acquire basic fluency in Finnish

So I’m living in Finland now, haven’t really made any study efforts since my last entry, but understanding the locals works much better than expected. Also, the claim that the Finns won’t understand foreigners trying to speak Finnish is not true for me. In fact I can have basic conversations on familiar topics, understand people on the phone with little asking to repeat or to speak slower, and sometimes reply to their questions. I often understand what the newspaper articles are about, though I still get too little and it takes way too much effort for me to consider myself “basically fluent”. Oh, but I decided not to take that language test proving advanced skills any time soon…

I’ve stopped learning words like a maniac quite some time ago, but started using them. I found a native speaker to chat with in a mixture of Finnish and English. I’ve written a short email confirming the acceptance of an apartment offer in Finnish. Now I should get back to listening to radio etc – if I could roughly understand what people are talking about then I guess I’d be intermediate. About four months left until moving, and about eight months until I’ll have to prove advanced skills.

I’ve become totally obsessed with learning this language. I’ve been learning around 50 new words every day and I can’t get enough. My vocabulary consists of roughly 1,500 words now. I’m listening to Finnish radio stations on the internet all the time – I understand quite a few words, it feels like it’s just too little to understand what’s going on. I’m quite familiar with how the grammar works and I’m just about to start using it to create my first real sentences. I so can’t wait until I’m finally fluent!

A few months ago, I hardly knew any word of Finnish. In one year, I want to pass a test that confirms advanced language skills so I can study in Finnish. By now, I’m able to say basic things, understand a few words and short sentences in songs and sometimes guess what newspaper articles are about. And it’s become my favorite language. I really like the grammar and I don’t find the vocabulary too difficult either, so I think I can manage this.