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

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tiia
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Language Log: viewtopic.php?t=2374
x 1997

Re: tiia's log (Finnish, Spanish)

Postby tiia » Mon Jul 18, 2016 12:39 pm

Oral exam Spanish: We had luck with the topic we got. After some introduction we had to present our roleplay of planning a trip to some Spanish speaking country. Definitely the topic (out of four) which I felt most comfortable with.
But I did a lot of stupid mistakes, and well, I could have said more. Luckily the ohter one was able to keep the conversation going.
It should be enough to pass and although a good grade would be nice, passing was my main goal.

------

About one or two weeks ago I started reading Harry Potter 4 (besides continuing Odininlapsi). Last week I ended up reading 200 pages (in both books). Oops. I should finish Odininlapsi next week, or maybe even this one, depending on how much time I'll spend reading. I'm not sure when I want to continue with "Mätä", but it's already possible to order it via antikvaari.fi*. I somehow didn't expect the book to appear there already so soon, since it just came out in May 2016. (And you mostly get used books there.)

*After several bookshops stopped shipping outside Finland, this is one of the few places where I can still buy books, when not travelling - And probably the cheapest one as well, although the shipping costs are as high as the book itself.
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Elenia
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Re: tiia's log (Finnish, Spanish)

Postby Elenia » Mon Jul 18, 2016 1:21 pm

tiia wrote:Oral exam Spanish: We had luck with the topic we got. After some introduction we had to present our roleplay of planning a trip to some Spanish speaking country. Definitely the topic (out of four) which I felt most comfortable with.
But I did a lot of stupid mistakes, and well, I could have said more. Luckily the ohter one was able to keep the conversation going.
It should be enough to pass and although a good grade would be nice, passing was my main goal.

------

About one or two weeks ago I started reading Harry Potter 4 (besides continuing Odininlapsi). Last week I ended up reading 200 pages (in both books). Oops. I should finish Odininlapsi next week, or maybe even this one, depending on how much time I'll spend reading. I'm not sure when I want to continue with "Mätä", but it's already possible to order it via antikvaari.fi*. I somehow didn't expect the book to appear there already so soon, since it just came out in May 2016. (And you mostly get used books there.)

*After several bookshops stopped shipping outside Finland, this is one of the few places where I can still buy books, when not travelling - And probably the cheapest one as well, although the shipping costs are as high as the book itself.


The bookshop in my town emailed to say that they won't have it until November ;__; I will probably just wait until I next go to Sweden, as I don't really have the money to ship a book over.
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tiia
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Language Log: viewtopic.php?t=2374
x 1997

Re: tiia's log (Finnish, Spanish)

Postby tiia » Mon Jul 18, 2016 2:46 pm

Elenia wrote:
tiia wrote:About one or two weeks ago I started reading Harry Potter 4 (besides continuing Odininlapsi). Last week I ended up reading 200 pages (in both books). Oops. I should finish Odininlapsi next week, or maybe even this one, depending on how much time I'll spend reading. I'm not sure when I want to continue with "Mätä", but it's already possible to order it via antikvaari.fi*. I somehow didn't expect the book to appear there already so soon, since it just came out in May 2016. (And you mostly get used books there.)

*After several bookshops stopped shipping outside Finland, this is one of the few places where I can still buy books, when not travelling - And probably the cheapest one as well, although the shipping costs are as high as the book itself.


The bookshop in my town emailed to say that they won't have it until November ;__; I will probably just wait until I next go to Sweden, as I don't really have the money to ship a book over.


What about Swedish second-hand bookshops? That's basically what this antikvaari-website is about, they list all the books from different finnish second-hand bookshops. One of those shops has Mätä in new condition, but sells it for 16€ instead of 27,90/27,95€ (price for a hard copy at Akateeminen/Suomalainen). So including shipping I'd end up with 33€, which is only 5€ more than buying it during a trip.
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Yuurei
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Re: tiia's log (Finnish, Spanish)

Postby Yuurei » Mon Jul 18, 2016 2:56 pm

tiia wrote:What about Swedish second-hand bookshops? That's basically what this antikvaari-website is about, they list all the books from different finnish second-hand bookshops. One of those shops has Mätä in new condition, but sells it for 16€ instead of 27,90/27,95€ (price for a hard copy at Akateeminen/Suomalainen). So including shipping I'd end up with 33€, which is only 5€ more than buying it during a trip.

