Where can I get Finnish flashcards?

[Pursuivant]

I now think about how they might look if they were "toughened" up a bit....bring in a "k" or change that "e" to an "i"....

And a Scot is just the man to toughen 'em.

Nimeni on Bond. Henrikki Vilhelmi Pöythenius Bond.

Nimeni on Side, Jaakko Side... ravistettuna eikä sekoitettuna....

[Rob A.]

That analog is not complete. No mention of where the house has come from (what's it made of?) That house couldn't have just dropped from above, could it? It needs to be built with bricks! the fact the most grammar lovers invariably seem to overlook.

You need vocabularies...the most effective way of gaining vocabulary is to understand them while being used in a context.. so reading, listening is the key. while one does that, he grabs grammartical usage knowingly and unknowingly. One cannot deny the significance of grammars but the problem is getting to know it. Most are discouraged and disoriented because of these grammartical rules. Once one has a surface knowledge of grammar, it's enough. Rest are picked up on a 'need-to-know' basis. I could express my own views on earlier posts but I don't wanna sound language experts because I am not.

I came across this guy via google.. whom I more or less agree with. The purpose of me posting here on this issue is just an attempt to tell people that there's more than just grammar to focus on while learning languages. That's it.

Good post....and thanks for the link.... And I see no contradiction between what Steve Kaufmann is saying and what most of the posters in this thread are saying.... "Steve says you need to recognise and know how to use around 10,000 words in the correct situations to be adequately fluent."

I suppose, essentially, our debate is about the "know how to use" portion of Steve's "formula".... And I agree this knowledge can be acquired naturally ....and so you are learning the grammar without focussing on the grammatical rules because you are using the language in ways that "produce results"...i.e. you are making yourself understood.

For example, you learn that if you add "-ssa" to "talo" and then add "-ni" to the end, people will know you are talking about something inside your house..... throw in an "i" between the "o" and the "s" and now people know you are talking about more than one house. And you gradually learn to use this same pattern elsewhere. and with some words also changing the letters in yet another systematic manner and, voila, people understand....

Nevertheless you are still learning grammar, you are just not being overwhelmed by it as some sort of boring academic exercise.... though "mavens" such as myself still like this grammatical stuff, though I've generally said that I realize doing this isn't necessary in order to actually learn another language.

I remember, as a kid, many Italian immigrants who had learned English as adults....most, particularly the males (....because they were out of the house and on the job) ...could speak English well enough to communicate...though they weren't going to be poet laureates..... And for the most part, they would have picked up this knowledge on the job.....Some might have gone to night school, but I can't really remember that being a significant thing.... I would think it was simply the "massive input" approach over a sufficient period of time.... but I doubt most would have been very effective writers of English, though...and many probably weren't very effective writers of Italian either....

[tuulen]

...The foreigners I know who can communicate reasonably effectively in Finnish never did the courses, they just threw themselves in the deep end, got a job and muddled through. (OK, they may not be up to Institute of Linguists standards but.... maybe that was never their goal)

There are those who have a profound knowledge of grammar, going FAR beyond my personal comprehension, but it happens that simple grammatical terms really can be useful, indeed, a shortcut. For instance, physical objects are nouns, and so all physical objects can be spoken of by the rules of just one class of word, as a noun. The same goes for verbs. Moreover, nouns have their rules, verbs have their rules, and between just those two sets of rules a substantial percentage of all of the words in a dictionary could be dealt with handily. Once the rules of nouns and verbs are known then there are no other rules to learn for those two classes of words. That is a fantastic reduction of effort, orders of magnitude of efficiency! And, such grammatical organization can readily be applied to numerous other languages, as well, which means a person could explore a multitude of languages, all with roughly equal efficiency.

I enjoy exploring languages because a language reflects the way a person thinks, and people from all over the world are so interesting to learn about. And, a bit of basic grammar goes a long way toward learning about all of those people, and how they see the world around them.

[tuulen]

Good post....and thanks for the link.... And I see no contradiction between what Steve Kaufmann is saying and what most of the posters in this thread are saying.... "Steve says you need to recognise and know how to use around 10,000 words in the correct situations to be adequately fluent."

I suppose, essentially, our debate is about the "know how to use" portion of Steve's "formula".... And I agree this knowledge can be acquired naturally ....and so you are learning the grammar without focussing on the grammatical rules because you are using the language in ways that "produce results"...i.e. you are making yourself understood...

Thank you, and you beat me to it, for what you said is closely along the lines of what I would have said.

[Rob A.]

I now think about how they might look if they were "toughened" up a bit....bring in a "k" or change that "e" to an "i"....

And a Scot is just the man to toughen 'em.

Nimeni on Bond. Henrikki Vilhelmi Pöythenius Bond.

Nimeni on Side, Jaakko Side... ravistettuna eikä sekoitettuna....

