tiia's log (FIN, SPA, SWE, EUS)

[tiia]

So is it this way?

[Jag har...]

en grön tröja
den gröna tröjan
gröna tröjor
de gröna tröjorna

ett litet hus
det små huset
små hus
de små husen

en gammal bok
den gamla boken
gamla böcker
de gamla böckerna

[jeff_lindqvist]

Ok then till caféet, because the library is really just the next building from the place, where the language courses are held.

Real life examples:
Jag går till caféet. (General statement)
Jag går ner till caféet. (If I'm in the library, on one of the floors above, and want to specify the direction)
Jag sitter i caféet. (Also a general statement)
Jag sitter nere i caféet. (Again, if I want to specify, if/when someone from another floor is calling/texting)

So in Swedish it's more like a "hole hour" than a free one? (In German it's Freistunde btw. But one can say "ein ziemlich zerlöcherter Stundenplan" when speaking about a schedule with lots of these.)

Yeah, the "empty" hour makes a "hole" (or gap) in the schedule. I haven't used it since high school (when the subjects were spread out in 50-minute slots throughout the day (with the occasional "håltimme")).

[jeff_lindqvist]

So is it this way?

[Jag har...]

det små huset

det lilla huset (This is irregular - everything else was perfect!)

indef. singular liten/litet
def. singular lilla

indef. plural +def. plural små

[tiia]

A few words about Embrujadas. I'm almost done with season 4, so nearly have of the whole series. Right now it feels like the fourth season is significantly more demanding than the first three. The story becomes a bit more complex. It's only the fourth season that made me replay a few seconds of a dialogue. I cannot remember I did this during the first three seasons, maybe except in case of outside noise, so situations, when it's not about the language spoken.

Otherwise I made the decision, that I'll terminate the contract for my current flat. Although this doesn't have anything to do with language learning (or does it?), I think I should write it here, just to make sure, that I will do it in the end. I don't like moving, but well... There are reasons, why I think it's the best thing to do. The lovely neighbour's cats and the fact, that I actually like my room and it's space dont' make it too easy. I don't know where I will move afterwards, whether to another flat in the same city or somewhere else, but I feel like the flat (and the not yet successful search for a flatmate) is keeping me back and indeed hindering me to step forward. I'll give myself still some time to think about the decision, but I shall not change it. The question is more like, which month to choose for terminating.

[tiia]

Finland's having me back for a short while.
I've been away far too long. The arrival didn't feel like coming home as it did the last times. I was more in a place that I know quite well etc. But I also noticed some changes. (They renewed the system for buying public transport tickets. I knew that, but it was past my last visit.)But slowly it seems to come. Maybe it just takes much more time know. At least I have two weeks to find out.

Well, I realise how much more Swedish I know understand... But I didn't take any Swedish book with me and it might be better that way. Finnish is definitely the language I have to take care of now. It got way too rusty.

And there is snow! And ice! Or how I told some person I talked to (who came with the same flight): When winter isn't coming to me, then I'll have to come to the winter. (Sounded somehow better in German.)

snowy_finland.JPG

[tiia]

I needed some more time to adapt to Finland. But it's getting better. I also moved from the first hostel to the second one, because I thought that spending too much time on an island with a ferry every 40-60 min might be a bit impractical for every day stuff. But it's a good place to calm down.

I spoke again more and more Finnish. Met one friend, who told me that he thinks my Finnish is now better than before, but I don't trust that, not compared to our last meeting. I just think the difference is, that he now talked in Finnish to me. (Because his German has gotten too rusty.) But sometimes it just felt too stupid, when I didn't understand what he was telling me and had to ask for soooo many words. Ok, I learned new words... e.g. hienokierre. (Feingewinde in German. In English something like a thread with a fine pitch?) That's a useful one, isn't it?
I case you wonder what I needed this word for: I tried to explain one of the difficulties I had with a bike, its repairment and the difficulty to find the right nut. (And now I also had to look up all those words in English...)

The first full day here I ended up buying six books in Finnish. Oops. I'm not allowed to buy more. I may have struggles to get those into the suitcase. (No, the weight is only the secondary problem as the suitcase had 19,7kg on the way here and I'm allowed 23kg.) Luckily I thought of that space problem before and packed 1,5kg of noodles to leave me some free space once they're eaten. (I already ate half of them.) I just didn't think of Akateeminen kirjakauppa having a sale of their old books in the archives. So I got the missing 4 books of the Hitchhiker's guide through the galaxy, which is nice because I haven't seen these seperate books anywhere. (Nowadays you only seem to get all in one thick book, which is actually not that cheap. - Definitely more expensive than buying the old seperate books now. And I already got the second book some time ago for 1€.) And in another shop I got the second and third part of Odininlapsi for 7€ each. So I cannot complain about getting six books for 26€. (Only that now I have the hardcover of Odininlapsi and the following two books as pocket books.)

My motivation seems to come back, I did three summer job applications now and am planning to do more, because I feel like I actually have to do as many as possible to hopefully get anything in the end. So not that much sightseeing this time.
If all the summer job applications will be unsuccessful, I'll immediately start applying for "real" jobs. But as the summerjob application deadlines are mostly next week, I'll have to do that first.

Suomenlinna.JPG

[Nacobe]

Just wanted to say that I'm not much of a language log reader (or any log for that matter), but I found this to be quite interesting. And your Finnish seems excellent as well from the few lines of text that I saw.

Also, bonus points for using Linux

[tiia]

Just wanted to say that I'm not much of a language log reader (or any log for that matter), but I found this to be quite interesting. And your Finnish seems excellent as well from the few lines of text that I saw.

Also, bonus points for using Linux

Thanks. Actually I don't feel like my skills are excellent yet. But at least I made it a few times in the past days, that people (incl. natives) first assumend I would be a native. My accent seems to be good enough for that. But they would get me when I'm searching for words or using some kind of unusual expressions. (A friend found it really amusing when I refered to the beep-sound of a traffic light as "akustinen signaali". - The right word would have been "ääni" in this case.) I also feel like my grammar skills while speaking/writing had been better some time ago.

If you want to read a few more lines in Finnish, there's this post in the Islandhoppers' thread. But as I wrote there: "I may have gotten a bit further from the topic than I intented, but I just had too many ideas and so the whole thing doesn't really go into any depths, because it just grew too long. So you'll see I may have lost the thread a few times. But I'll leave it that way, as it's the first longer text I've written in Finnish for quite some time. At least I'll leave myself lots of space to improve my writing in future texts."
Even though I was not happy with it, when I published it there, it should give you at least some more in depth idea of the level.

Btw. I actually started using Linux before being interested in Finnish and Finland and even before knowing where it came from.

[rdearman]

Doesn't everyone use Linux? I mean I heard there were some people who used NetBSD...

[Nacobe]

Interesting read and I still think your Finnish is excellent. The only thing I'd like to correct (I hope you don't mind) is the first word in your third tip: "Kierrä". In this case it would be "kierrätä", which means recycle. "Kierrä roskasi" basically means "Go around your rubbish"