language course in HEL

[wolfgang_amadeus]

We are a couple moving to Finland (Helsinki) with French and Italian passport. We would like to attend some finnish language course right away. We already know some finnish and have been taking classes for about 6 months.

We read this somewhere in here:
"The state pays for the language courses as long as you are registered as an unemployed jobseeker."

How do we apply for this? We actually want to work but seems unlikely to find a job right away given the lack of GREAT finnish language skills. (we'll get there)

Any reccommendation / Feedback will be very much appreciated

[bm50]

I think you would need a Finnish social security number to register as unemployed and to receive social benefits, language courses etc. As you are EU you would have to register with the police to be able to obtain a social security number. Of course you have to have a good reason to stay in Finland you have a job or money to support yourselves!

[wolfgang_amadeus]

Thank you for reading!

What was that about the 20000 euros? its like you can BUY your way to be finnish? that sounds weird as F**K!

Anyways, forget about the FREE course, internet will always be there to learn about grammar stuff, and we can also take skype classes with our actual finnish teacher.
If anyone knows a finnish course in Helsinki even if we have to pay for it, we'd love to know your experiences. We really want to get involved in the finnish life and culture, and the course is great for that and also to meet other forgeiners who also just arrived. But mostly we want to socialize with finns as we need to practice! What other activities could be interesting? We were thinking the library, sports club... ? (we do know how shy finns can be, it doesnt hurt, we actually like that kind of personality and thats why we are moving to Finland in the first place)

So basically, we have right to stay up to 3 months as we are EU citizens. We need to get a job within 3 months and everything will be just fine. We can then register and rent a property as residents. We dont care to work as cleaners or whatever comes up, just about any legal job will do. We are not the least picky about that. Hey, we would even go to lappland for work, maybe as santa's elf in santa's village (also that would be hilarious)

We are in our 20's. We both speak native Spanish and English. I also speak Swedish and some Russian. And my boyfriend also speaks French. Our finnish level is... "kaunis ilma tänään". We were thinking to search for jobs at hotels, restaurants... anything related to tourism as our finnish is pretty lame (not the worst thou!!!) and we think we should have more chances at getting jobs that natives cannot perform. Such as native Spanish, for example. We hear its not very common there. Or that the people that do speak native spanish just speak spanish.

We are going to try at Manpower and Addecco for the job thing.

All suggestions are welcome!

[Rip]

The state paid language courses can't be that significant perk as you often have to wait for months for them and there at least in Helsinki several course suppliers that just want a pretty modest fee for their services (though most of the courses started at the beginning of Autumn, so the availability relatively poor (but (without actually checking) not actually zero) before New Year.

[Rosamunda]

I hate to rain on anyone's parade but youth unemployment is currently around 20% in Finland.... that's several tens of thousands of people your age who speak fluent Finnish that are out of work.

Have you ever been to Finland? How long do you honestly think it will take you to learn Finnish? (BTW you are at a bigger disadvantage than many foreigners who are married to native Finnish speakers).

I think you need to reconsider how realistic your plans are. Come here on an extended vacation, make some friends, travel around... But don't give up your day job back home. This is a very expensive place to live and you will quickly run out of money just running around looking for work.

[wolfgang_amadeus]

Of course we know about the unemployment rate, we have done quite a research, its not like this ocurred to us yesterday
I've read somewhere here that people turn down jobs and just get the unemployment money. Not our case.

The city we come from is even more expensive than finland. So actually we are going to spend less in living than we are spending now, and we have enough money for a long time. The key is not to be so fancy or picky about the material things such as rent or food... we can handle a "cheap" life until we get a job.

anyways, we got our answers, thank you all for being so concerned

[Rosamunda]

There is also this website: http://www.finnishcourses.fi/
which centralises a lot of the publicly and privately provided language courses.

I'm sure you've done your homework with regards to living expenses. I'm not so sure you are aware of how bad the recession is in Finland at the moment nor how long it takes to learn Finnish. But there's one sure way of finding out.... Good luck with your projects!

[macora]

It depends a lot how you go about that whole "learning Finnish" thing. I have not tried the tax payer leech route, so all I know of those classes is hear-say. My friends say, one learns English fast there. In the Finnish classes If you have the monies to cover living in Finland AND paying for lessons, you can get far in those 3 months. I'd rather look at yksityisopetus.fi - not group courses, so the social interaction you have to get somewhere else. Also, it is the free market of course. But you may find those that think outside of the box.

The timing is a bit suboptimal for the "Santa's elf in Lapland" scenario, as they are hired about now (and a bit I guess). Even elves need to understand the locals But in general, it is a good idea. Tourist-y areas may have opportunities for foreigners who 1) understand and speak enough Finnish 2) want to WORK and 3) are not too picky.

BTW, you may want to make your monies last as long as possible. Consider to NOT live in Helsinki. It is rather expensive. Even if you are Helsinki oriented, check costs etc. of public transportation from other places.

