The wonderful language learning community Gimara interviewed me yesterday! I talked to Gimara’s Marja Ahola about teaching and learning Finnish, about online course in August 2020 and about building a small teaching business. The video is in Finnish, but Finnish subtitles are coming up to help you follow along if you should wish to!
Gimara is a great resource for learning Finnish. They regularly post free video lessons for different levels from beginner to advanced on their various social media accounts, especially YouTube and Facebook.
I’m a complete beginner, and my only motivation to study Finnish is to pass the YKI test. I would like some guidance on how to achieve my goal as efficiently as possible, and I don’t think regular language course are the way to go. Do you have a specialized YKI curriculum for beginners?
My answer:
Thank you for the great question, which is something that I get asked quite often, so you’re not alone in wondering this! Unfortunately, I have some bad news for you: there isn’t any shortcut to the language skills needed to pass the YKI test. Passing the intermediate YKI is a great and valuable goal, but it’s quite an impossible one to reach without acquiring basic language skills first. If your one and only goal is to pass the intermediate YKI test (the level required for citizenship), you will likely require more time to get to the required level, not less.
The YKI test is a highly practical kind of language test. It tests your ability to manage in Finnish in a variety of everyday situations, and the best possible preparation for YKI is using as much Finnish as possible in your everyday life. The required level to pass the YKI test is also quite high (YKI 3 or B1). It’s a level that enables you to go about your daily life in Finnish, to read and listen to the news and even to handle more complicated things like banking and taxes in Finnish. If you have Finnish relatives, at B1 you can understand the coffee table conversations their kahvipöytäkeskustelu and participate. You can read novels in easy Finnish without too much of a struggle, you can study at vocational school (if you have support with the language), you can watch the news and television and listen to music and understand what’s going on. If your goal is Finnish citizenship, wouldn’t you also love to be able to do all these things? Only about third of the Finnish population is fluent in English so you’re missing out on a lot if you are only communicating in English.
My number one advice for you would be a regular beginner’s course in Finnish or private Finnish lessons. A good place to start looking is Finnishcourses.fi, which hosts quite a comprehensive listing of Finnish courses in the Helsinki region and in other big cities as well as online. If you’d prefer to work with a private teacher, check out Hanna’s listing of private Finnish teachers, as well as this simple padlet page which lists courses by small teaching businesses like mine.
Once you’re at an early intermediate level (late stages of A2 in CEFR speak), I’d love to have you in my YKI preparatory courses, which is to what you’re looking for but for intermediate learners: a specifically designed curriculum for students who are aiming for the intermediate YKI test in Finnish. Here’s a blog post to help you figure out if you’re ready.
Luckily, as the YKI is such an everyday kind of language test, attending a well designed YKI course will have the added benefit of helping you better your real life language skills as well. Some students of mine also attend my YKI courses just for the general language skills without aiming for YKI, and many also continue the course series after passing the YKI test.
I wish you the best of luck on your learning journey with this wonderful language!
I’d love to hear from those of you who have already attended a beginner’s course. What worked? What didn’t? Leave a comment or join the conversation on my Facebook page, LinkedIn or Twitter.
I keep seeing the word “tarha” at the end of longer words: puutarha, eläintarha, lastentarha. What does “tarha” mean?
Here’s a list of words ending in tarha with their translations to English:
puutarha – garden hedelmätarha – orchard omenatarha – an orchard with mainly apple trees mehiläistarha – bee farm lastentarha – day care center or kindergarten eläintarha – zoo
If you look at the list, you might see that the words all have something in common (besides ending in tarha). These words all mean enclosed spaces that contain something specific: trees (puu), fruit (hedelmä), apples (omena), bees (mehiläinen, mehiläis-), children (lapsi, lasten), animals (eläin).
Tarha used all on its own usually means lastentarha, so a day care center or kindergarten.
