Who is learning Finnish?

[kalmisto]

kweckduck

Here is a Finnish verb conjugator for you :

http://www.verbix.com/languages/finnish.shtml

Finnish verb types :

http://www.verbix.com/languages/finnish ... oups.shtml

[haahatus]

Finnish conjugation could be simpler

[Hank W.]

Or you could be learning Navaho.
"The English verb give is expressed by eleven different verbs in Navajo, depending on the characteristics of the given object."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navajo_language

[loustau]

Or you could be learning Navaho.

"chidí naa'na'í bee'eldqqhtsoh bikáá' dah naaznilígíí 'army tank' (lit., 'a car that they sit up on top of that crawls around with a big thing with which an explosion is made')."

OK, I will stop complaining about finnish...

[Amiel]

Is there anyone going for Suomi 2 next month at University of Helsinki??

[Theriel]

Im lucky when it comes to pronounciation and learning the finnish language.

I have a finnish girlfriend. I just found out about finnishshool.com and its great.
Anywhoo I try and tell her stuff in finnish, but I mostly get frustrated by the irregularities. Feels like learning french all over again.
For instance I look up the verb "give" which is "antaa" only to find out its conjugated as follows: annan, annat, antaa, annamme, annatte, antavat

Go figure ...
But we go on ...

Finnish is not like French. Romance languages are filled with all sorts of exceptions that you just have to learn. Finnish has 50 000 rules but for the most part stays regular after you learn these rules (with some spoken Finnish exceptions, but even many of these are regular, and the ones that aren't are the most common verbs). Basically, Finnish has what's called consonant gradation. It's caused by whether the last vowel in the word is open or closed, ie whether there is a succeeding vowel after it.

This website gives a fairly clear explanation as to what letters have to change.

http://www.uta.fi/~km56049/finnish/gradtables.html

There's a rather complicated history about the consonant gradation which makes it a lot more logical, but just memorize what letters change to what nowadays and you'll find yourself a lot better off

So for instance, lets take the word antaa, to give.

The infinitive is antaa, and the base form is anta. From the base form, you add all the endings. Capital V stands for vowel. Third person singular lengthens the vowel of the verb.

1st step: personal endings.

Anta + n = Antan
Anta + t = Antat
Anta + V = Antaa
Anta + mme = Antamme
Anta + tte = Antatte
Anta + vat = Antavat

Step 2.
Now, we have to look at the syllable structure. It was originally Anta, ending in a vowel. Then a consonant comes along and closes it off. This makes the consonants change. The rule for nt is nt -> nn. Lets take a look at what has to change:

Antan -> Annan
Antat -> Annat
Antaa -> Antaa (note that there was no consonant added here, so you don't have to change anything. The vowel stays open.)
Antamme -> Annamme
Antatte -> Annatte
Antavat -> Antavat (note that again, no consonant closes off the syllable. It'd be: An.ta.vat. the last t closes off the va, but that doesn't matter so much for our nt combination. So nothing has to change).

It's not too difficult to come from the base form to something else, with a bit of thought, but it can sometimes get difficult to figure out what the base form is of a word, in order to look it up in a dictionary. I use these two sites to do that, sometimes, if I can't figure out a word:

http://www.lingsoft.fi/cgi-bin/fintwol

and

http://www.connexor.com/demo/tagger/

In the beginning, it'll take some thinking to work out all the rules, especially for some of the more complicated endings, like in this word, annettaisiin. Eventually, with some practice, the rules will just go into your head and then you'll just say what sounds naturally to you. It gets a lot easier at that point

Hope that helps some, and didn't overwhelm you