The Finnish Cases, Explained

Today is Finnish Language Day! I’m going to make this a short post by virtue of the fact that, while I have seen a lot written about this topic, I usually haven’t seen it in “bite-sized” pieces.

So here we go!

First off: Finnish is a Finno-Ugric Language with close relatives in Estonian and, to a lesser degree, in the Sami Languages, and more distantly in Hungarian (not also to mention minority languages of the Russian Federation from which their original source likely was).

These languages have very high numbers of cases in comparison to the Germanic or Slavic Languages, but what few people will tell you is the fact that most of these cases are straight-up prepositions (this is true in all of the Finno-Ugric Languages which I have studied: Finnish, Hungarian, Estonian and Northern Sami).

Let’s look at how the word “talo” (house) is declined:

 

Wiktionary.org

 

This probably might not mean much to you if you’re an absolute beginner, so let’s help you. I’ll give the singular examples.

 

Nominative (talo) – use this if it is the SUBJECT of the sentence (so “the house is beautiful” = the house is what the sentence is about).

Accusative (talo) – use this if it is the OBJECT of the sentence (so “the dragon ate the house” = the house is what the primary doer of the sentence is doing the thing to, hence it is in the accusative)

Genitive (talon) – use this to indicate OWNERSHIP. The word “talon” by itself would mean “of the house” or “the house’s”.

Partitive (taloa) – used in a lot of ways, but use it with NUMBERS or to indicate SOME OF that thing. Taloja -> some houses (note that I used the plural form). The singular you can use with numbers, like with “lähes 400 taloa” -> “nearly four hundred houses” (400 – neljäsataa, which itself uses a partitive in the word “sataa” -> “hundreds” (in the singular because it, too, is preceded by a number)

 

This is where it gets easier:

Talossa – in the house

Talosta – from the house, about the house (as in “tell me more about yourself”)

Taloon – into the house

Talolla – on the house, upon the house (you also use this to indicate ownership, Finnish says “upon me there is” [minulla on] as opposed to “I have”)

Talolta – from upon the house to off the house (you also use this to indicate “from me” in “do you want something from me?”)

Talolle – to the house (you can also give things to people, hence “minulle” -> to me)

Talona – as a house (you may also see this ending to indicate at a time or date or in older words to indicate “in” hence “kotona” -> at home)

Taloksi – into a house (as in “I turned into a house yesterday”, not sure how that could happen). Like the one above except for this one normally highlights the presence of change or transformation.

Talotta – without a house.

Any thoughts? Corrections? Requests for future content? Let me know!

How to Learn Cases

Many experienced language learners know about them and are scared of them. But surprisingly as an experienced language learner there are significantly few things that scare me and cases is not one of them.

Cases are a sure way to scare all but the most hardened of languages learners on this planet. They’re not unique to the Indo-European Languages (Uyghur, Finnish and Greenlandic, Turkic, Finno-Ugric and Eskimo-Aleut respectively both have them.) For those of who you don’t know what they are, cases occur in inflected languages in which nouns will change depending on what function they form in the sentence.

In Germanic and in Slavic Languages, cases will usually serve the following roles:

• Direct object of a verb (e.g. I ate the apple, the apple is the thing I am eating and thereby it will go in an accusative case).
• Indirect object of a verb (e.g. I gave YOU the apple, the YOU is the thing I’m giving it TO and therefore it is in a dative case)
• Indicate that the noun owns something (the flight of Jared, Jared is the one who owns the flight and so Jared will go in the GENITIVE case).

In other languages with more cases, their roles can be expanded. Usually translating to straight-up prepositions.

• Illoqarfimmut (Greenlandic for “to the city”) -> the “-mut” at the end indicates “to”
• Talossa (Finnish for “in a house”) -> the “-ssa” at the end indicates “in”.

Let me describe my difficulties I’ve had with cases and how I’ve overcome them:

• In Russian class as a Junior / Senior in high school, I was introduced by some of Russian’s six cases one-by-one, enabling that I could “digest” each of them accordingly without feeling overwhelmed.
• In Greenlandic, well…let me put it this well, the amount of suffixes in Greenlandic are STAGGERING. Hundreds of them for all occasions! But cases indicating ownership and prepositions I distinctly remember learning through song names that featured them.
• In Finnish, it was extremely hard for me to understand the spoken language because, while I could recognize some of the cases that served as straight-up prepositions, my brain had trouble putting all of it together. My brain often felt that I was watching a table-tennis game at hyperspeed but ultimately, after putting together the system, that game slowed down to normal speed.

 

What happened in each of these “cases”? (HA!)

For one, like many other aspects in language-learning ,it became an issue of putting together a puzzle. It’s not enough to recognize the pieces by themselves, you have to put them together with other pieces so as to be able to create something coherent in all directions.

The stages of learning a case:

• Passive Recognition: you recognize that your target language has a case that does something (e.g. Finnish has a case that indicates “from” or “about”). You may not be able to form anything from it yet.
• Active recognition: you recognize that that case has a form that can be regularly identified (that case is noted with “-sta” at the end, I’m not getting into Finnish vowel harmony right now because I’m keeping it simplified)
• Usage: you know how to put that case on a basic noun in order to convey meaning: (I can say “Suomi” meaning “Finland” but now I can say “Suomesta” meaning “from Finland”, all because of the case!)
• Advanced usage: you learn if there are any special exceptions involving that case or any general rules for prepositional usage. Some languages will use prepositions and then have it followed by a noun in a certain case (Slavic languages are infamous for this, as is Ancient Greek). Other languages will use the case to indicate the preposition (as is the case with the word “Suomesta” so you can skip this if that’s the case.)

