A language learners’ forum

Unfortunately I missed the Spanish class yesterday. - Thanks to the telecommunication company, that told us they would finally come to give us an internet connection. But the technician didn't show up. It's by far not the first time they're not getting their sh*t done.


I signed up for a half Super Challenge and ordered Odininlapsi. So I will take part in the read-along!

To those watching films with subtitles in L2: Do you really read the subtitles when you actually understand what is being said?
For me it feels like I would simply ignore the text below as long as I understand the spoken language good enough. So I tried to watch some TV series in French instead of English, with Finnish subtitles. Although I never learned French, I could understand a few words here and there. (That was not the plan.) But I focussed a lot more on the subtitles.

tiia wrote:I signed up for a half Super Challenge and ordered Odininlapsi. So I will take part in the read-along!

tiia wrote:To those watching films with subtitles in L2: Do you really read the subtitles when you actually understand what is being said?
For me it feels like I would simply ignore the text below as long as I understand the spoken language good enough. So I tried to watch some TV series in French instead of English, with Finnish subtitles. Although I never learned French, I could understand a few words here and there. (That was not the plan.) But I focussed a lot more on the subtitles.

I have to force myself not to read subtitles. It's automatic for me - if there is text on screen, I will try to read it. This can be made use of - I got a pretty good vocabulary boost from watching English shows with Swedish subtitles.

I notice that I should work on speaking Spanish. I already understand quite a lot, but I cannot say anything. It feels like someone has taken my tounge away in that language. There's something I want to say, but no words coming out of my mouth. Because of my experience with Finnish I don't think this problem will solve itself. So I should try to get one of the Spanish speakers at the language cafe to actively practice speaking a few minutes every week.
In the class today I paired up with a learner, who could speak even less than me, so I had to explain her what tense I was just using. It made the speaking practice pretty useless. (For her defense: she had just gotten a place in the class and therefore wasn't allowed to come the two weeks before.)

But: I'm doing better than 8 years ago, when I left school (and my first attempt learning Spanish ended).


I reserved a table for the board game evening in Finnish tomorrow. I'm really excited about it.

So the whole Finnish exposure lasted for 7 hours yesterday. I was struggling, when it came to understanding the rules of the first game, because they were somehow more complicated. Putosin kärryiltä.. However, I still would have been a bit confused, if the explanation had been in German. During the game it definitely became easier (because the language is easier then.)
The second game we played short before we left, was a lot easier to understand. I collected all the cards and therefore lost the game, but not because of language issues.

Language wise it was quite intense and I actually felt like I had a bad day with Finnish (and I've never heard myself having such a bad accent as in the beginning), but especially later on I could follow also most of the non-game-related discussion, although I was still too slow to give any real input. Considering the speed of the discussion that was quite ok.

But regardless of my lack of input I felt included, just in contrast to two events last year, with other Finns. (That was also one of the reasons to suggest playing games.) A good point of being the only native German speaker and games in German was also that every now and then I had to translate the text on a card, because they sometimes were unsure about details or words (e.g. dwarf or wizard).

Honestly, I hope we'll do this again. It was fun.

Finished reading Harry Potter ja salaisuuksien kammio today. Usually I don't read ~150 pages in three days. But so the Super Challenge started pretty good. Now I just have to think what to do next. Do I wait for Odininlapsi to arrive and continue slowly? Or do I take another book and will end up reading two books in Finnish at the same time? Right now it's more likely I'll take the second option, taking something easy to read (maybe another Harry Potter?)
Or do I try to watch something?

Try watching something

I don't know whether this belongs here but I've talked to quite many Finnish learners in my time and the biggest thing that bothers me when they speak to me is that they usually speak the standard language. Sadly our standard language is a made-up Frankenstein monster of west and east dialects and is not the native language of anyone, and as a consequence it feels really really really off to try to use it for interpersonal communication. I just want to make learners aware of this, although you probably are as you've been at it for so long.

Joka tapauksessa lykkyä tykö, mä tykkään seurata ku ihmiset opiskelee tätä mulle niin rakasta kieltä

Elenia wrote:Try watching something

Let's see what I can do. It will probably lead to a lot of rather unknown movies. But I started with another book anyway.

I was looking for some DVDs and found out that there are original Finnish movies available in Germany without the original audio. WHY?!