Whoa, 33€ for a novel?! I may have to rethink this Finnish-learning thing. :?
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tiia
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x 1997

Re: tiia's log (Finnish, Spanish)

Postby tiia » Mon Jul 18, 2016 3:57 pm

Yuurei wrote:
tiia wrote:What about Swedish second-hand bookshops? That's basically what this antikvaari-website is about, they list all the books from different finnish second-hand bookshops. One of those shops has Mätä in new condition, but sells it for 16€ instead of 27,90/27,95€ (price for a hard copy at Akateeminen/Suomalainen). So including shipping I'd end up with 33€, which is only 5€ more than buying it during a trip.

Whoa, 33€ for a novel?! I may have to rethink this Finnish-learning thing. :?


There are definitely cheaper ways to get novels in Finnish. But then you simply don't have so much choice, what to take. There's e.g. a facebook group for privately reselling Finnish books in Germany. There you can get books for around 2-3€ (+1€ shipping). I once got a book only for the 1€ shipping there.

You can also use libraries in Germany, some do have Finnish novels. And if you cannot get what you're looking for in your local library, you can still try "Fernleihe".

So no reasons for rethinking. ;)


Mätä is also more expensive because it's a hard cover. It's still a very new book on the Finnish market. (Odininlapsi came out in 2015, Mätä in 2016.) You could actually get it also for 17€ as ebook. But I simply prefer normal books and don't even have a suitable device for reading ebooks.
Despite that I absolutely do not recommend this book for starting to read in Finnish.
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Yuurei
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Re: tiia's log (Finnish, Spanish)

Postby Yuurei » Tue Jul 19, 2016 8:35 pm

tiia wrote:There are definitely cheaper ways to get novels in Finnish. But then you simply don't have so much choice, what to take. There's e.g. a facebook group for privately reselling Finnish books in Germany. There you can get books for around 2-3€ (+1€ shipping). I once got a book only for the 1€ shipping there.

You can also use libraries in Germany, some do have Finnish novels. And if you cannot get what you're looking for in your local library, you can still try "Fernleihe".

So no reasons for rethinking. ;)

Mätä is also more expensive because it's a hard cover. It's still a very new book on the Finnish market. (Odininlapsi came out in 2015, Mätä in 2016.) You could actually get it also for 17€ as ebook. But I simply prefer normal books and don't even have a suitable device for reading ebooks.
Despite that I absolutely do not recommend this book for starting to read in Finnish.

I wasn't seriously rethinking it, no worries. :D
I was just a little taken aback by that, seeing how I'm an avid reader and reading books in my TLs is one of my favorite activities. I'm sort of picky when it comes to the books I read though, so I doubt those library/facebook alternatives will prove viable.

It's good to know that there are ebooks though! (*coughs* Any advice on where I could buy those, by any chance? XD) I do prefer normal books as well, but I got myself an ebook reader exactly because it's a faster and cheaper way of acquiring foreign language books.

I wasn't planning on reading Odininlapsi as my first Finnish book, but it sounds interesting and it's always good to have something to look forward to!
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Re: tiia's log (Finnish, Spanish)

Postby Sol » Thu Jul 21, 2016 10:07 am

I love the idea of writing a story in Finnish! I might try that with Spanish, it looks like a great way to learn to use tenses.

I'm sorry if you've mentioned this before, but why did you start learning Finnish? I have a friend who is obsessed with the language, and my cousin says it sounds really soft and pretty when the Finnish exchange students talk in Finnish!
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tiia
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Re: tiia's log (Finnish, Spanish)

Postby tiia » Thu Jul 21, 2016 12:29 pm

Yuurei wrote:
tiia wrote:There are definitely cheaper ways to get novels in Finnish. But then you simply don't have so much choice, what to take. There's e.g. a facebook group for privately reselling Finnish books in Germany. There you can get books for around 2-3€ (+1€ shipping). I once got a book only for the 1€ shipping there.

You can also use libraries in Germany, some do have Finnish novels. And if you cannot get what you're looking for in your local library, you can still try "Fernleihe".

So no reasons for rethinking. ;)

Mätä is also more expensive because it's a hard cover. It's still a very new book on the Finnish market. (Odininlapsi came out in 2015, Mätä in 2016.) You could actually get it also for 17€ as ebook. But I simply prefer normal books and don't even have a suitable device for reading ebooks.
Despite that I absolutely do not recommend this book for starting to read in Finnish.

I wasn't seriously rethinking it, no worries. :D
I was just a little taken aback by that, seeing how I'm an avid reader and reading books in my TLs is one of my favorite activities. I'm sort of picky when it comes to the books I read though, so I doubt those library/facebook alternatives will prove viable.