 

The first thing you can do is to ensure that the “plant blooms” is to realize step 1 as soon as you can.

 

Afterwards everything else will be on its way to locking into place as long as you have regular exposure.

 

One way you can genuinely ensure that you can get usage correct is by using a mixture of (1) minimal book learning and (2) sentences, preferably those that are memorable (a lot of inflected languages on Clozemaster, mind you!)

 

Book learning and “real-world usage” complement each other, even for your native language. And with learning a language with cases, it is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL that you keep this balance in place.

 

Also, don’t expect to wolf down absolutely everything at once. Relish not knowing for a while and then you’ll grow into your role as a master of the language, bit by bit.

 

Traps to avoid:

 

• Staring a grammar tables and hoping that you’ll master cases that way.
• Spending too much time on irregularities when you don’t have a solid grounding in the case to begin with.
• Believing that it is too hard and that “you can’t do it”
• Any other variety of self-defeating belief.

 

I’ll leave you with this, having phrases and sentences that use your case are essential. I learned a lot of cases through song lyrics or even, as mentioned above, song titles. In Hungarian right now I’m also learning the cases through exposure through sentences (and not just through Duolingo, mind you. I’m going on record saying that the Hungarian course is the hardest Duolingo course out there, given that it uses arcane sentence structure that threatens repetitive-strain-injury at any moment!)

Siddur Helsinki, a.k.a. a Jewish Prayer book with Finnish Translation! 

You know what you should be doing right now? Learning your cases, that’s what! Have fun with that!

In My Opinion, These Five Countries Have the Best Contemporary Music (November 2017)

 

I’ve tasted music from well over FIFTY different countries and at least that many languages

I’m sorry to say but, after having tasted music in a lot of the rest of the world, it seems to me that contemporary American music more often than not seems uninspired, shallow and formulaic. Granted, other places do have their share of bad music as well, but ever since college I’ve been looking abroad for musical hits and I’ve never, EVER looked back.

As of late 2017, here are the countries whose music of contemporary times (1980’s to the present) have left me significantly impressed and have changed my life. I also judge primarily for lyrical content as well as for how often I find myself humming or thinking about these tunes when I’m away from any music player or while walking in a field or down the street.

Here we go!

 

5. Finland

 

One month from today this fascinating country will celebrate its 100^th birthday!

It seemed to me in 2013 that I would just learn enough Finnish to “get by” during my venture to meet the local Jewish community in Helsinki and I would promptly forget it. Fate had other plans…

After having discovered a website that offered Finnish Language music 24/7 shortly after my trip, I got hooked. Finnish remains one of my favorite European languages and many of the song lyrics and tunes have been a potent look into what Finnishness (“Suomalaisuus”) entails.

That website, by the way still exists, and it comes with complete song ID’s for everything that plays during a 24-hour period. Check it out, it may prove fun even if you don’t speak or understand any Finnish at all: http://www.radiosuomipop.fi/

 

4. Solomon Islands

 

I know what you’re thinking, maybe some of you have visibly said “WHAT?!!?” out loud, but Solomon Music is unbelievably refreshing and heartfelt. What’s more, a lot of the music does tend to mix together standard English, Pijin and many of the local languages of the Solomons.

Let’s give it a listen, shall we?

 

 

By the way, I asked Dezine how their name was pronounced and they said it was pronounced “de-ZYN” (my understanding is that it’s a homophone with the English word “design”). Yes, I’m FB Messenger contacts with one of the best known musical acts in a country on the other side of the globe. Long story.

 

3. Myanmar / Burma

 

I still distinctly remember the withdrawal I suffered when I went back from Yangon to New York City and the music I hear from boom boxes and smartphones was noticeably different and not in a good way. Even in very poor regions of the countryside (in Bagan I noticed that this was particularly common), I heard farmers using their smartphones to play music that seemed as though it was vaguely inspired by Chinese pop ballads and classical British radio hits.

Did I tell you about the time I found 100+ Burmese-language songs for $10 on the iTunes store?

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/greatest-hits/id1222130595

There are totally no American, Russian or Chinese cover songs anywhere in that album. Nu uh. No way. [/s]

I also hear that many aspects of the punk music scene in Myanmar have been essential in ensuring inter-ethnic dialogue and reconciliation, especially important given current events throughout the world but especially in Myanmar.

 

2. Iceland

You can’t have a landscape like that and not have it inspire you on a very primal level. Sometimes I listen to bland music in grocery stores and at parties and then I listen to the likes of  Ásgeir Trausti and Rökkurró and I am thereby reminded that there is plenty of originality left in contemporary music, more than many people may give it credit for.

I think that every American alive will probably recognize this tune from somewhere:

And my love of Icelandic rap is literally no secret to anyone who knows me at all. Did I mention I got to see Emmsjé Gauti in concert the day before the Polyglot Conference? Be forewarned: he does demand a lot of audience participation in his events! (He even had an 8-year old boy from the audience join him on stage and sing the chorus to one of his songs!)

 

Honorable Mentions:

 

Papua New Guinea

I played a family member some songs from Daniel Bilip the “nambawan hitmaker bilong PNG”. I have a distinct memory of nearly having the phone and the earphones yanked out of my hands when I tried to take it back (the music was THAT addicting!)

