easier, since it's in the same language family as English.

Booking the test was a chaotic experience indeed. I was online the moment the slots opened, but the website quickly became unresponsive. Fortunately though, I was able to secure a spot. Yes, they go super quickly.

I took the YKI test in May 2021 (I moved to Finland in the fall of 2018). After the test, I was unsure if I'd passed the spoken part, so I booked a spot for the next test in August that year, just in case. As things turned out, I didn't need to, as I passed (3, 3, 3 and 4 [written comprehension]. However, having already paid for the August test, I decided what the heck and sat it for the fun of it . I even managed to improve my results (3, 3, 4 [listening comprehension] and 4 [written comprehension]).

I'm curious to see how YKI will evolve with the proposed amendments to the Citizenship Act. Many countries have civics tests as part of the citizenship process, so it's no biggie.

Thanks for posting your experience. I'm sure it'll prove helpful to others.

[Aasinkinttu]

Really good descriptions above.
Below are quick references to the acceptable passing combinations in the event one does not pass everything and/or combines test results.

A)
Speaking
3 or 4
Writing
3 or 4
or
B)
Listening comprehension
3 or 4
Writing
3 or 4
or
C)
Reading comprehension
3 or 4
Speaking
3 or 4

Most people I know took specific courses designed to help pass the YKI test. Everyone I know passed on first try.
Personally, I went a trial and error route, which basically reflects the way that I learned Finnish as well (No completed courses outside of the university Finnish for Foreigners, which is basically nothing). My kirjakieli is awful. However, I can get by with my northern/eastern murre, which I learned from simply trying to communicate and not being afraid to make mistakes in my region.
For my first test, I went in totally blind. No studying or understanding what the test would be like. In my opinion, it is a strange testing method and atmosphere. I did not pass (all alle 3) but I got the experience on how the test is conducted. I retook the test again without completing any courses. I passed the speaking/writing combination.
My method cost me about an extra 150 euros and my friend's method cost more of their time.


...and we won't talk about the extra 100EUR I lost challenging the first speaking/writing portion because I was convinced some Stadilainen didn't like my murre

[williamshane]

Success in YKI can be achieved through various means.geometry dash To begin, you may find reasonably priced online classes that go over all four sections of the YKI exam: speech, writing, listening comprehension, and reading comprehension. As chance would have it, I was able to take a free course in Finnish and found it to be really helpful. In preparation for the exam, our teacher provided us with a wealth of useful information and detailed the objectives. Practical exercises were a component of the multi-week course, and we could also schedule individual sessions with the instructor to work on our speaking skills.

[Auringon_kukka]

Success in YKI can be achieved through various means.geometry dash To begin, you may find reasonably priced online classes that go over all four sections of the YKI exam: speech, writing, listening comprehension, and reading comprehension. As chance would have it, I was able to take a free course in Finnish and found it to be really helpful. In preparation for the exam, our teacher provided us with a wealth of useful information and detailed the objectives. Practical exercises were a component of the multi-week course, and we could also schedule individual sessions with the instructor to work on our speaking skills.

Sounds a lot like my experience (detailed above)

[riku2]

You may find reasonably priced online classes that go over all four sections of the YKI exam

I think some of these courses even give practice with old exam questions - which is really useful because the questions can be reused in later exams. In my exam there was a written question "people use smartphones too much" and I think that has been in the exam at least once before and I have seen it as a practice question also.

[celemtine]

Excellent description and suggestions!

There are many pathways to YKI success. For starters, there are inexpensive online courses that cover the four areas of the YKI test (speaking, writing, listening comprehension and reading comprehension). I took such a course in Finnish (I lucked out in that it was offered at no charge), and it was immensely useful. The instructor gave us a lot of helpful tips and explained what to expect on test day. The multi-week course included practical exercises, and we also had the opportunity to book a one-on-one session with the teacher to practise the speaking part.

I also took a series of in-person Finnish courses prior to the test, and so had a fair bit of practice with reading, and some with writing. A good way to improve one's listening comprehension in Finnish is to turn subtitling on when watching Finnish-language programming. That way, what you are hearing is reinforced through the subtitles. I find it helps to train the ear.

All of the above would also of course apply to Swedish, which is another option for taking the YKI test as a pathway to citizenship. Some people--English-speakers especially--find learning Swedish easier, since it's in the same language family as English.

Booking the test was a chaotic experience indeed. I was online the moment the slots opened, but the website quickly became unresponsive. Fortunately though, I was able to secure a spot. Yes, they go super quickly.

