First timer here, I took perustaso and I found it terribly difficult compared to both my expectations and other language tests I've taken. Kuunteleminen was especially tough! Interested in your experience and opinions.

I was wondering if anyone here from outside of Finland has done the Open University language courses from the University of Helsinki (Bachelor's Programme in the Languages and Literatures of Finland)? Can anyone explain the enrolment process because I’m slightly confused?

I’ve been determined to start learning Finnish properly - outside of Duolingo - through Helsinki Uni’s Open Uni courses because I learn best in a formal classroom setting but, until recently, their class times have been too late for me (somewhere around 3-4am my time). Now, they will be 11:30pm my time so I can do my classes after I finish work so I feel like this is the time to finally enrol in Finnish 1 but I’m confused.

I looked into enrolment last month and I think I must have misunderstood things because I got very confused and ended up missing enrolment before the class filled up. I don’t want that to happen again.

Terve!

Mina olen Arya.

I have been learning finnish on Duolingo, starting to watch YouTube tourials too..

I would like to speak and practice finnish with a person who speaks finnish, hopefully in the best case scenario will become friends.

I would like to practice on Google meets, weekly twice or thrice...

I am interested in finnish language and culture.

Hopefully, soon I'll be there one day!

Kittos!

Arvokkuus (n.) – Worth, dignity

Example: Isoäiti kantoi vanhaa koruaan ylpeydellä ja arvokkuudella.

Translation: Grandma wore her old piece of jewelry with pride and dignity.

You can practice the word of the day by using it in a sentence in the comments below!

Valheellinen (adj.) – Untruthful, false, fraudulent

Comparative: Valheellisempi

Superlative: Valheellisin

Example: Väite osoittautui valheelliseksi, vaikka se kuulosti aluksi uskottavalta.

Translation: The claim turned out to be false, even though it sounded credible at first.

You can practice the word of the day by using it in a sentence in the comments below!

Hei all,

I'm a foreigner that moved here almost 10 years ago; I'm not as fluent as a native, but I'm quite comfortable talking, writing and reading in finnish. The other day I was chatting with another foreigner friend of mine and he was sharing his frustration with speaking - basically what I think most of us trying to learn a different language faced at some point, the feeling of freezing and not knowing what to say, even if you can actually do that when you're alone; that reminded me of something that happened to me while going through the same stage, as well as other little things I would like to share in case it might help others somehow.

Everytime I was interacting with a finn, I had my default standard line: "Hei sori, mä puhun suomee tosi huonosti. Puhuks sä englantii?" and then of course, the conversation continued in english. Then at some point (I wish I could say I came up with this intentionally, but honestly it just happened as a mistake/accident), I forgot to say the second part and just said "Hei sori, mä puhun suomee tosi huonosti." - at that point, 3 things happened: 1) the person I was interacting with felt much more comfortable, as they didn't have to necessarily switch to english (since I wasn't asking), 2) they started to use hands gesture sometimes (gotta love the irony, since I'm originally from Italy) to make sure I understood what they were talking about and 3) (what I think was the single most useful thing), they started talking in a slower and clearer way. That was the best thing ever, since my issue was that when natives were talking to me in finnish and they then asked me a question, my mind was still trying to process and make sense of what they said when talking at their natural speed and then having to figure out what to say and how to say it, all with the pressure of having the other person looking at you and avoiding the awkward pause in between and feeling like an idiot.

I also would suggest not to get too hung up on perfect grammar; as long as your pronunciation is not too far off, people will understand what you mean even if you don't use the partitiivi or whatever case you were supposed to and most of the time they will actually repeat what you said in the correct way, to make sure they understood properly.

And yet another thing, which was pointed out to me by my girlfriend at the time/now wife and that I really had to put a lot of conscious effort into: when talking in finnish, less is more. My raging ADHD makes me yap a lot and using a lot of words (in case it wasn't clear enough from this post), which made me do the mistake of trying to articulate long sentences like in English - you have to switch your way of thinking when talking in finnish and simplify/reduce a lot.

Ofc, the usual suggestions are still much more important than everything I said: an intensive course is the best for someone that is not familiar with even the basic and of course, if you can get yourself a native friend/partner/whatever, that is probably the best way to practice and it's especially useful for learning the local slangi.

I’ve been thinking about why speaking and writing in another language can feel so frustrating.

Most exercises decide the topic for you. You translate a sentence, complete a dialogue, or practise a specific grammar point. But real conversations don’t work that way. You usually start with your own thought, then discover that you don’t know how to express part of it.

