As an aside - rather bizarrely - my Finnish mother is better with spelling English than Finnish, to the extent that she mispelled my middle name as Lena instead of Leena. Her sister is Marja-Leena so I can't work that one out at allRob A. wrote:But, I agree regarding spelling. The close correlation between letters and sounds makes spelling one of the easiest parts of learning Finnish...even as a second language. But for many native English speakers, proper spelling remains a life-long challenge, even for some very bright people. The "disconnect" between English spelling and pronunciation is pretty much a cliche. French spelling, too, can be difficult, but it does seem to follow a bit more of a pattern.
But she has told me that she never felt her schooling was a priority when she was growing up, noone really cared if she was at school or not. But she decided for herself later that her education was important - to escape Finland if nothing else - and managed to graduate high school, then go on to do all her nursing studies and exams in England, in English, which probably improved her skills there quite a bit. She knows a lot about grammar in general too, which she would say is from having learnt Latin for a while at school and really enjoyed it (a weird language to learn in Finland.. or anywhere!)
What this all shows, I think, is the importance of motivation for learning - not just how objectively easy or hard something should be.
I don´t actually remember much Latin ( 
) but I do remember declining verbs with endless repetition & learning nouns by nominitive, genitive & plural (I think!), so I think it may have programmed my brain just a little to help me with learning Finnish................but there again...