I just looked up the various meanings of Side.... but I still haven't quite figured out the rest of it ...something about "shaking" and not "mixing"....

Oh well....without the full "grammatical" understanding... ...I don't quite get it....

[AldenG]

I guess the closest thing Finnish has to "stir" must be hämmentää, although that doesn't convey the circular element of stirring. Interesting, I never noticed that before. It's almost a missing word. Maybe not quite.

P's comment was a reference, of course to "shaken, not stirred." (Hard-core Bond aficionados will recognize that both versions have actually occurred: shaken, not stirred and -- which is more like the character of Bond -- stirred, not shaken.)

That reminds me of the headline I saw last year on a review of (I think) a theatrical play:

Audience shaken, not stirred

Or was it actually about the most recent Bond film, I can't recall. Personally I like Daniel Craig and think he has brought some testosterone back to a franchise that had devolved into insipid self-parody. That chase scene across construction sites in his debut as Bond was the first thing in a long time that has been as exciting as the original Bonds felt in their day.

[Jukka Aho]

I guess the closest thing Finnish has to "stir" must be hämmentää, although that doesn't convey the circular element of stirring. Interesting, I never noticed that before. It's almost a missing word. Maybe not quite.

Hämmentää is probably in the process of falling out of general use as a cooking term – in the active vocabulary of the younger people, anyway: I suspect they might find the dual meaning too hämmentävä... and I think sekoittaa actually does imply circular motion whenever it is used in contexts where liquids or comparable substances (soup or whatever) are processed using some tool suitable for stirring. (“Hän sekoitti puuroa kauhallansa”, for example.)

[AldenG]

... and I think sekoittaa actually does imply circular motion whenever it is used in contexts where liquids or comparable substances (soup or whatever) are processed using some tool suitable for stirring. (“Hän sekoitti puuroa kauhallansa”, for example.)

That's a good thing to know. As a foreigner I probably tend to be too literal about such words. I associate to seka and sekoitus and absorb a notion that the verb is more about the outcome (having something that is mixed together) than the manner. But a ravistettu martini is still going to be a "mixed" drink. In fact, I think Bond's point might be that it is too mixed compared to one that has only been stirred with a swizzle stick. I'm not entirely persuaded that Bond's martini fetish can be adequately translated into a tight little phrase in Finnish. That could be my lack of full appreciation of the subtleties, though. Plus dearth of active vocabulary.

It was always a stretch. Daniel Craig's Bond, when asked by the bartender whether he wants it shaken or stirred, gives him a flinty stare and asks, Do I look like someone who cares? I thought that was only an inch short of brilliant.

[Jukka Aho]

... and I think sekoittaa actually does imply circular motion whenever it is used in contexts where liquids or comparable substances (soup or whatever) are processed using some tool suitable for stirring. (“Hän sekoitti puuroa kauhallansa”, for example.)

That's a good thing to know. As a foreigner I probably tend to be too literal about such words. I associate to seka and sekoitus and absorb a notion that the verb is more about the outcome (having something that is mixed together) than the manner.

That’s not a bad characterization. The manner is mostly implied from the context: how people will usually accomplish the task (sekoittaminen) in the described situation, with the described tools. If you have a pot full of porridge and you’re using a kitchen spoon to sekoittaa it, circular motion is what comes to you naturally. Doing it any other way, for no particular reason, would be strange and unexpected. So if this scene is described to someone in Finnish, circular motion (stirring) is the “assumed” interpretation... unless you are given a reason to suspect otherwise.

Things might not be that clear in some other contexts where you would use the verb. But if they aren’t, and if they aren’t specified in more detail, then the exact methodology of mixing/stirring probably doesn’t matter.

[irnbru]

Who's been stirring who's porridge? Is this about John Terry?

[Rosamunda]

...The foreigners I know who can communicate reasonably effectively in Finnish never did the courses, they just threw themselves in the deep end, got a job and muddled through. (OK, they may not be up to Institute of Linguists standards but.... maybe that was never their goal)

There are those who have a profound knowledge of grammar, going FAR beyond my personal comprehension, but it happens that simple grammatical terms really can be useful, indeed, a shortcut.

Yes of course grammar is a short cut, but only for people for whom accuracy is a priority over fluency. I think learning the rules can actually slow down progress (students hesitate trying to think up the rule, try to construct grammatically accurate sentences before attempting to produce them). Students who "discover" the rules for themselves by actually producing language in the context of their daily routines are the ones who seem to make the fastest progress. With a lexical approach the student is learning vocabulary with the grammar intrinsically woven in, so it becomes effortless. And easier to accomplish independently and outside the classroom.

For instance, physical objects are nouns, and so all physical objects can be spoken of by the rules of just one class of word, as a noun. The same goes for verbs. Moreover, nouns have their rules, verbs have their rules, and between just those two sets of rules a substantial percentage of all of the words in a dictionary could be dealt with handily. Once the rules of nouns and verbs are known then there are no other rules to learn for those two classes of words. That is a fantastic reduction of effort, orders of magnitude of efficiency!