Update, 11.3.2025: I used to teach y through u, but thanks to phonetician Päivi Virkkunen I realised a few years ago that that isn’t the best way, the best way is through y, and now I’ve finally updated this post to reflect that. I hope this is helpful!
This meme from the delightful Very Finnish Problems has been making the rounds in my social media feed lately:
Every time I see it I’m consumed by an urge to help that poor cat. I don’t know this particular cat and don’t know how to reach it, so I’ve decided to help you instead.
The Finnish y is actually not that difficult for speakers of most languages, it just needs a bit of attention and a bit of practice and feedback – ideally from a trained teacher, but in a pinch any Finnish speaker will do – before it starts coming naturally.
Let’s look at the cat’s mouth more closely:
You’ll notice the cat’s tongue is out of his mouth. This will not help you pronounce y. Your tongue must be inside your mouth! Otherwise the cat does have the right idea. Let’s do this.
Start by saying i, like in the Finnish word iso ‘big’. In English you can find a very similar sound in most words that have two e’s, like cheese, feed and greed.
To go from i to y, simply round your lips. But do not make the mistake the cat made, keep that tongue inside your mouth!
For those of you who prefer watching a video to reading instructions, here’s a lesson with Päivi Virkkunen from Ääntämisklinikka of how to pronounce y! Make sure to turn the subtitles on, the lesson should be easier to follow that way.
Today, I’ll be answering two questions on the same topic. Here both questions first:
Enitan writes:
Hei Mari, how are you today? Could you help with a link that gives a distinct explanation on akkusatiivi and genetiivi? I’ve searched through your blog but couldn’t find anything related to it. Thanks
Sigrid writes:
Moi! Onko akkusatiivi vielä suomenkielessä? Mulla on ikivanha suomen-norja oppikirja, ja siellä on akkuusatiivi, mutta uusissa kirjoissa se on pikemminkin genitiivi, vaikka se on erilainen (genetiivi yksikössä ja nominatiivi monikossa, ja persoonapronominit ovat myös erilaisia). Toivottavasti ymmärrät mitä tarkoitan!
My translation:
Hi! Is the accusative still in the Finnish language? I have a very old Finnish-Norwegian textbook, and they talk about the accusative, but new textbooks will rather talk about the genitive, though it’s differen (genitive in the singular and nominative in the plural, and personal pronouns are also different) I hope you understand what I mean!
My answer:
Hi Enitan and Sigrid, thanks for the great questions! There’s a bit of a terminology issue here, as akkusatiivi or accusative can mean different things. As Sigrid noticed, older and newer books use different words to talk about the object.
In most modern grammars, akkusatiivi means the object forms of the personal pronouns:
Näin sinut eilen. I saw you yesterday. sinut = akkusatiivi of the word sinä
The corresponding question word is also in the accusative form:
Kenet näit eilen? Who(m) did you see yesterday? kenet = akkusatiivi of the word kuka
In every other type of word, the same form is the genitive case:
Näin Marin eilen. I saw Mari yesterday.
Mari is in the genitive case, which tells us that Mari is the object of the sentence, the person being seen.
However, in older grammars, they usually refer to the form Marin as akkusatiivi as well, which is pretty confusing. And also nominative objects might be called accusatives.
In modern grammars, there are two types of objects:
1. Partitive objects (partitiiviobjekti). These are always in the partitive case.
Juon kahvia. I’m drinking coffee or some coffee. Minun täytyy juoda kahvia. I have to drink coffee or some coffee.
2. Total objects (totaaliobjekti). These can be in the genitive, nominative or accusative case.
2.1 Genitive (genetiivi):
Juon kahvin. I’m drinking a coffee (I have a defined amount and I’m drinking all of it).
2.2 Nominative (nominatiivi eli perusmuoto)
Minun täytyy juoda kahvi. I have to drink a coffee.
2.3 Accusative
Näin heidät eilen. I saw them yesterday.
