Criticizing finnish language courses

This is my response to this blog post:

Firstly I guess the guy has wrong expectations from language courses. To me a language class consisiting of 16 students only can provide students with learning the basics of the language, it won't/can't in anyway make me even slightly fluent in the language. For fluency the student must do many things on its own. The courses are just the start up, after you know greetings and some words and basic grammer you must spend time and design a plan to reach fluency based on yourown learning styles. If this message is not given to students clearly and they think they should be going to the courses everyday and for years to reach fluency, well someone must be blamed, maybe the teachers.

Secondly, to me language courses are what they are: boring. I can't tolerate even the best of language courses after some while. I prefer to learn something else, e.g. a skill using the target language or start making friends in the new language and do both at the same time. I learnt English this way. I bought many software programming books in English and started learning programming and the English learning just turned into a byproduct of learning computee sciences. This way I wasn't worried about how much time I was spending on it because both were evenly useful skills. Meanwhile many friends of mine got into English language courses and came out again and again as they lost the motivation.

I think our spanish friend should start collecting his own Finnish grammer books and references and even find a personal tutor to speed up things, and use the courses as an opportunity to put Finnish at work.

Private Finnish teacher in Joensuu or by Skype

I'm  putting this ad in here because when I needed a finnish tutor, I coudn't find it easily. So this might come usefull for others.

Hei,

I’m a teacher of Finnish language, and I offer private lessons in the region of Joensuu and Kontiolahti. My teaching is efficient and versatile mixture of speaking, writing, reading, vocabulary and grammar as well as spoken language. Moreover I’m capable of evaluating your language skills according to the European Framework and I will guide you to suitable learning material in the internet if need be. The price of one lesson (60 minutes) is 35 Euros.

For more information, send email to marika.airila@gmail.com or call 040-5644429.

Best regards

Marika Airila
+358 405 644 429
marika.airila@gmail.com

Hei,

tarjoan suomen kielen yksityisopetusta Joensuussa ja Kontiolahdella. Opetan tehokkaasti ja monipuolisesti puhumista, lukemista, kirjoittamista, kielioppia ja sanastoa sekä puhekieltä. Voin myös arvioida kielitaitosi eurooppalaisen viitekehyksen mukaan ja auttaa sinua löytämään sopivaa oppimateriaalia internetistä.Opetuksen hinta on 35 euroa tunti (60 min.).

Jos kiinnostuit, lähetä sähköpostia osoitteeseen marika.airila@gmail.com tai soita numeroon 040-5644429.

Ystävällisin terveisin


Marika Airila
+358 405 644 429
marika.airila@gmail.com

 

 

Day what?: learning report

So finally I felt it was time to find a professional private tutor. Looking for it first in Joensuu, the city I'm residing, turned out to be hopeless. Then I looked at other cities and found an experienced finnish teacher from Jyväskylä. 
We meet once a week on Skype and so far it has been great. My speaking confidence has improved after just 3 weeks.
If you also need a private Finnish tutor you can contact a good one through her Blog: http://randomfinnishlesson.blogspot.com

Hanna, our tutor, recommended reading detective stories and luckily simplified versions of Maria Kallio, the crime police officer were found at our local library.

Päivä 372: paljon aihetta

Nyt minä katso Muumilaksoon tarinoita joka yö. Ja minulla on suomalainen kaveri-opettaja, hän on Riikka. Minä yrittän lukea Sofia Oskanen kirja nimeltä Puhdistus. Ja minä puhun suomea kaupassa hyvin.

سوالات متداول راجع به فنلاند

این سوال و جوابها رو میذارم برای دوستانی که تازه میخوان بیان فنلاند. 

 سوالها

الف. خرج زندگی چقده؟

ب. کار پیدا میشه؟

ج. با شیش ماه شب شیش ماه روز چی کار میکنی؟

جواب ها

الف. ما دو نفریم. توی یه شهر کوچیک. 360 یورو در ماه اجاره میدیم. نزدیک 200 الی 300 یورو هم خرج خورد و خوراکمون میشه. نهایتا با 600 تا 700 تا داریم زندگی میکنیم.
ب.
ج. اینجا اونطوری نیست. 


یه چند تا به قول فرنگیا میخوام بهت "تیپ" بدم برای اینجا اومدن، البته خودت خیلی دقیقی و میدونم اطلاعاتت الان باید کامل باشه. ولی به هر حال اینا چیزائیه که من آرزو میکنم یکی توی ایران بهم گفته بود قبل از اومدن: (با فرض این که تو هم مثل من پولت کم باشه و کار پیدا کردن توی فنلاند برات حیاتی باشه. این گزینه ها میتونه به کار پیدا کردن کمک کنه اینجا).

