Some Thoughts...

...in Finnish. 

Now I need to follow these pieces of advice and make a phone call. Stay tuned for some exciting news😄

[500 Days]] 2014

Natalie asked how life and work were going. It made me think back on the year and all the things I have actually experience. Once again, I can say wow! 95% of the time I think my life is uneventful, but when I start summarizing the year, the summary may include moving to a new country or crisscrossing across Europe.

So, in 2014:

• I moved to Sweden. This far I'm happy with the decision. There have been no great culture shocks of any kind and we have been very lucky with finding somewhere to live and finding jobs. Apart from this, my boyfriend's family has been really supportive, which has also helped us a lot. 
• Started a new job. Also happy with the decision, it has been stressful at times, but I feel that I'm doing something much more important (to me) than IT. Besides, they give me A LOT OF BOOKS. 
• Travels. The aim was to go to five new capitals: only one of the capitals I visited was new (Vilnius), but hey, I have been to more than five capitals :)
• I started tai chi. You know how yoga people can be completely obsessed with the benefits of yoga? I think tai chi is a bit similar, albeit in a less trendy way, 
• Language-wise I have not done much new. Unfortunately. I did read a couple of books in Spanish - does that count? 

When December came, I decided to be diligent with the blog. It started well, but ended not-so-well. I think this has been the most social month in a very long time. We have managed to squeeze in trips, dinners, and parties. 

Here are some photos from the past month. 

Alexander II guards Helsinki

I <3 helsinki="">

Christmas dinner Finnish style

Catching the sunset in Åland

Winter day in Stockholm

Cooking!

Elu on väärt elamist [notes on Estonian]

Elu on väärt elamist - Life is Worth Living

How much time have you spent thinking about Estonian? 

Let me tell you, Estonian is quite an amazing language. Funny and beautiful at the same time. My boyfriend thinks it's like a more cheerful version of Finnish :)

Finnish and Estonia belong to the same Finno-Ugric language group, but they are not mutually intelligible. As a Finnish-speaker I can understand some things, but most of the time I'm out in the blue, all puzzled about what is going on around me.

Take for instance the following sentences:

• How are you? Estonian: kuidas sinul läheb? Finnish: Mitä sinulle kuuluu? 

• I don't understand. Estonian: ma ei saa aru. Finnish: minä en ymmärrä. 

• Thank you very much. Estonian: tänan väga. Finnish: kiitos paljon. 

• Life is worth living. Estonian: elu on väärt elamist. Finnish: elämä on elämisen arvoinen. 

In general, I must admit that I know shamelessly little about both the Estonian language and culture. For a country that is so close, its history, culture, language and literature are surprisingly far away. I will definitely try to improve my knowledge in the area.

A tip for you who are unfamiliar with Finnish and Estonian literature: the Finnish writer Sofi Oksanen (her mother is Estonian) has written a couple of internationally acknowledged novels, which pay attention to issues relating to Estonia. 

Language Mishaps

As we all know, Finland has two official languages - Finnish and Swedish. Hence all product packaging comes in two languages, so that the entire population will understand what they are buying. You get the gist, right?

Unfortunately - and due to the human factor, I believe - things can sometimes go awfully wrong.

The Finnish version of the text tells us that the product was made in Lithuania (Liettuassa), whereas the Swedish translation claims that it is Latvia (Lettland) where the bread was baked.

Maybe I have too little to do at the moment, but I did write an e-mail to customer care asking for more details. I would very much like to know where my bread was baked, but even more I'd like the information to be correct. 

An Observation.

The language spoken in Finland (or at least one of them) is called Finnish. I do not know how many times I have seen people get it wrong and it annoys me a lot every single time. 

If you are looking for someone speaking Finish, you’ll be looking for that person a long, long time.

That was my daily rant, thank you. Over and out.

“You’re Crazy”

…that’s what my friend J told me today when I was getting *slightly* too excited about Czech writers and their ability to write beautifully.

I believe it was said with affection.

So I took it as a compliment.

And in order not to let such a great compliment go to waste, let’s train our language skills.

 

Finnish: olet hullu.

Swedish: du är galen.

Spanish: estás loco/loca.

Slovak: si blázon.

Polish: jesteś szalony/szalona.

Hungarian: te őrült.

Russian: Ты сошел с ума/ Ты сошла с ума

French: tu es fou

EU Vocab

I was looking for a couple of concepts on the EU website when I bumped into their multilingual thesaurus. The best thing is that one can choose one or several languages and download the entire list. I’m so excited that I have a list consisting of 6800 (yes!!) terms in 7 different languages that I can study at night before going to sleep. Unfortunately Russian wasn’t among the available languages. The list is available in all EU-languages + Croatian and Serbian.

The thesaurus can be found here.

Languages Are Fun

One of the things I've been doing lately is writing stenographic protocols. Well, as you can probably guess, these days one uses a computer, not a pen.
Anyways, I've had to think a lot about the Swedish language. It's a language I know well but sometimes one bumps into some interesting issues.
Let's take the word "Finnish" - in Finnish, that's suomalainen. Now, in Swedish one can choose between two words - finländsk and finsk - which are very similar but there is a slight but important difference.
Finsk usually refers to Finnish-speaking, while finländsk is something from Finland. So, literature for instance, can be both. Finländsk litteratur = literature from Finland (can be in Swedish, though).
Interestingly enough, this phenomenon exists in Russian too. I think many Russian learners have faced some confusion over the difference between русский and российский.

