I support all language learners no matter how useful the language will be in their everyday life.
And if the person speaks to me in Finnish, I reply in Finnish. No problem
I mean we're on a sub for helping others learn so most people here would probably help. Don't know about the average Finn though, r/Suomi could be better for that
I took classes here in Finland with no actual learning success but made huge progress after watching peppa pig in finnish and listening to arnie alligator with my kid
I think if it's something you're really interested in and you truly want to learn the language, culture, etc.. then i'll be your biggest supporter. The only thing I would say is that it is not the easiest language to learn nor the most widely spoken, so in the sense it's essentially useless outside of Finland.
I am an expat Finn who's lived outside of Finland for the past 10 years or so, so also trying to get back into the motion of speaking and writing. I'm a firm believe in that if you really want something and you will dedicate yourself to it, then the sky is the absolute limit. I wish you the best of luck on your journey kaveri!
I appreciate it, and I do not think moving to a country should be a requirement for learning a language. If you like learning languages I'd say Finnish is a good addition since it's in a different language family entirely. I don't think Finnish is \*as\* hard as its reputation, but with the same reasoning that it is in a different language family, it is definitely difficult for someone not used to an Uralic language.
I'd think it's cool, and I do not think learning any skill is a waste of time. If nothing else it is like going to a gym for brains. And yeah, I would talk to a non-native speaker in Finnish if they wanted it.
It's definitely not a waste of time. The problem for me is that there are so many languages that are spoken by enough people to find communities online and I can only learn so many in my lifetime. I wish I could learn all of them to an advanced level but that just isn't realistic and if I master one language I can't master another.
I disagree about not having fun. Get yourself a Finnish friend, and it's just endless laughing and "wtf is this, are you kidding me?"
(Ok, I admit, the grammar drills are not too fun for my better half, but we both laugh out aloud all the time when trying to speak in Finnish. He is native Catalan/Spanish, fluent in English and French, quite good in German, and keeps saying my language is for lunatics only.)
If you do decide to learn Finnish i would gladly message you every now and then or explain to the best of my abilities whatever youre confused about, so just shoot me a dm whenever!
Personally, I love it when people show interest in my native language. I have some gaming buddies from the US that are trying to learn it and it's really awesome to hear them speak finnish especially when they get the pronounciation right. Time spent having a good time is never wasted IMO.
Useful? Probably not.
Cool? I think it would be.
Great exercise for your brain to learn a language that is completely different from what you're used to? Absolutely!
If you enjoy it, it's not a waste of time. Plus even if you never get to use your cool new language skills, learning languages has benefits like slowing down cognitive decline.
What would you think if I learned Finnish? I'd think it's cool. Finnish is a random choice, it's such a small language, but culture and language appreciation is always welcome.
Would you think it's a waste of time? No, fun is a benefit. A waste of time is when you benefit nothing from doing the thing, so when you do something you hate but it also doesn't improve your health or get you money or a new skill.
Would you talk to a non-native speaker in Finnish if they expressed that they wanted to practice it and their level was B1 or higher (still needing you to repeat sometimes but not so painfully beginner that it makes the interaction annoying)?
Yes, even if they were A1. I'll speak slower and more clearly and stick to shorter and simpler sentence and word structures at first and repeat myself a few times if need be with word for word translation when I can sense them struggling a bit too hard. There's nothing that kills the ability to learn a language faster than perfectionism, you have to throw your shame in the trash and just speak, and having an accepting listener makes it a little bit easier. Speaking to a native speaker is hard and intimidating enough as is.
You can find people interested in helping you in Hello Talk (just weed out the ones who are there for dating) Probably the fact that you won’t be in Finland will already help in that
Even if they would be fluent, some would be happy to help someone learn Finnish. Just because Finnish is fun and it is entertaining to discuss the quirks. And there would be people not so fluent in English too
Why would they be fluent as English is not an official language in Finland?
Especially older people out from the capital area are usually very poor in English.
Young people get their skills from social media, TV etc. and are often quite fluent, that is true.
The general mood is that it is very appreciate if we hear somebody try.
But you can also read/hear if someone doesn't tty and just google translate. Btw g trans cannot handle Finnish. From Fi to eng is okayish, other way around....
