Online aakkoset and 123's for toddler

berygirlusa · Post by **berygirlusa** » Fri Jan 16, 2009 5:03 pm

Moi!!
I am an American mommy with a year old in Turku. I want to have some online sites for preschoolers or infants teaching finnish abc's , numbers and animals. There are so many for English speakers...I just can seem to locate anything fun for her in Finnish which is supposed to be her 1st language; but I dont speak anything but english as of yet and at this rate so will my baby

. Anyone out there have any ideas? Kiitos

**Sponsor:**

DMC · Post by **DMC** » Fri Jan 16, 2009 7:37 pm

No knowledge, but I would start by looking for web pages related to kiddies TV programs. Pikukakkonen or similar maybe? Another option is papunet.net but I'm not sure what is there.

jen · Post by **jen** » Sat Jan 17, 2009 11:04 am

Dont worry about it too much. we raised our daughter bilingual English/Hungarian. Until she was 3.5 years we lived in Scotland where the only Hungarian that spoke to her was my husband. We didnt really do anything special with hungarian, just made sure my husband would talk to her a lot, read lots of stories and sang to her. We tried to find other hungarians living around so that there would be more input but couldnt find anyone.

Although she starter to speak Hungarian later than than she did with english by the time she turned 4 her abilities in both languages are pretty equal. I am assuming that you have a finnish partner since you are hoping that Finnish will be her 1st language so I am pretty sure she will speak finnish, especially since you live in Finland (friends, cartoons,daycare, school, walking down the street are all experienced in Finnish). Children have an ability to absorb things which we, as grown ups, cant.

To be honest I think finding finnish people to talk to you daughter, or going to finnish playgroups where they sing finnish nursery rhymes, play finnish games and tell finnish stories will help her language development (as a 1 year old) more than websites will.

Flossy1978 · Post by **Flossy1978** » Sat Jan 17, 2009 12:50 pm

Your daughter is so young, she'll pick up Finnish easily especially if your DH is a Finnish speaker.

Just be prepared, bilingual children often take a bit longer to learn to speak. So don't start thinking anything is wrong with your child

Try http://www.yle.fi

Scroll down the bottom and you'll see a word 'lapset'. That has all kinds of childrens' games. You can choose Finnish or Swedish.

Your daughter is very young still, so she probably won't learn these things for at least another year or so. Finnish is very difficult, even for Finnish children. But don't worry, your daughter will be fluent in it in no time

My son is now 4 years old and he speaks both Finnish and English fluently and I can't speak alot of Finnish, my DH and life in general taught him Finnish.

berygirlusa · Post by **berygirlusa** » Sun Jan 18, 2009 7:27 pm

Kiitos Everyone!!
You all are so right in thinking that I was a panic stricken mommy....I had Marley's 1 year old check-up at the Turku University Hospital ( She was a 26 week early-bird...but alls perfect now!)Anyway I was sent a questionnaire ...(4 pages front and back) asking what she could say and what words she recognized. ..

I mean besides what I SWEAR is äiti, there's unn-goo and ahhhhh and de-de-de-de!! I already felt like a failure... My husband and mother in law both speak only Finnish to her ...though only mummi sings...or I haven't caught my DS doing it

So I can calm myself down...but I'm still on the race to at least know what the heck she's saying if she happends to babble something real

Also a special thanks to DMC for that papunet website

!!! Äiti can sing hämä-hämä häkki!!!! I even sang it for my mother in law... She and my baby were impressed

raamv · Post by **raamv** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 2:01 am

http://www.noradsanta.org

www.elfyourself.com

http://yle.fi/pikkukakkonen/

http://www.nickjr.com/

http://opit.wsoy.fi/lms_ownchannel.asp

Hopla:

http://shop.hopla.tv/product/index.phtm ... country=14

Subtv junior shows this daily so no need to buy a DVD if you have the mtv3 channel package.

Sample:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6QDknl2sKM

Bumba:

http://www.studio100fan.eu/nl/bumba/nieuws.html

http://jsp.pocoyo.com/index_fx.jsp

http://www.frobelinpalikat.fi/

EP · Post by EP » Tue Jan 20, 2009 10:45 am

. Finnish is very difficult, even for Finnish children.

No, it is not. How could it be? It is like saying "English is very difficult even for English children" or "Russian is very difficult even for Russian children".

DMC · Post by **DMC** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 10:58 am

EP wrote:
. Finnish is very difficult, even for Finnish children.

No, it is not. How could it be? It is like saying "English is very difficult even for English children" or "Russian is very difficult even for Russian children".

I think English (my native language) can be difficult, even for English children. The grammar and spelling are inconsistent at best, and things like homonyms and homophones cause confusion to many kids. Are there really no aspects of Finnish that even native kids find difficult? I would have expected things like consonant gradation to cause problems, initially at least, but then I am looking at it as an adult foreigner. Or perhaps I just hate the thought of a Finnish infant coping easily with things I have struggled with for years.

EP · Post by EP » Tue Jan 20, 2009 11:19 am

. Are there really no aspects of Finnish that even native kids find difficult? I would have expected things like consonant gradation to cause problems

I have heard of "consonant gradation" many times but I don´t even know what it means (or what it would be in Finnish). The only difficulty I ever had (and both my kids) was pronouncing "r". For some reason ours initially came out the French way.

Flossy1978 · Post by **Flossy1978** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 4:13 pm

My Neuvola Nurse told me that on average Finnish children only start to make 'proper' sentences in Finnish at the age of four because it's a more difficult language to learn for Finns than English is for English speaking children. I believe her, as she deals with children all day long. I think she knows what she's talking about.

My husband is also employing alot of people constantly and he has told stories of having to make native Finnish speaking employees rewrite their employee information forms because their Finnish is terrible. He's been employing people for many years and has interviewed alot of people. He has commented that these days Finnish 'children' (16 years onwards) often have horrific Finnish grammar.

And why is it in Finland you are still learning Finnish grammar at the end of highschool? If that doesn't show Finnish is a difficult language, than what would be considered a difficult language?

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