Henkkles wrote:I don't know whether this belongs here but I've talked to quite many Finnish learners in my time and the biggest thing that bothers me when they speak to me is that they usually speak the standard language. Sadly our standard language is a made-up Frankenstein monster of west and east dialects and is not the native language of anyone, and as a consequence it feels really really really off to try to use it for interpersonal communication. I just want to make learners aware of this, although you probably are as you've been at it for so long.

Joka tapauksessa lykkyä tykö, mä tykkään seurata ku ihmiset opiskelee tätä mulle niin rakasta kieltä

I guess it's useful to learn the written language first, because there are so few exceptions, and usually they train you also on understanding parts of the spoken language, but not really on actually using it. I remember that spoken language was the content of several Finnish courses, but basically you only start using it, when you speak with natives.
One of the problem you will have with fellow learners is that they might not understand when you start to speak faster, use more complicated words or puhekieli. It's something I notice more and more with our skype group: I have to speak more clearly than I normally do with Finns.

I asked one of the natives here, how "kirjakiellinen" I speak. He told me to use more "se" instead of "hän". (I knew about it, but didn't use it so far.) But there was not much time to discuss this, so it's probably not the only thing I need to improve. Short forms like "mä oon", "ootsä" or "en (mä) tiiä" are absolutely normal, when I speak. Some goes for words like "semmonen". (Some other forms/words as well, but it would be too long to list all the differences.) But when writing I use more standarised forms.

Ainakin musta tuntuu saksa olevan aika rakasta. Suomi päinvastoin on niin säännöllistä. (Ja kiinnostava on, että just opiskelin tuo "lykkyä tykö" viime kuussa kirjasta. Nyt se toivottavasti jää mieleen.)

(Saat korjata, jos haluat.)

(Nykyään ei mun mielest hirveesti puhuta enää "kirjakielestä" vaan oikeempi sana on "yleiskieli". Ainakaan en oo kuullu puhuttavan kirjakielestä pitkään aikaan, mut se on se termi jonka ihmiset oppii koulussa niin se varmaan jää mieleen sitä kautta.)

Yleiskieli on säännöllist koska se on tehty sellaseks mut esimerkiks tässä mun kielessä on paljon enemmän epäsäännöllisyyksii.

Onks sulle kukaan opettanu esim. tätä:

Minä olin tekemässä - Mä olin tekeen
Minä menin tekemään - Mä menin tekeen

(this works for almost all verb-stems but monosyllabic ones)

Mun mielestä tää 'oikee' suomi ja yleiskieli on itteasiassa eri kieliä Kandee opetella tätä oikeet kieltä kans!

Ehkä jotkut opettajat oli jo liian kauan Saksassa, ku ne opetti mulle. Ja en enää muista, kutsuttiinko tämä yleiskieleks vai kirjakieleks ku olin Suomessa. Siellä ei puhuta tästä nii paljon. Eli puhutaan puhekielestä, muttei erityisest yleiskielestä.

Henkkles wrote:Onks sulle kukaan opettanu esim. tätä:

Minä olin tekemässä - Mä olin tekeen
Minä menin tekemään - Mä menin tekeen

En koskaan nähny tätä, mut on hyvä oppia taas jotain uutta. Onks pakko käyttää tuo "mä" vielä?

Eli sitten:
olin opiskeleen
olin tuleen
olin pakeneen
(?)

Mut miten käy ku viimein vokaali ei oo enää e?
menin kirjoittaan?
olin sanoon?
menin siivoaan?

Entä käy myös "käyn tekeen" ja "tulin tekeen", tai käy tuo muoto jopa aina ku tavallisest ma-partisiippi ois käytössä?

Mistäpäin sun hm.. murre oikeest lähtee? Oon aika varma, ettei se tule idästä, eikä Lapista. Tuon ii-partitiivipäätteen tunsin tähän asti vain pääkaupunginseudulta, mutten oo oikeest varmaa mis muualla se käytetään.

Btw. Murteiden ymmärtäminen on mulle vielä vaikeeta.

(Yritin kirjoittaa nyt enemmän puhekieltä, vaikka tuntuu (vielä) tosi oudulta. Erityisesti koska en vielä hallitse sitä.)