In which Cam attempts to learn Finnish

[camrogers]

"Why doesn't this language have any resemblance whatsoever to English? There are eight vowels! Every word's a fucking ambush!"

"If Tolkien can get this you can."

"Yeah, 'cause Tolkien was a total retard."

Fun Facts

There are no separate masculine, feminine or neuter words. At all. There's is no 'he' or 'she'. There's a human-version of 'it.' Big on equality. First country to give women the vote.

Nokia is a Finnish company, named after the city in which it started. Always thought they were Japanese.



The actual scaffolding on which the language hangs is easy enough to comprehend, but it's remembering the words that's gonna be the biggest thing. Seriously. In the end it's going to come down to living in a country where I'm surrounded by people who speak Elvish whether I can or not. Weirdly, I think I'll pick this up quicker than French. J's a better teacher (she runs her own school.)

Comments

[neonfaerie.livejournal.com]

I thought you sounded like you were having a very weird conversation in there for a minute- then I realised that it must have been a Finnish lesson. Or an elf convention.

[taliehelene.livejournal.com]

If it's any consolation, most Finn's are tri-lingual at least. My father's family (well, some of them, for that's how it goes for any Australian, all of us are the children of migrants of only a few generations remove, as much as the bogans' try to hide it) is from a village known as 'Jacobstad' (Swedish) or 'Pietarsaari' (Finnish) - from the little contact I have, I gather English and a couple of regional languages are standard. I'm sure you'll find the community very welcoming to a genuine transition; I get the impression they have excellent English, and an effort on your part in Finnish would be welcomed kindly, and with some levity.

Don't be daunted!

[ed-dirt.livejournal.com]

remember, tell them you don't want to speak English or they will! Constantly! The Finns are used to nobody understanding their language and so they've learned other languages in order to communicate.

Once you learn Finn, btw, you'll have a breeze learning Hungarian

For some reason, Hungarian and Finnish have the same language root.

[patchworkkid.livejournal.com]

Brilliant!