Anonymous asked:
Hello! Do you happen to know any good resources for learning Finnish? As basic as possible, I literally started on Duolingo half an hour ago:) I know, I know, I'm a poser for learning Finnish *after* Käärijä, but the language sounds soooo interesting (although I've heard the grammar is quite difficult...). Thank you in advance and also love your blog:)))))
chut-je-dors:
Hi!! So very very ecstatic that you’ve decided to learn Finnish! No reason to feel ashamed that you’d only start after Käärijä… believe me, in Finland people are just altogether very taken if a foreigner wants to learn Finnish, no matter the reason. (And all reasons for learning a language are good!) (And we’re SO SO PROUD of Käärijä, he’s done a monumental job of bringing our language to the public eye more than ANYONE ELSE BEFORE so, yup! He’s a VERY good reason to start learning Finnish!!)
I’m not sure if I’m the right person to point you towards any resources… But I tried finding some for you! I’ve checked out the Duolingo course and it’s a good place to begin! Here’s also a drive folder that has some Finnish language books as PDFs.
Also here’s a page for beginner’s Finnish from our national news media Yle (it’s like our version of BBC).
Here is a “picture book” kind of a page for learning names for objects, good to start with!
Here’s an online course for beginners! This has grammar too, and links for further reading and studying.
Finnish is also notorious for having it’s written language differ drastically from how people actually speak. We don’t have accents per se, but dialects instead, which don’t just affect the way we pronounce words (=accents, as in English) but the way we form them. So for example, the written Finnish “I am” is “minä olen”, but in spoken Finnish it can become e.g. “mä oon”, “mää oon”, “mie oon”, depending on where you live (and there might be some more variations as well but these are the most common ones.) Many foreigners find themselves in a spot where they can read and understand written Finnish pretty well, then the moment a Finnish person opens their mouth it’s a bloodbath. But don’t let it deter you! And Finnish people are more than happy to switch to written Finnish if you don’t understand them. I found this website for learning the basics for spoken Finnish!
A good place is also good ole Youtube! Just type in “Finnish for beginners” and you’re set to go!
Finnish is a difficult language to learn because of the grammar and lack of prepositions if your language has them… but look at it this way, I struggle with them in any language that uses them cos I haven’t grown up using them. I still occasionally mess up with in/on or for/to (it’s even worse with French and Swedish). Doesn’t stop me from writing 100k fics in English apparently!
Welcome to learning Finnish! Remember that the most important thing is to learn the swear words, you’ll go far with those. Just drop in a perkele and it’s always the right thing to say haha.
Jokes aside, I’m very happy to hear this! Finnish is a very beautiful language and a very inventive one as well, which allows for more word play and creativity with the language than, say, English for example. And while Finnish is difficult, you’ll find that once you’ve learnt the rules, there are no exceptions to them or the kind of hassle with the grammar as there is to English or French. I’ve known exchange students who’ve learnt near perfect Finnish in less than a year!
If anyone knows and wants to add more good resources here, go ahead!