 

Trinidad and Tobago

Trini Carnival music is adrenalin in mp3 form. And that’s a very good thing for me. Also, in case you can’t tell, Trinidadian Creole is heavily utilized in these songs, in ways elude the understanding of the average English speaker.

 

 

Israel

At the Hebrew University in the Ulpan I have memories of doing “group singing”. They are very good memories, but the songs are plenty times more memorable.

 

 And now for the coveted no. 1 spot…(that is no surprise in the slighest to anyone who knows me…)

 

1. GREENLAND

 

Thousands of songs throughout my life, dozens of CD’s, and the most moving music in my life has almost consistently come from one place.

 

 

Greenlandic music tends to contain poetry and musical elements that capture the magnificent feeling of the great beyond in ways that other places’ music just CAN’T.

Ever since I began studying Greenlandic in 2013 (and despite my meager progress), I listened to Greenlandic music and couldn’t get enough. A lot of the styles encapsulate the essence of the many feelings of the human experience.

Some songs have been so beautiful that when I’m listening to them on the subway staying composed is a difficult task.

My personal favorites include Nanook, Rasmus Lyberth and Marc Fussing Rosbach (who just so happens to be the author of a lot of the music for my upcoming video game). I had the chance to meet both Nanook and Marc during my Greenland trip in October (and narrowly missed Rasmus!)

And even if pop ballads and game music isn’t your thing, Siissisoq (“The Rhinoceros”) has come out with literally the best heavy metal I’ve ever heard in my life, and in recent memory they got back together after what was nearly a two-decade hiatus. (I do NOT attribute this to the fact that I wrote a fan letter to the lead singer shortly before hearing this news!)

I’ve written about Greenlandic music in detail elsewhere on this blog, have a read about it here and expect your life to be changed completely.

 

 

Are Some Languages Harder Than Others?

Ah, yes, one topic guaranteed to get clicks!

Helsinki, 2013

I should begin by mentioning the previous “schools” that I am aware of concerning the ranking language difficulties. Keep in mind that for this article I have primarily native English speakers in mind, without taking into account other languages that they may know to whatever degree:

 

• Most well-known is the Foreign Service Institute’s rankings, captured in way too many infographs throughout the web so I won’t post the extensive list here. The short version: Romance Languages and most Germanic Languages are the easiest, Swahili Indonesian and German a bit harder, most languages in the world are hard but not the hardest, which would go to the Chinese Languages, Korean, Arabic and Japanese.

 

(I’ve heard that “Arabic” in this case actually indicates either “MSA” or “extensive knowledge of all dialects”, surprisingly, not clear what a lot of people mean by “Arabic” when they say it, even in the Language Learning World [ESPECIALLY in that sphere, come to think of it!]. That said, I played around with some Arabic dialects for tiny tastes here and there but nothing devoted. No interest in learning MSA at the present moment).

 

The gist of the list is this: easier languages require less time to speak at a good level. I see some validity in this. No doubt between learning a language like Galician (a sibling of Castilian Spanish and Portuguese that didn’t go on and take over the world) and Gujarati (an Indo-Aryan language spoken on India’s westernmost coast), I and almost anyone with a knowledge of English would find it easier to “sprint” with Galician, even as a monolingual native English speaker.

That does NOT mean that sprinting with something like Gujarati is impossible, only that it requires more mental focus or, in some cases, mental gymnastics (prepare for either a lot of out-loud repetition or heavy-duty memory techniques!)

The biggest weakness of the list, in my opinion, is that it isn’t too extensive and that it just covers primary official languages without going further. Curious to see where Irish or Greenlandic or Tok Pisin, or even Haitian Creole, would stack up!

 

• The Benny Lewis school (which, to be fair, really helped me get over some of my difficulties with languages like Finnish and Hebrew), the idea that all languages are equally difficult and that some languages that are touted as “difficult” actually are simplified in other regards.

Without a doubt, from the vantage point of the English speaker, Lewis’ argument has some validity, as anyone who has ever TRIED a “hard” language with this mindset and succeeded can attest to.

One thing that frustrates me is the idea that often people read a lot about a “hard” language online. These tend to read like fact-lists of grammatical phenomena, but rarely if ever are they actually written about someone who has actually learned it. (And in the rare case that it is, as I may have seen on finland.fi or the like, it actually DOES contain encouragement).

The attitude presented as such is vital. It can help people who are struggling with a language very dissimilar from English (such as what I have with, let’s say, Welsh or Burmese at the present moment).

It also manages to magnify the fact that, yes, there are some portions of “easy” languages like Spanish that are actually insanely difficult when actually looked at. (Spanish verb conjugation is a page, but Burmese verb conjugation is a paragraph, if not actually a few sentences).

 

BUT!

There is something missing from both of these ideas, and its one that I’ve almost never encounter anyone else bring up before, which is why I needed to write this, and that is…

 

A Language’s Political Power Makes It Easy to Engage With.

 

Careful!

Engage with =/= learn!

If I wanted to, I could live my entire life in French somewhere. My computer is available in it, almost all major video games and other software programs on the market are available in it, there’s dubbing, and more political support than a language could hope for. In short, one of the most powerful languages on the planet.

A language like French, German, or Mandarin is the easiest to engage with. If you want to start putting what you’ve learned to practice, you can start within seconds. In some globalized cities, you can even just walk outside and encounter native speakers.

