“Finnisch mit extra Mühe” -- a group learning project (because Finnish wasn't hard enough before)

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Re: “Finnisch mit extra Mühe” -- a group learning project (because Finnish wasn't hard enough before)

Postby rdearman » Sun Jan 29, 2023 7:10 pm

I was reading back through my log and remember that once upon a time, I tried to learn Finnish too. That didn't work out well.
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Re: “Finnisch mit extra Mühe” -- a group learning project (because Finnish wasn't hard enough before)

Postby bombobuffoon » Sun Mar 17, 2024 10:52 am

This place looks lively.
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Re: “Finnisch mit extra Mühe” -- a group learning project (because Finnish wasn't hard enough before)

Postby mick33 » Mon Mar 25, 2024 5:18 am

rdearman wrote:
Yuurei wrote:Found something to put y'all into the right mood:
http://depressingfinland.tumblr.com/pos ... -difficult

:lol:

Oh that has put me right off.
:lol: Indeed! As a somewhat experienced, but very lazy learner of Finnish I have to agree with caam_int, after seeing enough of these memes about how hard Finnish grammar is, they aren't funny or even discouraging, just a little annoying :roll: . It is true that all of those declensions (or are they inflections?) are possible in Finnish grammar, but many of them are actually phrases and some of them are so obscure that they are rarely, if ever used. There are patterns for how to put the various parts together for those forms you would actually use, and as you learn them you will see that Finnish is more different than difficult.
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Re: “Finnisch mit extra Mühe” -- a group learning project (because Finnish wasn't hard enough before)

Postby tiia » Mon Mar 25, 2024 4:01 pm

mick33 wrote:[...]and as you learn them you will see that Finnish is more different than difficult.

My saying: Finnish isn't difficult but different.
Honestly, I think that showing how "difficult" Finnish is, is actually doing the language more harm than good. Before all the cases and endings that were shown as "proof" how difficult it is, nowadays it seems tome that it is partly replaced by overly emphasizing the existance and use of the spoken language (puhekieli).

Anyway the memes and jokes are still kinda fun. But I wish they were not used too much or every now and then also balanced out by more positive statements about the language.

So let's enjoy a language for that you only need to know about five irregular verbs, that are still fairly regular compared to irregular verbs in other languages. Enjoy, that there is no gender to learn, and that we don't even have to distiguish between he and she, because everyone is just hän (or in spoken language also se). And therefore even the debate about gender neutral language means just changing the names of around 600 professions. (Most of them ended with the ending -mies (=man).)
Now compare that to gender debates in German or Spanish...
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Re: “Finnisch mit extra Mühe” -- a group learning project (because Finnish wasn't hard enough before)

Postby bombobuffoon » Mon Mar 25, 2024 6:58 pm

mick33 wrote:
rdearman wrote:
Yuurei wrote:Found something to put y'all into the right mood:
http://depressingfinland.tumblr.com/pos ... -difficult

:lol:

Oh that has put me right off.
There are patterns for how to put the various parts together for those forms you would actually use, and as you learn them you will see that Finnish is more different than difficult.


Yes those are really cringe. :roll:

I cringe a little when I get the "Finnish has 15 cases" wheeled out by someone who hasn't a clue what a case even is. I am in my fourth year of studying it and will still get mini lectures from people who clearly haven't studied it and come up with those unhelpful cringe advice based in stuff like what you posted.

The difficulty is exaggerated however I do find Finnish both difficult and different. I find it objectively difficult for reasons that I guess are common to every language.

Particularly the correct way to change the form of a noun connected to a verb. A teacher might say something like "just take the genitive stem and ..its so easy" well... they ignore the fact that calculating the genitive stem is insanely difficult. There is a lot of randomness in there. But this is common to every language.

And then the practical stuff when it comes to everyday language everything sort of goes out the window and I feel I am spun around in a mad vortex knowing every word yet failing to grasp how they are being used in situational context, it can be so very difficult to even use "it" or "that" properly. I suspect most non natives will never get this sorts of things entirely right.
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Re: “Finnisch mit extra Mühe” -- a group learning project (because Finnish wasn't hard enough before)

Postby mick33 » Tue Mar 26, 2024 8:43 am

tiia wrote:
mick33 wrote:[...]and as you learn them you will see that Finnish is more different than difficult.

