become fluent in Finnish

We’ve just had our Finnish friends staying for a few days with their 2.5-year-old son. Of course, they spoke a lot of Finnish to him and I spoke with him a little.

I forgot how much I love the sound of Finnish – and I think I should continue to have this as a long term goal, even if I don’t focus strongly on it at the moment.

I’m going for Japanese instead.

I originally started with Finnish because I didn’t think I’d ever come to use my Japanese. Well… with the growth of the intermawebs and actually going there last summer, Japanese is the one that does it for me.

I doubt I’ll forget too much of the Finnish I have learnt, but I’m not going to focus on it.

U of M

i love the language so i would love to learn it.

jas x

Yeah! Time to hear some native speakers again… for 5 days in February.

Ok… a possibly heavy question coming up.

Why does an imperative have a weak consonant? Is there some secret forgotten closed ending on the verb?

Example:

kirjoittaa = to write
kirjoitan = I write (-n is a closed ending, so tt -> t)
he kirjoittivat = they wrote (-vat = open, so tt is ok)

but…

kirjoita! = write!

On this word, there is no ending, so I would assume tt not t.

Aha

Ok… while writing this, I’ve discovered the answer for myself, but I’ll leave it here for my own memory…

So, it seems that an imperative ends in -k BUT the -k has been lost over time. So you have:

kirjoitak – closed syllable, therefore tt -> t

...and miss the k, gives…

kirjoita

So I guess my original question “Is there some secret forgotten closed ending on the verb?” was absolutely spot on.

I’m quite pleased with myself, because I spotted this from changing my google mail into Finnish, and at the bottom it said “Hanki Google Mail puhelimeesi. Se on erittäin nopea.”

I couldn’t find the dictionary form for Hanki, then discovered it was Hankkia… and that’s how it all started.

Good news… my phone is still in Finnish, and I’ve been coming across some words on it I didn’t understand until I thought about it. Also, it has switched the applications to Finnish, too… so my email and sudoku are all Finnish. Yay!

Sorry, anyway… on to my question… I’m looking at päällä and päältä… I understand they can be used for ‘on top of’ and ‘from on top of’...

kissa on pöydän päällä – the cat is on the table
kissa hyppi(?) pöydän päältä – the cat jumped from the table

...but is there another meaning? Can it be used as a ‘point in time’... päällä = at this point in time, päältä = from now on? That’s how the context of my reading seems to be going… the sentence fragment I’m working with is:

lopeta kärsimys maan päältä – is this something to do with stopping the hardship of the country from this point in time?

It probably needs more sentence to figure out the meaning, but I want to try to work most of it out myself.

Here’s the context, don’t give too much away…

Piikkien lävistämmänä se ihmetteli:
“Onkohan koskaan maan päällä ollut olentoa,
joka rakastaa elämää yhtä paljon kuin minä?
Oi, sinä kaikkien käppyräjalkaisten jumala,
lopeta kärsimys maan päältä
- vikka vain huviksesi
tai lopettaaksesi tämän katkeran valituksen”

Interestingly, I see päällä/päältä always follow ‘maan’ which is genetive? so maybe ‘on the land’ and ‘from on the land’. Until I have more pieces put together, I’m not sure.

I really want to make the move to switch my phone into Finnish, so I’ve been making a list of all the things it says to me in English and Finnish, so hopefully I can switch it and keep it there referring to my crib-sheet to start with, and not needing it as time goes on.

It’s nice that things like “poistu” – exit, work on my satnav (exit left from road) as well as the menus on my phone (exit menu). I think so far, I’ve only ever learnt vocab for a specific purpose, and it hasn’t been applicable outside that context.

Oh how this goal keeps appearing and disappearing on my list like a yo-yo.

Well, since I picked up the Finnish again (and have been adding phrases to my mnemosyne to help me learn) I think this goal should be here and stay here.

I will see future times when I might drop it as a break rather than dropping the goal completely.

I would so love to be fluent in Finnish, but I just find that sometimes there is so much to take in that I can’t keep up. Looking over some noun cases today, though, I realise that I already know lots of them and how to use them, so each time I look there’s only a little more to pick up.

But it’s not easy – especially with no structured learning. I think that’s what I find hardest. It’s much easier when I’m attending classes – but as you can expect, it’s rather hard to find Finnish classes in the UK.

Just a reminder why it would be good to learn Finnish.

http://travel.independent.co.uk/europe/article2851949.ece

Of course, one paragraph stood out :
She primes us for our impending saunas, pronounced as “sow-nahs”. ” No swimsuits,” she admonishes. “It’s bad to breathe in the pool chemicals. You must be naked. And everyone goes in together. Finnish families take a sauna maybe twice a week.” I tell her about the rules in Britain, which tend not to allow children and pregnant women, and she lets out a long and derisive laugh. “It’s ridiculous. Saunas were used traditionally as the place women gave birth. You wouldn’t take in a very little baby, younger than six months, but after that – of course!”