A notch beneath is a national language of (what is usually) a particular country or a handful of countries. Swedish, Indonesian, Hungarian and Vietnamese would fit squarely into this category. Often there is a lot of tech support available in this language, although not a lot of (or ANY) film dubbing (and having film dubbing, outside of those for children’s programming, usually ensures that it is one of the most powerful languages on the planet, Ukrainian would be the exception that proves the rule, in my opinion).

These are easy to engage with online but not AS easy as the ones that will flood you with lifetimes’ worth of material within seconds.

Sometimes included in this category are some regional languages of very powerful states (e.g. a handful of regional languages of India, Indonesia or Spain).

Then comes the genuine minority or regional language, varying a lot in their positions, or certain local languages that, while commonly spoken where they are, often are deemed “less prestigious” than European colonial tongues (Tok Pisin and Tetum from East Timor come to mind immediately). Other examples would include Breton or Faroese.

While the Internet still provides tons of materials for languages like these, especially if they’re from Europe, you’ll notice that it is a lot scarcer. What’s more, some languages, like Quechua or Cornish, have an extraordinary dearth of programming, but hopefully the future will change that.

Then come local languages such as those spoken within even smaller communities than that. I have only met a handful of people EVER that have managed this task, and often by becoming a genuine friend of these communities (these are languages that, I would say, would exist on Wikipedia but their respective wikis would be very, VERY small! Imagine languages of small indigenous communities. Some Melanesian musicians, such as Sharzy from the Solomon Islands or Daniel Bilip from Papua New Guinea, will lapse into such languages)

 

But hold on, Jared! Certainly you don’t mean to say that Bislama (the third category) would be harder to learn that Japanese (first category)

No.

But often your ability to rehearse and get better at a language makes it easier to maintain and easier to get a vocabulary.

So how does this tie into difficulty?

Allow me to explain:

I refer to some of my languages that I have “activated”, which means that I have mastered basic elements of grammar, can conjugate basic and general verb forms in a past, present and future, understand how adjectives work, understand how cases work (if the language has cases) and how articles and sentence structure function.

Once you get a very good grasp on these, then having the language is a bit like a “bicycle skill”, one that you never truly forget even if you haven’t done it in the longest time.

Case in point: I abandoned Russian and Polish for several years but throughout all of this time I could distinguish verbs from adjectives and make them fit grammatical in sentences.

Once you have “activated” a language in this manner, and acquired a core vocabulary of 300 words or so, then it comes the time to improve it.

Improving it is going to be easier for a more politically powerful language.

In short, the list that I provided above is a difficulty on how to improve, whereas the FSI’s list actually determines difficult to activate.

Two different types of learning, both radically different difficulty levels. One can be very easy in one and absolutely impossible in the other.

Have fun activating and improving!

 

RAWR! said the Welsh Dragon! And yes, that’s cartoon me in the picture!

5775: Where I Am, Where I Was, and Where I Want to Be

Two nights hence Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, begins. It is a time for me, and all others of my faith (heritage?) to reflect and consider the year to come.

This post will just be about my language acquisition/maintenance life, so don’t expect anything else besides.

For one, I think about where I was earlier this year, I feel that I have changed in the following regards:

• Especially when in the United States, I don’t feel insulted anymore when someone chooses to speak English with me over another language that I know.

 

Earlier this year I used to take it as a personal insult to my skills if someone didn’t want to speak anything in English with me.

 

Luckily, thanks largely to the polyglot bar, this has changed. Even with many of my friendships, I balance the various languages used to all degrees so that “everyone is happy”.

 

It is true. There are some friendships that begin in something other than English and then it just feels awkward using any other language that the one I first used (Yiddish, German, Scandinavian Languages, mostly). But regarding ones began in English (let’s say, back when I began living in Sweden and really struggled with the Swedish Language), I didn’t have a hard time breaking out of English when I proved my skills in the language well enough (forming sentences without flinching is usually the best way to do this, as is a healthy degree of colloquialisms)

 

Maybe it is living New York, but there are plenty of polyglots to go around. I heard more Danish spoken in the past few weeks than I ever had heard by pedestrians in Heidelberg in over a year. Even in Paris I encountered Danes, Swedes, Israelis, Finns, Germans, Dutch, Flemings, Brazilians, and too many more to list.

 

I’m confident enough in my abilities now that I don’t take it as an insult. I used to be insecure, but after starting this blog and seeing my true potential in this American Metropolis, I don’t need to feel insecure anymore.

 

Now the real test is if I can keep that security when I leave this country…

 

…I expect that a year from now, I won’t even need to ask it or even consider it.

 

• I felt afraid of judgment from people who spoke certain languages. I was actually afraid of the day that I would meet a real live Dane because I was certain that my pronunciation would never be good enough.

 

As it turns out, this past year I met both Danes and Danish learners from elsewhere in the world, and there wasn’t a hint of being judgmental from any of them.

 

And even when I met Finns back when I wasn’t particularly good with Finnish, they genuinely appreciated my efforts, perhaps sometimes with a laugh and always asking a question beginning with “miksi” (why) and another with “miten” (how)

 

And my funniest story with Finnish (back when I visited the country and knew it to a rudimentary degree, but impressive for a beginner):

 

“Wow, you really know a lot about the Finnish Language. When did you get here?”

 

“…just a couple of hours ago…””

 

I may have encountered some degree of judgment, but literally never from any native speakers over the course of the past year. Before that, I might have, but that was a different Jared who definitely wasn’t as confident as he is now.