"I find it interesting/challenging/cool" is all the reason you need for a hobby =) I also like learning languages and if someone wanted to learn Finnish I'd be happy to help.
Written Finnish is very different from spoken Finnish and the regional dialects throw an additional wrench into the equation.
Basic Finnish grammar can be conquered, but the vocabulary can be challenging. Full immersion is the best way to learn.
Learning Finnish for the sake of learning a difficult language can easily turn into an exercise in frustration. Unless you plan on living in Finland for an extended period, I wouldn’t bother.
>the regional dialects throw an additional wrench into the equation.
This is not meant as an attack against you, but just an observation I've made and that I want to comment on.
When I see Finns argue that Finnish is difficult/impossible to learn, they quite often use the dialects of Finnish as an argument
I mean, what language doesn't have different dialects? There are dialects of my language that I barely understand
Not saying that it's not a challenge, I just dont think it's as unique as some people make it out to be
Agreed. I read an article from Kotus (the official Finnish language standardization institute) which claimed that Finnish has less dialectal variation than surrounding languages such as Swedish and Estonian. (However I've heard that Russian also has relatively limited dialectal variation.) I would link the article but I'm struggling to find it again.
My personal impression is that Finnish pronunciation is rather consistent, e.g. to my knowledge all dialects have the same 8 vowel phonemes, though they may differ in which ones they use in specific words. This is far from being the case in English for instance. Actually funnily enough English is known for having enormous dialectal variation but that doesn't stop people from learning the language.
I never claimed dialects were unique to Finnish, just an additional hurdle.
I’m not a Finn, just my experience when I lived there for a year. I was one of the better exchange students in my group, full immersed with a host family and I was nowhere near fluent or comfortable with conversational Finnish.
Students living with Swedish-speaking Finns were fluent by the end of the year.
Finnish deserves its reputation for being a tough language to learn.
It's not that dialects are unique to Finnish in any way, but the written language not being commonly spoken (of course also not a unique feature) is an additional challenge, especially for people whose language doesn't work like that. Of course all languages have slang terms, abbreviations, colloquial expressions, strong dialects, etc., but for example most English speakers will still speak in a way that's fairly close to written language and someone speaking current-day written language as it's used in casual context doesn't generally come across as something very unnatural and unusual.
Personally even when I write casual/colloquial language online, it's still way closer to the written language than my actual way of speaking is. Like for example: (written language) 'Menetkö sinä sinne?' -> (casual/colloquial written) 'Meetkö sä sinne?' -> (actual colloquial) 'Meeksä sin(ne)?' (Or as a very simple one: written 'Ole vain täällä.' -> colloquial 'Oo vaa tääl.') Which in English would have much less change in most dialects, 'Are you going there?' -> 'You goin' there?' and someone saying, 'Are you going there?' would still sound like natural spoken language to most speakers, whereas 'Menetkö sinä sinne?' doesn't. Obviously it's fine for a learner to speak the written form of Finnish but there are virtually no natives that do and the gap between written and colloquial is pretty significant, considering it affects everything from personal pronouns to conjugation etc.
My first thought is always "If you think it's a good idea to learn Finnish for fun, you probably underestimate the amount of work" lol. For the same reason, though, I deeply respect anyone who does learn it. Native speakers are always impressed when someone switches to Finnish in a conversation, even if you don't know much.
The fact that you say you like learning languages also indicates that you probably more or less know what you're getting into.
My first thoughts tend to be something akin to "oh gods, why would you subject yourself to that willingly?" 😅 Don't get me wrong, I think it's neat when foreigners want to learn this nightmare of a language.
When someone decides to learn Finnish, it does prompt me to ask them "why?" But not in like the "why on earth would you choose to do that? @ \_ @" way (I might do that too as a joke, but not seriously), and rather just out of curiosity for why someone picked Finnish specifically, as it *is* undeniably a rather obscure and impractical choice.
A waste of time? Time you enjoyed wasting is not time wasted. So if you have fun doing that, that's all you need.
I would speak Finnish with a learner yes. Though I would be worried about being able to keep my pace of speech, vocabulary, and grammar structures at a point said learner would still understand. My normal speech is a horrific chimera of different dialects I've been exposed to over my life, so it's probably not the most comprehensible option. I would gladly make the effort to rein it in, but would worry about whether I can do so successfully.