الف: مدرک جمع کن
- مدرک آشپزی
- مدرک سلمونی
- مدرک برنامه نویسی (دانشگاه شریف یه سری کلاس برنامه نویسی توپ میذاره)
- گواهینامه لیفتراک (آموزشش 20 ساعته توی ایران، اگه گواهینامه معمولی داشته باشی یه امتحان میدی گواهینامشو میگیر).

ب: سابقه کار جمع کن
- زنگ بزن به چند تا هتل، یا رستوران بزرگ، بگو من میخوام بیام توی آشپزخونه شما مجانی کار کنم، کار کردن با ماشینهای ظرفشویی بزرگ رو یاد بگیرم.
- برو یه سلمونی (بعد از مدرک گرفتن) یه ماه واستا مردم رو کچل کن.

ج: فنلاندی یادگرفتن رو شروع کن
-فنلاندی
-فنلاندی
-فنلاندی

ایشالله متروپولیا ببینمت از پائیز، منم دارم امتحان میدم که بیام اونجا.
 

Day 300 and something: using the language to learn Java programming

Tännän aloittin katsoaa tämä video:
http://www.ohjelmointivideot.fi/fi/category/java/

Se on Java ohjelmionti oppia suomeksi.Olen väsynyt opetellan suomia. Toivin opetellan ohielmionti tunti parempi.

DAY 310: ok it was too much

I haven't touched my self study books for about one month now. I think it was because it was too much, Finnish 2, Finnish 4, and about 6 books on the side plus other studies was unmanageable.
Besides I met a friend who knew good Finnish but still he couldn't find a job. That made me disappointed a bit.

Anyways I'm starting (small) again. Only one textbook: Kuulostaa hyvältä. Until the second notice :)

Day 256: what's going on

Well, I'm doing both Finnish 2 and Finnish 4 courses at the same time this semester.
In terms of confidence, I'm not doing good because I don't get most of the conversations in movies and radio. For now pointing out single words or phrases doesn't feel good, but used to do.  I'm expecting more from myself.
Anyway the magic of learning a new language is doing its job perfectly.The language doesn't sound Greek to me anymore.

Now I've done about 10 lessons from Kuulostaa Hyvältä (out of 30) and 5 from Alkeisoppikirja (from 15), and also 20 pages from 90 from Aamu. I started reading these books in January and this is the outcome after two months. If I go like this, I'll finish kuulostaa in July. That's ok, no hurries.

Day 242: Hirveä Henry

We are watching an episode of Hriveä Henry every night. I don't get a lot but it's fun anyway.
Here is its song:

Kiljuttaa, kun vanhemmat räyhää
Tee niin, tee näin
Kiljuttaa, kun koulu on tylsää
Ja muuten ois kivaa
Kun kaikki oikein harmittaa,
niin silloin laulaa saa.
Saa laulaa
Naa-na-na-naa-naa
Na-na-na-na-naa-naa-na-na-naa-na-naa
Naa-na-na-naa-naa
Naa-naa-naa-naa-naaa-naaa

DAY 237: Books I'm using now

I've changed my ways in learning Finnish a bit these days. Firstly, I'm not posting words and phrases in here. It felt like waste of time. From now on I'll use this blog only to report important things in my learning curve.

Secondly I got messy with my books. I played around with many books, which made it confusing to decide which one should be read every time. So here are the final list, I won't change them unless I'm done with any of them:

You are understandable!

Today I received a compliment from a native Finnish speaker. Sending him a message in Facebook in Finnish and apologizing for my poor Finnish he said: Yet your Finnish is understandable so it's good enough.

No matter what's the trough, it feels good to hear such a comment only after 200 or so days of studying a new language. Isn't it?

vitsi

Today I found out from Kuulostaa Hyvältä that the Finnish word for joke is vitsi.
I googled the word and found out some jokes. It is interesting that many jokes Finns laugh at were hostile towards their neighbors, the swedes.And also the number of Jokes about women...
It felt like home to me. In Iran people have lots of jokes on Arabs, and women and ...
That's the way it is. 

Lyhyt puhelu

Miten nainen voi selviätä puhelimesta vain 15 minuutissa?
-Väärä numero

Tragedia

Ruotsalaisbussi syöksyi rotkoon ja kaikki matkustajat kuolivat.
Miksi se oli tragedia?
- Bussissa olisi ollut tilaa vielä kolmelle.