Language Assessment

How do you know that your language skills are sufficient? Assessing one’s language level is a subjective process. People tend to either under- or overestimate their skills.  One of the reasons I’m no big fan of people who claim to be fluent as soon as they manage to have a conversation about the weather is that these subjective assessments often appear on CVs and job applications. In such cases, the perceived level of knowledge can give an unfair advantage to the weather conversationalists.

There are exams one can take. Exams that are expensive and may even require travelling. I tell you, the nearest language centre offering the possibility to take an official exam in Polish isn’t exactly next door. These exams require dedication. They are often a last option, at least for me, for getting some kind of formal proof of knowing a language.  

The reason I’m writing about this is that I need to get some certificates. I have a plan, you see. And for that I need formal proof of my language skills. 

Of the languages I know I have sufficient proof (according to Finnish requirements) that I know three.

Swedish: I took my A-levels in Swedish, and my grade in Swedish was good enough to ensure that I officially know Swedish.

English: a degree from a British university is enough to prove a sufficient level of English.

Having a university degree in a language is also sufficient. 

Therefore I have proven knowledge of Russian and Hungarian.

I need to take a language exam in Spanish, Polish and Finnish. Finnish is my official mother tongue, but since I took my A-levels in Swedish (I had no chance, as far as I know, to choose Finnish) I have no proof of this. This is the ironic part of the story. Believe it or not, I think that a Finnish exam would be the most difficult one of these.  The level is different, even though I plan on taking both Spanish and Polish at C1/C2*.

Time to study :) 

*C1: Can understand a wide range of demanding, longer texts, and recognise implicit meaning. Can express him/herself fluently and spontaneously without much obvious searching for expressions. Can use language flexibly and effectively for social, academic and professional purposes. Can produce clear, well-structured, detailed text on complex subjects, showing controlled use of organisational patterns, connectors and cohesive devices. 

C2: Can understand with ease virtually everything heard or read. Can summarise information from different spoken and written sources, reconstructing arguments and accounts in a coherent presentation. Can express him/herself spontaneously, very fluently and precisely, differentiating finer shades of meaning even in the most complex situations. (source: Wikipedia)

Languages

While listening to some random Russians chatting in their native tongue at a table nearby, I was struck with a sudden feeling of…. love, maybe? Being in love with languages might sound like a very silly thing, but I cannot think of a better word to explain this feeling. Languages just make me emotional.
I quickly updated my facebook status with the following summary:

(Irish) English is sexy, (the Savonian version of) Finnish is hot. Spanish can make chocolate melt. Catalan and Dutch are the funny ones, French is the language of philosophy. Swedish is compulsory and German is kinda cool. Polish makes me happy and Hungarian feels like home. But the most beautiful of them all is Russian.

How do languages make you feel?
(I know, I know… I’ve written about this before!!)

The Perfect Running Buddy

The other day I signed up for a half-marathon that will take place at the end of October. Having a goal makes exercising a lot easier, and now I’ll be forced to go out running. I have also found the perfect running buddy…

Sasha runs at the speed of a little rocket. But, being a puppy and all, she sometimes needs to stop for some cuddling…

Tounge Twister

The Finnish word elellä is the frequentative form of the verb elää which means to live. If you feel like you’re up for a challenge on this beautiful Sunday evening, you can try conjugating all the forms of that verb. It does sound quite funny! (ja joku suomea äidinkielenään puhuva voisi vaikka selventää, että meneekö tuo ihan just noin?)

Present (active)
minä elelen
sinä elelet
hän elelee
me elelemme
te elelette
he elelevät

Perfect
minä olen elellyt
sinä olet elellyt
hän on elellyt
me olemme elelleet
te olette elelleet
he ovat elelleet

Imperfect
minä elelin
sinä elelit
hän eleli
me elelimme
te elelitte
he elelivät

Pluperfect
minä olin elellyt
sinä olit elellyt
hän oli elellyt
me olimme elelleet
te olitte elelleet
he olivat elelleet

Potential
minä elellen
sinä elellet
hän elellee
me elellemme
te elellette
he elellevät

Potential perfect
minä lienen elellyt
sinä lienet elellyt
hän lienee elellyt
me lienemme elelleet
te lienette elelleet
he lienevät elelleet

Conditional
minä elelisin
sinä elelisit
hän elelisi
me elelisimme
te elelisitte
he elelisivät

Conditional Perfect
minä olisin elellyt
sinä olisit elellyt
hän olisi elellyt
me olisimme elelleet
te olisitte elelleet
he olisivat elelleet

Imperative Present
(sinä) elele
(hän) elelköön
(me) elelkäämme
(te) elelkää
(he) elelkööt

Imperative Perfect
() olkoon elellyt
() olkoot elelleet
 
Infinitives

II Infinitive
Active inessive - elellessä
Active instructive - elellen
Passive inessive- eleltäessä


III Infinitive
Inessive - elelemässä
Elative - elelemästä
Illative - elelemään
Adessive - elelemällä
Abessive - elelemättä
Active instructive - elelemän
Passive instructive- eleltämän

IV Infinitive
Nominative - eleleminen
Partitive - elelemistä

V Infinitive
elelemäisilläni
 
Did you make it to the end?

Finnish!

This is your chance to learn Finnish for free! I'm helping a friend with her Finnish, which means that there will be lots of notes, vocabulary notes, dialogues and exercises taking up the extra space on my desktop. If anyone, for some strange reason, would like to have copies of these, just let me know.

A word of warning: the last girl I tried teaching Finnish ended up marrying a Finn and moving to Scandinavia. As far as I know, she now masters the language perfectly. Kyllä, sinua on varoitettu.