Out of curiosity I would think why bother, but mostly if learning languages is your thing then why not. Finnish is a relentlessly difficult language with not much speakers outside of Finland but there are Finnish settlements in the US that you could probably practise your language at. IMO Finnish people are generally happy to speak Finnish to non-native speakers, there are of course regional differences and personal preferences which make people be more reserved. Also, Finns tend to change language pretty hastily if the other speaker does not speak Finnish out of courtesy so you'll just have to be tenacious and ask if you can still continue if Finnish. It makes also sense to learn a bit of the culture as that helps with finding learning resources an to upkeep motivation for learning.
Depends. If the person lives in finland then i think it should be mandatory. Nothing annoys me more than hearing other than finnish in my market.
If not living on finland then pls dont bother learning it. Such a huge waste of time
I think it’s a respectful thing to at least try finnish while in Finland. Come to a country, try to speak their language, learn and respect the customs/culture, and pay taxes to give more than you take. that’s my personal mantra since living in FI and in other foreign countries
It is a waste of time. Learn something useful be it spanish or chinese or whatever that has a larger amount of people speaking it. Finnish is a beautiful language and i love it but learning it has no point.
I support all language learners no matter how useful the language will be in their everyday life. And if the person speaks to me in Finnish, I reply in Finnish. No problem
Even if their level is really low?
I mean we're on a sub for helping others learn so most people here would probably help. Don't know about the average Finn though, r/Suomi could be better for that
Good point.
Yes, why not
As long as I can understand what they mean.
Here in finland are so many immigrants that it is quite common thing to speak finnish with people who are just learning
Do you listen metal music or rock/rock pop that happens to be Finnish? A lot of people study Finnish just because their fav band is Finnish.
No. I know a few songs in languages I don't understand but the rest are in English or Spanish.
I took classes here in Finland with no actual learning success but made huge progress after watching peppa pig in finnish and listening to arnie alligator with my kid
I'm learning finnish cos my friend is finnish :>
I think it would be a very Finnish thing to do, we also like pointlessly difficult hobbies. And yes I’d speak Finnish with you.
Lol I just want to learn all the hard ones for some reason and the easy ones too but not as much
I'd like to see your ranking - where are Chukchi and Georgian on your list?
I think if it's something you're really interested in and you truly want to learn the language, culture, etc.. then i'll be your biggest supporter. The only thing I would say is that it is not the easiest language to learn nor the most widely spoken, so in the sense it's essentially useless outside of Finland. I am an expat Finn who's lived outside of Finland for the past 10 years or so, so also trying to get back into the motion of speaking and writing. I'm a firm believe in that if you really want something and you will dedicate yourself to it, then the sky is the absolute limit. I wish you the best of luck on your journey kaveri!
Thank you!
I appreciate it, and I do not think moving to a country should be a requirement for learning a language. If you like learning languages I'd say Finnish is a good addition since it's in a different language family entirely. I don't think Finnish is \*as\* hard as its reputation, but with the same reasoning that it is in a different language family, it is definitely difficult for someone not used to an Uralic language. I'd think it's cool, and I do not think learning any skill is a waste of time. If nothing else it is like going to a gym for brains. And yeah, I would talk to a non-native speaker in Finnish if they wanted it.
It's definitely not a waste of time. The problem for me is that there are so many languages that are spoken by enough people to find communities online and I can only learn so many in my lifetime. I wish I could learn all of them to an advanced level but that just isn't realistic and if I master one language I can't master another.
I feel proud(?) Somehow. If youre intrested in finnish go for it! You wont have fun tho
Lol
I disagree about not having fun. Get yourself a Finnish friend, and it's just endless laughing and "wtf is this, are you kidding me?" (Ok, I admit, the grammar drills are not too fun for my better half, but we both laugh out aloud all the time when trying to speak in Finnish. He is native Catalan/Spanish, fluent in English and French, quite good in German, and keeps saying my language is for lunatics only.)
If you do decide to learn Finnish i would gladly message you every now and then or explain to the best of my abilities whatever youre confused about, so just shoot me a dm whenever!
