Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie

Learning Finnish thread

24

Comments

  • Closed Accounts Posts: 734 ✭✭✭abceire


    i had a go too, my ex was finnish, i even moved to finland used to live in lahti, afraid i only lasted or we only lasted 3 1/2 months once i moved there,she lived here for 2 years and spoke perfect english
    i did enjoy trying to learn it,i had a learn finnish cd which i used to listen to in the car,i learnt how to count, i learnt how to tell time in finnish,days of the week,months of the years
    its ment to be the 2nd hardiest language in the world to learn, but i think it helps if you learn the alpabet,(need to learn english)theres no silent letters or anything so it you know alfabet you should be able to read out any word,i liked learning a new sentence and then suprising my ex gfs parents ,i worked with all finns which helped me learn,i m amazed how great english finns speak,
    i also think finnish girls are hot, and nice personalities
    so any finnish girls in ireland who want to have irish bf give me a shout, i d loved finland, such nice summers,such dry climate,no drug addicts, so much nature, i miss sausage soup and summer cottage,lakes to swim in and lovely finnish ladies


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 734 ✭✭✭abceire


    can we all meet up and speak our bad finnish, i m starting to forget my words i ve learnt, and i might not get to speak any until the finnish irish xmas fair in town in december , they sell lots of finnish foods and have a carol service mass in finnish


  • Registered Users Posts: 342 ✭✭mickc


    Has anyone taken any classes or online courses?

    any recommendations? am in galway

    thanks


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,905 ✭✭✭Aard


    abceire wrote: »
    can we all meet up and speak our bad finnish, i m starting to forget my words i ve learnt, and i might not get to speak any until the finnish irish xmas fair in town in december , they sell lots of finnish foods and have a carol service mass in finnish
    Can you tell me when and where this is on? I'd be very interested in sampling some Finnish food :) .


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 734 ✭✭✭abceire


    Aard wrote: »
    Can you tell me when and where this is on? I'd be very interested in sampling some Finnish food :) .
    heres the site you should be able to find the date, its nice friendly atmosphere,and you get to see nearly every finn in dublin haha
    http://www.irfinsoc.com/centere.html

    this is another good site for anyone thinking of moving to finland,lots of helpful people
    http://www.finlandforum.org/


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users Posts: 1,672 ✭✭✭deman


    Originally Posted by tnethacker
    Hey mates.

    Learning the bloody Finnish language is not that difficult as you just pronounce the words and letters as you would pronounce Gaelic (Remember? It's the language you're suppose to speak).

    If you guys have any difficulties learning, just ask me anything and I'll hit it with the answers

    PS Learning Gaelic is not that difficult as i have learned to pronounce it correctly just after few months of passive learning.

    "That's very true, I've found having a good knowledge of Irish has been a big help especially with the sounds of the letters."



    Funny because I found having Irish helped me learn Swedish better!!! Strange!:confused:

    I certainly hope that your Irish and Finnish are better than your English.:D

    But I don't agree with you. Finnish is a phonetic language where Irish is anything but. Irish has a huge amount of irregular sounds where Finnish doesn't. So to compare the pronunciation of these languages is ridiculous.

    Therefore, the pronunciation of Finnish is the easiest part of the language as it's phonetic.


  • Moderators, Computer Games Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 79,827 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sephiroth_dude


    Would finnish be harder to learn than say russian,czech,polish?


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,905 ✭✭✭Aard


    I don't know about difficulty, as I know none of the languages you mentioned above. However, Finnish is a member of a completely different language family (Uralic - related, eg, to Hungarian) to those Slavic languages (Indo-European - related to Germanic, Romance, and Celtic languages, Greek, Hindi, and many others). It is generally thought that languages within the same language family are easier to learn. I've studied Japanese, myself, and thought that it was easier than French - it's like learning with a clean slate!

    If you're in any way "good" at languages, there is no reason why Finnish should be harder to learn than Russian, Czech, or Polish. Indeed, going by the number of entries in Finnish in Wiktionary, there may well be even more resources online for it.


  • Registered Users Posts: 403 ✭✭suomi


    Aard wrote: »
    I don't know about difficulty, as I know none of the languages you mentioned above. However, Finnish is a member of a completely different language family (Uralic - related, eg, to Hungarian) to those Slavic languages (Indo-European - related to Germanic, Romance, and Celtic languages, Greek, Hindi, and many others). It is generally thought that languages within the same language family are easier to learn. I've studied Japanese, myself, and thought that it was easier than French - it's like learning with a clean slate!

