Author: ftvalvoja

In my previous post all the way in December, I wrote about how to get started on your path to mastering the Finnish language.

When you’re starting out, it’s a good idea to really to think about your goals, how much time and energy you’re going to dedicate to your studies and most important of all, how to make learning as fun and rewarding as possible.

In this post, I go through some of the different paths that you can take when you start your journey and share some resources that will hopefully be useful to you as you start your journey. Also, you don’t need to limit yourself to one thing. In fact, it’s often useful to do a combination of things that work for your schedule, your resources and your individual preferences. 

1. A face to face group course. A good face to face group course has many advantages: you get to know other people working towards the same goal, you have a teacher to guide you and at best, your lessons will be lots of fun. Leaving your home to go to class  can be both a great advantage and a disadvantage: it can take a lot of time and energy to physically get to class, but on the other hand a lot of people really benefit from physically being present at a lesson as opposed to online learning. A group course that works for you might even give you energy instead of just demanding it!

Finding a face to face group course of course depends on where you’re located. If you’re in Finland and in a city, a good place to start looking is finnishcourses.fi. I personally only have experience with schools in the Helsinki metropolitan area, and even then of course only from the point of view of a teacher. Some great places to study in Helsinki are Eiran aikuislukio, Helsingin aikuisopisto and Helsingin työväenopisto, but there are many others as well!

2. An online group course. A good online group course will have many of the advantages of a face to face class, but can be a lot more convenient to fit into your schedule. Typically, online group courses will have regular meetings on a platform like Zoom or Teams with at least a portion of the lesson in brekout rooms. There’s usually also a learning environment for homework like Moodle, Google Classroom or Peda.net. Finnishcourses.fi is also a great place to start your search for these.

Many small providers also organize their own beginners’ courses. One great option is my friend and colleague Taru Eloranta, whose courses you can find here. 

3. A self-paced online course can be a great option if your schedule is very busy and it’s hard to find a regular time for a group course. I don’t have a specific course that I’m able to personally recommend at the moment, but I know these exist and would love to design one myself one day. Let me know in the comments if you know of a good one!

4. Private lessons are a wonderful way to study without having to worry about the pace of the course being too slow or too fast. The downside of private lessons is that you don’t have a group to support you, but they come with the advantage of the teacher being focused only on you.

Private lessons are also a much bigger financial investment than group courses: lessons by qualified Finnish teachers based in Finland range from about 60 to 110 euros per 45 minutes at the time I’m writing this. However, there are students who teach private lessons for much less, and many of my colleagues living outside of Finland are able to charge much less.

Here’s a good list of private Finnish teachers compiled by Hanna Männikkölahti from Random Finnish Lesson (who is also a wonderful teacher and colleague). 

5. Self-paced learning with a textbook. This is a demanding path to take, as studying on your own demands lots of discipline and you risk feeling lost. However, I’ve seen a lot of students take this path and get great results, so I don’t want to discourage it either! The best textbook that I know of for this path is the Suomen mestari series, but Oma suomi, Sun suomi (English explanations) are also good options.

6. Other great resources when you’re starting out. There are many wonderful apps and websites that can help you on your path. Duolingo of course is very popular.

Some of my own favorites are

• Uusi kielemme is a wonderful, free site all about Finnish grammar and vocabulary in English and in some other languages as well. Highly recommended! (This bullet point is an update on 22.3. prompted by commenter Alli. I can believe I initially forgot Uusi kielemme!) 
• Kieli.net, a word analysis tool, dictionary and exercises all in one. 
• Random Finnish Lesson is a great blog about learning the Finnish language and also about books in easy Finnish.  (This is also an update on 22.3.) 
• Wordwall is a huge library of interactive exercises made by teachers like me 
• Superalkeet is essentially a free, self-paced online course. It a good material, but it can be a bit overwhelming on its own if you’re not being supported by a more fleshed out resource like a textbook or course. 
• Puhutsä suomee? is a high quality online material about spoken Finnish. I also recommend you use this one with the support of another resource to avoid getting overwhelmed. 
• Kotisuomessa is a wonderful online material, a bit confusing to navigate on your own but really good stuff for levels 0 all the way to B2.  
• Lyricstraining is a webiste where you can learn Finnish through songs. 