 

• I learned to stop thinking that everyone saw me as a “stupid American” by default. When I shed this attitude (although sometimes it came back at unpredictable moments), then it worked wonders for my German conversational ability. Back when I had it, it hindered me every step of the way, and sometimes it was so bad that I felt that I couldn’t even hold any basic…anything…

 

I broke out of this almost near the very end of my stay in Heidelberg, although sometimes I used English in messages with bureaucrats because some of my friends, local and otherwise, told me that would be a good idea. But even then, the fact that I did that doesn’t say anything about the skills I may or may not have.

 

Those are the three major problems I had over the course of the past. I can say that, while some shred of these problems exists, I have sent them on their way.

Now for my own desires for the next year:

• Stop worrying about what other people think is possible.

 

I worry that if my multilingual adventures reach a certain level, then people will cast doubt on my ability to have learned anything (although you are more than welcome to go ahead and test me in the comments).

 

With my current collection of languages, I’ve encountered people wondering “HOW THE HECK DO YOU DO THAT?!!?” and assume that I’m some variety of superhuman genius. Here’s the thing: I may forget a handful of my languages that I have now, but I’m not stopping learning new ones, certainly not now.

 

(Note to world: I really dislike it when you put me on a pedestal. Please, any of you can learn 15+ languages, too. Flash cards, Phrasebook [especially for a very rarely spoken language] and media intake, you know the drill…so what are you waiting for?)

 

What will my employers think? What will the folks on the “How to Learn Any Language” Forum think? What will my friends think…? (Well…actually, my friends are always very supportive of me…thanks, friends!)

 

What will everyone think?

 

As we say in Greenland, sussat! It doesn’t matter to me.

 

• I Have to Follow my Desires

 

How did I learn Greenlandic, people ask me?

 

Simple: I had a desire. I acted on it.

 

The act of learning Greenlandic (or any language) is never complete. There may be a finite amount of words in the language (billions of them, actually), and, on a more realistic note for a human to learn, there are a finite amount of word pieces in the language (Oqaasileriffik lists 20162, to be precise).

 

I have plenty of other desires to act on as well. I don’t want my life to be complete without learning a bunch of other languages, most of which I haven’t even listed on my list in the “flirting” category (a reference to the aforementioned “How to Learn Any Language” forum).

 

Again, I didn’t care what people thought when I was learning stuff like Faroese or Greenlandic or Northern Sami. Now that I feel that I might have a bit “too much on my plate”, even with closely related languages, I’m beginning to rethink the “there’s always room for one more”.

 

But you know what? Sussat! There IS always room for one more! And even if one has to go for whatever reason, my passive understanding of it isn’t gone.

 

Only earlier today was I watching an episode of Pokémon in Polish and I understood a lot more than I knew I had active control over (and my active control of Polish may be enough to impress my Polish friends, but I deem it quite pathetic, especially in comparison to the languages I know well).

 

 The same occurred for the songs in my Russian music collection.

 

Now, I could convert that passive understanding to an active one just by virtue of switching my media input. I don’t need to relearn the grammar. I can recognize the parts of speech on sight or just by hearing the words.

 

But even if I have to forget some languages, I can rest assured that my passive understanding will remain strong, even through years of disuse, provided I gave it enough nurturing.

 

In Conclusion: right now I am living the polyglot life that I’ve been dreaming of since I was a kid. It will only get better from here. Even with my best languages (English included!) there is a lot more for me to always learn, but I have to savor the fact that I’ve come a long way, one with discouragement, despair, and doubt.

 

And now I’m here.

 

But the journey doesn’t end.

 

The journey will continue, until the end of 5774 and well beyond it!

 

L’shana tovah!

Your Handy Guide to Never Being Answered in English during your European Travels…Ever Again!

Skansen, Stockholm–taken by me, as with all photos on this blog except when otherwise noted.

The feeling of trying to speak the local language and being answered in English has given me more ego-crushing blows than almost anything else on my intellectual journey. I realized in retrospect that a lot of said ego-crushers can be very easily avoided!

And therefore this post is to ensure that you can realize what I did and ensure that you not go through this similar downtime. However, I cannot tell you that it is going to be super-easy…

The most important thing, above all else, is to be convincing. This means that you have to employ the following methods:

(1)    You must speak without hesitation. Using pauses is okay, but you must employ an air of confidence in your speech. Don’t feel like you are shaking upon the words coming out of your mouth. Possibly smile (if it makes you feel better) and deliver your request as firmly as you can, and if you are a tourist, you may want to set aside any anxieties you may have.

 

(2)    Which do you think is more likely to be more convincing:

 

“Excuse me, where is X?”

 

Or…

 

“I arrived to this city a few minutes ago and I think that I’m lost, I want to go to X, do you know where I could find it?”

 

Without question, the second answer (in any language) communicates a willingness to speak the language and not an “I flung open Google Translate for a few minutes on the train while the connection lasted” mentality.

 

Don’t prepare the genuine phrasebook material. Okay, use that as a starting point, but if you want to be answered in the local language you may need to use more complicated sentence structure.

 

Confidence by itself may be enough, and even when I was in Stockholm and still putting on my polygot shoes and getting them to fit, I usually wasn’t answered in English while ordering in Sweden as long as I firm enough. But in those rare cases in which being firm just won’t cut it, using complex sentences definitely will…and surprisingly, I don’t think that it is much work!

 

(3)    One thing that people may tell you that honestly doesn’t matter: even if you are easily identifiable as an English speaker, you can still pull yourself off as a local!

I’ve done this in Stockholm’s Systembolaget every time I was in the store. For those of you who don’t know what Systembolaget is, it is the state-owned alcohol store chain in Sweden—any alcohol higher than 5% may only be sold at one of these chain stores.

