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

[jeff_lindqvist]

Are we talking about a certain edition of Assimil Finnish/Finnisch/Finnois, or can anyone do? Will everyone study with Assimil? How many will use other resources? (I'm considering FSI and SpeakASAP, and maybe whatever the library has.)

[Brun Ugle]

Are we talking about a certain edition of Assimil Finnish/Finnisch/Finnois, or can anyone do? Will everyone study with Assimil? How many will use other resources? (I'm considering FSI and SpeakASAP, and maybe whatever the library has.)

I think the general plan is that everyone is using Assimil and trying to get through as much as possible by the Gathering next May. I'm using whatever edition they were selling at the Gathering. I assume it is the latest. I don't see any reason you couldn't use a different edition though if that is what you find. It might make some difference if we're doing some challenges based on it, but we could probably work around that. We are not being very strict with this project. Whether or not you use extra resources is up to you. I'm planning on using FSI too, and also Supisuomea and the audio course Cavesa found.

[Henkkles]

Btw, is it reasonable to expect, Hekkles, that tv series will take care of the problem, like they do in my other languages? Is there enough material for a super challenge or two, that wouldn't be bad? (I personally don't know what would I fill an SC in Czech with, to suit my tastes. )

Probably, of course they don't use all of the shortenings in the series but it should be pretty normal sounding.

[tiia]

- 2 infinitives (learn the "short" form of the 1st infinitive and the 3rd infinitive. The other infinitives aren't used as much but knowing how to form and use them would be handy if you were advanced)

I like the idea of two infinitives. The Finns must be a very practical people. It's always a good idea to have a spare infinite around, you know, in case the first one gets a puncture or something.

Not only 2 infinitives. There are 5 in total.

1. infinitive: the normal infinitive like in any other language.
2. infinitive: Rare, nothing you will encounter as a beginner. (the mentioned "kävellen" is a 2. infinitive) Always combined with a case ending, but there are only two cases possible (-ssA or the instructive -n).
3. infinitive: you can recognise it by the -mA+case ending. Not all cases can be used here, because some wouldn't make sense.
4. infinitive: -minen. Making a substantive out of the verb. -minen can be declinated as normal substantives ending in -nen.
5. infinitive: -mAissillAAn(+possessive suffix). Rare. Except when writing fictional stories you'll probably never need to build this form yourself. I only read this in fictional books yet.

The numbers of the infinitives are always the same in each grammar book, so, don't be surprised when you suddenly learn a third and fourth infinitive without knowing the second.

Capital A's mean that depending on vowel harmony this can be "a" or "ä". It's typical in Finnish grammar to write it this way. Same goes for U as "u" or "y" and O as "o" or "ö". Sometimes you might see a capital V, which stands for "the same vowel as last vowel before the ending". It's a lot shorter to write an ending as "-hVn" instead of "-han/-hen/-hin/-hon/-hun/-hyn/-hän/-hön". However, for each word it's clear which ending to take.

To any of our advanced Finnish learners who are following this: If you have any specific suggestions about our study plans, or thoughts about what you would do had you been starting out today, don't hesitate to give us some advice. (We might even take some of it.)

I started with this one back then: http://donnerwetter.kielikeskus.helsink ... -index.htm The site looks still the same as 10 years ago. It only covers some basics, but I still think it wasn't too bad to start with.

[Yuurei]

Oh my, this has quickly become a very active topic. XD

Yuurei seems to be very organized and good at following a schedule.

Hah, I can assure you that that's not true. Now I feel like I somehow managed to fool people into thinking I'm organized. XD
I've gotten pretty good at reaching my weekly goals, but it helps a lot that I get to set them each week according to my interests, motivation & time budget. Long-term goals and schedules are a very different beast.