I would love to hear from you in the comments! If you’re just starting out, what are you wondering about the most? If you’ve already further along on your path, what was useful for you in the beginning? 

I had a lovely, hot and sunny month of July and am back! This is Part 2 of my answer to Boglárka. Part one lives here. 

Boglárka writes: 

I haven’t really found a good translation for mennä puihin, could you help me out with that? 

The literal translation for mennä puihin would be “to go into the trees”, and it means more or less to fail completely or to go very wrong: 

Projekti meni puihin. 
‘The project failed.’

A quick googling revealed an interesting second meaning that I don’t personally remember ever hearing before, but that my spouse Janne says is the primary meaning for him: 

Menin ihan puihin hänet nähdessäni
 ‘I froze completely when I saw him’

​In this context, mennä puihin means being unable to speak or do anything in an important situation, like meeting someone you admire for the first time. Basically a deer in headlights moment. So my suggestions for translating mennä puihin would be to fail, to go wrong or to have a deer in headlights moment, depending on context.

Mennä puihin seems to me to be closely related to another tree themed expression of failing, mennä metsään “to go into the forest”:

 Mun arvaus meni ihan metsään.
Literally: My guess went completely into the forest. 
‘My guess was totally wrong.’​

Note: This post contains discussion of the human body and genitalia. I’ll try not to gross you out too much, but proceed at your own caution!  

Boglárka writes: 

​Moikka! My Finnish teacher recommended your awesome blog and it indeed seems terribly useful, so thank you for writing it! I also have a question, I’ve come across the word munaskuu lately and looking it up in several dictionaries I’ve become quite confused about how exactly it’s used. it seems like the translations ranged from guts (like in gut feeling) to kidney and testis. are all of these correct? also, I haven’t really found a good translation for mennä puihin, could you help me out with that? thanks a bunch in advance and also for your great work with the blog!

Heippa Boglárka!

Thank you for your kind words and really interesting questions! I’ll start with the first one and save “mennä puihin” for another post, so this one doesn’t become much too long. 

You’ve got the general meaning right: munaskuu can refer to vague anatomy, hence the translations kidney and testis. Munaskuu doesn’t directly refer to the gut, but that’s also one possible translation. In English you’d say that you feel something in your gut, but in Finnish you could say that you feel it in your kidneys, tunnen sen munaskuissani.  However, it’s much more common to feel something in your gut in English than it is to feel something in your kidneys in Finnish. 

The original meaning of the word seems to be ‘kidney’, but to me personally the primary meaning is definitely ‘testis’ or ‘testicle’, and a quick google search reveals that this is not just a personal quirk of mine. Before receiving your question, I thought that the standard written form of the word was munasku, with just one u, and this form yields a lot more male genitalia than munaskuu on google. You’ve been warned!

When I look at the search results for munasku and munaskuu, I’m also no longer that confident that munasku and munaskuu are even the same word – I mean, they certainly come from the same origins, but they’re written differently and seem to have surprisingly different meanings. Munaskuu, according to Institute for the Languages of Finland, is definitely kidney and invokes biblical and generally old fashioned literary connotations. The first written instances are from Agricola. Munasku, on the other hand, primarily seems to mean testis and is much more vulgar – maybe old fashioned, also, but not in a high brow let alone biblical way. It’s more like something that an older man might say while drinking Koskenkorva by the wood pile (a time honored Finnish tradition).

José asks: 

A good question is how to say TURN ON and TURN OFF.


1. Turn ON the light – Turn OFF the light.

2. Turn ON the cellphone – Turn OFF the cellphone.

3. Turn ON the computer – Turn OFF the computer.

4. Turn ON the television – Turn OFF the television.

5. Turn ON the iron (clothes iron) – Turn OFF the iron

Hi José!

Thank you for a great question! 

This blog post is completely based on my own intuition of how to best translate your sentences. In other words, I haven’t done any research for this like I normally do for these blog posts.

I have a strong feeling that researching all of these would lead us down a deep rabbit hole, so I’ve decided to just rely on my own native speaker feel for the Finnish language. This of course means that there’s a bigger risk than usual that other speakers might prefer another version.

Here we go, let’s look at these one at a time!