 

You need a passport or a valid ID in order to purchase something. I had one of two choices: either my American passport, or my Swedish Residence Card (both indicated that I was a foreigner)

 

Guess how many times I got answered in English after handing over the American passport while using a few words of Swedish? Zero! Even after I got the passport handed back to me!

 

I’m used to saying that there were only two countries that I visited in which I was regularly identified as a foreigner on sight: Israel and the Netherlands. But in these countries, as well as any other, this needs to be stressed: trying to use the local language will only bring you good results!

 

(Interestingly, while I have learned French as a child, I have forgotten it, nor have I visited Paris, although I have heard multiple accounts, from foreigners, of a certain degree of language chauvinism coming from French people. I should say that my French-speaking friends, whom I hold very dear, are supportive of my very slight attempts to mangle their language via oral repetition. I can’t comment on these things as of the time being, but when the time comes, I will definitely write a post on it…)

 

(4)    Another thing that may help is, if you have trouble grasping the local accent, use another accent that is very clearly not English.

 

Back when I was struggling with the German Language (and who doesn’t struggle with the German Language? Or with any other, for that matter…), until around March 2014, I put on a host of Scandinavian accents to disguise the fact that I was not German (I mostly used an Eastern Norwegian accent for this purpose). Interestingly, at times I heard that my accent sounded like that of a native!

 

I do not recommend using this tactic among your friends, however, who may insist that you speak in your normal voice. However, with servicepeople (waiters, flight attendants, etc.) their primary goal is making you feel at home, and they will address you in your language if they feel that will make you the most comfortable.

 

Speaking of flight attendants…

 

(5)    I used this tactic on many flights, especially with Finnair, Lufthansa, and KLM: when the flight attendants address you in English (they do that to everyone), address them in the local language instead. Even if you stutter, you’ll be convincing just by virtue of this. Just don’t mangle your speech too much.

 

During my flight to Helsinki, I used this to pass myself off as a native Finn instantly! Not a single one of the stewardesses spoke English to me during the whole flight, even though I didn’t particularly understand their quick chatter amongst themselves (note: not all Finns are reticent and super-quiet).

 

(6)    If you are with a person who doesn’t speak the local language, and you do (even not very well), it is very easy to convince servicepeople (and others) that you are the local who is guiding them around town. Use this to your advantage if you can.

 

(7)    The rarer your language is, the more likely it is to get others to speak your language with you when you are outside the country that the language is spoken.

 

I don’t think that I speak Dutch particularly well (yet…), but interestingly I felt it was easier for me to get Dutch people to talk a bit with me in their language when I was outside the Netherlands than when I was in it (…them?).

 

(Interestingly, I feel that with Flemings it was the reverse, I’ve been told that my accent indicates that I had learned the language in the Netherlands [I did so in a bunch of places, but not really in the Netherlands nor Belgium]).

 

(8)    You should really keep yourself to using complete sentences, filler words, and a pinch of slang. These make you convincing. Just using incomplete sentences and standard phrasebook material won’t do you well if you want to be convincing. If you are at that point, it is easy to fix it, even just by using Google Translate and a notebook.

 

(9)    If you are in a country with lots of immigrants that learn the local language (Sweden is the example par excellence, as there are immigrants, from various countries, who learn Swedish before even touching the English language), you are in luck, and it is a lot easier for you to be addressed in the local language, because they understand the struggle with learning more than most.

 

(10) The most important lesson of all? Don’t be discouraged! If you are getting answered in English, this is a problem you can fix. Just read through my guide again and take it to heart. These principles hold true everywhere—in Italy, in Belgium, in Malta, and everywhere else I can name, both where English is widely spoken and where it may be a rarity.

 

What are you waiting for? Don’t use the “they’ll just speak English back to you” as an excuse! If you want to learn languages from countries with such reputations, don’t let it stop you! Now get learning!

Northern Sami: What? Why? How?

Something to think about: the person who designed the Sami National Flag is only a few years older than I am. Sobering…but comforting, because the Sami Flag is one of my personal favorites anywhere!

One fine day at the Nordic Museum in Stockholm, I was walking around and I was very hungry, having traversed each of the four stories of the very large museum. (Yes, there was a restaurant, but it was expensive and it didn’t seem that it would have too high quality food. And besides, it was on the bottom story and I was on the upper floors when the hunger hit!)

The Nordic Museum is a fantastic place, complete with a journey through Swedish fashion throughout the ages, and an in-detail description of the life and writings of August Strindberg, possibly the best known Swedish author of them all (okay, Astrid Lindgren also deserves a mention).

The top story of the museum had an array of Sami crafts and clothing, not also to mention a history of Swedish-Sami relations. For those of you who have ever heard of “Lapland”, “Sami” is the politically correct term for the people who live there, with the word “Lapp” and “Lappish” being considered offensive in some circles, despite being used on multiple translations of Wikipedia. (These words still make me cringe when I hear them spoken…)

The indigenous people of Northern Scandinavia, the Sami have a host of languages to their name, the most prominent of which is Northern Sami (Davvisámegiella), in which the National Anthem of Samiland (Sápmi) is written.

