If you have kept current on my posts, you already know that Finnish is a difficult language. If you are a new reader, Finnish is a very difficult language, at least if you are used to Latin- or German-based languages. Another factor that increases the difficulty of learning Finnish is that it is not essential to speak it in Finland to get by as English is a compulsory subject in school. So, for the sake of learning, Brent and I are both taking Finnish lessons: his class moves at a more rapid rate than mine (with lots of grammar and very little speaking) while mine meets once a week and we are not very advanced. I also hear Finnish every day at work. Between the two of us, we think that we can manage at the level of a 3 year-old child with a large vocabulary of laboratory jargon.
There are some basic phrases that everyone should know when visiting a country that does not speak your native language, such as:
English Finnish
please *does not exist, it is assumed that you are polite
thank-you kiitos
excuse me/sorry anteeksi
I do not speak [native language] en puhu suomea
These phrases are in heavy rotation in my vocabulary, especially anteeksi.
For the first time in my life, I have an exotic accent! So exotic that when I respond to a question that I do not understand by saying, "Anteeks, en puhu suomea," I usually get a "Mitä?" ("What?") in return. Uhhh (with sinking stomach)... I do not speak Finnish. I guess I really don't puhu suomea if I am so bad at pronouncing it that the natives don't understand me. How can it be that my Finnish is so terrible? Am I unwittingly cursing their grandmother by adding an extra syllable that I cannot hear? Thankfully, I am not. It turns out that I was putting stress on the wrong syllable. Finnish, though difficult, makes it easy in that you don't have to remember which syllable gets the stress in each word: it is always the first. Just imagine in the English language if you were to put emphasis on the wrong syllable of 'assess'.
I have learned a few things about the Finnish language: it is easy and logical, but with complicated grammar. Here is a non-exhaustive list of the highlights for beginning Finnish:
1. Pronounce every letter in every word.
2. Every letter makes the same sound all of the time, regardless of what other letters surround it (Finnish schools do not have spelling tests for this reason: if you can say you, you can spell it. I was quizzed over this Spelling subject in American schools that the Finns had seen in American TV shows and movies.).
3. Put stress on the first syllable of each word.
4. There are no articles (a/an, the).
5. There are no gender distinctions.
6. Prepositions, plural, and possessives are just endings tacked onto the nouns.
While I continue to learn (and butcher in the process) Finnish, I am very appreciative of the patience, sympathy, encouragement, and compassion that my coworkers, friends, shop clerks, strangers on the street, etc., have shown to me. Maybe someday I will say with confidence, "Puhun vähän suomea".
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