sinikala wrote:I have only tried that with foreign languages where I have some understanding of the original (French / German / Spanish) with Finnish subtitles. To use it purely as a language learning tool where you sit down pausing often and checking vocab / phrases, then it would surely work, but unless you have some understanding of the orginal language to give clues, it would offer no obvious benefit IMHO over watching a Finnish programme and reading the subtitles.
One of the obvious benefits is that you get a wider choice for your exercise material – not having to rely only on the locally-produced shows and not having to rely on YLE alone. As you probably know, YLE is currently the only broadcaster that offers this Finnish-subtitles-on-Finnish-shows service here – despite airing Finnish shows, MTV3, Nelonen, etc. don’t subtitle them as they’re under no obligation to serve the minorities. And YLE’s hard-of-hearing subtitling coverage isn’t the best imaginable, either – in 1997, they subtitled only about 20% of all their Finnish language programming; a relatively low figure, methinks. (I’m not sure what the current numbers are but I don’t think there has been any radical change lately, one way or the other.)
In any case, my point was that if the audio track is in your mother tongue, or in some other language you already happen to know, it does not challenge you as much – if at all – simply because there’s then no real incentive for you to try and rely on the Finnish subtitles. What dialog you catch from the audio track cannot be unheard. (On the other hand, what you
could do – even when watching English language shows – is mute the audio, of course.)
sinikala wrote:Seems like a lot of work for little benefit, and something which for me at least would be less than enjoyable (learning should be fun).
I’d wager the ‘enjoyability’ of it all would depend solely on your current skill level in your language studies... and, of course, your personal preferences (and, possibly, prejudices) concerning different studying/learning methods. I’m not sure why every quick suggestion delivered in this thread should be measured primarily through
your personal experiences and preferences
alone, though, in that overly comdemning and dismissive tone. Different individuals vary quite a much in how they learn things and which methods they prefer and consider “fun”, and the situation will even change over the time as they advance in their language studies. How about letting the OP herself decide on the methods she would like to try out? :)
Sinikala wrote:The teaching / learning method has to be appropriate to the learner.
That is something we do agree. Do you know the OP personally?
Sinikala wrote:You are Finnish, so you received how many years of formal English instruction in school? 7? 8? 9? The OP has been here 3.5 years
I don’t see the point of this comparison – it’s all getting a bit ridiculous, really. Nowhere in this thread have I suggested that the OP should possess Finnish skills equivalent to my English skills. Or below or above that level, for that matter. I have only made a quick list of some ideas the OP might want to try out, in response to her original post, if she feels like it. If she doesn’t feel like it – or if she doesn’t feel like it
at her current skill level – no-one’s going to force her to do anything. Given such a strong reaction from you, it appears as if you think my simple list of suggestions as being somehow “imperative”. Well, it’s not – if that’s what you’re worried about. :)
Sinikala wrote:Simply speaking in Finnish at home - having "Finnish only days" without reinforcement or supporting studies will result in things not being communicated, frustration (on both sides) and IMHO rapid failure.
My intention has not been to suggest that any single method discussed in this thread would be the silver bullet for learning the language – much less that any of them should be used in isolation, without supporting language studies to back them off. On the contrary: reading the grammar and dictionaries, attending to language courses, doing your assignments, etc. are, of course, the normal required activity for building the foundation you need in order to acquire a new language.
When it comes to learning languages I’m very much in favor of tackling the problem in various different ways, instead of just relying on one method alone.
Sinikala wrote:At home, we speak about 1/3 Finnish, 2/3 English. I have been here almost 3x as long as the OP, and outside of the home & workplace I speak only Finnish, but I can tell that if my wife were to speak only Finnish to me, then a lot would go over my head, or we have to slow the conversation down whilst I quiz her on what she just said (I do this anyway - and I know the limits that can be pushed).
Having you contribute your personal experiences to this thread is a nice and valuable thing to do, and I thank you for providing that insight. What I don’t understand, however, is why you seem so keen to consider your personal experiences as some sort of a universal measure for linguistic development. Are you sure your experiences can be directly applied to the OP’s situation – or that the OP, indeed, learns languages exactly the same way and at the same pace as you do, and has identical spouse/relationship dynamics to yours? I’m not saying she doesn’t; I’m just curious where that stong assumption comes from.
Sinikala wrote:Once again, a direct question .... do you have any experience of that method, or not?