Thanks largely to the Sami people being on the recieving end of a host oppressive campaigns of many sorts, as well as the fact that the Sami people and languages have been influenced by Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia, and that these cultures have been influenced by the Sami in return—there are many resources for the learning the Sami Languages, especially Northern Sami, with the most popular being Giella Tekno at the University of Tromsø: (http://giellatekno.uit.no/)

I cannot speak about the other Sami Languages right now, although it should be noted that a significant amount of them have become extinct and a host of others are still living. The Sami Languages are not mutually intelligible, but since I have only put serious effort into one of them I cannot comment on the similarities between them (or lack thereof).

If you are a Finnic Language buff, you may recognize that the word “Giella” in Northern Sami resembles that of “Kieli” in Finnish and “Keel” in Estonia. Northern Sami is Finno-Ugric, and as a result resembles Finnish and Estonian not only in cognates but in other regards:

(1)   The accent is always on the first syllable (a hard-set rule throughout the language family).

 

(2)   No articles!

 

(3)   Consonant Gradation is a thing. Note in Finnish: “Katu” = “a/the street” vs “Kadulle” (on the street)—the “t” changes to a “d”. Other times this gradation doesn’t happen: “Pomo” = “a/the boss” vs. “Pomolle” = “to/for a/the boss”

 

In Northern Sami, it isn’t as intuitive (Remember that with the lack of articles, “the” can be also translated as “a” in the example):

 

Jávri = the sea (subject)

Jávrri = of the sea, sea (direct object)

Jávrái = to the sea

Jávrris = from the sea, by the sea

Jávrriin = to the sea

Jávrin = such as the sea

 

Note the nominative with the singular “r” and the other forms with two. Now for this:

 

Sápmi = A Sami person

Sámi = of a Sami person, Sami person (direct object)

Sápmái = to a Sami person

Sámis = from a Sami person, by a Sami person

Sámiin = to a Sami Person

Sápmin = such as a Sami Person

 

In this example, the nominative has the “pm” and then is gradated to “m”. Hence, Finland in Northern Sami is “Suopma”, of Finnish/Finland would be “Suoma”.

About Northern Sami itself, I have heard people asking why I even bother to invest my time in it every single time I bring it up! In other cases, I’m even lucky if I’m asking people who know what it is. If they do, however, the fact that I know even a bit of Northern Sami is very, very heartily appreciated.

I cannot understand why many people overlook the fact that very rarely spoken languages can reap huge rewards when you run into the right people—or even with commanding a significant respect from many others who have never even heard of it! Even if you know only about one page’s worth of vocabulary! (This was particularly true about a year ago when I had a non-serious flirtationship with Greenlandic. Now that relationship is serious…)

So that’s your homework: get learning a very rare language. There are lots of them. And more resources for them that you realize. Start today!

Back on topic…

The primary reason I chose to invest in Northern Sami was because I have an interest in Nordic Culture and I wanted to investigate the linguistic interplay between the Northern Sami Languages and Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, and Russian (and I look forward to dragging Russian out of my “Forgotten Language” zone).

One fine day at a pool party I brought my very trusty Northern Sami notebook (the words “Ale Stuža!” [Do not splash!] were very useful!), I had to explain what sort of language this was and why I was learning it(for what was not the first and what definitely will not be the last time).

Why? Understanding Scandinavia better, through its more unheard voices.

What? Picture this: Norwegian and Swedish have a baby, and then that baby grows up and has a baby with the Finnish Language. That is what Northern Sami is…very, very roughly.

What do you do with it? Well, that’s up to you. There are translations to be done, there is the Bible in Northern Sami, there is even a Learn Useless Northern Sami Page on Facebook (which has been inactive for a while but is still useful). If you learn by association (the way I do), the other Nordic Languages become easier to memorize and learn (especially Finnish).

Of course, it is also a vital piece of history as well, and in many tourist attractions in Sweden you can see Northern Sami being used in Museum media. It is, after all, one of the official languages of Sweden, and one of the official languages of NRK, the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation.

There is also a Sami kindergarten in Helsinki and in all four countries which make up a part of Samiland, there are efforts and usages that will reward you, not also to mention “Ođđasat” (the Sami News channel), a Kubuntu translation, and a handful of Northern Sami video games that you can find it you look hard enough!

And for those of you who scrolled all the way to the bottom in order to find out how many speakers the language has, I’ll place the estimate at around 20,000, a number which is probably either from UNESCO or Wikipedia.

As to what I used, the biggest piece of it was a Northern Sami-Swedish Course called “Gulahalan” (I Make Myself Understood), which has twenty lessons all for free! I will review the course on another occasion!

Until then, I hope that this post inspires you to take up a study, however serious, of some small language that you may have had your eyes or heart on for a while!

What’s stopping you?

“I’ve Heard It’s Really Hard…” : On The Finnish Language

I began my journey with the Finnish Language in March 2013, during a few weeks off in the United States.

After having spent eight months in Sweden, I remember that many of my friends (Swedish and otherwise) found the Finnish Language odd, interesting, and completely unintelligible, despite the fact that there were Finnish translations on almost every single piece of food packaging in the country.

“Strange Language. Double Letters. Long Words.”

One time I asked a Swede why the Finnish language was understudied in Sweden. His answer: “You don’t study Cherokee in the United States, do you?”

And that was nothing to say of the fake Finnish thrown around by some Swedish comedians. What follows is likely the best-known example (with English subtitles):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAl9OyGYxOg

I’m not passing judgment on any of these phenomena. They are what they are.

I did research in Finland for my MA Thesis—an effort I will submit later this week. Obviously it made sense to show commitment to the culture by learning the language. While I was not fluent by the time I arrived in November 2013 (and I still am not, but I am almost there…), my efforts were appreciated by everyone whom I interviewed , and the following exchange I had with the Rabbi of Chabad Lubavitch in Helsinki was priceless:

 

Rabbi Wolff: “You obviously know a lot about the Finnish Language. When did you first arrive here?”

