finnish for beginners

drrnwbb

just to recap. i'm studying (formal) finnish here in helsinki, and here are some of the resources we use (occasionaly)

suomea ole hyvä

and then a verb table:

verbimuodot

the hardest thing i find with learning finnish, it that the formal/written finnish snt what is spoken by the people. the spoken language is shorter and leaves out many syllables and the endings of words. i was talking to a person i know here at a party the other day, and he is in acting school with lots of other finns from different part of helsinki/finland, and he sometimes has difficulty understanding the words other finns use. the formal finnish seems to be a compromise language used in buisness/television/newspapers etc, but not much by the populice at large. that is one of reasons why its difficult.

also, its a very mathamatical language, word endings change for every circumstance. stick with it though, it is very rewarding.

dw

naitkris

good post drrnwbb.

checking & bookmarking those links now...

how many years have you been learning Finnish btw?

drrnwbb

not too long, just since febuary. i study it 5ish hours a day here in a school in helsinki.

dw

drrnwbb

here is some more links.

i was at a education seminar thingy today for immigrants into finland. these people organised it. some really good links on that page.

dw

manzana

hi drrn,

still in ireland or are you in finland? my finnish is probably really bad but how about ... joku guinness ilta joskus? jos satut olemaan corkin lähellä..

manzana

unohdin - suomi-board > täällä. there are boards in otehr languages too - ja aihe on periaattessa syömishäiriöt, mutta saa siellä muistakin asioista puhua. (and they never wait the non-natives to speak perfect. so pop in for a chat! )

(sori, board on down tänään mutta huomenna pitäisi taas toimia)

drrnwbb

Originally posted by manzana
hi drrn,

still in ireland or are you in finland? my finnish is probably really bad but how about ... joku guinness ilta joskus? jos satut olemaan corkin lähellä..

kyllä, olen helsingissä nyt, minun suomenkieli kurssi on lopetanut ja nyt olen etsimässä työpaikka (uhoh). kiitos kutsusta!

dw

manzana

oh welll ... onnea työn etsintään ..

Unpossible

do you have anything more basic? I was lost in that first link and the others wern't great either

manzana

oh well. sorry, the hard drive of where that board is hosted crashed a few weeks ago, and it's not set back up yet fully working.. i'm trying to figure where is the problem now.

there may be some links to some boards in finnish in www.city.fi - they have their boards there for the readers of a big magazine but that's to a very big degree spoken language written, so it'll be hard to understand. you could try posting somehitng in city.fi boards, asking if anyone knows where to start.

Unpossible

a board wouldn't be much use to me, I only have a noun or two, thats it. Were starting from scratch here. I'll get my gf to check the above sites.

Thanks for the help anyway

drrnwbb

Unpossible: where are you in finland? there might be some local courses that you could go to. here in helsinki the university and the työväenopisto both have very very cheap courses. take your time learning the lingo and get your gf to speak as much finnish as possible to you as you are learning.

dw

Unpossible

Im in varkaus and spend my days working so it would have to be a night course (or should that read a bright evening course?). TBH I really should put more effort into learning, but right now ppl at work and in the shops all speak english to me so...

manzana

unpossible, you need to find a finnish girl who can teach you. and who is patient. finnish is very hard to learn .. but not impossible. they had like 10-15 y ago a few foreigners in tv, and that was a lot. e.g. neil hardwich was british and had been there like 20 years .. so he was fluent and had both insider and outsider views.

or another way, a group of people where some people speak good finnish and some are foreigners.

if you were in lahti, i'd tell you to go to teerenpeli (pub) on fridays. it's not that far from varkaus though .. if you go there, tell a hi' to claudio. he knows where to start. there are a lot of friends of mine there... if thye still are in finland