Koryo wrote:So are there any advices or strategies on how I can motivate myself to do it on my own?
This is a recurring topic on this forum. Some previous suggestions have included:
- Finding contemporary Finnish music you like, studying the lyrics (both their meaning and their pronunciation, maybe doing some sing-along too)
- Picture books, even kids’ stuff (there are those which can be moderately entertaining for an adult reader as well... and then there are those which come with an audio tape or CD)
- Comic strips; deciphering the joke in those three or four panels
- Movies, TV shows (comedy, entertainment, fiction)
- Books. Again, there are those which are for adults and those which are for kids at the surface level but can be entertaining for adults as well... and I don’t mean only long books but humorous short stories and such as well
- Magazines, especially those which cover topics you’re interested in anyway, as a hobby or professionally
- Radio (including Internet streaming radio), podcasts
- Blogs about topics which interest you; IRC and other real-time chat systems where you can hang around in a busy discussion room; Finnish discussion forums
- Spaced repetition software such as Mnemosynic where you can create your own collection of interesting expressions and their translations, in flashcard style, and the program will step you through the drills
- As for grammar, there’s quite a lot of information about that on the Internet these days so you don’t need to rely on a single grammar book alone
So where are you from? What is your mother tongue? Do you know any other languages? Have you ever studied another language?
What are you interests and personal preferences as regards to music genres, movies, hobbies, books, etc.? Would you like some suggestions concerning any of those?
Authentic material can be a good motivator if it is interesting enough. Getting to the level where you can actually
read a magazine article or a blog entry will undoubtedly take a non-trivial amount of time and effort, but authentic material can help you better direct your efforts when taking those first steps in understanding the grammar and learning the vocabulary. And even without full understanding, or not much understanding at all, you can start working on the easiest-looking bits, probing around and questioning what they might mean. The learning curve will be steep at first but once you have some of the basics under your belt, intuition and context-guided guesswork can go a long way; especially when working with authentic materials where you’re actually interested in the material – not just for the sake of exercise but for the content itself.
Authentic material is not a replacement for the study of grammar, though, and it is not even a replacement for the simplified text-book type material. A heavy dose of grammar is required to understand the various forms the Finnish words can take, and simplified material is useful, too, as it will usually focus on certain very basic grammatical aspects of the language without overwhelming or distracting you with the more advanced stuff. But since text-book type materials are “artificial” by their very nature – and therefore usually a bit dull or silly – they may not be as motivating as authentic material. Suitable authentic material, when used on the side, can motivate you by giving you something interesting and “real” to strive for and look forward to. It can probably also arouse some interesting questions you might want to ask here, for example.
There’s a near-endless supply of free authentic material that can be found on the Internet if you know where to look from. So getting your hands on various kinds of authentic material does not mean you would necessarily need to buy heaps of stuff – although buying (or having your friends send you) some actual physical objects such as books or magazines could help, too, in motivational sense. But let us help you with the free stuff by telling a bit more about your interests and hobbies. What would that be? Arts, crafts, cooking, history, computers, metal music, photography, DIY construction, playing an instrument... or something related to your line of study or work, perhaps?
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), but I would like to be able to communicate with the friends I know , and be able to speak it