1. Turn ON the light – Turn OFF the light.

Sytyttää valo – Sammuttaa valo

or

Laittaa valo päälle – Laittaa valo pois päältä.

2. Turn ON the cellphone – Turn OFF the cellphone.

Laittaa puhelin päälle – Laittaa puhelin pois päältä.

With this one, you can use sammuttaa for turn off, so just like turning off the light:

Sammuttaa puhelin.

But sytyttää doesn’t work here, because sytyttää puhelin would mean that you’re lighting your phone on fire, which you obviously want to avoid.

Another verb that you can use for turning on is käynnistää, but it sounds a bit overly formal for everyday use:

Käynnistää puhelin. – To turn on the cellphone.

3. Turn ON the computer – Turn OFF the computer.

Laittaa tietokone päälle. – Laittaa tietokone pois päältä.

Käynnistää tietokone. – Sammuttaa tietokone.

Again, don’t light your computer on fire, avoid the verb sytyttää!

Another option is sulkea ‘to close’ for turning off:

Sulkea tietokone.

For turning on, avata ‘to open’ is also sometimes used, especially if you’re on a laptop:

Avasin tietokoneen aamulla. – I turned my computer on or opened my computer.

4. Turn ON the television – Turn OFF the television.

Laittaa televisio päälle. – Laittaa televisio pois päältä.

Avata televisio. – Sulkea televisio.

For some reason, käynnistää sounds formal to the point of absurdity with televisio, in a way that it doesn’t for computers or phones.

5. Turn ON the iron (clothes iron) – Turn OFF the iron

Laittaa silitysrauta päälle – Laittaa silitysrauta pois päältä.

Here, the other options for turn on and turn off don’t sound correct, but I’m not sure why that is. 

If we look at all of the examples above, we can see that laittaa päälle ‘turn on’ and laittaa pois ‘turn off’ work really nicely for all your examples, and I’d say for all electrical appliances in general. At least I can’t immediately think of one where I wouldn’t say laittaa päälle/pois.

Then we have some other options like avata, sulkea, käynnistää, sammuttaa, sytyttää that work in some contexts but not in others. It would be fascinating to look at all of these in more detail to find out why that’s the case, but we’ll leave that for another day!

Readers, can you think of other ways to translate these sentences?

Colleagues and other skilled Finnish speakers reading these: do you agree with my translations? Is there something here that you would express differently? Let me know in the comments!

Ihab asks:
​What does the word maku maku mean? 

Moi Ihab!

The short answer: maku  means taste. Just like in English, it can mean the taste of food as well as a person’s taste or sense of style.  

Kielitoimiston sanakirja is a wonderful, free Finnish dictionary published by the Institute for the Languages of Finland. If you haven’t yet, check it out! It’s all in Finnish and geared towards advanced speakers, but it can be useful from the very beginning.

According to Kielitoimiston sanakirja, maku has four distinct meanings or uses:

1. It’s the experience of flavor. Maku is what you feel when you are eating: sweetness, saltiness, acidity, but also coffee, bread, grapefruit or cucumber. 

Tässä on palaneen maku. 
Tämä+inessive be+3rd person singular palanut+genitive maku+nominative. 
Literally: There’s the taste of burnt in this. 
This tastes burnt. 

However, a more frequent way to express this meaning is by using the verb maistua, ‘to taste’, which can be used with both the ablative (Miltä?) and allative cases (Mille?), which mean the exact same thing:

Ruoka maistuu hyvältä. 
Ruoka+nominative maistua+3rd person singular + hyvä+ablative. 
Literally, it would be something like: Food tastes of goodness. 
The actual translation: The food tastes good. 

The choice between ruoka maistuu hyvältä and ruoka maistuu hyvälle depends on one’s unique use of language or idolect. Some Finns stick strictly to one or the other, some use both. Originally, it was a regional difference, with one version in eastern Finland and the other in the west. 

2. A metaphorical experience of flavor. In English, you might say that something left a bad taste in your mouth, perhaps after a job  interview  with a sketchy company or a meeting with an unpleasant person. In Finnish, we use maku in pretty much the same way. 

Haastattelusta jäi huono maku suuhun.
Haastattelu+elative jäädä+past tense huono+nominative maku+nominative suu+illative
Literally: From the interview, a bad taste remained in my mouth. 
Actual translation: The interview left a bad taste in my mouth. 

