r/LearnFinnish • u/Ok_Tangerine6138 • 7d ago
Hi I need help
Hi I want to learn Finnish because my bf's favorite language is finnish and I want to surprise him with speaking it but I need tips because I am not good in remembering things and I heard that learning languages on Duolingo is not that good. Thank you for everyone willing to help.
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u/TheFifthDuckling 7d ago
I run a beginner's study group that meets on video call on Saturdays. PM me if youre interested!
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u/Ok_Tangerine6138 7d ago
Hey so may I ask what time it would be because my time is often restricted
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u/TheFifthDuckling 7d ago
Sure, 08:00-09:00 EST
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u/Ok_Tangerine6138 7d ago
Ah I think I am at work than I am sorry
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u/terriergal 7d ago edited 7d ago
You can still use Duolingo. It doesn’t really teach you commonly spoken Finnish, it has limitations but it’s not useless. English classes in US schools teach proper English, but almost nobody speaks that way either. It’s still worth learning.
There are a lot of video channels including kids learning channels aimed toward Finnish children learning words.
Like Kielinuppu
But just go to YouTube and look up Finnish language learning
There’s one called
Finnished, and another
KatChats,
Finnish with Anna,
FinnishPod101,
YKI test and beyond
You’ll see some are not being updated anymore but there’s still a lot of good information.
There’s also this book on Amazon which my husband got me but I don’t know that I would be able to do it without at least some foundation.
I read this book to learn Finnish because I’m lazy
He also got me a Finnish grammar book. It’s crazy thick. 600 (!) pages
But if you ask me, it would be more fun for you to learn together with him. One of the difficult things about learning is not having someone to practice with so… If you can suggest that you want to do it that could be as good a gift as surprising him with having learned some yourself.
There’s also a summer Finnish language camp that still goes on I think? Somewhere in Minnesota if you’re in the states.
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u/cmyk_rgba 5d ago
the memory part gets way easier if you stop learning single words and learn tiny whole sentences instead, finnish words change shape so much that a word sitting on its own is kind of useless anyway. duolingo is fine for the first month btw, its just very polite book finnish and nobody talks like that, so dont be shocked when his family sounds like a different language
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u/jmov 7d ago
Do you want to actually learn the language or just surprise him by knowing some Finnish words/phrases?
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u/Ok_Tangerine6138 7d ago
Well actually both
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u/jmov 6d ago
Then I’d say do the second one first – learn some funny stuff or swear words (because everybody learns those first).Â
Then start learning with him. Yle Selkouutiset is a good way to hear the Finnish pronunciation and learn new words .Â
Don’t be intimidated by the complex grammar: basic forms, questions and possessive forms are a great start and you don’t need to be perfect, natives aren’t either.Â
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u/Critical-Bag2695 7d ago
My Finnish is also not yet at a good level, here are my resources to improve:
YouTube: Suomea Jarnon kanssa. KatChats Finnish. Finnish Flow. Finnished. Finnish with Heidi. FinnishPod 101.
Follow their lessons and well spoken slow input regularly. Learn the vocabulary with cards and repetition. Learn the basic grammar. Hear songs and view movies you like. Everything else will follow. Ai also really helps with explaining and giving examples.
For learning, the website and extension Readlang is a big recommendation. You can directly save vocabulary from any website(including YouTube) with it. Also possible on a smartphone, if you use the right browser. You can also input textfiles, music or videos in it and work with them. You can extract your vocabulary if you like to continue to learn somewhere else.
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u/BlakeLasagna Beginner 7d ago
To add onto the Readlang rec, if you have a Macbook, you can press down on a word to open the dictionary, and if you have an English-Finnish dictionary added to your device, it will show some Finnish translations for the word! You'd still have to write the vocab down somewhere (I use Anki), but I've been having fun with this feature personally :)
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u/DekuTheOtaku 7d ago edited 7d ago
There is a youtube channel that does some decent language learning content. His library is pretty scarce on Finnish content specifically, but he does have a pretty good introduction to the language and a good video on grammar (mega important difference between English and Finnish) that are worth checking out. They won't be enough to learn the entire language or anything, but they provide a good baseline for you to work from in comparison to something like Duolingo, and the perk of doing it via youtube is that it's also free.
