Learning this language....

tla · Post by **tla** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 12:36 am

Trying to learn this language is getting me down.. I've lived here for almost 3.5 years now. I can speak and understand the basics and do better one on one. But put me in a group of FInns and I am lost. Sure maybe I can get the main topic of the conversation, but I can't participate or be sure of the details. So frustrating! I am at home with 2 little ones. We live in Espoo so there are a lot of English speakers everywhere. It is rare that I really am forced to use the Finnish I know. I can go for a week without learning a new word. My Finnish husband is no help. Sometimes he'll try to speak in Finnish, but then forgets.
I guess what I have to do is force myself to use Finnish, right? I have to stop being lazy, hoping that one day I'll be fluent. Learn a new word everyday one way or another.
I am getting depressed here. Any tips or advice?

**Sponsor:**

Jukka Aho · Post by **Jukka Aho** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 2:56 am

tla wrote:Any tips or advice?

Have you tried...

Reading a Finnish book? Something short, sweet, and simple for starters – children’s books and novels included.
Reading the daily comic strips published on the papers or on the web? Or buying Finnish-language comic books, magazines, or albums? (They don’t necessarily need to be of Finnish origin. For example, something like the Finnish editions of Asterix, Lucky Luke, or Tintin could do.)
Subscribing to any Finnish magazines? Something related to your hobbies, other interests, or profession, perhaps?
Listening to talk radio? (Either the real thing, as broadcast live, or the streams and podcasts available on the Internet.)
Listening to music sung in Finnish and trying to figure out what the hell the lyrics are all about?
Watching foreign-language tv shows with the Finnish subtitles on? (Perhaps something in a language you don’t know so you’re forced to rely on the subs.)
Watching Finnish tv shows with the Finnish (hard-of-hearing) subtitles on?
Absolutely refusing to “hear” and act on anything your spouse says unless he says it in Finnish? :) If you first don’t quite catch what he means, he would have to explain it in simpler terms in Finnish, instead of simply falling back to English. Windmilling with hands and pointing at things would be allowed – as well as drawing pictures and scribbling explanatory Finnish words on Post-It notes. (A logical extension of this would be explaining your desire to learn the language to your Finnish friends and relatives and then demanding the same from them.)
Exploiting children? Children under the school age can often guide “a dumb adult” surprisingly well if you let them, for instance, by participating in their play. (But they will often deliver their corrections in a rather ruthless way, without any sugar-coating!)
Hanging around in a Finnish chatroom (on IRC, perhaps), or having conversations with Finnish acquaintances (in Finnish, of course) via instant messaging?
Following the discussions on Finnish-language forums or in newsgroups?

Readers of this thread can probably suggest suitable books, magazines, chatrooms, forums, comics, music artists, tv and radio shows, etc. – that is, if you’d like to sample such material. But that should become much easier if you can name some specific genres, interests, or hobbies.

tla · Post by **tla** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 9:15 am

Thanks for all the good advice.

I already go quite a bit of reading in Finnish. I get Vauva lehti in the mail and look at the newspaper everyday. I can actually read much better than I can speak...strange... When listening to Finnish radio I find myself zoning off instead of trying to understand.
Anyway I think what I need to do leave my comfort zone. I should really try to stick with Finnish when talking to my husband and his family. It is really too bad that their English is so good.

Thanks again for all the good ideas. I have to keep trying!

tla · Post by **tla** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 9:17 am

opps, double post

blaugrau · Post by **blaugrau** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 9:37 am

Are you also going to an evening class? This could help to impose a certain regularity to active language learning, assuming also you'd be given homework. Sometimes I think it's difficult to keep up the self-discipline when you're mainly teaching yourself and are trying to pick up the language from your everyday environment. That's where I find taking classes useful: not just for the content of teaching but for the fact that it's a fixed, agreed and externally imposed time for learning Finnish every week.

EP · Post by EP » Mon Sep 08, 2008 12:57 pm

I can actually read much better than I can speak...strange

No, not strange at all. That´s how all language learning goes (any language). First you understand written text, then spoken language, then you start to speak yourself, and the last stage is writing.

Jukka gave very good advice.

I learned French by "sink or swim" technique: Watching French TV (all in French or dubbed), reading comic books, trying to decipher newspapers, and so on. A friend of mine learned Finnish from my children.

Oombongo · Post by **Oombongo** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 2:15 pm

I had the same problems. What I figure out:

1. If you start to remember words then it is the first step to learn the language
2. I usually remember words by objects. For example, a book is paksu
3. By trying to poke my nose in others' matters, and what they are talking about

Alastair · Post by **Alastair** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 2:33 pm

A book is kirja just as a side note :p

Ya could just add a bunch of Finns to your msn and talk Finnish at them.

Travmies · Post by **Travmies** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 2:47 pm

A question for Alastair:

Do you work, study and so on in a Finnish or English environment?

Alastair · Post by **Alastair** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 2:50 pm

So paksu is a textbook or some such? I did a year of Finnish high school but that was a few years ago so I've forgotten the slang

onkko · Post by **onkko** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 2:52 pm

i dont know if this is effective or good way but saw it in my friends home, there were post it notes everywhere naming everything.
Kahvinkeitin, ovi, kuppi, lautanen, allas etc.. almost all had note in it

onkko · Post by **onkko** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 2:55 pm

Alastair wrote:So paksu is a textbook or some such? I did a year of Finnish high school but that was a few years ago so I've forgotten the slang

Paksu is fat/thight etc. so paksu kirja would be book with many pages, big book.

Alastair · Post by **Alastair** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 3:05 pm

Gah, the closer I scrutinise my Finnish the bigger holes I see. Oh well where talent fails stubborness remains. I remembered the word but not the meaning.

As a side note tla (and anyone else), if you want to practice Finnish with someone who surely cannot laugh at you you can add my MSN (musiclover86@hotmail.com) and we'll either speak in Finnish only or not speak :p

raamv · Post by **raamv** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 3:51 pm

onkko wrote:i dont know if this is effective or good way but saw it in my friends home, there were post it notes everywhere naming everything.
Kahvinkeitin, ovi, kuppi, lautanen, allas etc.. almost all had note in it

One of my favorite ways!!
Cept I have it posted at my work table at my office..Mainly for action words ( verbs) etc

onkko · Post by **onkko** » Mon Sep 08, 2008 4:29 pm

raamv wrote:
onkko wrote:i dont know if this is effective or good way but saw it in my friends home, there were post it notes everywhere naming everything.
Kahvinkeitin, ovi, kuppi, lautanen, allas etc.. almost all had note in it
One of my favorite ways!!
Cept I have it posted at my work table at my office..Mainly for action words ( verbs) etc

There was some verbs too, "tämä on kuppi, kupista juodaan" "tämä on vessanpönttö, pönttöön.... (written by man so in your imagination

)"
Dont be too shy to speak, we will understand even if you do mistake like mixing "tappamaan" (to kill) and "tapaamaan" (to meet). "menen tappamaan sukulaisia"

Well know youre not going to massacre your relatives

But that was fun and she will hear about it till end.

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