Is Finnish a difficult language to learn?

[Hank W.]

Thats your problem? I have never had a problem with that. Even when I lived in Kungsböle, so the environment doesn't explain it either.

[sinikala]

I find Finnish impossible, I cant remember the words after ten mins, and I just cant get my head around the words in Finnish.
How did you get on with Finnish?

So the OP finds Finnish hard and asks how others get along with it.

And to our Irish friend - I tried to learn Irish. And you complain of Finnish?

He wasn't complaining, he was asking how others get along, not an unreasonable question on a discussion board.

Thats your problem? I have never had a problem with that. Even when I lived in Kungsböle, so the environment doesn't explain it either.

If you haven't already passed out in a dribbling heap over your keyboard, then might I suggest you put aside you jumbo sized bottle of tramp fuel and go for a lie down?

[Hank W.]

How about your imperialist majesty learns Finnish yourself before telling me anything. The Irish at least can make whiskey. Your contribution to the world is carpetted bogs. We at least invented the drying cabinet. I'm not that proud of acidic cowfeed unless you have to smell it.

[sinikala]

How about your imperialist majesty learns Finnish yourself before telling me anything. The Irish at least can make whiskey. Your contribution is carpetted bogs.

Suositellen että menet nukkumaan ennen kirjoitat jotain enemmän tyhmä kuin mitä kirjoitit jo, perseenreikä.

[Hank W.]

Itse asut perseessä sekundaturkulainen, ja Pansio on reikä. Lopeta se paremmillesi avautuminen .

[enk]

I find Finnish impossible, I cant remember the words after ten mins, and I just cant get my head around the words in Finnish.
How did you get on with Finnish?

How long have you been trying to learn Finnish? When I first started learning it, I ended up
with a lot of migraines and headaches, so my solutino was to immerse myself in it 24/7, sleep
a lot and take enough meds to keep the migraines away. A while later, something just clicked
(without the help of booze) and the words looked logical and became easy to remember. It does
get easier, although it may not seem like it right this sec.

-enk

[Hank W.]

Maybe you should give those tips list to the poor Chinese nursing students... does Finnish come in small packets like Samarin?

[Karhunkoski]

I find Finnish impossible, I cant remember the words after ten mins, and I just cant get my head around the words in Finnish.
How did you get on with Finnish?


(PS I'm from ireland, and I dont have a background in any other language.)

Your first problem is that you were born in the wrong country to begin with. If you had been born in Finland, you would have had English language training from the age of 8 or 9 right through until you left lukio at 19. If you had at least a partial interest in television, cinema or music, you would be constantly bombarded with English language. As a Finn told me, in Finland it is extremely difficult not to learn English. That's not to say it didn't require any effort from the likes of Hank, Sammy, EP and Tiswas, in order to develop their skills, however you can safely ignore Hank's comment asking "is English is easy to learn", the insinuation that Hank is attempting is not comparing apples with apples. For you it will be a completely different experience, you are trying to "learn" things at an age where your brain is already less receptive to new material than it was when you were a child or teenager, you've quite possibly never really heard the language before you met your Finnish partner (assuming you have one), and most definitely you never saw an Finnish language TV when you were back home in Ireland. You're in for an uphill struggle, but you can do it!

Back to your question.

Finnish is extremely difficult to learn, although you will see from Sinikala's post that it is quite possible to learn.

- dont try to learn too many new words a day, 10 is more than enough, possibly 5 is fine
- put more effort into learning phrases rather than words, it gives you more of a feel for the language
- as soon as you can, start watching Finnish language films (I recommend Ari Kaurismäki as there isn't too much speaking and you get time to dissect the words and absorb the meaning before the next speech)
- once your grammar skills are getting more advanced, try reading newspapers and magazines, choosing one on a topic that interests you will help. Don't try to do this too soon though as it will frustrate the hell out of you if you don't know how to break an inflected, consonant graduated word down into it's basic form so you can look it up in a dictionary (you will have noticed that "mäellä" is not in the dictionary, you need enough grammar to know that you should remove the "llä", then change the "e" to an "i" and then add a "k" in there just after the first ä, so you can then look "mäki" up in the dictionary ). You could of course have started by looking through all words that start with "mä", but that would be plain silly.
- if you have a Finnish speaking partner, use Finnish as soon as you can, have "Finnish only" days.
- think about you targets in the future and how exactly you intend to use your Finnish. If you are aiming for work where you will need to write in FInnish, it is well worth concentrating in the "book language", i.e. learn "minä menen", however if you just want to be able to communicate verbally with Finns, concentrate more on the spoken language early on, i.e "mä meen".

I think it's important not to try too hard with Finnish, learn the basics from a book and then immerse yourself in Finnish language media, television and screen, after all, that's how most Finns learned their English, and why so many speak with an American "hollywood" accent.

Good Luck!

[Pete]

Now that's an answer! Nice post Karhunkoski.