If you speak a language that has something called the aspect, like Slavic langugages or Hungarian, you might find that this sounds familiar. Slavic languages and Hungarian have different verb forms to describe ongoing processes and actions that are over and done with. Finnish expresses the same thing by changing the form of the object.
So to recap, the case of the total object is either the genitive or the nominative, or for personal pronouns and their corresponding question words, the accusative (minut, sinut, kenet). In older grammars, these were called accusative objects instead of total objects, and kahvin was said to be in the accusative case. This was confusing because the same word was used for both the case and the phenomenon, and also the accusative case looks exactly like the genitive in modern Finnish, so some linguists decided to make the terminology clearer by starting to talk about total objects instead of accusative objects.
However, changing the terminology resulted in even more confusion, because now we have two sets of competing terms flying around. If you’re already familiar with the concept of accusatives, it might be useful to use the old terminology, but if you’re not, I’d say stick with the new terminology. In my classes, I often find myself talking about genetiivi-akkusatiivi to help everyone follow along (though I’m not sure how helpful that monster of a word really is).
If you’d like to read about all this in more detail, the wonderful website Uusi kielemme has a very comprehensive article about the object in English.
My Finnish teacher and my friends keep telling me that I should stop translating everything from English to Finnish and start thinking in Finnish instead. I have no clue how to do that. How do I start thinking in another language?
My answer:
This is an area of language learning that I find fascinating, thank you for the great question! In this post, I’ll share what works for me as a language learner, and what many of my students have also found helpful.
Thinking practice. Set a timer for 5 minutes and do your best to think in Finnish for that period of time. You will, inevitably, think in other languages as well, but any time you notice it bring yourself back to the effort of thinking in Finnish. At first, it may be that you aren’t able to think in Finnish at all, but when you keep going, you’ll start to notice it getting easier and easier. However, a caveat with this one: not everyone has an inner monologue where they “speak” a specific language in their head, in which case I recommend the next technique.
Talking to yourself. Another really helpful technique is to talk to yourself out loud in Finnish for a set period of time. Even one minute a day, five days a week, does wonders. If you want to speak with any fluency, you can’t do a lot of translating, so talking out loud almost forces you to start thinking in Finnish.
Talking to others. No matter how difficult this may seem at first, start speaking Finnish in real life situations, even if it’s just a few words a day. Remember that there’s no shame in having to switch to another language when you need to, but try to stick to Finnish as best you can.
Reading in Finnish. Regular reading in Finnish has the benefit of almost automatically switching your thoughts to Finnish. I recommend you start with a selkokirja, a novel in easy Finnish. My personal favorite is Yösyöttö by Eve Hietamies (original novel) and Hanna Männikkölahti (easy Finnish adaptation). Another great option is following the news in easy Finnish.
All of these techniques work best if you can build them into your daily routine. I’m trying to get better at speaking French, so I spend the walking or biking distance between my child’s daycare and my office either thinking in French or speaking it out loud. I avoid weird looks by having my headphones on, so it looks like I’m talking on the phone or taking a Zoom call (or, if I’m feeling confident, I’ll ditch the headphones and embrace the weird looks). I also know many French people living in Helsinki who are kind enough to want to speak French with me, so I also do my best to speak French every week.
Readers, what’s your experience? How did you make the switch from translating to thinking in Finnish? Were you able to start thinking in Finnish right at the start of your learning journey, or was it a process that took some time? What worked for you?
My KPT-post has proved trickier to write than I expected (but it’s coming!) so in the meantime, a question that I answered in the Facebook Finnish study group Let’s Learn Finnish Language. Kirez, who asked the question, has kindly allowed me to publish his question along with my answer here.
Kirez writes:
Hyvä ilta! Google translate käännä “puheikielallä” as “speech language”… I’m guessing a better translation is “vernacular”? It gives me no translation for “yleiskielallä” – I’m guessing more formal or written language?
