From the very beginning

I started working on Finnish grammar from the very beginning but now I really try to memorize all the rules and do all the exercises. As I mentioned earlier, my previous grammar book was meant for familiarizing myself with the structure of the language, not actually studying it. I didn't expect it would take four months though.

As my source of grammar I chose Suomen mestari. I read a lot about these textbook series and some say Suomen mestari is the best on market for beginners. Right now I'm working through the first book. Even though I know all the vocab already and most of the rules, I still find it useful because of the practice I get doing the exercises. 

As a side source of the language I use Samalla kartalla series. I don't do the exercises, but the books contain many different texts and dialogues that are practical for gaining vocabulary. The first book is pretty basic stuff, but the solid base is crucial.

I also changed the way I memorize new words. Here's how I write them down now in my notebook:

If it's a noun or an adjective:

an example in context (or examples)                                         translation

four forms - nominative, genitive, partitive, plural partitive

If it's a verb:

an example in context (or examples)                                         translation

six forms - a dictionary form, first person present, first person past, participle, taan-form, ttiin-form

As I learned from my experience, it is very important to know the forms which a word could take, otherwise it's sometimes impossible to recognize it. I picked these form, because knowing them you could easily form all remaining forms.

Here's how my notebook looks like:

jos haluat esimerkiksi piirtää kuvan, sinun käytettävä piirto tai maalausohelm           to draw

(piirtää, piirrän, piirsin, piirtänyt, piirretään, piirrettiin)

hyvin lyhyt kysymys, valmista lyhyt esitys!                                                  short

(lyhyt, lyhyen, lyhyttä, lyhyitä)

Listening skills

I'd like to say a few words about listening activities. It's hard to underestimate the importance of listening skills while learning a language. Being able to understand written Finnish is one thing, but being able to understand a spoken speech is a whole new experience.

Offtopic: I believe that fluency in a foreign language is not something abstract. You can always tell when you're fluent in a target language by asking yourself two simple questions:
1) Can you convey all the depth of your thoughts in a target language both in writing or speaking?
2) Can you understand all the depth of someone's thoughts presented to you either in writing or speaking?
And that's it. If your answers are "yes", then you could say you're fluent. And most of the times it doesn't matter if you convey your thoughts in a simplified language (as long as you convey everything you wanted to say or meant, it's fine, you're still fluent). However, being able to understands someone's deep thoughts is, at times, a problem, because you have to have a large bulk of passive vocabulary and recognize the foreign accents or dialects in real time often without thinking... Thankfully, there's a way to train this "instant recognition".

In order to be able to understand spoken Finnish on the go, you have to listen to finnish in large and superlarge quantities. You have to listen to Finnish while commuting to work or walking your dog. Jogging at the park in the evening. Cooking food. No matter what you are doing, if you feel like you could squeeze some listening into your activities, you should do it. It is crucial. Training listening skills takes time, and the more time you put into your listening the better!

Ok, what to listen to?

I don't think it is vise to begin with authentic audio matherials. It's too easy to get lost. However, the voice should be recorded by native speakers. The tetbook I use in my studies has a CD. I found on the trackers the PDF version of this book with all audio files in mp3. My progress with the text book is slow, so at first I listened to the same audio matherials over and over again for weeks. Sometimes I felt like I already knew what I listened to by heart (and this is a good thing). But after two weeks I felt like it was time to spice it up a little and add some new matherials. I stopped my choice on Pimsleur's Finnish level One and it sucked a lot. It didn't feel like it at first, but I'm not using this course anymore. The course has very limited vocabulary along with a very formal language. Finns just don't talk like this. Plus, there's no explanations of grammar in this course as well. It says: "The word for lunch is lounasta". Okay, thinks I, lounasta. Pretty easy to remember and I'm gonna use this common word a lot. But turned out lounasta is in partitive, and in order to add differend case endings, you have to know the stem of the word. But Pimsleur told me the lunch was lounasta and he didnt mention it was actually a partitive form of the word lounas, so it stuck in my mind as lounasta... And there are too many such casualties in the course. So, I found it useless after a couple of weeks of using it.

I found on the internet the complete collection of podcasts by Finnish Pod 101 (turned out the site was free and I could have downloaded everything from one spot). There are many different podcasts for many different levels. In the audio, they introduce you some short dialogue, then explain everything about grammar and vocabulary in English. I found it interesting and useful and for now it's always in my playlist, although I try to indulge in these podcasts only half of my listening time, because, well, there's not to much actual Finnish in them. They talk mostly in English, explaining you vocabulary and stuff, while in order to get used to Finnish speech, you have to listen to Finnish a lot. Right now I listen to their Lover Beginner podcasts, but I started from the Absolute Beginner and, I'm not gonna lie, it was challenging nevertheless.

Actually, this is what I'm listening to for the time being: audio files from my textbook and the FinnishPod101. I have to admit, when you listen to the same thing over and over again, it starts to get to you. When I have free time at work (I have an office job), I like to read another absolutely great Finnish textbook Suomen Mestari. It's fun and interesting, and it's entirely in Finnish. It's not too complicated for me already because I've already learnt the grammar it covers, so I use this book as a supplementary material. There's audio files in addition to the textbook and they are absolutely amazing too. Interesting dialogues, for or five different actors including children. Great. I downloaded the files from the trackers, and , when my usual listening materials start to bore me, I listen to this Suomen Mestari audio for fun. Highly recommend both the book ad the audio. You could find the book by typing Suomen Mestari PDF on google.

Also, there's a good site with authentic audio, News in easy Finnish. It's an awesome resourse, I guess, but I don't really use it for now, because I'm not there yet.

How to listen to?

I train my listening skills like this: I take short audio matherials which last 15 min max amd listen to them on repeat for two days (while commuting to work). After two days I take another 15mins audio and repeat the activity. Sometimes, in a few days or weeks, I return to matherial that was fun or interesting or to the matherial that was challanging and that requires more listenings. Very effective.

I believe I've covered everything I wanted to say for now. If someone has any questions, feel free to ask them in the comment section!