When I used Assimil for German, I started out doing one lesson per day, but the last third of the course was considerably more painful than advertised and I ended up slowing down to about three lessons per week. I think the Finnish course is going to be fairly difficult right from the start because of the base language, so I probably won't be doing a lesson a day, at least not for long. The course is 100 lessons, so that means about 149 days of lessons (you start the active wave at lesson 50). We have a bit more than 34 weeks from the beginning of September to the end of April, which would mean proceeding at a rate of a bit more than 4 lessons per week if we want to finish the whole course before the next Gathering. Is that our goal? Or should we keep our ambitions/expectations a little lower? I'm really not sure how well I will be able to get through ~4.5 lessons per week when the base language is German. However, I intend to do FSI and Supisuomea (and possibly some other stuff) on the side, and that may help.

Whoa there - 4.5 lessons a week? In a language that's not even Indo-European? Without neglecting my other languages (too much)?
Um, I just realized I have, er, things to do in the coming months-- *tries to sneak off unnoticed*

Seriously though, I haven't thought too much about concrete plans yet and without having tried the course, I find it somewhat hard to judge whether the pace is doable for me. I haven't even figured out how much time I intend to dedicate to Finnish each week. *whistles* I'll try to figure that out asap though.
In any case, I am reasonably certain that I won't limit myself to using only the Assimil course and while that may help in the long run, in the beginning it will mostly mean that I won't have all my Finnish time to spend on Assimil, so that's something to take into consideration as well.

Also, should we try for any group activities? Maybe we should just wait and see what occurs to us as we go along.

Definitely! Otherwise where'd be the fun in our group project? XD

hmmmm... chocolate chip?

Yup. The soft ones that melt in your mouth and make you sell your soul for another bite.

EDIT: All joking aside, I think I have a problem. I posted this and then spent 30 minutes finding out the cost of Assimil Le Finnois (Finnish), then looking at the Finnish FSI, then I actually did searches in my local library online for learning material (Only had Teach Yourself, but with CD's). Of course this is just a silly moment of wanderlust for the promise of cookies. Lord only knows what I would have done if had been brownies on offer.

Haha, I feel for you. You know you want to. And look at it this way: You'd basically be practicing your French at the same time.

Are we talking about a certain edition of Assimil Finnish/Finnisch/Finnois, or can anyone do? Will everyone study with Assimil? How many will use other resources? (I'm considering FSI and SpeakASAP, and maybe whatever the library has.)

As far as I've seen, all the editions ought to be pretty much the same - they have the same number of lessons and the same author, at least, which is a pretty good indicator. No guarantees though. Of course, there's no such thing as Assimil "Finnish" - merely Finnisch and Finnois - that's why we call it "mit extra Mühe"

And, as Brun Ugle already pointed out, using Assimil (or a certain edition thereof) is not a strict requirement - we merely thought it would be more fun if we had at least one resource in common. Most of us will probably use other things along the line.

And welcome aboard! Your cookies have been reserved.

[Brun Ugle]

Well, I added Jeff to the list on page one. I'm waiting to see if I should add Rick too now that Yuurei's informed us that the cookies will indeed be chocolate chip. Or maybe he's holding out for brownies.

I agree that 4-5 lessons a week would be tough. I had trouble getting through the German course before going to Berlin last time. In fact I think I was about five lessons from the end. I had started in November, if I remember correctly, so a little less time, but the base language was English and German is very transparent for a Norwegian speaker. And I still found it difficult! The reason I mentioned how many lessons we'd need to get through per week, was just so we would know how hard we'd have to press ourselves if we chose the goal of getting through the whole course. I intend to do my best to get through it, but I think a more realistic goal for the group as a whole, might be just to get through the passive wave. Of course, since you're supposed to start the active wave while on lesson fifty of the passive wave, we would then also be halfway through the active wave. This is basically a wanderlust thing for all of us, and we are all studying at least two or three other languages, so it's probably best not to make the goal too difficult.