BTW2, life instruction beats Skype by far, in my experience. I am not quite sure yet why, my Skype teacher was awesome. And osmosis takes a while to work with this language, but does after some time. So, being here helps tremendously to learn it.

[macora]

The taxpayer-funded Finnish classes are not allowed to use English as the language of instruction unless ALL students in the class are native English speakers. Kind of unlikely if my experience is typical (there were six native Russian speakers in the last class I was in and in the previous one there were Thai, Tagalog, Mandarin Chinese, Vietnamese, Hindi and so on). If someone is learning English from those classes it's from their classmates and from not making an effort to practice Finnish during the meal breaks.

Yes, that is exactly what several friends told. One of the friends used to teach those classes, so I guess it is not too rare an occurrence. Sorry for being unclear, though. After some decades of constant foreign language learning, my experience fits the description. Either a class is very strongly achievement oriented with strict tests, or the quality of the course depends more on the class than the teacher or material. One can be lucky, or less so. Hopefully, more are lucky here.

[Pursuivant]

Finland has "residence-based social security", so its actually geared to "if you come here for X, you won't get X benefit". Residence, unemployment - those aren't just words, they are legal boxes. You need to be a "domiciled permanent resident" to get any residence-based benefits, and theres a string of tickboxes to fill to get there. If you come in looking for work, you're not "unemployed" as only residents that have worked can be "unemployed" and receive benefits.... Oh and if you come to study you aren't entitled to student benefits, as...

So yes, you can come and "look for work", no problem, its "EU free movement" after all. When you go ask for benefits - they say you're free to move along...

[browndude]

Let me add my two cents. I moved here with my Finnish wife 3.5 years ago. I knew zero Finnish when I moved here. I am now at B2/C1 level. I would suggest that you take classes on your own rather than waiting for the Finnish government to pay for it-it seems likely that you are ineligible for those in any case. I can heartily recommend the courses in the Helsingin Aikuisopisto. A typical month-long intensive course will be around 140 EUR. The students were typically a lot more motivated than the ones you might find in a govt. sponsored class.

http://www.helsinginaikuisopisto.fi/eng/index.php

There is also the Kesäyliopisto.

http://www.kesayliopistohki.fi/

Once you learn upto around B1 level, then you can start learning by yourself. Let me be clear, it is a lot of work and it will take some time but if you are serious about living here for any length of time, you must learn Finnish at least to C1 level.

[Rosamunda]

Let me add my two cents. I moved here with my Finnish wife 3.5 years ago. I knew zero Finnish when I moved here. I am now at B2/C1 level.

That's quite an achievement. How many classroom hours did you have per week? Did you have any language rules at home? For example, does your wife speak to you in Finnish? Do you have children?

I also went to Helsingin Aikuisopisto when I first arrived here. One of my teachers just ploughed through a very old-fashioned and very boring text book (gap-fills, inflection tables) but the class size was quite small and we did get through the basic basics in grammar. Another teacher I had was much more "fun" and really got us using the language in the classroom and we even went across the road and sat in the grass on a couple of occasions. A third teacher used no books at all but had us role-playing everyday situations like shopping.

I gave up when I got a job that did not require any Finnish And that was that.

But, if I take more lessons, it will definitely be an intensive course. Full-time (5-6 contact hours per day) for at least 3-4 weeks. I reckon I could get up to a B1 without suffering too much pain. But it would be a big investment in time and money. I agree that the motivation of students on private, intensive courses is generally higher than on "cheap" once-a-week evening courses where often 20-30% of the participants drop out or don't attend regularly.

[browndude]

I don't quite remember the details, but at the outset, it was several hours a day 3 times a week, for around 5 months all together. As for the rules, no me and my wife almost never talk in Finnish at home because we have always spoken English between us. I try to speak exclusively in Finnish whenever I possible though. I started as soon as I arrived in Finland and since I did not have a job at the time, I put a lot of energy into learning the language, at that time our child was not yet born. Since then, I started working and did not have as much time to take classes but studied by myself continuously. The most recent class I took was a C1 level writing course which was an online course.

[browndude]

Yes, I was and am massively motivated to learn Finnish simply because I love languages and I am also an experienced learner-learning new things all the time is essentially what I do for a living. This is also not my first experience with learning a new language. I am not saying that others will be learning at the same speed that I did. Others might have less time and energy to go that fast for example due to family commitments etc..However, there are a few things that I think others can learn from my experiences too. Number one, you should always be learning. Language is for communicating and not just for passing tests. I watch movies/TV in Finnish, read subtitles, make a mental note of new words, use phone apps for a Finnish dictionary and for forms of grammar on a daily basis. Watching a good movie is a more fun way of learning than trudging through a boring textbook. I won't lie, the going is tough initially but the learning gets SO much easier later on. There are also so many electronic resources available nowadays if one has the motivation to look. Learning a language should not be limited to a book or to the classroom. I have not taken the official YKI test so "officially" I am not anything really-I have certificates going upto A2.2 level . However, the YKI practice test questions are pretty easy for me and practically speaking it is good enough for me to function in a professional environment in which professional level Finnish is used.