My saying: Finnish isn't difficult but different.
Honestly, I think that showing how "difficult" Finnish is, is actually doing the language more harm than good. Before all the cases and endings that were shown as "proof" how difficult it is, nowadays it seems tome that it is partly replaced by overly emphasizing the existance and use of the spoken language (puhekieli).
:oops: I guess I should be a little embarrassed; last night I was rereading this thread and got the briiliant idea to correct a typo in my post from 4 or 5 years ago and instead I reposted when I did not intend to :D

I agree with you completely, telling potential learners about the "difficulty" of Finnish is harmful and teaches them nothing. It seems to me that the cases/suffixes are like Lego blocks, and I've actually had a lot of fun working out how they fit together. The puhekieli (spoken language) versus kirjakieli (book language) thing really isn't any different than it is in most other languages. I think I would say that English and Spanish have bigger issues with regional spoken forms because they are spoken in so many countries and have more speakers.

tiia wrote:So let's enjoy a language for that you only need to know about five irregular verbs, that are still fairly regular compared to irregular verbs in other languages. Enjoy, that there is no gender to learn, and that we don't even have to distiguish between he and she, because everyone is just hän (or in spoken language also se). And therefore even the debate about gender neutral language means just changing the names of around 600 professions. (Most of them ended with the ending -mies (=man).)
Now compare that to gender debates in German or Spanish...
Yes! More of these kind of comments and maybe I can realize my dream of having Finnish take over the world :lol:
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Re: “Finnisch mit extra Mühe” -- a group learning project (because Finnish wasn't hard enough before)

Postby tiia » Tue Mar 26, 2024 11:52 am

bombobuffoon wrote:Particularly the correct way to change the form of a noun connected to a verb. A teacher might say something like "just take the genitive stem and ..its so easy" well... they ignore the fact that calculating the genitive stem is insanely difficult. There is a lot of randomness in there. But this is common to every language.

Well, I don't think there's a lot of randomness in the stem. If it feels like that, my guess is that the rules were probably not explained well enough. One of the issues is, however, that oftentimes natives don't know the rules so well, so they cannot explain them perfectly. Or they think that a lesd in depth explanation would suffice. So feel free to ask about that here. We may be able to clear up the randomness a little bit.
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Re: “Finnisch mit extra Mühe” -- a group learning project (because Finnish wasn't hard enough before)

Postby bombobuffoon » Tue Mar 26, 2024 12:07 pm

tiia wrote:
bombobuffoon wrote:Particularly the correct way to change the form of a noun connected to a verb. A teacher might say something like "just take the genitive stem and ..its so easy" well... they ignore the fact that calculating the genitive stem is insanely difficult. There is a lot of randomness in there. But this is common to every language.

Well, I don't think there's a lot of randomness in the stem. If it feels like that, my guess is that the rules were probably not explained well enough. One of the issues is, however, that oftentimes natives don't know the rules so well, so they cannot explain them perfectly. Or they think that a lesd in depth explanation would suffice. So feel free to ask about that here. We may be able to clear up the randomness a little bit.


Forming the genitive stem is complicated, to the point of, it essentially feels random. If there were some clearer shortcut invented by people that could "clear up the randomness" then I think it would be common wisdom. Its not. The best advice I have had so far is to learn by feel because applying rules like the below is too complicated. And to add to that there are also nouns that cannot be calculated analytically. I have to say I agree with this advice of going by feel.

http://users.jyu.fi/~pamakine/kieli/suo ... varen.html
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Re: “Finnisch mit extra Mühe” -- a group learning project (because Finnish wasn't hard enough before)

Postby Henkkles » Tue Mar 26, 2024 2:43 pm

bombobuffoon wrote:
tiia wrote:
bombobuffoon wrote:Particularly the correct way to change the form of a noun connected to a verb. A teacher might say something like "just take the genitive stem and ..its so easy" well... they ignore the fact that calculating the genitive stem is insanely difficult. There is a lot of randomness in there. But this is common to every language.

Well, I don't think there's a lot of randomness in the stem. If it feels like that, my guess is that the rules were probably not explained well enough. One of the issues is, however, that oftentimes natives don't know the rules so well, so they cannot explain them perfectly. Or they think that a lesd in depth explanation would suffice. So feel free to ask about that here. We may be able to clear up the randomness a little bit.


