Finnish 101: The 30 Minute Crash Course in Finnish Johanna Lahti.
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Transcript of Finnish 101: The 30 Minute Crash Course in Finnish Johanna Lahti.
Finnish 101: The 30 Minute Crash Course in Finnish
Johanna Lahti
44 Weeks from today…
…you will have:
General Professional Proficiency in Speaking Finnish (S3)
and
General Professional Proficiency in Reading Finnish (R3)
Category I: 23-24 weeks (575-600 hours)Languages closely related to English
Afrikaans, Danish, DutchFrench, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese,Romanian, Spanish,Swedish
Category II: 30 weeks (750 hours)Languages similar to English
German
Category III: 36 weeks (900 hours)Languages with linguistic and/or cultural differences from English
IndonesianMalaysianSwahili
Language Difficulty Rankinghttp://www.effectivelanguagelearning.com/language-guide/language-difficulty
Category IV: 44 weeks (1100 hours)Languages with significant linguistic and/or cultural differences from English
Albanian, Amharic, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Bengali, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Burmese,Croatian, Czech, *Estonian, *Finnish, *Georgian, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, *Hungarian, Icelandic, Khmer, Lao, Latvian Lithuanian, Macedonian, *Mongolian,Nepali, Pashto, Persian (Dari, Farsi, Tajik), Polish, Russian, Serbian, Sinhala, Slovak, Slovenian, Tagalog, *Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uzbek, *Vietnamese,Xhosa, Zulu * Languages preceded by asterisks are usually more difficult for native English speakers to learn than other languages in the same category.
Category V: 88 weeks (2200 hours)Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers
ArabicCantonese (Chinese)Mandarin (Chinese)*JapaneseKorean
* Languages preceded by asterisks are usually more difficult for native English speakers to learn than other languages in the same category.
Finnish? Easy...
...even squirrels can read it!
Finnish from times immemorial...
ANTEDILUVIAN TIMES
oral language: Finnish
business: Middle Low German
administration: Swedish
religious activities: Latin
1500’s
Mikael Agricola, Father of the Finnish
language
comprehensive writing system and Finnish
language literature.
1800’s
J.V. Snellman
modernization
improve the status of Finnish
Elias Lönnrot
development of modern vocabulary
Kalevala
...till present
Approximately 6 million speakers,
roughly 5 million live in Finland
Billions of squirrels
around the world
&
Sigurd Wettenhovi-Aspa:Kalevala and Egypt, the Golden Book of Finland II (1935)
• All civilization originates from Finland
• Using intuitive permutationwanted to prove that many foreign names and wordscan be derived fromthe Finnish language
• Fennoegyptology
Common features in Finno-Ugrian languages(Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian, Sami...)
1. Absence of gender ( he, she = ‘hän’)
2. Absence of articles
3. Long words due to the structure of the language
4. Numerous grammatical cases
5. Personal possessions expressed with suffixes (koirani, koirasi, koiransa…)
6. Postpositions in addition to prepositions
7. No equivalent of the verb ‘to have’
September 23Autumnal equinox7:06 am
Vocabulary and word formation
• Since Finnish is Finno-Ugric and not Indo-European, its central vocabulary is different from that of more common European languages:
English German French Finnish
mother Mutter mère äiti
sun Sonne soleil aurinko
Finnish Finnisch finlandais suomalainen
person Person personne ihminen
• Therefore, it is often difficult to guess what an unknown word means.
The primary stress of every Finnish word falls on the first syllable.
October 10,Day of FinnishLiterature,American Voices!7:48 am
LainasanaLoan word
• pizza/pitsa
• pasta
• television/TV
• radio
• auto
• psykologia
• teoria
• laboratorio
• sinfonia
• ooppera
• rokki-musiikki
The primary stress of every Finnish word falls on the first syllable.
Numerals
1 yksi – one
2 kaksi – two
3 kolme – three
4 neljä – four
5 viisi – five
6 kuusi – six
7 seitsemän – seven
8 kahdeksan – eight
9 yhdeksän – nine
10 kymmenen – ten
The primary stress of every Finnish word falls on the first syllable.
November 27,Thanks Giving Day8:49 am
Finnish is a concise language
lentokonesuihkuturbiinimoottoriapumekaanikkoaliupseerioppilasairplane jet turbine engine auxiliary mechanic non-commissioned officer student
The primary stress of every Finnish word falls on the first syllable.
December 6,Finnish IndependenceDay9:07 am
Why Finnish words are so long 1: Compounding
• Words look longer in Finnish because compounds are always written together as one word:
puhelinluettelo telephone directory
matkapuhelin mobile phone
matkakortti travel card
• Compounding is much more common in Finnish than in English, and Finnish uses a compound in many cases where English has a separate word:
sanakirja (word+book) dictionary
• It helps to learn the basic words that make up these compounds (puhelin, kirja, kortti…) so you can identify them and get a better idea of what the whole word means.