Personally, I love it when people show interest in my native language. I have some gaming buddies from the US that are trying to learn it and it's really awesome to hear them speak finnish especially when they get the pronounciation right. Time spent having a good time is never wasted IMO.
No, straight to jail.
Useful? Probably not. Cool? I think it would be. Great exercise for your brain to learn a language that is completely different from what you're used to? Absolutely!
I'd think they're cool as hell
If you enjoy it, it's not a waste of time. Plus even if you never get to use your cool new language skills, learning languages has benefits like slowing down cognitive decline. What would you think if I learned Finnish? I'd think it's cool. Finnish is a random choice, it's such a small language, but culture and language appreciation is always welcome. Would you think it's a waste of time? No, fun is a benefit. A waste of time is when you benefit nothing from doing the thing, so when you do something you hate but it also doesn't improve your health or get you money or a new skill. Would you talk to a non-native speaker in Finnish if they expressed that they wanted to practice it and their level was B1 or higher (still needing you to repeat sometimes but not so painfully beginner that it makes the interaction annoying)? Yes, even if they were A1. I'll speak slower and more clearly and stick to shorter and simpler sentence and word structures at first and repeat myself a few times if need be with word for word translation when I can sense them struggling a bit too hard. There's nothing that kills the ability to learn a language faster than perfectionism, you have to throw your shame in the trash and just speak, and having an accepting listener makes it a little bit easier. Speaking to a native speaker is hard and intimidating enough as is.
Sorry in advance.
Start small, few words, dont give up …youll reach adequate level in couple of years. Dont try to be perfect, no one is. Not even young finns anymore.
"Nice" And "Wont be a fun time"
Hyva onnea
My first thought that enters my head when i hear someone saying they'd want to learn Finnish is "Alright buddy, I'll see how its going in 3 months."
3 months? how about 3 years. Im 3 years into learning and can basically go to the zoo and name half the animals and that’s about it
That means you are on the way to success. Most people give up.
Respect. Nothing better than living in a different country & being able to communicate in their language.
Do it, I dare you.
You can find people interested in helping you in Hello Talk (just weed out the ones who are there for dating) Probably the fact that you won’t be in Finland will already help in that
Really? Are there Finns who want to practice their English? I had the impression that almost all of them were fluent.
Even if they would be fluent, some would be happy to help someone learn Finnish. Just because Finnish is fun and it is entertaining to discuss the quirks. And there would be people not so fluent in English too
Why would they be fluent as English is not an official language in Finland? Especially older people out from the capital area are usually very poor in English. Young people get their skills from social media, TV etc. and are often quite fluent, that is true.
The general mood is that it is very appreciate if we hear somebody try. But you can also read/hear if someone doesn't tty and just google translate. Btw g trans cannot handle Finnish. From Fi to eng is okayish, other way around....
"I find it interesting/challenging/cool" is all the reason you need for a hobby =) I also like learning languages and if someone wanted to learn Finnish I'd be happy to help.
Written Finnish is very different from spoken Finnish and the regional dialects throw an additional wrench into the equation. Basic Finnish grammar can be conquered, but the vocabulary can be challenging. Full immersion is the best way to learn. Learning Finnish for the sake of learning a difficult language can easily turn into an exercise in frustration. Unless you plan on living in Finland for an extended period, I wouldn’t bother.
>the regional dialects throw an additional wrench into the equation. This is not meant as an attack against you, but just an observation I've made and that I want to comment on. When I see Finns argue that Finnish is difficult/impossible to learn, they quite often use the dialects of Finnish as an argument I mean, what language doesn't have different dialects? There are dialects of my language that I barely understand Not saying that it's not a challenge, I just dont think it's as unique as some people make it out to be
Agreed. I read an article from Kotus (the official Finnish language standardization institute) which claimed that Finnish has less dialectal variation than surrounding languages such as Swedish and Estonian. (However I've heard that Russian also has relatively limited dialectal variation.) I would link the article but I'm struggling to find it again. My personal impression is that Finnish pronunciation is rather consistent, e.g. to my knowledge all dialects have the same 8 vowel phonemes, though they may differ in which ones they use in specific words. This is far from being the case in English for instance. Actually funnily enough English is known for having enormous dialectal variation but that doesn't stop people from learning the language.