“Puhekieli” or spoken language usually refers to standard spoken Finnish (also “yleispuhekieli”). In my opinion, vernacular is not a great translation, as vernacular usually refers to more specific dialects or registers – in Finnish, vernacular is “kansankieli” or “paikallismurre” (local dialect). Like in all spoken varieties of any language, there is no one fixed form of standard spoken Finnish: forms vary depending on the area the speaker is from and the context the language is spoken in, and there isn’t a clear cut line between “yleispuhekieli” and more specific registers of the language. However, the forms used in the Helsinki region are often seen as the neutral choice (but obviously it depends on who you ask!).
“Yleiskieli” is indeed a more formal version of Finnish and can be translated as standard Finnish. In its written form, it’s also referred to as “kirjakieli”. Spoken yleiskieli is used mainly in formal situations (often the speaker is reading out loud or has written and memorized what they’re going to say), like the news, scripted shows on radio or tv, plays etc. In its written form yleiskieli is also called “kirjakieli”, literally “book language” usually translated as standard written Finnish.
How can i learn verbi rektio helposti (easily). What is logic for them?
My answer:
Hi Vural, thanks for the great question!
Rektio or rection means the phenomenon in Finnish where a verb (or another word) needs words that go together with the verb to be in a certain form. For example, the verb tykätä ‘to like’ goes together with the elative or Mistä case.
Mä tykkään suklaasta. I like chocholate+Mistä. I like chocolate.
The elative also means ‘where from’:
Mistä sinä tulet? Where are you coming from?
That means that rections can be really confusing and difficult to remember in the beginning. The trick is to learn the verb and its rection as a whole. I like to think of minä tykkään + Mistä as a frame where I can susbtitute X with anything:
Minä tykkään X:stä – I like X
Minä tykkään suklaasta – I like chocolate Minä tykkään sinusta – I like you Minä tykkään pullasta – I like pulla
and so forth.
My main advice for learning verb rections is learning them verb by verb along with the form that goes with the verb. So each time your learn a new verb, look at how is behaves in a sentence, and pay attention to the forms of the other words in the sentence.
However, there are patterns and even a certain logic to verb rections. Verbs and their rections fall into patterns, and it can really help to know about these patterns. Here are a few common ones to start with.
For example, verbs that express a sensory experience go together with the ablative case (miltä):
Ruoka tuoksuu ihanalta. – The food smells wonderful. Paita näyttää hyvältä. – The shirt looks good. Musiikki kuulostaa hyvältä. – The music sounds good. Hieronta tuntuu mukavalta. – The massage feels nice.
With these verbs, the allative case (mille) is also possible and means exactly the same thing. Uusi kielemme has done a wonderful job listing different rection patterns, so I won’t do the same job twice! You can find all their rection articles here: https://uusikielemme.fi/?s=rections
Rections are an example of Finnish grammar where it’s easy to get overwhelmed and lose steam. How can I say anything at all if I’m not sure about what case the other words should be in? The good news is, it’s often not a big deal to choose the wrong form. Rections are also something that native speakers struggle with, because they are sometimes different in spoken forms Finnish and standard written Finnish.
The Finnish case system is just like the prepostition system of English and other European languages, where there’s a lot to learn case by case and mistakes are to be expected during the learning process. Just like in English, there might be some minor misuderstandings if you choose the wrong form, but usually not serious ones. As you hear and read more and more Finnish, the correct forms will start to become automatic.
Readers, what has worked for you for learning rections?
Tykkään suklaakakusta tosi paljon. Picture by Pexels
I’ve been wanting to write a proper blog post about kpt-changes for ages, and I have a question in my inbox that is the perfect excuse!
First though, a word about kpt-changes in general.
In Finnish, words tend to morph in different ways depending on the meaning you want to convey. For example, cake in Finnish is kakku. Now, say your friends have suprised you with a cake on your birthday. In English, we just stick stuff in front, to get with a cake.