Day 234: Reviewing my learning strategy

I've found a good book to start with yesterday. It's an intermediate book on Finnish: Finn Talk: Neljä, viisi, kuusi, ... neljä, viis, kuus. It teaches both spoken and standard Finnish.
I'll study Finnish first thing in the morning for an hour. Dividing the time equally between on two books. Here are the list of my books for now:
Main book: Kuulostaa Hyväaltä
Exercise book, Kieli Käytöön
Grammer, Suomen Kielen Alkeisoppikirja
Reading, Aamu
Also this new one, Finn Talk

I read the books in the morning and write the notes in here in the evening.
Also in reading Kuulostaa Hyvältä I'll first watch the video then read the text from now on. There are a lot to learn. I have to hurry up, before I get disappointed about learning Finnish on my own.

DAYS 228-229: Ollan vaan

Hän huuhtaa! wikipedia

I made sentences by the words given in an exercise from Kuulostaa Hyvältä during yesterday and today's 45 mins a day Finnish program.

I'm a bit tired of learning Finnish. In past month I've been committed to do it everyday and I did. But now I feel a bit fed up. But there's no other way to learn a language. I have to go on.

These days I'm listening to radio suomi pop on my cellphone whenever possible.  Because I read in a research published in dailymail that listening to the foreign language is crucial for learning it even if you don't understand anything.  I'm just giving it a try, by the way there's nothing more useful when I'm on the bike.

I also did a page from Aamu today. The story was about a couple arguing about how they love each other now, compared to then!. I'm not writing down all the words and phrases here. Just the ones I really liked to learn:

Days 221 to 227: lots of things

These days I have a lot to read. I've taken too many courses this term which means less time to study Finnish or update this blog.
Anyway during last 6 or seven days I...

Finnish nursery rhyme

Today I asked a few finns to give me some nursery songs. A friend on facebook suggested this one. It's lovely! And I understand some parts :)

êtes-vous, accro aux nouvelles technologies?

créer des documents

to create

imprime des photos

to print

Jouer à des jeux vidéo

Je lui ai donné le livre. 

I gave the book to him/her.

il est toujours allumé

DAY 221: keskiyöllä

A couple of exercise from kappale 7 of Kuulostaa Hyvältä and a couple of pages from Aamu is all for today :)

Voittko autta minua? päästä

I can't get this verb completely.

päästä

It's defined as to get, to reach and to arrive in dictionary.  But it doesn't help me to understand the following sentences anyway.

In phrases like: "pääseekö sinne metrolla?"

"Sinä pääset kotiin aivan varmasti."

What is happening exactly? It seems like that it's a frequently used verb in written Finnish. I don't know if it is used in spoken language much or not. However if somebody came here and helped me with a few examples and explanations it would be great.

 Update: Soon after posting this Sakari sent me these explanations. Thanks to Sakari! 

"Can you get there by underground?" and "You'll surely get home".

Päästä means "to get somewhere / reach a place / arrive in" (Pääsin kotiin.) or "to get to do something / be able to / be allowed to do something" (Pääsin kuuntelemaan konserttia.) It mostly has a POSITIVE connotation to it whereas "joutua" is negative in tone and can be considered its opposite.

Yritin päästä kotiin mutta käännyin risteyksestä väärään suuntaan ja jouduin rakennustyömaalle.
I tried to get home, but in the intersection, I turned the wrong way and got to (arrived in) a construction site.

Hän ei koskaan pääse hyvään yliopistoon, ellei hän ala opiskella.
He'll never get to a good university if he doesn't start studying.

Sayings:

päästä perille (get to the destination), päästä pälkähästä (escape the consequences), päästä selville jostakin (find out about sth), päästä yksimielisyyteen jostakin (come to an agreement about sth), päästä eroon jostakin (get rid of sth) and many others.

Also metaphorically:

Harmi, etten päässyt lähtemään.
What a pity I wasn't able to leave (didn't get to leave).

Onneksi en joutunut lähtemään.
I'm glad I didn't have to leave.

Joni Mikael added these:

A simple explanation: the English word "to get" has (at least) 2 different meanings.

1. for example "to get a present" (you are given something)
2. to get out, to get there, to get in etc.