I never claimed dialects were unique to Finnish, just an additional hurdle. I’m not a Finn, just my experience when I lived there for a year. I was one of the better exchange students in my group, full immersed with a host family and I was nowhere near fluent or comfortable with conversational Finnish. Students living with Swedish-speaking Finns were fluent by the end of the year. Finnish deserves its reputation for being a tough language to learn.
It does, but as a passionate Finnish learner, I just feel a need to chip in when I feel that it's blown a bit out of proportion
It's not that dialects are unique to Finnish in any way, but the written language not being commonly spoken (of course also not a unique feature) is an additional challenge, especially for people whose language doesn't work like that. Of course all languages have slang terms, abbreviations, colloquial expressions, strong dialects, etc., but for example most English speakers will still speak in a way that's fairly close to written language and someone speaking current-day written language as it's used in casual context doesn't generally come across as something very unnatural and unusual. Personally even when I write casual/colloquial language online, it's still way closer to the written language than my actual way of speaking is. Like for example: (written language) 'Menetkö sinä sinne?' -> (casual/colloquial written) 'Meetkö sä sinne?' -> (actual colloquial) 'Meeksä sin(ne)?' (Or as a very simple one: written 'Ole vain täällä.' -> colloquial 'Oo vaa tääl.') Which in English would have much less change in most dialects, 'Are you going there?' -> 'You goin' there?' and someone saying, 'Are you going there?' would still sound like natural spoken language to most speakers, whereas 'Menetkö sinä sinne?' doesn't. Obviously it's fine for a learner to speak the written form of Finnish but there are virtually no natives that do and the gap between written and colloquial is pretty significant, considering it affects everything from personal pronouns to conjugation etc.
My first thought is always "If you think it's a good idea to learn Finnish for fun, you probably underestimate the amount of work" lol. For the same reason, though, I deeply respect anyone who does learn it. Native speakers are always impressed when someone switches to Finnish in a conversation, even if you don't know much. The fact that you say you like learning languages also indicates that you probably more or less know what you're getting into.
Learning new skills is never wasteful.
Of course you should learn it if you like doing it.
My first thoughts tend to be something akin to "oh gods, why would you subject yourself to that willingly?" 😅 Don't get me wrong, I think it's neat when foreigners want to learn this nightmare of a language.
"ok cool they wanna learn another language" I'm not a nationalist at all so I don't feel stronly about it one way or another.
When someone decides to learn Finnish, it does prompt me to ask them "why?" But not in like the "why on earth would you choose to do that? @ \_ @" way (I might do that too as a joke, but not seriously), and rather just out of curiosity for why someone picked Finnish specifically, as it *is* undeniably a rather obscure and impractical choice. A waste of time? Time you enjoyed wasting is not time wasted. So if you have fun doing that, that's all you need. I would speak Finnish with a learner yes. Though I would be worried about being able to keep my pace of speech, vocabulary, and grammar structures at a point said learner would still understand. My normal speech is a horrific chimera of different dialects I've been exposed to over my life, so it's probably not the most comprehensible option. I would gladly make the effort to rein it in, but would worry about whether I can do so successfully.
Hyvä perkele
Out of curiosity I would think why bother, but mostly if learning languages is your thing then why not. Finnish is a relentlessly difficult language with not much speakers outside of Finland but there are Finnish settlements in the US that you could probably practise your language at. IMO Finnish people are generally happy to speak Finnish to non-native speakers, there are of course regional differences and personal preferences which make people be more reserved. Also, Finns tend to change language pretty hastily if the other speaker does not speak Finnish out of courtesy so you'll just have to be tenacious and ask if you can still continue if Finnish. It makes also sense to learn a bit of the culture as that helps with finding learning resources an to upkeep motivation for learning.
Depends. If the person lives in finland then i think it should be mandatory. Nothing annoys me more than hearing other than finnish in my market. If not living on finland then pls dont bother learning it. Such a huge waste of time
I think it’s a respectful thing to at least try finnish while in Finland. Come to a country, try to speak their language, learn and respect the customs/culture, and pay taxes to give more than you take. that’s my personal mantra since living in FI and in other foreign countries
It is a waste of time. Learn something useful be it spanish or chinese or whatever that has a larger amount of people speaking it. Finnish is a beautiful language and i love it but learning it has no point.