Relearning Finnish

[Jut11a]

When very young (<kuusi), my parents spoke Finnish which I picked up on. I learned English in first grade; the teacher knew Finnish. In fact most people in my area spoke the language here in the States. I forgot much of it except for some of the major words such as the days (perjantai), the numbers (viisi) and some of the months (joulukuu). My Finnish is early 20th century stateside Finnish. My Finnish nephew told me to learn 21st century Finnish. eek! I am also 65 vuotta vanha. My half-brother speaks fluent Finnish and still has his accent. Many people ask me on the phone if I am Scandinavian but I tell them no and that I was brought up puhutin suomen kieli. Currently I am retyping a Finnish nelia kyymenen page cookbook pamphlet using a German keyboard. The pamphlet was published in 1913 in Michigan. Sorry for any misspellings. Thanks.

[Rasikko]

If you are seriously wanting to relearn it.. I think you may need to visit Finland as the language material is plentiful, or find a Finnish group in the states. It was very difficult for me to learn Finnish during the time I was over there for several reasons:

1. Finnish books were not sold where I lived.
2. Didn't know much about Finland's culture, like music, news, etc, things that could expose me to the language.
3. Perhaps the biggest damper: Finnish is not taught as a foreign language, anywhere officially in the US. As you know it's just English, Spanish, German, French that is taught there.

I scrambled for finnish info online, and it took a long time before I found sites containing info that was actually concrete. Finnish Language seems to be a victim of misinformation.

Once I moved to Finland to live with my (finnish) wife, the opportunities to learn Finnish grew exponentially. Classes, books, the Finns, etc.

Good luck.