Not sure I know what you mean by "a substantial percentage of all the words in a dictionary could be dealth with handily". As both a teacher and a learner of foreign languages, I have never thought of language acquisition as a process of "dealing with words in a dictionary".

[tuulen]

Yes of course grammar is a short cut, but only for people for whom accuracy is a priority over fluency. I think learning the rules can actually slow down progress (students hesitate trying to think up the rule, try to construct grammatically accurate sentences before attempting to produce them). Students who "discover" the rules for themselves by actually producing language in the context of their daily routines are the ones who seem to make the fastest progress. With a lexical approach the student is learning vocabulary with the grammar intrinsically woven in, so it becomes effortless. And easier to accomplish independently and outside the classroom.

First, penelope, I have enjoyed reading your response to my post, thank you, and let me admit that I have had to think carefully before responding, for a number of reasons. However, to suggest that accuracy could be a priority over fluency contradicts my own experience, and let me explain. For instance, many years ago I was a student of mechanical engineering, and for the first couple of years I figuratively pounded my head against a wall, while being saturated with all but endless theories, of mathematics, physics, engineering, etc. Yet, there eventually came a point where a virtual ocean of theories somehow melded into place in my brain, and my grades as a student then went from good to nearly perfect. Now, I am not trained in language grammar and I recognize that grammar indeed can go to levels far beyond my comprehension, and yet I can apply the same lessons that I learned as an engineering student, in that even basic grammar can help to radically organize a language, especially a grammar dependent language such as Finnish. True, as a student I was "dedicated" to the study of engineering, 24/7, and so I can understand that grammar rules might only be useful to a language student who could similarly be dedicated.

Not sure I know what you mean by "a substantial percentage of all the words in a dictionary could be dealth with handily". As both a teacher and a learner of foreign languages, I have never thought of language acquisition as a process of "dealing with words in a dictionary".

Well, most languages are made up of words, but not an infinite number of words, and apparently most of the words of any given language could be labeled with a grammatical title, and perhaps more than one, for instance, perhaps some words could have more than one grammatical classification. Then, it is a matter of learning all of the grammatical rules which could apply to any word classification, for any particular language, but once that is done then all of the words in a dictionary of that language could be managed by the grammatical rules.

My approach to language acquisition might not be universally appreciated, but it works for me.

[AldenG]

Anything that builds the right neural reflexes works. Some things work faster than others, but that does vary among people.

As long as you're saying things correctly without thinking about how to say them or why it is correct to say them that way, it doesn't matter how you reached that point. For most people, that comes from practice speaking correctly aloud, but what they do to get ready to practice speaking is each person's own watch. There IS a lot of thinking involved in the early stages of learning. It can't be all rote and it can't be all reasoning.

As a concert-trained pianist, I can say that sometimes even such a skill benefits from taking a break from playing or from thinking about the smallest movements or from listening to or watching others play. You still can't get there without so much practice playing that your fingers lead you through the piece -- just as eventually you have to speak so much Finnish that it comes in your sleep. It's not the fingers that lead a pianist astray, it's thinking too much during the performance. There are many, many pieces I knew long ago that I can play if I just let the fingers lead, but I couldn't write or hum or hear the piece in my imagination without losing my way.

You can almost always tell when someone is thinking their way through a sentence -- not least when that someone is oneself.

[tuulen]

...As a concert-trained pianist, I can say that sometimes even such a skill benefits from taking a break from playing or from thinking about the smallest movements or from listening to or watching others play. You still can't get there without so much practice playing that your fingers lead you through the piece -- just as eventually you have to speak so much Finnish that it comes in your sleep. It's not the fingers that lead a pianist astray, it's thinking too much during the performance. There are many, many pieces I knew long ago that I can play if I just let the fingers lead, but I couldn't write or hum or hear the piece in my imagination without losing my way...

Music? I am a flautist, and I began playing the wind decades ago, as a dedicated amateur. My favorite is the Baroque.

[AldenG]

Music? I am a flautist, and I began playing the wind decades ago, as a dedicated amateur. My favorite is the Baroque.

That's a period I really like listening to though I haven't played much in it for a long time. Way back in 7th grade, when I was what Prof. Peter Shickele likes to refer to as a "baroque youngster," I used to accompany a friend in Telemann flute/recorder sonatas. Since then I've mostly stayed in later periods. Right now I'd like to find a cellist to work with on the Franck A-major sonata and also Schubert lieder. Because of the pending move, I may have to put that off until 2012 and see what I can arrange in Finland. I never did much accompanying after the 7th grade (I left a music school then to rejoin mainstream schooling), but just in the last couple of years I've acquired a jones for accompanying the cello in particular. I really find myself wishing I had been learning cello all that time I spent on voice instead.