    If you're in any way "good" at languages, there is no reason why Finnish should be harder to learn than Russian, Czech, or Polish. Indeed, going by the number of entries in Finnish in Wiktionary, there may well be even more resources online for it.

    I agree, Finnish and Russian are completely different. I know people who speak Russian and they say it's pretty easy to learn so I'd say Finnish is harder to learn. But Finnish is just like any other language, it's easy once you get the hang of it.

    I think one thing that makes it so difficult and different is that we don't have a lot of prepositions, we use suffixes or whatever they're called. :p For example, "to a house, in a house, from a house" would translate as "taloon, talossa, talosta". But still, Finnish is just like any other language, once you learn the basic stuff the rest should be easy. Plus the pronunciation is really easy, there shouldn't be any problems learning to actually speak Finnish, it's just the grammar part that's a bit tricky. ;)


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,672 ✭✭✭deman


    And it's a logical language, not like English.

    The only "illogical" area that I have come across is the -sta(ä) vs -lta(ä) and -ssa(ä) vs -lla(ä). Nobody has ever been able to explain to me why I cannot say "Minä olen Tamperessa" and I should say "Minä olen Tamperella". I normally can guess which is right though.... at the second attempt usually :)


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users Posts: 403 ✭✭suomi


    deman wrote: »
    And it's a logical language, not like English.

    The only "illogical" area that I have come across is the -sta(ä) vs -lta(ä) and -ssa(ä) vs -lla(ä). Nobody has ever been able to explain to me why I cannot say "Minä olen Tamperessa" and I should say "Minä olen Tamperella". I normally can guess which is right though.... at the second attempt usually :)

    Oh yeah, sometimes even I have problems with those and I'm Finnish! :p They're completely illogical, you just have to remember which version is the right one. Though most of the cities and countries are -ssa or -ssä so you're more likely to get it right if you just don't use the -lla or -llä at all. :p Oh, if the city has some kind of a nature-related word in it, like -järvi, -niemi, -lahti, -koski, it's always -lla or -llä. Like "Saarijärvellä" or "Rovaniemellä". :)


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 734 ✭✭✭abceire


    anyone know when the finnish irish society things is on? i ll skip the christmas songs this year and just get me some sausages for sausage soup


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,672 ✭✭✭deman


    abceire wrote: »
    anyone know when the finnish irish society things is on? i ll skip the christmas songs this year and just get me some sausages for sausage soup

    Do you mean the Irish Finnish Society or the Finnish Irish Society? There is a difference.

    **edit**

    And please abceire, as this is a language forum, try to use punctuation.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 734 ✭✭✭abceire


    deman wrote: »
    Do you mean the Irish Finnish Society or the Finnish Irish Society? There is a difference.

    **edit**

    And please abceire, as this is a language forum, try to use punctuation.
    I am not so sure which one I mean. I know were it is and all but not sure of the name, it is always on a sunday I know that for sure.
    Sorry for the teenage typing, years of none office work.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,672 ✭✭✭deman


    abceire wrote: »
    I am not so sure which one I mean. I know were it is and all but not sure of the name, it is always on a sunday I know that for sure.
    Sorry for the teenage typing, years of none office work.

    You probably mean the Irish Finnish Society then as the Finnish Irish Society is based here in Finland. :)


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 734 ✭✭✭abceire


    Thats the one,anybody know when they will have the fair were you can buy the finnish foods in dublin?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3 Miko80


    abceire wrote: »
    heres the site you should be able to find the date, its nice friendly atmosphere,and you get to see nearly every finn in dublin haha
    http://www.irfinsoc.com/centere.html

    this is another good site for anyone thinking of moving to finland,lots of helpful people
    http://www.finlandforum.org/

    you can also try http://www.finlandlive.info or http://www.infopankki.fi


  • Moderators, Computer Games Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 79,827 Mod ✭✭✭✭Sephiroth_dude


    Aard wrote: »
    I don't know about difficulty, as I know none of the languages you mentioned above. However, Finnish is a member of a completely different language family (Uralic - related, eg, to Hungarian) to those Slavic languages (Indo-European - related to Germanic, Romance, and Celtic languages, Greek, Hindi, and many others). It is generally thought that languages within the same language family are easier to learn. I've studied Japanese, myself, and thought that it was easier than French - it's like learning with a clean slate!