I took the YKI test in May 2021 (I moved to Finland in the fall of 2018). After the test, I was unsure if I'd passed the spoken part, so I booked a spot for the next test in August that year, just in case. As things turned out, I didn't need to, as I passed (3, 3, 3 and 4 [written comprehension]. However, having already paid for the August test, I decided what the heck and sat it for the fun of it granny sexdoll . I even managed to improve my results (3, 3, 4 [listening comprehension] and 4 [written comprehension]).

I'm curious to see how YKI will evolve with the proposed amendments to the Citizenship Act. Many countries have civics tests as part of the citizenship process, so it's no biggie.

Thanks for posting your experience. I'm sure it'll prove helpful to others.

Thank you for sharing your insightful experience with preparing for and taking the YKI test. It's great to hear about the various pathways to success, including online courses, in-person classes, and practical tips for improving language skills. Your perseverance in booking a test slot despite the chaotic process and your dedication to improving your results are commendable. It's also interesting to consider the potential evolution of the YKI test in light of proposed amendments to the Citizenship Act. Your story will undoubtedly inspire and assist others on their journey to Finnish citizenship.

[riku2]

I am not sure what happened to the original post in this thread - the thread now starts with the reply to my first post which is a bit strange.
Here is the original post in this thread ..

Since I've just taken the YKI test for citizenship I've put together some notes about booking and passing the test.
My background is that I've lived and worked in Finland for many years but until Brexit I had not reason to apply for Finnish citizenship. Now things have changed and it was time to pass the YKI exam regardless that I don't need the language for work, dealing with authorities or even buying a house (I live in detached house which I bought immediately I moved to Finland - the detached house part is actually relevant to the YKI test as I mention below).
Generally https://ykipass.fi/ is a very good place to start although they do not cover everything I found useful to know about.

• Test content
  The first thing to remember is that the test covers specific themes (I and my background, home and housing, shops and services, culture, travelling, health and wellbeing, work, the environment, society). It's not a general test of the Finnish language. You must learn the language around the themes which perhaps means learning terms that you have no need for in your everyday life (for example I had to learn that when something goes wrong in a block of flats you call "huoltopalvelu", a term I'd never heard before because I've lived in my own detached house for over 20 years and there is no "huoltopalvelu" when you own your own home, I got to Bauhaus instead. On the other hand I do know all the terms regarding heating and plumbing - which did come in useful in one part of the exam which was an email asking somebody about a house sale advertisement and asking for more details about something related to the house.

• Studying for the exam
  Unless you're really immersed in the language (eg working totally in Finnish for many years, talking Finnish to friends on a daily basis for many months) then probably some study book or even lessons aimed at the YKI test would be good. I had private lessons and said that I wanted to specifically learn how to pass the test. Not some general language teaching which may/may not include things relevant to the test. I searched here https://www.yksityisopetus.fi/ and some of the tutors had their own websites as well. Some took a moral high ground that teaching specifically to pass the YKI test meant you would miss out on the general appreciation of the language, so I could save time and immediately rule out those teachers. But I did find one who helped me over the course of six months and also recommended a very good book https://finnlectura.fi/oppimateriaalit/ ... na-kateen/ which directly addresses the themes of the YKI test and the types of question (especially written) that you get in the exam. This book helped me a lot with the written part of the exam.

• Booking the exam
  The most important thing about booking is that the places sell out in a matter of minutes from when booking starts at 10am. By 10 past the hour all capital region places are taken and by half past things further away like Forssa and Hyvinkaa are sold out also. So make sure you're there at the exact second the booking opens (unfortunately for my first exam the website crashed and did not function for 15 mins, but eventually stated working). Exams and booking is not evenly spread out across the year, there can be booking days a month apart but exams two months apart for example. the exams also do not take place in the summer which I found annoying because the selkosuomeksi news on YLE also took a summer holiday with meant I could not use it to help with my studies.

