Finnish: Pointers and Laments 2

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In Complete Finnish the dialogues make Finnish feel as I imagine an alien language might. Think of beings having a different consciousness, then you might be close to the mark. I can imagine Finnish customs asking questions similar to those asked of the Earthship in Space Odyssey I.

Who are you?
What is your mental state?
Do you have incursions of boredom, fear, anger, despair, shame, and the love of war and death and the secret desire for the misfortune of others? (Check all that apply.)
Are you distressed? Will your mental state inhibit your ability to act peaceably? etc.

In Finland, every town has a matkailutoimisto – a tourist office – because how would visitors know about the town without a tourist office to guide them? Sounds practical. According to Terttu Leney asking where to find this mysterious tourist office is vital for survival – Anteeksi, voitteko sanoa, missä on matkailutoimisto? Or maybe the Finns are secretly annoyed when people fail to use the many resources the Finnish government provides. Trust the bureaucracy; they will provide the resources you need to achieve basic peace of mind.

Current Reading 1

Aside

Lost in the Cosmos: the last self-help book by Walker Percy

The Diamond Age or A Young Ladies Illustrated Primer by Neal Stephenson

The Smartest Kids in the World and How They Got That Way by Amanda Ripley

Blue Highways: A Journey Into America by William Least Heat-Moon

(Tags are organized alphabetically. It’s a matching game.)

Finnish: Pointers and Laments 1

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Here I will provide pointers and laments on learning this isolated language. I am grappling with it now…

If you have never learned a foreign language, well, Finnish may not be for you. Languages are not for the faint of heart. They have many pieces that move in many different ways. Each sentence is like a series of moves in chess. If the moves make no sense, the opponent looks at you funny.

Grammar is necessary. You will have to learn it. Fred Karlsson’s Finnish: An Essential Grammar is aptly essential. It is a beautiful, well-ordered book. If you have never studied complex grammar before, never been introduced to the accusative or partitive, then you will find reading even a single page difficult. I can offer this advice: start on page 1 and read from there, copy out rules in your own little notebook as they come up, and create your own example phrases. The task is not Sisyphean, there is a terminus to the book. You can get through it. How do you eat a buffalo? One. Bite. At. A. Time.

But there is more to life than grammar. There is also grammar’s use. The Pimsleur audio cds are an excellent introduction to the language’s use in the life of a tourist. Proper pronunciation for ordering drinks, asking for a lunch date, and commenting on the “miserable weather,” is all present. Although an expensive cd set, these are important, especially considering Finnish resources are not necessarily at your local library. Unfortunately, Pimsleur does not offer audio teaching beyond the basic level.

The third thing, I have been doing is working through an excellent Finnish book called Complete Finnish by Terttu Leney. I am on Unit 3 and refuse to continue on until I am confident in my ability to do basic addition and subtraction in a foreign language. Math is a muscle memory thing, and those muscles don’t exist in Finnish.

A final note: children’s books. Amazon.com offers a precious few inexpensive Kindle children’s books. Learn about green slithering snakes, happy elephants, and assorted fruits and vegetables. It worked when you were 10 months old; it will work to expand your vocabulary now. And frankly, colors, animals, and childhood are far more interesting than hotel conferences.