As for me, i learnt Finnish as a toddler seeing as my parents are Finns (take note of that Hänk). I was fluent up until halfway through my primary school years when i began to speak less and less Finnish. Fast forward to high school and i was pretty much just hearing Finnish and never actually speaking it much at all. I was a little embarrassed at the time that my folks were immigrants and i just wanted to be a regular Aussie.
So when i moved here i was almost starting from scratch, save fro the fact that i understood most of what i heard. Using the lingo myself though was very very hard and i struggled for the first year. These days i consider myself to speak quite well but have yet to do any actual courses, i have just picked it up by 'osmosis' and by screaming into puddles.
That has taken a bit over 3 years now and taking into account my background in the language, you could say that yes, Finnish is a very difficult language to learn.

[Hank W.]

I was a little embarrassed at the time that my folks were immigrants and i just wanted to be a regular Aussie.

That is actually a a very usual phenomenon, in some emigrant families the parents also push the kids to become more native than the natives, while in some they try to keep some of the heritage while the kids think the parents are bunk.

These days i consider myself to speak quite well but have yet to do any actual courses, i have just picked it up by 'osmosis' and by screaming into puddles.

Its called "learning by natural method" actually Theres a combination of grammar/formal study vs. natural method that usually depends on the individual and how they need to use the language. But "going native" is always an eye-opener, doing the snow angles after you know how to explain to the cops you are not high on anything helps though.

[Hank W.]

however you can safely ignore Hank's comment asking "is English is easy to learn", the insinuation that Hank is attempting is not comparing apples with apples.

Not at all because
- English spelling and pronunciation match just occasionally.... homonyms, homophones...
- English pronunciation varies as anything
- Theres gendered pronouns
- Theres more exceptions to rules than rules.
- theres more conventions than rules, and they change constantly (like starting a business letter)
- English is a language full of figures of speech you cannot comprehend if you just translate, you need to "live" the language.

So don't know if it is the French or Germans to blame, but English seems to have inherited the bunk of both. French is horrid, German is uniform but horrid with the sex-changing objects, Spanish is horrid only when you start to delve into the verbs... Don't know if Swedish is more horrid than German as it only has two articles but how they then define the word... The only language I ever enjoyed learning was Afrikaans, the grammar is perfect, the pronunciation is a killer. Oh, and then to Finno-Ugric languages, Estonian is darn difficult to learn at an old age as I hate reading grammars, but the "standing in a puddle screaming" method works there too... I'm sure that if the EU went really ahead and took an "official" language everyone is disadvantaged in, say like "Interlingua" or Lingua Franca Nova and put every schoolkid to scream it in kindergarten we'd have a true common market in a few generations... Funny thing is I can "understand" both of those... franca nova has a bit of a Portugese touch somehow... hrm...

[blaugrau]

off topic, but the latest reason to scream that Finnish gave me was when I came across this phrase in my textbook:

lentokone lentää korkealla ilmassa

AARGH. Why not "korkealla ilmalla" or "korkeassa ilmassa" (= corresponding cases) ?! So much for Finnish being "logical" (not that I ever thought that it was more or less "logical" than any other language out there).

[blaugrau]

I think what makes a language "easier" to learn is that the learner him/herself has at least some experience with language learning (in the sense that s/he has learnt at least one other language to a fluent level, not just a few touristy phrases) -- because then s/he is likely to have found out which methods of learning work for her/him -- which will make the learning process more efficient. If it is the first foreign language you learn, you'll have to deal with a lot more issues, i.e. getting your head round the fact that other languages "work" differently (use different concepts), that you'll have to learn to give up translating foreign concepts 1:1 into English etc. etc. Better not underestimate this substantial first threshold that you'll have to overcome. From that perspective, the easiness of a language is less to do with the "nature" of the foreign language itself than with the background in language learning you have.

This comment is not intended to put you off learning Finnish, quite on the contrary, I just wanted to point out that part of the effort is to find out which ways of language learning work best for you, and be prepared that it takes a lot of effort and discipline (in short: blood, sweat and tears), and that learning a language is seldom a walk in the park (unless you're a toddler). But it's completely do-able, so don't let yourself be put off by the inevitable drawbacks you will encounter along the way.

[Hank W.]

lentokone lentää korkealla ilmassa

AARGH. Why not "korkealla ilmalla" or "korkeassa ilmassa" (= corresponding cases) ?! So much for Finnish being "logical" (not that I ever thought that it was more or less "logical" than any other language out there).

Well, because they are not corresponding to each other. They are corresponding to the airplane.
Lentokone on korkealla. high up
Lentokone on ilmassa. in the air

If you say korkealla ilmalla (on high weather) or korkeassa ilmassa (in high air) then korkea corresponds to ilma, and not airplane.

[chickensexer]

off topic, but the latest reason to scream that Finnish gave me was when I came across this phrase in my textbook:

lentokone lentää korkealla ilmassa

AARGH. Why not "korkealla ilmalla" or "korkeassa ilmassa" (= corresponding cases) ?! So much for Finnish being "logical" (not that I ever thought that it was more or less "logical" than any other language out there).

well, just for the record - I can't even speak the language.

but here I think I might have an idea. the reason of mismatch of case endings is not that we are dealing with a phrase here. I mean I don't think tht it's just "korkea ilma" put into some grammatical conjugation. I think it could be something like "korkealla" - to indicate that it was flying high, "ilmassa" - well, in the air.

in other words, the sentence isn't intended as "the plane was flying in high air" but as "the plane was flying on hight in the air. in which case i find the grmmar totally logical.

i have no idea wether i'm right or not, it's just a guess.