In Finnish, however, we stick stuff at the end of the word:
with a cake = kakku + lla (= cake + with)
Pretty simple so far. But, with the addition of -lla, the word itself also changes. One k goes away, and we get kakulla, with just the one k.
This is what I’m talking about when I’m talking about kpt-changes. These are a pretty weird and intricate part of Finnish grammar, and they’re one of the reasons why we have memes like this:
The good part about Finnish is that compared to the so called soft little kitty languages like Swedish, there’s often a method behind the madness, and that’s true for kpt-changes also. Languages like Swedish can require much more learning by heart. Also, I’ve seen that same meme with English grammar pictured as that soft little kitten. I’m pretty convinced that the person who made that choice has never really had to study English grammar, which is actually ridiculously complicated once you get past beginner level. The thing is, with English, people are much more confident of speaking less than perfectly, so it can feel like it’s just easy soft kitty going all the time. Kpt-changes usually come up pretty quickly when you’re just starting out with Finnish, and so they can seem like a basic thing that needs to be mastered properly right away.
With the help of Latrice Royale:
This is not true! KPT-changes are an inevitable part of Finnish, but they do not need to be mastered perfectly, not by a long shot.
I’m a native Finnish speaker, I have 12 years of studying and researching Finnish grammar under my belt, plus 11 years of teaching Finnish as a second language, and I still make the occasional kpt-mistake! I promise you, there is not a single Finnish speaker, native or non-native, who hasn’t blundered their kpt-changes when they’ve come accross a word that they don’t know. So it’s a completely unrealistic expectation that you should have all of it down right away.
A lot of the time, what you’re trying to say can easily be understood even if you make a mistake. However, sometimes kpt-changes do matter quite a lot. For example, a carpet, matto, can accidentally become a worm, mato. Which one you mean is usually pretty obvious from the context, but I don’t think it would be fair if teachers just pretended that kpt-changes don’t exist. So we usually bring them on right away so you know what you’re in for.
Personally, I’m a big grammar nerd and all for understanding the logic behind what can seem like a muddle of random rules, so there’s kpt-explanation post coming up very soon! I’ll also finally be answering a reader question, thank you so much for them and thank you so much for your patience!
Update, 14.3.2025: This post is from 2018, and these recommendations are fully outdated. I hope to make a proper update to this post soon, but I recommend our book YKIä kohti.
In the comment section of my YKI tips, reader Harry pointed out that my number one textbook recommendation for YKI prep (Hyvin menee 2) doesn’t include answers to the exercises, which makes it a bit tricky for self study. Thank you so much Harry, I hadn’t thought of this pretty crucial aspect of self study!
The answers and lots of extra material for Hyvin menee 2 are available in a separate teacher’s guide (Opettajan opas). Also, the audio has to be obtained separately as well, and listening comprehension is a pretty important part of YKI prep, so you need to get your hands on that as well. If you’re in Finland, all of this is available for free via your local library, but if you want to buy it new, it’ll cost something in the neighborhood of 150-200 euros altogether.
Another, much cheaper textbook option is Suomea paremmin by Susanna Hart, which includes the answers to the exercises and the audio for about 40 euros. I don’t think that Suomea paremmin is nearly as good as Hyvin menee 2 for YKI prep (for one, the audio includes Finnish actors pretending to be learning Finnish as a second language, which… cringe!), but it has many advantages for self study. It’s much more concise so it can be a lot clearer and less overwhelming to study with, but that can be a mixed blessing – a less overwhelming textbook may mean a much more overwhelming test experience, so it’s super important that you supplement it with more demanding online materials.
Personal update:
I’m currently 7 months pregnant, finishing a textbook of my own, teaching my regular students and classes, running my small business and napping at least two hours a day, so it’s been slow going when it comes to blogging (not to even mention my PhD thesis!). I haven’t forgotten about the blog though and will get back to your excellent questions as soon as possible!