[Serpent]

The edition I shadowed still mentioned Finnish marks. I guess they changed that to euros now
Series will help with the spoken language, but I also recommend learning some common changes, especially if you watch series or movies before you have a high level of comprehension.
A lot of the usual SC stuff uses a fairly standard language too, like audiobooks or sports.

[jeff_lindqvist]

Whoa there - 4.5 lessons a week? In a language that's not even Indo-European?

Only 4.5 lessons a week!? I was thinking of rushing through the whole shebang in a couple of weeks, like the lad on HTLAL did with Hebrew. (I've done it as well, with varying results...)

Seriously - two possible futures:
1 I do a little bit every day (as the method suggests), and end up having finished the course in time for next year's Gathering.
2 I'm filled with inspiration, devour everything, and burn out just in time for my (planned) trip to Finland in the beginning of October.

[Brun Ugle]

Whoa there - 4.5 lessons a week? In a language that's not even Indo-European?

Only 4.5 lessons a week!? I was thinking of rushing through the whole shebang in a couple of weeks, like the lad on HTLAL did with Hebrew. (I've done it as well, with varying results...)

Seriously - two possible futures:
1 I do a little bit every day (as the method suggests), and end up having finished the course in time for next year's Gathering.
2 I'm filled with inspiration, devour everything, and burn out just in time for my (planned) trip to Finland in the beginning of October.

If you can get through the whole thing in a couple of weeks, there isn't enough Mühe in your course.

I think 4.5 a week should be doable, but we are all studying other languages, most have jobs or school, and we have all chosen to do this using a base language that we don't know all that well. So, I can understand if people prefer a smaller goal than getting through the whole course. Personally, I will probably try for a lesson a day in the beginning when the material is still easy, but I'm likely to have to cut down a little toward the end when it gets hard and I start getting tired.

[Brun Ugle]

It occurs to me while we're discussing how many lessons per week, some people might not be familiar with Assimil enough to know what a lesson entails. When I did the German course, even toward the end and even in the period when active and passive waves overlapped, it never took me much more than an hour to get through a lesson and I make a bit more work out of them than a lot of people. Here's my personal Assimil method:

Passive wave
1. Listen to the dialogue without looking, several times if necessary, seeing how much I could catch.
2. Listen while looking alternately at the target language and at the base language, several times until I could match both sound with meaning and sound with spelling.
3. Shadow a few times until I felt comfortable with the pronunciation.
4. Read each line out loud and check the notes as I came to each one.
5. Shadow again, making sure I understood everything.
6. Scriptorium - Read a line out loud. Write it down one word at a time, saying each word out loud as I write it. Read what I wrote out loud.
7. Do the exercises at the end. (The first exercise was on the recording, so I listened to this each time as I went through the earlier steps, but I didn't look at the text then.) I used scriptorium on the exercises as well.

I also listened to the recordings a lot while walking and stuff. Sometimes I would shadow them too.

Active wave
The early lessons I was able to do by just looking at the base language and writing out my translation of the target language. I then did the same for the first exercise and did the fill-in-the-blanks exercise, which was now ridiculously easy. I then reread the notes.

Later lessons were too hard, so I did them like this:
1. Listen to the dialogue.
2. Read the notes. This often gave me breakthrough moments as I really understood them this time.
3. Do the fill-in-the-blanks exercise (i.e. the second exercise in the lesson)
4. Translate the first exercise from base language to target language.
5. Translate the dialogue from base language to target language.

Doing it backwards made it easier, but it was still often really hard because they gave fewer clues in the base language version as to how to word things. Sometimes I came up with things that I think might have been more or less correct, but which didn't match the original. I just didn't worry too much about it and figured I was still learning a lot anyway.


This sounds like it would take a lot of time, but it wasn't nearly as bad as it sounds. As I progressed, I didn't need to listen or shadow so many times because I was getting better at pronouncing German. Finnish is much easier to pronounce and the spelling is pretty obvious, so I think that part will be easier anyway.