Background

Hi there to everyone who has stumbled upon this humble blog of mine!

I think that the title of the page reveals it in the most obvious way but still: I’m going to learn Finnish language. I must admit I don’t speak Finnish yet, but I decided to name the blog “How I learned Finnish language” assuming that I will have learnt enough of the language by the time I get first visitors on here or even first subscribers...

Finnish has never been the language I always wanted to learn. I have never really watched Finnish movies or listened to Finnish songs that could make me fall in love with the language (although I’ve been to Finland for a short week). Quite contrary, I heard that Finnish was one of the most difficult languages in the world to learn (especially for English speakers) and I have never been gravitated towards undoable tasks. However, my life is now taking a direction where I need to know Finnish. Well, I myself am leading my life to a path where I need to know Finnish, because this is how life works – you have to take responsibility for your own choices if you want your life to change/improve.

To learn Finnish quickly is an ambitious goal and goals are nothing but dreams unless they have deadlines. I’m writing this post in the beginning of October 2016 and I’m planning to be at B-2 level by 2019. I give myself 2 whole years for teaching myself as much Finnish as I can. During this time I am going to talk about my experience in studying Finnish on this blog, share the materials I use, technics and methods I employ. I hope one day it will be helpful for anyone facing the same goal as mine.

Suomi is not going to be my first foreign language. I speak English a little, although not well enough to consider it as my second language. In fact, one of the reasons of why I’m writing in English right now is because I want to practice it. So, don’t throw poop at me when you see a mistake or a grammar error. Quite possibly it was just a typo! I also understand French at an intermediate level and I do love this language. What I’m trying to say is that I already have some experience in learning languages from a different language family than my native tongue (I was born in Russia 27 years ago and have been speaking Russian ever since, with a two year’s delay in the beginning of my personhood) and this experience may help me with my efforts in conquering Finnish. I believe that previous exposure to learning foreign languages is my essential advantage for now because I know HOW to learn foreign languages in general (or, at least, I think I know).  I hope this will speed up the process a little.

The last thing I want to say is that I don’t think I have any predispositions towards languages. I believe your success in learning a foreign language mainly depends on the amount of time you allocate to your studies and work you put in that time. A very easy formula that have never failed me.