Watching the first season of Pokémon in Finnish.

Some useful links, includes a link to a good grammar page.

learnfinnish:

http://www.verbix.com/languages/finnish.shtml

•  this program conjugates the verbs for you

http://www.oneness.vu.lt/fi/

• includes pretty much everything you need to learn this language 

http://www2.edu.fi/ymmarrasuomea/index.php?moduli=sanakirja

• there are some useful words, it’s kinda an dictionary 

AND HERE SOME GRAMMAR 

• http://users.jyu.fi/~pamakine/kieli/suomi/sisallysen.html

Happy Day After Thanksgiving a.k.a. The Official Beginning of the Christmas Season!

thedayplanner:

I’m listening to only Christmas music from now until the end of December.

I thought this was appropriate. Although my reaction was more like this:

THIS IS REALLY HARD GUYS.

My roommate is so loud with her English and her not-Finnish and I CAN HEAR IT OVER MY STUFF. And headphones hurt after hours and hours of wearing them.

I have to stick to a lot of the same things and watch/listen repeatedly because it is extremely difficult to find new material. Why you ask? Well, one) I am so much more used to finding things easily because English is everywhere online and two) I can’t download things on school internet. It doesn’t work. I’ve tried. So like 90% of the things I have found I can’t touch until at least Thanksgiving break.

…I’m going to sit here and watch more cartoons. If anyone has any non-torrent links to any movies in Finnish (I would love you forever for a good dose of Disney) please please please please please please send it to me. Please.

learningmandarinchinese:

Learning a language is all about exposure. It’s not about some sort of magic system or program. Relax and just get out there. Make friends, watch movies, listen to music, read a magazine, translate menus, make lists, whatever. Just expose yourself to as many sources of the language as possible. You’ll start to notice patterns, vocabulary will accumulate, certains words and phrases will become familiar, etc. It will all come together on its own. 

This is good for learning more than just Mandarin. It works for all languages. Some are just more foreign to a speaker than others and it takes longer to pick up on the patterns. And once you pick up some patterns and get a foothold in the language you can add in some more formal study.

Your mileage may vary, of course, but it’s a good thing to try. And there’s really nothing to lose.

I’ve made a decision…

…I’m going All Finnish All the Time. Well, as much as I can, anyway. There are things that I need to do in English but I am going to try to cram as much Finnish as I can into my day anyway. 

Five semesters until my planned study abroad and I’m still a beginner. I’ve been floundering for way too long. (I started trying to learn it over a year ago. This is not acceptable.) Let’s do this.