If you think about it, those two are totally different things, so Finnish has 2 different verbs for that. The first in Finnish is "saada" and the second is "päästä".

to get out = päästä ulos
to get in = päästä sisään
to get there = päästä perille
to escape = päästä pakoon

 

 

Mon oncle de Bretagne!

I just started learning French. The class is taught in Finnish and French and sometimes also English!. It's a chance to learn some Finnish there as all student are Finns and the exercises are also usually translations from Finnish to French. So I'm putting my French stuff here too :)

The book taught in the class is called Echo A1 - méthode de français - Éditions CLE International.

Mon oncle de Bretagne!
uncle

DAYS: 218-220

 

 

Naisihmisen jalat (jalka, jalat) wikipedia

During the 3 days (24,25,26 Jan) I've read the dialog in Kappale 7 of Kuulostaa Hyvältä. Then read a few pages from Kappale 4 of Suomenn Kielein Alkeisoppikirja. Also some pages from Kieli Käyttöön. I might have read even a couple of pages from Ammu, I can't say exactly...
It's noteworthy that on Jan 25 I started using a wonderful dictionary: Suomen kielen sanakirja maahanmuuttajille. It's a dictionary of Finnish for Foreigners. This the first finnish-finnish dictionary that the most definitions look understandable to me at this point.

What I learned...

DAYS 216 and 217: Taiteilija

Van gough oli taiteilija!

On day 216 I had a class at 8:00 so I didn't study Finnish when I woke up. Today I did for both days at once, 9 minutes in total.

I finnished kappale 6 of Kuulostaa Hyvältä and then headed to Aamu. It talked about different professions in the couple pages that I read today.

Here they are...

DAY 215: ujo

Hän on ujo. Photo: ellit.fi

Today I did a form sentences by these words kind of exercise from kuulostaa hyvältä and then did a few pages of Kielin käytöön. Here are today's stuff:

Oikeastaan, hän on oikeastaan ujo.
actually shy

Sopia, Nämä huosut sopivat minulle täydelliseti.

Sopiva, sopiva kengät.

Käydä kahvilla, minä pidän käydä kahvila!

Totta kai, certainly. I hear this totta a lot in movies and on radio these days.

Toivottavasti, hopefully

Shipon kookies maistuu hyvätä!. 
taste (it even means tasty)

Minä pidän pasta ja valkokastike.
white sauce

Mitä tämä Pölynimuri maksa?
vacuum cleaner

Mitä tämä hella maksa?
oven

Mitä tämä mikrouuni maksa?
microwave oven

Ota kynä käteen, ja mieti!
Take a pen and think!.

DAY 214: Arva kuka tuli?

Arva

Today I did a "Muodosta lause" sort of exercise from Kuulostaa Hyvältä. It's a time consuming genre of task, I couldn't even finish it.

DAY 213: rading room

Today I did another exercise from Kuulosta Hyvältä. And then a few lines from kieli käyttöön.

DAY 212: Paris on kaunis

Paris on kaunis! photo from wikipedia

Today I did an exercise from Kuulostaa Hyvältä. Then I read a small part of the parttitive rules from Suomen Kielen Alkeisoppikirja. That is it. And I headed to my new French class!. Yeah that sounds crazy but I'm going back to learning French again. It's not harder than Finnish anyway. Plus the course is taught in Finnish so it might do me good both ways.

Personal space in Finland

I don't know who took this photo but it's a good one. Look how separate from each other are the standing the people in the bus stop. It shows how Finns respect personal space. And I have to add I don't think it's much of a stereo type. I have seen it many times during autumn. Once in a rainy day in October I was waiting for a bus inside the stop. It rained like hell. Then a Finnish girl came to the stop but she didn't come under the roof beside me, she waited outside under the rain! It took about 15 minutes until she decided to my personal space and get under the roof and only when she was all wet!

DAY 211: Neljäkäs

Neljäkäs (wikipedia)

Today I did a few exercises from Kuulostaa Hyvältä and then did a few lines of AAMU.

Using the Finnish-Finnish dictionary is very time consuming but anyway I'm doing it. Sometimes I look up the word first in my Finnish - English dictionary and then do it in the Finnish - Finnish one to see how much I get from the Finnish only definition.
Here are today's stuff:

DAY 210: Presidentin mukaan

Today I only reviewed what we were taught yesterday at Suomi 4 class. I tried using my Suomi - Suomi dictionary but it got frustrating at some point and I switched to my good old Suomi - English dictionary.

Here are what I got today:

DAY 209: Partitivi moudolsa!