3. A person’s individual sense of flavour or taste. 

Lisää suolaa maun mukaan. 
Lisätä+2nd person imperative suola+partitive maku+genitive mukaan. 
What the words mean: add salt taste according
Actual translation: Add salt according to taste. 

4. A person’s individual sense of style. This is another meaning that is pretty much the exact equivalent of how we would use the English word taste.

Ihabilla on hyvä maku. 
Ihab+adessive olla+3rd person hyvä+nominative maku+nominative
Ihab has good taste. 

Omar asks:
What is the difference between the words “pilalla” and “raunio”? 

Hi Omar!

I think I see where the confusion comes from – when you look up the English word ruin or ruined, both of these come up as possible translations.

The ruin you were probably looking for is pilalla, which is the general word that means that something is no longer usable: 

Laitoin keittoon aivan liikaa pippuria. Nyt se on pilalla. 
I put way too much pepper in the soup. It’s ruined now. 

Raunio, on the other hand, means a ruin of a building. 

Nate asks: 

​Terve!

I’d like to ask what your suggestions are for someone (me) who is trying to become proficient in speaking Finnish again after not speaking it for many years. I find that I can still form sentences and have rudimentary conversations in Finnish with myself in my head, but, those don’t last very long due to losing my vocabulary. I’d just like to be able to speak with my Finnish friends again, and feel confident speaking face to face when I come to visit.
​
Kiitos paljon!
​

My answer: 

​Terve Nate!

This is such an important topic, thank you for asking this question!
​
An important part of getting really good at a language is accepting the fact that your progress won’t be linear. There will be months and sometimes years that will go by where you aren’t doing anything you’re your Finnish skills, which means that you will forget some of the things that you have learned, and everything will kind of rust over. Starting to speak Finnish after a long break can feel like banging your head against a wall. Why can’t I remember any vocabulary? Shouldn’t I know this by now?

Here are some things that have worked for my students and also for me personally when I’ve needed to recover or reactivate other languages. (Hi Spanish, Hungarian, and Swedish! Hola, hej, szia!)

1. Let go of should. You know what you know now and that’s enough. Yes, you used to know more, were able to speak more fluently and were able to express yourself in many situations. That doesn’t matter, your current skills are what they are and they’re enough as they are, for now. Sometimes, language learners are so busy beating themselves up about what they feel they should know that they don’t have any energy at all left for learning. Don’t let that happen to you! So, accept where you are now and then start thinking about where you want to get to.

2. Think of other things that you’re good at. What skills are applicable in this situation? For example, if you’re someone who likes to paint, you probably have the experience of not having done it for a while, picking it back up and having to face the fact that you’re not the painter you used to be. This goes for anything that requires skill, whether it’s reading, writing, posting on social media, yoga, tennis, running, knitting, cooking… How did you overcome the challenge of picking something back up again in other parts of your life? What has worked for you previously? Can you do the same with Finnish?

3. Start by reviving some of your passive language skills. Listen to something or read something that you enjoy. Listening to music is one great option, as that’s something that can be enjoyable even if you don’t understand a single word.  

3. Get into a routine of actively doing something in Finnish regularly. It sounds like you’re already doing some of this, which is great! Talk to yourself in Finnish for 5 minutes every morning, write a few words in a journal, comment on social media posts in Finnish. Do whatever feels like the easiest and most fun way of getting rid of the rust you’ve accumulated.

4. Think about using a textbook to help you revise what you already know. If you go this route, it might be worth getting a new textbook for a fresh take on familiar things. A good option for someone who wants to revise the very basics while also broadening and deepending their skills is Sun suomi, which has explanations in English. Another good textbook for revision is Oma suomi 1 (level 0 to A2) and 2 (level A2 to B1). If you can handle a heavy layout and aren’t too thrown off by typos, a textbook called Finnish tutor is also a great resource for revision.

One caveat: the language in a lot of Finnish textbooks for beginners gets quite difficult quite quickly, so don’t be angry at yourself if your level A2 (lower intermediate) textbook feels really demanding when you used to be at B2 (advanced). Of course, if you already have a textbook that you know and like, there’s nothing wrong with revising with that one! The books that I’ve mentioned here are the ones that I think might be the best in this situation, but they definitely aren’t the only options available, far from it.