Forming the genitive stem is complicated, to the point of, it essentially feels random. If there were some clearer shortcut invented by people that could "clear up the randomness" then I think it would be common wisdom. Its not. The best advice I have had so far is to learn by feel because applying rules like the below is too complicated. And to add to that there are also nouns that cannot be calculated analytically. I have to say I agree with this advice of going by feel.

http://users.jyu.fi/~pamakine/kieli/suo ... varen.html

You can't form the genitive stem based on the nominative because it's an arbitrary choice for a dictionary form; other things are not formed from it, and it itself is a derived form. Instead all forms can be said to be derived from a postulated "abstract form" which never surfaces <as itself>. It's a very useful construct in explaining words that are similar on the surface, for example "laki" (mountaintop/hilltop [gen. laen] and law [gen. lain]) which have different underlying or abstract forms; the older word's underlying form would be {lak} whereas the loanword's underlying form would be {laki}. If we then apply regular rules we get:

{lak} + n (genitive)
lak-e-n (epenthesis rule)
lag-e-n (consonant gradation)
"laen" (k-weak grade deletion after middle Finnish)

{laki} + n
laki-n
lagi-n
"lain"

There are simplified schemes, for example for i-nominative words: "stone age words (kivi, tuli, etc.) have genitive in -en, modern words and loanwords have -in".

What I want to illustrate is, that considering the nominative as a basis from which to derive other forms is counterproductive, and you will never know how a word behaves 100% of the time knowing only the nominative. Most dictionaries give nom.sg, gen.sg, part.sg and ill.sg.
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Re: “Finnisch mit extra Mühe” -- a group learning project (because Finnish wasn't hard enough before)

Postby bombobuffoon » Tue Mar 26, 2024 8:31 pm

Henkkles wrote:
bombobuffoon wrote:
tiia wrote:
bombobuffoon wrote:Particularly the correct way to change the form of a noun connected to a verb. A teacher might say something like "just take the genitive stem and ..its so easy" well... they ignore the fact that calculating the genitive stem is insanely difficult. There is a lot of randomness in there. But this is common to every language.

Well, I don't think there's a lot of randomness in the stem. If it feels like that, my guess is that the rules were probably not explained well enough. One of the issues is, however, that oftentimes natives don't know the rules so well, so they cannot explain them perfectly. Or they think that a lesd in depth explanation would suffice. So feel free to ask about that here. We may be able to clear up the randomness a little bit.


Forming the genitive stem is complicated, to the point of, it essentially feels random. If there were some clearer shortcut invented by people that could "clear up the randomness" then I think it would be common wisdom. Its not. The best advice I have had so far is to learn by feel because applying rules like the below is too complicated. And to add to that there are also nouns that cannot be calculated analytically. I have to say I agree with this advice of going by feel.

http://users.jyu.fi/~pamakine/kieli/suo ... varen.html

You can't form the genitive stem based on the nominative because it's an arbitrary choice for a dictionary form; other things are not formed from it, and it itself is a derived form. Instead all forms can be said to be derived from a postulated "abstract form" which never surfaces <as itself>. It's a very useful construct in explaining words that are similar on the surface, for example "laki" (mountaintop/hilltop [gen. laen] and law [gen. lain]) which have different underlying or abstract forms; the older word's underlying form would be {lak} whereas the loanword's underlying form would be {laki}. If we then apply regular rules we get:

{lak} + n (genitive)
lak-e-n (epenthesis rule)
lag-e-n (consonant gradation)
"laen" (k-weak grade deletion after middle Finnish)

{laki} + n
laki-n
lagi-n
"lain"

There are simplified schemes, for example for i-nominative words: "stone age words (kivi, tuli, etc.) have genitive in -en, modern words and loanwords have -in".

What I want to illustrate is, that considering the nominative as a basis from which to derive other forms is counterproductive, and you will never know how a word behaves 100% of the time knowing only the nominative. Most dictionaries give nom.sg, gen.sg, part.sg and ill.sg.


Well you can calculate the genitive stem, from the nominative stem, as that guy explains in that link I posted. There are other simpler schemes available to get to also get somewhat close supposedly. Whether that's productive or not is another matter...so far I have not really found a reasonable easy mechanism. Nor does learning all the different stems for every word seem reasonable.

So if I don't calculate I have to develop intuition. It seems to be the easier option and just accept mistakes (e.g. https://uusikielemme.fi/finnish-vocabul ... -consonant). This is still a lot of pithy work. Its objectively difficult.
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