Partitivi moudolsa! V + a            V V and K + ta         e + tta
mitoa      Radiota, Puhelinta   Konetta

Today I started using an online Finnish - Finnish dictionary. I did the second half of the dialog in Kuulostaa Hyvältä and then went on to Kieli Käyttöön. I also went to my Finnish 4 class at university. It was great. Opettaja speaks Finnish almost all the time in the class and I'm happy that I have a chance to hear Finnish twice a week.

Here are what I learned by self study today:

Day 208: Hellalla on kattila.

Yesterday I was on trip to Tampere then no direct Finnish learning afford. Tampere was a beautiful city by the way. Today I took a look at Suomen Kilelen Alkeisoppikirja i.e. my grammer book.
It gave the best parttivi / nominitavi (I'm surely misspelling those two words) explanations I've seen ever.
 By the way I changed the language of my facebook interface from English to Finnish.

DAY 206: tauko

Tauko! Photo from here

Today I started kappale 6 of kuulostaa hyvältä, but just went through half of the first dialog. Then switched to AAMU and finished a couple of pages about class room.
My word of the day was Tauko. Meaning break. I spent about an hour on Finnish today.

DAY 205: Minun pyötä on suikonen!

Minun pyöta on soikunen!

I woke up very early today aka 05:20! Knowing that I'll be off to Tampere this weekend I had to work harder on my Finnish today.
I opened up Kieli Käyttöön. It was about adjectives and kitchen stuff. Too much words for a day...

DAY 204: Kirjoitustehtävä ja pörri orava

Today I started at 7:20 by doing the last 2 exercises in kappale 5 of Kuulostaa Hyvältää.
First one was watching the lessons video clip and answering some questions about it. The last task was a writing task (kirjoitustehtävä), basically answering some questions about myself. Then I moved to AAMU and read about one paragraph and looked up the word in dictionary.

By the way, we watched an old animation last night. My wife and I remember this cute japanese squirrel from or childhood. We find the Finnish dubbed version  at city library and rented it immediately. It helps us learn Finnish faster.

DAY 203: Mudosta lause...

Today I started at 07:10 by doing a sentence making task from Kuulostaa hyvältä. Most of the phrases I made with the given words were from the text itself.
Here are some:

- Se on oikein hyvä ajatus.
- Minä nukkun myöhään illella.
- Olohuone on valoisa.

DAY 202: Etsi uudet sanat sanakirjasta!

Today I did an exercise from kappale 5 of Kuulostaa Hyvältä. It was a reading task according to this kappale only with a few new words. Which I was supposed to look up at the dictionary: Etsi uudet sanat sanakirjasta. Only 3 more tasks and I'll be moving on to kappale 6.
Then I did a couple of pages from Suomen Kielen Alkeisoppikirja. It took me about an hour.
By the way, yesterday I talked to the university's language center. The teacher suggested talking both Finnish 2 and Finnish 4 and see what happens.

 Here are my efforts for today...

DAY 201: Kirjasto

Kirjasto (wikipedia)

Today I did a couple of more exercises from Kappale 5 of Kuulosta Hyvältä. I also read a few pages of Kiele Kätyyn. It took me about 75 minutes. Here are my notes from what I learned today.

DAY 200: Taivas On Sininen Kaikkialla

Taivas

Today I got stuck at a couple of exercises from kappale 5 of Kuulosta Hyvältä. I just don't get it. It's about when to use partitive form and when not to use it. For example:
 Jääkaapissa on maitoa. (here maito is in partitive form).
but
Keskustassa on ravintola. (the same kind of sentence but ravintola is not in partitive form.)
I'll get it one day, it doesn't matter.
Then I moved to my reading book "AAMU" and worked on a couple of pages.

DAY 199: Päästä

Today (Jan 5) I decided to take the daily time limit for studying Finnish more seriously. I read the books for 30 minutes and spent 15 minutes to summarize what I've learned here. If I want to learn Finnish 45 minutes for everyday I must not let it stretch further than that limit.
I did the first 3 exercises of kappale 5 in Kuulostaa hyvältä. I noticed a very important verb in the first exercise...

DAYS: 195 to 198 Eikö olekin?

In last three days (from Jan 1 to Jan 4) , I've finished lesson four from Kuulostaa Hyvältä and I'm also at the middle of Kappale 3 in Suomen Kielen Alkeisoppikirja. I also read a few pages of Kieli Käytoon. The new semester at university is beginning and soon I won't have my current focus on learning Finnish. Let's see what happens.
Here are what I've learned during days 195 to 198.