5. Find a course to attend. Finnishcourses.fi is good place to start looking, and Kielibuusti is another. If you’re not in Finland, there are many great online courses available. Taking a few private lessons is another great way to get rid of that rust and to regain confidence in your skills in an efficient way.

6. Find ways to start using the language again in real life. Think of the situations that you’d like to speak Finnish in and then get into those situations. If you’re not in Finland, think about what you can do online.

Remember to let go of the should and trust the process. The skills you had aren’t lost forever, they’re just rusty. It will take some time to get to the place where you once were, but it will happen quite quickly if you let it.

Onnea matkaan, sä pystyt siihen!
Good luck, you can do it! 

Readers, what are your tips for speaking Finnish again after a long break? Comment below or on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn or Twitter. 

I’ve answered a couple of questions about choosing the right case to use (you can find them here and here). In each of these posts, I’ve been talking about the concept of ainesana,  but I haven’t really devoted time to explaining what they are and how to recognize them. So here goes!

The word ainesana is composed of two words, aine ‘material, element’ and sana ‘word’. Ainesana literally means an “element word” or “material word”, and its English counterpart is the uncountable noun. However, unlike in English, in Finnish it’s often less useful to think of these words in terms of counting. In my experience, it’s often more useful to think about dividing, and some Finnish grammars use the term jaollinen, ‘divisible’ to mean the same thing – if you can divide it, it’s an ainesana. Ainesanas behave a bit differently than other words, especially when it comes to using the partitive case. 

The following groups of nouns are ainesanas:

1) food and drink: kahvi ‘coffee’, juusto ‘cheese’, mehu ‘juice’, leipä ‘bread’
2) elements and materials: vesi ‘water’, nahka ‘leather’, tuli ‘fire’
3) abstract concepts and feelings: rakkaus ‘love’, ystävyys ‘friendship’, ilo ‘joy’

Ainesanas are things that you can stick into a blender and mush up without them losing their essence. A mashed potato is still a potato, but stick your cellphone (not an ainesana) into your vitamix and what you get is a pile of broken plastic, glass and metal. Love remains love even when your heart is broken.

Another way to phrase the same idea is that with ainesanas, even the tiniest bit of the thing is still the thing. If you pour some coffee into a coffee cup, you now have coffee in a cup as well as in a coffee pot. Cut up a cake, kakku, and dish it out and you have lots of plates with cake. If you cut up a t-shirt in a similar way you end up with garbage, not a t-shirt, but the shards are still fabric, kangas, which of course is, again, an ainesana.  

If you can divide it without it losing its essence, it’s an ainesana. If you can’t, it’s not. 

Every April, I’m amazed at how Finnish is spring is pretty much identical with Belgian winter. I grew up in Belgium, where usually April means green grass, leaves and flowers. In Helsinki, April means +7 degrees and everything being grey and brown. At the moment, it’s raining. But we had some beautiful days last week, and Vappu is just around the corner! Can’t wait! On to the question of the day: 

Omar writes: 
Mitä tarkoittaa “nimenomaan” ?!  What does “nimenomaan “mean?! 

Dear Omar, 

Great question! Nimenomaan is one of those words that emphasizes and defines meaning, and as such it’s pretty hard to translate accurately. Nimeomaan can be translated as exactly, absolutely, totally, precisely, in particular. 

You can use it to say that someone understands exactly what you mean. In this example that I just made up, Maija and Aarne are having coffee. 

Maija:  Tää on ihana kahvila.
Aarne: Joo, mistään ei saa näin hyviä korvapuusteja!
Maija:  Nimenomaan!

Maija: I love this café (literally: this café is wonderful). 
Aarne: Yeah, you can’t get korvapuustis this good anywhere!
Maija: Exactly!

You can also use it to single something out: 

Maija: Tää on ihana kahvila.
Aarne: Joo, nimenomaan korvapuustit on täällä tosi hyviä!

Maija: I love this café. 
Aarne: Yeah, the korvapuustis in particular are really good here!