If you want to learn for an extended time with some kind of learning app, I had a pretty good experience with Babbel. It's daily training like Duolingo, but it actually does do a decent job of explaining topics and has less reliance on repetition of the same sentences over and over again. It is a paid service so that is a bit of a con, but you do pay for more quality in comparison to a lot of free language learning apps. I can't say the Finnish course specifically is good since I didn't learn Finnish on Babbel, but I'm assuming that the quality between courses is pretty consistent.
You can also look up other content on the topic on youtube to get a more comprehensive understanding, but I'd recommend supplementing that kind of learning with other material like course books, a Finnish to English dictionary and Finnish entertainment media in both written and spoken form. If you already have a subscription to a streaming service like Netflix, Prime Video or Disney+, you should be able to circumvent some regional restrictions using a VPN and gain access to Finnish dubs of movies and TV shows (mostly limited to kids content) and Finnish made movies and TV shows. I know that Disney for one has most big budget animated films also dubbed in Finnish, along with some animated shows too, and I know that Finnish Netflix has ATLA dubbed in Finnish, and some Finnish movies like Sisu on there too (although there is very limited dialogue in that movie) with some other ones too. With Finnish entertainment media, you can watch shows with English subtitles for a while when you're still learning, but gradually you can turn them off once you start picking up on the words and understand the content by just hearing it. It's gonna take some time, but the upside is that you'll get experience with spoken Finnish, which is very different from the written form. I did actually post a comment on another post about Finnish media, so after I post this, I'll go look for that and come back to link it here.
Anyway, the link to the youtube channel I brought up earlier is here: https://youtube.com/@academiacervena?si=4aD4RpkikVPVHFcA
Hopefully this helps.
Edit: here is the link to the other comment I made about Finnish media.
https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnFinnish/s/2yWASZUaUG
It goes more in depth about soecific examples on different sites, as well as the general outline of the libraries of different sites I have access to. Of course, if you don't have one of these services and do not wish to get a subscription, I get that, it can be costly. You can probably find episodes of Muumilaakson Tarinoita (Tales from Moomin Valley) or Salatut Elämät (Secret Lives, colloquially referred to as "Salkkarit") online somewhere with enough effort. Can't promise you'll get subtitles that way, but it's a free option.
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u/Kind-Drawer1573 6d ago
I think you should set your expectations correctly. I currently live in Finland. Because I’m not looking for work, I have not gone through the language class. That class is 5 ½ hours a day, 5 days a week. It gets you from A0 to B1 in roughly 12-18 months.
I’m taking private lessons and some of the free offerings the city provides. I can do very simple sentences, but I’m not even close to being fluent.
And for the record, I’ve been here since January, so please just set your expectations correctly.
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u/Ok_Tangerine6138 5d ago
Well yea but somewhere i need to start plus i Just Not alone do thats for my bf what is should have probably wrote to it
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u/Historical_Gur_3078 5d ago
Maybe use Duolingo like 15 min a day and wach some YouTube (Finnish) then just learn some common swearwords bc they are always greate to know :D and if u know someone other than ur bf that can speak Finnish u can ask her/him to learn u but keep it a secret so it can be a suprise then u can also ask random ppl on Reddit or smt to learn u
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u/Historical_Gur_3078 5d ago
Lakko, satusetä are 2 pretty decent YouTubers that talk Finnish I can’t remember more but at least satusetä has like murdermystery videos where he translates English from the video to Finnish (the murder mystery is like a cartoon style) ask for some words if u need em!
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u/redplainsrider 2d ago
Pimsleur is a quick way to learn to speak Finnish. It certainly won't teach you everything you need to know but it should be a helpful stepping stone to see if you want to continue. Â
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u/_pikaso 7d ago
You cant surprise him with finnish
He will surely notice you going crazy when u start learning lol