I have already told I’ve observed the results of that method being used in practice, with the Brazilian exchange student. It worked, at least in that case. That does not seem to be enough for you, for some reason. Drilling the same “loaded” question over and over again just to “prove your point” does seem a bit counterproductive and shallow, though. :)
Sinikala wrote:Having never met one, I'm sceptical of the mythical "fluent in 6 months" prodigies, though I suppose a vocab of 5000 words would take a 50 days if you could learn 100 new words per day.
His vocabulary (and accent) was enough to fool a native speaker in a casual conversation and friendly banter. We’d run into words he wasn’t familiar with, of course, but then he just asked what it meant and carried on. But his command of the case inflections, pronunciation, etc. – essentially, all the basic “machinery” of the language – was nothing short of excellent for the short time he had used to get at that point. There were occasional slips, but nothing “systematic” that would have readily given him away as a non-native speaker.
One of the things that probably worked in his favor was his pronunciation, as I couldn’t really trace any “foreign” accent in it. In hindsight, I suspect his mother tongue could possibly have been phonetically similar to Finnish. (I have forgotten what that language was, exactly, but it was neither Portuguese nor Spanish... Must have been some
smaller, locally spoken language as I recall I had never heard of it before and had to ask him to repeat its name for me.)
sinikala wrote:[IRC] Never used it. Don't know anybody that does
Well, I guess not everyone has been here since the Beginning of Times. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. :) (Enk does, or at least used to, and has actually revealed on this very forum that it helped her to learn Finnish.)
IRC has been a “canonical”, widely-used Internet service since its conception in 1989. (That was back in the days when the
other widely-used Internet services comprised of
FTP[/url], telnet, finger, email, and Usenet newsgroups. Berners-Lee only unleashed his new-fangled “WWW” concept a couple of years later.) It really did not have any viable competiton until the IM clients (Yahoo/MSN/etc. “messengers”) came out.
Helsinki University of Technology, and I belive TUT as well – most likely the Ouluites too, as IRC was originally developed there – have been using IRC servers and channels as semi-official communication means on many of their courses for a long time. (Students who have enrolled on the same course can communicate with each other and with their assistants while doing their assignments.)
Discussion “channels” – an IRC term for what some people call “chatrooms” – can be created by anyone, at any time, for any purpose. They can be public or private. Some may require an invitation, some may be “secret” in the sense they don’t appear in the channel listing. There is, or at least used to be, a discussion or support channel on IRC for just about any major OS, computer program, popular tv show, band, hobby, sports team, and special interest. Especially in the case of open source software, the related channels are often officially maintained by the very same people who run the project in the first place. That said, most channels don’t have any official “affiliation”. Some channels are based on a certain locale – intended primarily for those who live within the same city or neighborhood, for example. Some have some other generic theme. Some others are personal in their nature, gathering only a small circle of close friends or like-minded occupants.
There are dozens of different IRC clients (programs that allow you to connect to an IRC network and join the channels) for various platforms.
sinikala wrote:No disrespect, I'm sure it's great fun, just not many people (1 in 64) use it compared to the number who use e-mail or W3.
They’re different services for different purposes, so I can’t see what purpose comparing the number of their users would even serve. In the end, it’s only a handful of people (and channels) you can handle at any one time, anyway. Moreover, it is rather difficult to assess “the number of users on IRC” as it varies over the time of the day, weekday, month, etc., and there are dozens of different IRC networks of which I only listed some in my previous post.
But it is true that the popularity of IRC – despite being the original multiuser chat service on Internet – has been in decline lately since so many people are now using IM clients for much the same things.
One of the benefits of IRC – when compared to the IM world at large – is that there is no owner or central management for the service, or anything like that. While ISPs often run IRC servers for their customers, they’re usually a part of some larger network, and the service itself is not tied to any single company or their individual server. There are several different competing IRC networks to choose from, and anyone can put up a server on their own, or even establish such a network from scratch if they like.
Well...I kind of think it's "chic".... If someone one asks what I'm doing these days...sometimes I'll tell them..."Well, a lot of bicycle riding up steep hills, and ...oh, yes...I'm learning Finnish.".... "What's that??"...they say... 
"Learning Finnish?? What for?? Are you Finnish??" "No"..I say, it's a nice challenge and lots of fun too.".... 
this (i) must mean that I seem more appoachable in my old age, as I tend not to go out of my way to be friendly to sales assistants but (ii) it really makes me squirm and I'd rather they didn't say things like that... what are you supposed to say back ...? "Oh, well you sell mobile phone contracts very well" ... no, enough of the small talk, just stick to selling me stuff. 