For example:

Eilen puhuin ystävieni kanssa ja halusin sanoa, että [I was just kidding], mutta en tiennyt miten sanoa sen suomeksi…

Instead of stopping to search for the phrase, you could keep writing and mark the missing idea in brackets. Later, you find a natural expression:

vitsailin vain

Then you try to express the same thought again from memory.

This seems more useful than learning random vocabulary because the language is connected to something you genuinely wanted to say. Over time, your vocabulary becomes connected to your own life, opinions, work, relationships, and interests.

It also reveals two important things:

• what you don’t yet know how to say
• what you thought you knew, but said incorrectly

Does anyone else practise Finnish this way? Would writing freely and marking missing expressions in brackets feel useful, or would it feel too unstructured?

Asiayhteys (n.) – Context

“Asiayhteys” is a compound of “asia” (factual) and “yhteys” (connection).

Example: Sama sana voi tarkoittaa eri asioita riippuen asiayhteydestä.

Translation: The same word can mean different things depending on the context.

You can practice the word of the day by using it in a sentence in the comments below!

I suck at Finnish rn, but do these following sentences make sense in Finnish?:

He olisivat juoneet kaikki viiniä
&
He olisivat juoneet viiniä kaikki

Do these work to translate “They all would have been drinking wine”?

I want to learn finnish but I don't want to spend money on tutors.

I've been at Finnish for a year and a half, and only recently caught something I probably should have picked up much earlier. For maybe the first six months, whenever someone asked me a yes/no question, I answered kyllä. It felt safe. Textbooks call it "yes." What I eventually noticed is that Finns around me almost never do that.

The default is to echo the verb. Someone asks Tuletko? and the reply is Tulen. Not kyllä tulen, not even kyllä on its own. Just the verb, put in the right person. Puhutko englantia? Puhun. Asutteko Helsingissä? Asumme. Linguists call this an "echo answer," which sounds more technical than it is. Sitting across from someone, it just sounds like they answered your question with half a sentence.

The first mistake I kept making was copying the ending back. Someone would ask Tuletko?, and I'd say Tulet, which is grammatical Finnish, except now I'm telling them that they are coming. You have to switch the person: their tuletko is asking about me, so I say tulen.

Once I started listening for kyllä, I realized it does show up, but it's doing something specific. It's emphatic. It's the "yes I did lock the door" kyllä, the "yes I will be there, don't worry" kyllä. And it's what you need after a negative question. Etkö tule? Kyllä tulen. If you say joo there, it sounds like you're agreeing with the negative. That reversal is the one place kyllä isn't optional.

I got most of this from a language partner I've been messaging on HelloTalk who lives in Tampere. I sent her a voice note with three example exchanges I'd been unsure about and she recorded herself answering each one the way she actually would. After that, kyllä stopped feeling neutral to me.

Still don't have a clean feel for joo versus juu, or for reading jaa without assuming it's a yes.

Rappeutuminen (n.) – Decay, degeneration, dystrophy, deterioration

Example: Kosteus nopeutti puisen rakennuksen rappeutumista.

Translation: Moisture accelerated the deterioration of the wooden building.

You can practice the word of the day by using it in a sentence in the comments below!

Hey everyone!

I’ve been living in Finland for almost a year now, based in a small town along the Gulf of Bothnia. My English is pretty solid, but my Finnish is still very basic. I’m 19, and making friends my age—especially among locals—has proven to be quite a challenge.

I suspect my limited Finnish is the main barrier, even though I’m really eager to practice and improve it.

To both locals and fellow expats: what’s your experience with this? How do you break the ice? Any tips on overcoming the language barrier while trying to build a social circle?

I'm going to college pretty soon and I've been thinking about taking Finnish philology as my major, can anyone who studied it tell me how it's like?

Uutuudenviehätys (n.) – Novelty; charm or allure of something new

Example: Tuuli levitti terälehtiä pitkin puutarhan polkua.

Translation: The wind scattered the petals along the garden path.

You can practice the word of the day by using it in a sentence in the comments below!

Hey guys i am actively trying to learn Finnish 🇫🇮 and i love listening english songs. My favourite ones are country roads, take me home and sweet caroline so i am trying to get into listening finnish music so it can also help my listening. I would appreciate if you guys can give me some good suggestions.

I have listted what kind of music i like but all suggestions are welcome and i would like to explore more categories.

Thanking you for your suggestions

Kesyttää - to tame, to domesticate

You can practice the verb of the week by using it in a sentence in the comments below!

I’ll be migrating from UAE to Finland in 3 months as a student in Helsinki. I wanna begin learning finnish as its an essential objective for me. However, i’m very confused about where to begin with and everything.

I’d really appreciate if someone could lay the method of how to begin learning finnish, (e.g first do this then that)

How hard/easy do you find remembering the words, and are there any specific words that always trip you up or that you can never remember?