To emphasize: 

Maija: Mihin me mentäis kahville? 
Aarne: En mä tiiä, oisko Cafe Laine mitään? 
Maija: Mun tekis nimenomaan mieli korvapuustia. 
Aarne: No mut hei sit mä tiedän hyvän paikan!

Maija: Where do you want to have coffee? 
Aarne: I don’t know, how about Café Laine?
Maija: I’m really craving a korvapuusti. 
Aarne: Well in that case I know just the place!

In most cases, in particular works pretty nicely as a translation for nimenomaan, so if I had to choose one word to translate it with, that would be my favorite. 

​Sadaf asks:

Hi, I am planning to seat for YKI test. It’s been a year since I am planning this. But I have a small baby and it’s really hard to study or prepare for the exam. Can I have any suggestion on how to pass YKI test level 3. I have finished Suomen mestari 1.

Dear Sadaf,

Thank you for the great question! Studying with a small baby is definitely a huge challenge. When I think back to the first year of my own child’s life, my first thought is that it was often a huge challenge to just somehow keep everyone fed, warm and relatively clean, and to keep our home from descending into complete chaos. I don’t think it would have been possible for me personally to study for a standardized test at that time. However, that’s not to say that you shouldn’t attempt it! Babies, families and experiences are really different, and what would have been an impossible task for me may be a really fun and rewarding journey for you. 

Everything I say in this post is comes with a caveat: depending on you situation, this may be really bad advice. But I hope that some of it can be helpful!

1. Is there a Finnish course for parents of small children available near you?

Depending on where you’re located, there might be a Finnish course or language café available that is specifically designed for your situation, with child care options and extra support. Your local neuvola (Finnish maternity and child care clinic, literally “the advice place”) should be able to point you in the right direction. 

2. Think about how you could build some Finnish into your everyday life.

When is the best time of the day for you to learn? Learning doesn’t have to mean quiet, uninterrupted time. It can be something connected to your everyday routines: for example, you could talk to your baby in Finnish for 5 minutes every morning or have a podcast for Finnish learners on in the background of other things. Little daily routines like this go a very long way.  

3. Connect with others

I know for a fact that you’re not the only one struggling with this, and many struggles become smaller when you have community. So, my advice would be to find others who are in the same situation as you are and to support each other in your efforts. I know it’s easier said than done, especially in the blur that life with a baby tends to be, but it’s well worth the effort if it’s possible for you.
​
One option is a non-profit organization called Mothers In Business. It’s one great way to connect with others in the same situation for peer support. There are Facebook groups, online and face to face mingles and all kinds of grear events. Here’s the international wing. 

Mothers in Business International has also organized language cafés and conversation groups for Finnish learners in the past (I’m proud to say that I was part of the very first chapter in 2020), and I think there might be more coming in the future.

There are many other great non-profits and organizations that can help you connect with other parents of small children. One really prominent one that is active all over Finland is Mannerheimin lastensuojeluliitto, MLL for short. Again, your local neuvola is a great place to find out what is available in your area.

4. Give yourself enough time

You still have some way to go before YKI level, and you’re in a challenging stage in your life. You’re most likely at level A1 now, which means you need to climb two more levels on the CEFR scale until you reach B1 and YKI level.  From basic level, you need to get to independent level, which means that you can manage in most everyday situations if Finnish. Your goal is absolutely, 100 % reachable, but be patient with yourself and your process. 

4. What textbooks to use

If you’re able to keep studying with a text book or even attend a course, it would be good to study at least Suomen mestari 2 in addition to Suomen mestari 1, preferably also Suomen mestari 3.

Or, if Suomen mestari isn’t doing it for you, you might want to opt for another texbook like Sun suomi (from 0 to A2, explanations in English), Oma suomi 1 and 2 or No niin 1 and 2. It might be worth getting these out of the library to try them out and see what resonates.

Here’s some more general YKI preparation advice, including lots of links to materials and so forth.

I hope this helps, good luck! You can do this!

P.S: I’m teaching a self-paced course on the speaking portion of the YKI test. Pre-recorded video lessons and exercises for you to go through at your own pace and lots of teacher support by email and on Facebook.

​The current chapter of the course in ongoing right now. It’s still possible to join in, but it’s still too soon for your current language level. However, there will be further chapters coming up if you’re interested. The next one will be in January 2024.  Here are all my upcoming Finnish courses.