learn to Speak Finnish

I feel like my class moves sooooo fast!!! At times I wonder if I will be able to keep up. I swear I study for at least 3 1/2-4 hours at home a day! I hope it pays off and I am able to remember things better.

I just finished my 3rd week of Finnish class, so I am on my way to learning basic Finnish. It is very difficult, but I am sure I will learn a little bit if I just continue to work really hard at it. It would probably also help if my husband would stop speaking to me in English so much…grrr!

My husband bought me a book from the University Bookstore entitled, From Start to Finnish. Although this book will not help me to be a fluent speaker, it is helping me to understand things about the language more. Being able to see the way phrases, words, etc. are written out is more helpful than just listening to people around me and trying to catch on. The explanations in the book are easy to follow and understand. I have only been going through the book for a little over a week now, but it has really helped me to communicate with my husband better in Finnish. He does admit that a Southern U.S. accent + Finnish is quite funny though!!

This is such slow going…soooooo slooooowwwww!

My husband had decided that he is going to read me comic books that are written in Finnish and translate them to me. I have learned a few words and phrases this way, but I find it fun more than anything. Personally I think it is nice to be read to!

I found this site on the internet that allows me to practice finnish. Well, vocabulary that is. It is a practice site that gives you the english word and you have to tell it what the finnish word it. And it does this the other way around as well. It also has several other features that help you become familiar with the language (to a degree). Kai thinks that the site is neat and encourages me to continue working on it. He always helps me with the pronunciation of things. He’s so sweet!

Well, so far I am learned to say “Hello. My name is Stacy.” “Moi. Minun nimeni on Stacy.” I have a long way to go, but that is a start!

Kai has decided that once I move in with him he will teach me 1 Finnish word a day! I plan on taking some language courses while I am there anyway, so maybe that’ll help speed the process along.

Learning to speak the language is now a must. October 23rd I will be moving!!! I’m excited.

While I was in NJ this week I went to the Barnes & Noble and found a book called Say it in Finnish! I just had to get it seeing as how Kai is finnish and well I need to learn a word here and there. I just couldn’t resist it. I stood in the store for almost 20 minutes looking through the book. It’s great. I’m happy that I found it! All I got from Kai though was a smile and the question, “say something in finnish!”