It's good to know that there are ebooks though! (*coughs* Any advice on where I could buy those, by any chance? XD) I do prefer normal books as well, but I got myself an ebook reader exactly because it's a faster and cheaper way of acquiring foreign language books.

I wasn't planning on reading Odininlapsi as my first Finnish book, but it sounds interesting and it's always good to have something to look forward to!


I don't think the libraries selection is too bad actually. Of course pretty limited, but at least worth a look. Our library has e.g. around 150 books in Finnish, but I guess that's maybe an exception. A small (privat?) Finnish library handed them over all their books around 2 years ago or so.
For the facebook group you could actually ask, whether someone has a specific book or books from a specific author. I've seen such requests every now and then. Although most books might not be as interesting for you (and me), you actually sometimes might find one of interest.

For ebooks you can try different places, but at least this one should do it as long as you have a credit card: http://www.adlibris.com/fi Otherwise try google *something* + e-kirjat or e-kirjoja (e-kirja in Singular).
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tiia
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Joined: Tue Mar 15, 2016 11:52 pm
Location: Finland
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Language Log: viewtopic.php?t=2374
x 1997

Re: tiia's log (Finnish, Spanish)

Postby tiia » Sat Jul 23, 2016 10:43 am

Sol wrote:I love the idea of writing a story in Finnish! I might try that with Spanish, it looks like a great way to learn to use tenses.

I'm sorry if you've mentioned this before, but why did you start learning Finnish? I have a friend who is obsessed with the language, and my cousin says it sounds really soft and pretty when the Finnish exchange students talk in Finnish!


Unfortunatly I haven't continued the short story yet. But I probably will, since the story was actually some kind of fun to write. Maybe not the most original story ever, but who cares?
I think for practising the Spanish tenses writing short texts is really useful. The only disadvantage is that people seem not too motivated to correct fictional texts on lang-8.



No, I never mentioned why I started learning Finnish. The reason is just that I don't think about it anymore.


So the short version: I thought written Finnish looks so funny, that I have to learn it.

Long version: I was always somehow into nordic countries. When I was a child, it was more about Iceland.
When I was 16/17 I somehow started to get more and more into metal music. I read the website of a band that I had already known for some years. The news were often faster in Finnish and some news weren't translated at all. So I tried guessing the meaning of the news. (I found out that "ja" means "and" and "levy" something like "album" that way.)

The language looked just so weird, like randomly putting letters to words and not only that... These random looking words should actually mean something! (Hard to believe though.)

I thought about half a year whether I really want to learn this. After all I didn't think I was too talented in languages and this one was said to be a tough one. But after my fascination was still there after half a year, I told myself that I really want to learn that language. Even if it would take 10 years. (An unimaginable long time for a 16/17 year old.)

The interst in the culture etc. grew when I started learning. Basically in the beginning it was mostly fascination about the language.
Ok, the country was supposed to be cold, that was a real plus. There was beautiful nature. The people were somehow doing crazy stuff (like rubber boot throwing) and I liked the idea of crazy stuff.
But I wasn't fond of the idea of going to a sauna (too hot!). I even disliked the taste of alcohol at that time.

Although I know that many people start learning Finnish because of the music, for me it was always the language itself that got me into learning it. (At least I believe so.) It was the language that I found fascinating. Not because it was cool, or because I wanted to talk to musicians. (My impression is that those are really common reasons to start learning.)

Now it's pretty much 10 years ago that I started learning, and I might not have reached speaking perfectly within 10 years, but I speak fluently. And to be honest, I don't know anymore what my exact goal was when I set the 10 year deadline. I won't stop learning, that's for sure.
It's something noone can take away from me, since it had such a huge influence on how I developed as a person. And that's why I usually don't spend much time thinking why I started back then.
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tiia
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Language Log: viewtopic.php?t=2374
x 1997

Re: tiia's log (Finnish, Spanish)

Postby tiia » Sat Jul 30, 2016 11:31 am

I finished Odininlapsi last night and although I'd like to know how the story's going on, I really should read some other books first. (Remember, I still have 10 yet unread Finnish books here.) Since I also read Harry Potter 4 right now I'm thinking of also buying the last three HP books in Finnish on day. It might be interesting because I actually never finished reading the seventh (I read about 2/3 or 3/4) and tried to avoid spoilers as much as possible. So of course I already know quite much of the content, but not everything.

I'm also thinking about getting some novels in Spanish, which are said to suit my B1-level. I already found 2-3 quite promising ones, which have been used as reading material for (German) high school students. A few words are explained in Spanish, but otherwise those books should be (hopefully) just plain text. And in contrast to most easy readers they're neither romance nor typical crime stories.
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