• Words generally stay in their basic forms when part of a compound, and tend to be in the same order as they would be in English.
Why Finnish words are so long 2: Agglutination
• Long words are due to a process called agglutination: grammatical markers and endings are joined to a word stem.
• In many places where English uses small words like conjunctions and prepositions, Finnish attaches suffixes directly onto the word:
talo housetalo-ssa in the housetalo-i-ssa in the housestalo-i-ssa-ni in my housestalo-i-ssa-ni-kin also in my housestalo-i-ssa-ni-kin-ko also in my houses ?
talo - i - ssa - ni - kin - ko
also in my house-s?
The primary stress of every Finnish word falls on the first syllable.
December 22,Winter solstice9:25 am
Phonetic language
• Neat one-to-one correspondence between sound and spelling
• Spelling bees are useless
• Memory and concentration contests
• Speaking-while-inhaling contests
www.tyoehtosopimuksenyleissitovuudenvahvistamislautakunta.fi
The primary stress of every Finnish word falls on the first syllable.
January 30,Midway, week 22!8:39 am
Nouns and their cases (don’t panic!)
• The case system is one of the most important distinguishing features of Finnish.
• Cases are a series of 15 endings that attach to nouns (and adjectives) and perform different functions.
March 21,Vernal equinox6:19am
Nouns and their cases (really, don’t panic!)
Here are all 15 cases of Finnish on the noun talo ’house’:
Nominative talo basic form, subject
Accusative talon object
Genitive talon same as ’’s’ or ’of’
Partitive taloa indefinite, ’some’
Inessive talossa same as ’in’
Elative talosta same as ’out of’
Illative taloon same as ’into’
Adessive talolla same as ’on’
Ablative talolta same as ’off of’
Allative talolle same as ’onto’
Translative taloksi change of state
Essive talona similar to ’as’
Instructive taloin similar to ’by means of ’
Abessive talotta same as ’without’
Comitative taloineen same as ’with’, rare
The good news:
• You will never have to remember their names (Finnish people can’t either).
• People will still understand you if your object has no -n on it by mistake.
• The ones on the bottom are really, really rare (comitative = 0.1%).
The primary stress of every Finnish word falls on the first syllable.
When you are about to face a noun
Stay calm, please do not panic:
• Is it possible to avoid using the noun?
• Yes -> then don’t use
• No -> self confidence is your key to success
Good sounding language
No restrictions to the number of consecutive vowels!
Köyliöläisen yötyöläisen hääyöaie. A wedding night intention of a night-time worker from Köyliö.
The primary stress of every Finnish word falls on the first syllable.
May 1,vappu5:16 am
Consonant / vowel length as a distinctivefeature
• Kokoa kokoon koko kokko!
• Koko kokkoko?
• Koko kokko!
Minä tapaan sinut huomenna.
I’ll see you tomorrow.
Minä tapan sinut huomenna.
I’ll kill you tomorrow.
The primary stress of every Finnish word falls on the first syllable.
June 21,Summer solstice3:54am
July 3, 2015, 4:03 am!1. järki = reason, sense, intelligence2. järjestää = organize3. järjestelmä = organization4. järjestelmällinen = organized5. järjestelmällistyttää = organizationalize6. epäjärjestelmällistyttää = unorganizationalize7. epäjärjestelmällistyttämätön = having unreflectional attention
to antiunorganizationalize8. epäjärjestelmällistyttämättömyys = unreflectional attention to
antiunorganizationalize9. epäjärjestelmällistyttämättomyydellä = with unreflectional
attention to antiunorganizationalize10. epäjärjestelmällistyttämättömyydellään = with his unreflectional
attention to antiunorganizationalize11. epäjärjestelmällistyttämättömyydelläänkö = is it with his
unreflectional attention to antiunorganizationalize?12. epäjärjestelmällistyttämättömyydelläänköhän = I wonder if it is
possible, with his unreflectional attention to antiunorganizationalize?
13. epäjärjestelmällistyttämättömyydelläänköhänkään? = I wonder if it is possible, even with his unreflectional attention to antiunorganizationalize?
Missä on suomen kurssi?Where is (the) Finnish course?
Language courses and online courses (CIMO)
http://www.cimo.fi/programmes/finnish_language_and_culture/summer_courses_in_finland/other_finnish_language_courses
Summer Universities
http://www.kesayliopistot.fi/koulutustarjonta/finnish_language_courses/calendar_finnish_language_courses
www.finnishcourses.fi
Minä haluan puhua suomea
Minä haluaisin puhua suomea. I’d like to speak Finnish.
Voisitko puhua suomea?Could you speak Finnish, please?
The primary stress of every Finnish word falls on the first syllable.
Reads immediately,never speaks
Couple yrs of practice before speaks,nearly 7 years before reads
Orava Johanna Prof. Aikhenvald
More than 10 yrs
Learners of Finnish
Fulbrighters
44 weeks
Learners of Finnish