• The exam itself
  Sitting the exam (or rather the processes at the exam centre) is somewhat of an eye opener. They are paranoid about anybody seeing any written Finnish words in the rooms and hallways, so all writing is covered up. Including signs to the toilets (recognize them via door handles) and less amusingly the fire extinguishers (which were taped over with white paper to avoid us seeing the extinguisher instructions). This I consider somewhat dangerous (to those taking the exam and supervising) and probably against health and safety rules. There was a drinks machine in the lobby but if you bought a drink they had a roll of tape to cover over the label of the bottle you had just bought!! You also cannot use your own pencil, so I was taken back in time 45 years to use a wooden pencil and a pencil "sharpener" (a sharp blade mounted in a holder than can make the end of a wooden pencil sharp again).
  It was good that I read in advance about the way the multiple choice answers are recorded because this seemed like something from the late 80's when computers could first mark an exam paper. Some questions are multiple choice and some free text. In some cases you write everything in a booklet and then at the end of the exam transfer the multiple choice answers to another (machine readable) page. This gives scope for getting the answers out of sync, writing you answers in the wrong column (the multiple choice page as answers for about 75 questions but the YKI test only uses 50 of them and you might start the day answering questions 25-50 for example). There are also space for choosing answers A/B/C/D even though some questions just let you choose A/B or A/B/C/D. Overall a great example of the students being forced to work according to the technology and processes, rather than having something that lets the students focus on the evaluation of the language itself.
  
  I did well in writing because I knew in advance there would be three parts, an email to a friend,a more formal email (eg about a house advertisement) and then an opinion piece. I realised quite early in my studies that I could learn skeleton answers where I could just fill in small details from the exam question. For example asking a friend to something - you can prepare about 50% in advance, take some words from the question itself and that leaves only about 30% that you think up during the exam itself. The same for the opinion piece - I learned skeleton answers to giving opinion about anything. the book kyna-kateen was good for this and I did pass the writing part of the exam despite having never written even a text message in Finnish outside of Finnish classes.
  
  The listening part was the hardest for me. the sections are similar to something you'd hear on speech radio but come quick and fast, with detailed questions to answer. You are given two chances to hear the pieces but I failed the first time I sat the exam and for the second time I realised a better approach is to read the questions BEFORE the audio starts, then start to think of the answer on the first pass of the audio. for the second pass you are then just confirming you got your answer right. You are basically working one step ahead of the audio. and this helped me pass listening the second time I sat the exam.
  
  Reading - there was a lot to read and often I would be totally lost if the topic wasn't something I was familiar with. One long piece (almost an entire A4 page) was about "fear of flying" but I had never read anything in Finnish about fear of flying and thought at first it was about flying model airplanes. Despite this I did pass the reading part in both exams, probably because in real life that's where most of my Finnish experience comes from. I did see a sample English language test for level 3 from the same people who set the Finnish language exam and I do wonder about their ability to write exam questions. Some questions in the English reading comprehension could not be answered based on the english text you are given - I'm not sure what is going on here, do they expect some guesswork in addition to understanding what was written or are they just sloppy at writing exam questions.
  
  Speaking - I had no expectation of passing. In over 20 years of living in Finland I can count the conversations done only in Finnish on one hand and phone calls come to zero. So it was no surprise that I failed. should passing speaking be mandatory for citizens? Does it matter since I have lived in the country over 20 years and been in full employment and bought several houses and flats? None of this really matters because currently (2023) it's not mandatory to pass the speaking part.

• Results and retries
  The exam results take two months to arrive (although I think it was more like 6-7 weeks) and if you are in a hurry to apply for citizenship (as there might be changes and a civics test also needed) then new booking days and perhaps even the next exam might arrive before you get your results. there is nothing to stop you applying for another exam before you get the results although you will not get a refund should you book and then get your positive exam result. In one exam the supervisor took great pains to point out that we should not book another test before getting the results, but there are no rules against this and if you are happy to lose the money then you can do it (as a small twist you can book but not immediately pay - this gives a few days grace for you to hope the exam results arrive before you have to pay). For me I got the results of the first exam before the next booking day and I failed speaking & listening in the first test, which meant I did not qualify for citizenship and so I focussed exclusively on listening practice before the second exam (although in my case I also passed writing and reading second time around). It's made quite clear that you must always sit through all four parts of the exam, so in my case I had to go through reading + writing in the second exam regardless that the result meant nothing for my citizenship application (having passed those sections the first time around).

What did I learn after all this?
I think I learned that I should have done all this earlier. the language exam rules became easier in 2012 and I would probably have passed with the same preparation then as now. the citizenship rules are being tightened although since I already applied for citizenship I hopefully avoid having to comply with the new rules and the civics test.
What was important (and it was obvious to me right from the start when deciding to take the YKI test) is that you can study specifically for the exam. Targeting the exact style of question they use and the kinds of answers expected. This is how I passed despite the fact that my language skills today are probably not much better than six months ago before starting this process. Will passing the YKI test help me at work? When filling out my tax return ? probably not. But I will have a Finnish passport and be able to use automated border control at airports and not have to get permission from the ministry of defence when buying properties.