    If you're in any way "good" at languages, there is no reason why Finnish should be harder to learn than Russian, Czech, or Polish. Indeed, going by the number of entries in Finnish in Wiktionary, there may well be even more resources online for it.

    Interesting,I mite give a bash so.


  • Registered Users Posts: 17 Ebsis


    I´ve never thought that here in Ireland, would be people who would want to learn Finnish.:)

    If I can help in anyway with the language, I would be happy to do so!


  • Registered Users Posts: 70 ✭✭Aarnikotka


    It's interesting to see how many Irish people want to learn Finnish - far more than I would have thought. I think the problem for many English speakers living in Finland (particularly in the Helsinki area) is that the level of English among the natives is improving all the time, thus when an Irish person moves here they speak English and make friends through English. It's quite difficult to decide to change language at some later point during conversations with friends, since it remains easier in English.

    I find that many English speakers grasp Finnish to the point of being able to conduct their day-to-day lives in that language (in shops/restaurants etc), but genuine fluency among English speakers here is quite rare.


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users Posts: 373 ✭✭wispyman


    I'm a Brit living in Cork learning Finnish at the moment - does that count!! My main reason is that my wife is Finnish.


  • Registered Users Posts: 429 ✭✭Thomasofmel


    I'm a Finn living in Ireland - trying to teach Finnish to my kids - not too easy either :rolleyes:


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,672 ✭✭✭deman


    I'm a Finn living in Ireland - trying to teach Finnish to my kids - not too easy either :rolleyes:

    You're trying to teach your kids Finnish or do you just speak to them in Finnish?


  • Registered Users Posts: 429 ✭✭Thomasofmel


    I am teaching Finnish by speaking & reading and showing any Finnish kiddies movies I have on telly ;)


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,672 ✭✭✭deman


    I am teaching Finnish by speaking & reading and showing any Finnish kiddies movies I have on telly ;)

    Have you always spoken only Finnish with them? I'm asking just because I'm on the opposite side of the same coin. My kids are surrounded with Finnish (school, hobbies, neighbours etc) and I made it a point that I would only ever speak English with them, from the day they were born. I wouldn't consider it teaching English though, although I would correct their mistakes from time to time. My youngest (2 and a half) hasn't grasped the idea of languages yet but just picks it up as "Isi sanoo milk" and "Äiti sanoo maito..." Whereas my eldest (15) complains about her English teacher at school marking her as wrong when she knows she's not (and she's not most of the time).:D


  • Registered Users Posts: 429 ✭✭Thomasofmel


    I spoke Finnish with the first one - only finnish. With the second one I tried to give my best and with the third one I gave up :o Its too hard in an environment where you don't have any other Finns living nearby and you are in full time employment - I know there are Finns in Ireland, but they seem to be mostly in the Dublin area. Now I have given up and speak English to all three kids, its easier. I my self was brought up bilingual in Finland - and the second language was not swedish ;), but my mother was at home, so I could pick up that additional language easy enough. Now I am fluent in three languages :p


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4 jimmy3000


    Hey Biko do you know if there's a tutor in Ireland?


  • Registered Users Posts: 81,223 ✭✭✭✭biko


    Whereabouts are you? There's tutors as far as I know but depends on location I'd guess.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4 jimmy3000


    Think I just found one Biko but thanks very much.I'm in Limerick Ireland.


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users Posts: 3,485 ✭✭✭dj jarvis


    as a dunce i am finding learning Finnish really hard !!!
    i have the usual basics ( days , times , alphabet ect ect ) but just not getting it really , but my wife speaks Finnish with the two children all the time and my 3 year old is as fluent as a 3 year old gets

    and by osmosis i have picked up 10 times as much listening to the children speak and watching Finnish kids TV than i would have using cd and books

    but i must try - i cant have the wife and kids having a language that i cant understand :-) , but on the flip side its great to be able to zone out when they are speaking :-)

    Finland is a great country , lovely people and super climate
    if only they would speak to each other that would be great
    Ireland its not - but that is a plus in many ways :-)


Advertisement