Jared: (with a smile) “…just a couple of hours ago…”

 

Only last night did I hear for the I-stopped-counting-how-many-th time that Finnish is super-hard. There is one thing in common with everyone that I hear this from:

None of them have tried!

Interestingly even for a few people who learned about twenty words of the language, they don’t find it especially difficult—just different.

I’ve had significant struggles with language grammars. Modern Greek’s future tense system gave me nightmares. The Hebrew binyanim became something I never wanted to think about. And then there was Finnish’s lesser-known relative, Northern Sami, which had consonant shifts across the board that I still struggle with.

I can tell who is informed about the Finnish Language if he or she uses one word to describe it: logical. Some have even said that it is a language that is possible for an outsider to learn perfectly (I would never say this about American English).

The grammar does take some effort to learn, but I found that in comparison to the grammar of Modern Greek and Modern Hebrew especially (not also to mention those of the ancient languages that I had forgotten), Finnish was an easy ride. It is true that there are about thirty-five different noun categories for declination (Greenlandic only has ten). Most of these are intuitive, however, and I couldn’t have said the same thing about anything regarding, let’s say, Classical Greek.

And then we get to the second part about what I constantly hear from outsiders about the Finnish language:

“lots of cases”

I always counter this with the following: “most of them are straight-up prepositions”

In the Slavic Languages that I have learned (Russian, Polish, and one Czech lesson), when there is a preposition, there is a case that goes with it:

 

“Polska” = Poland, “w Polsce” = in Poland.

 

Now note the equivalent in Finnish:

 

”Puolassa” = in Poland

 

The information about the preposition is contained within the case itself.

When I was first immersing myself in Finnish, I found it difficult to absorb native material because I felt that my brain was trying to watch a ball being thrown back and forth by professional athletes with unnatural reflexes. Namely—I couldn’t absorb all of the case information very quickly.

This, too, comes with practice. And this brings me to my next point about the Finnish Language:

As the accent is always on the first syllable, distinguishing words in spoken speech is very easy.

Even if you are relatively inexperienced, you can use this principle in order to type in words you hear into Google Translate just by hearing them.

The Finnish Language, in comparison to others that I have heard, is spoken slowly.

I’ve noticed very much the same in most instances of spoken Swedish as well.  This definitely isn’t Brazilian Portuguese or Andalusian Spanish that you are dealing with.

Maybe FinnAir stewardesses speak very quickly sometimes, but most of the time, I have noticed a significantly slower tempo—in both spoken speech and in the media.

Are you afraid of learning a language because people speak too quickly and that you can’t make out the words? Both problems solved! Just choose the Finnish Language.

There is only one real difficulty, however, and that is the fact that most words are not Indo-European at all. Never fear, there are a handful of Swedish import words (luvata = att lova = to promise), German idiomatic structures (pääkaupunki = Hauptstadt = capital city), internationalisms (dramaattinen, poliittinen), and English words (rooli, mestari).

Aside from that? Mostly it is an issue of getting out the flash cards, or the right software to assist with your memory. But you can do it!

You would have to be doing memorization like this anyway. I don’t see people complaining that Hebrew is an extraordinarily difficult language, and I know why not: it is more commonly studied.

Another reason why some people might believe Finnish to be difficult is because of the long- and short-vowels. The difference between these two sentences is well-known, and this paradigm was my first-ever exposure to the Finnish Language, back in 2008:

Minä tapaan sinut huomenna ´= I will meet you tomorrow

Minä tapan sinut huomenna = I will kill you tomorrow

Back when I was younger I was ready to give up right then. There would be no way I could manage anything like that! Or so I thought…

But one thing that I didn’t think about was this: I played lots of piano at the time and it never occurred to me that it was merely an issue of holding a note for longer. That is the same difference you would find between the long and the short vowels, not also to mention the long and the short consonants (valita = to choose, vallita = to govern).

Both of them, just like everything else in a language, takes time getting used to—and you’re not going to get people angry by accidentally using the short vowel when the long one should be used. Context is a wonderful thing, isn’t it?

Therefore, pronunciation isn’t actually a problem. In both Finnish and Hungarian I have heard that is it quite easy to sound like a genuine speaker (I still have yet to have extended experiences with Estonian and Northern Sami, not to mention the other Finno-Ugric Languages). My friends who would struggle with a few words of a Scandinavian Language like Norwegian could easily pronounce Finnish words with no difficulty.

I am not exaggerating when I say that Finnish pronunciation could very well be easier than that of Esperanto.

Then there is the issue that the written language is quite different from the spoken one, but start with the spoken language and then you will be able to read the billboards and even the newspapers with enough discipline and practice. The difference between the two sides of this language is no different than between the spoken and the written German Language.

And here’s a secret: the German Language and the Finnish Language, despite their differences, are very similar idiomatically!

Even better: almost everything you will need to become fluent is contained in one site: http://www.uusikielemme.fi/index.html

That isn’t to say that you shouldn’t use other resources—hearing the language is essential, and my progress in the language would have been impossible without it. There is lots of material to be found, American children’s classics included.

And here’s the best part: even if you learn the language to an “okay” or even rudimentary level, the mythology that the Finnish Language is extraordinarily hard means that you will command respect from people, most of who have never tried!

Aren’t you excited?