of the finnish language....
I know, I know....its been a while since i blogged. So what has been up? well....it snowed last week, was in helsinki, had a great great great time!!! But all my fun was taken away when i got sick. I've had buckets of blood taken from me....ok, not buckets but viles of blood... that whole blood taking process is too much for my young innocent self I tell you. So anyway, im on meds now....with any luck, i shall be feeling better in some days....keep your fingers crossed please? So I live in Finland. I dont speak a word of Finnish...well, I can say hello and thank you. It doesnt work out too badly because, everything in school is in english....well for my course at least and out of school, i kinda just make my way. When i go to an office or to the hospital where i've been countless times these past days, i just make it known from the beginning...."Hello, I don't speak Finnish"...from there, they say its ok, because they speak english, or they go and get someone who speaks english. I've learnt it eliminates all the hanky panky. I know I really should put more effort into learning a bit of the language, but somewhere in the back of my mind, I keep thinking..."but i'm only here for a few years....after all, too many languages in my head cannot be a good thing...i'll get all muddled up...english, swahili, kikuyu, italian, french"....some of those languages i have mentioned should however be put in serious quotes...seeing that I am not too fluent in them....So thus my predicament! Go add a whole other weird language on top of that?...Finnish really is a weird language...it has no connection to the neighbouring countries' languages. It only has some ties with hungarian I think....Its just such an out there language....dont know who came up with it and why. It sounds like a mix between kikuyu and indian....well thats to me anyway. So it might be interesting to learn, but frankly, I'm not too interested in it. But I will try change....promise! However, that said!!! Just because i speak fluent english does not automatically make me american or British...but that is what people tend to think and assume when i open my mouth to speak. Totally off the point here, some dude I met in a club the other day said i looked punjabi....dude! not even indian, but punjabi....have to look up all the good things about them. So now on to my rant of the day!!!! I am in a Finnish school in an english course!!! Why then does everything having to do with the school as a whole leave no room for us english speakers? Student council sends us stuff in Finnish, the school nurse sends us stuff in Finnish!! Geez!!! I volunteer to keep the english speakers up to tabs with what's going on. But it seems like I keep fighting an invisible hand as all the other english students seem so lax, laid back and fine with things as they are. I want to participate, be part of things, do something!!!!! Thats my rant and my next mission!!!
posted by kipepeo at 2:34 PM
14 Comments:
Stay up and feel better soon
LOL at buckets of blood. Hope you feel better soon. I cannot believe that it has started snowing *sob* - it will be us next, and thats the end until maybe march *sob*
I am trying to learn Finnish.
Hei hei chick hope u feel better... i feel you on the Finnish.. tis a strange language i had a Finnish house mate for a year and she sounded crazy everytime she talked to her Finnish pals on the phone.. it was worse though, when she used to bring her ka one night stands home and she would be shoutin out all sorts of finnish words while um doing the deed!
on the warpath again i see ... some things will never change!!! :-D that's a good thing though, keep that fire burning cos that's how we get to change stuff. speaking of warpaths, i'm on one of my own. i'll blog about it if i ever finish all these damn assignments. get well soon nyas.
yea there's a time when the brain says no to too many languages, so as long as you can still get around then its no problem.
Hope you feel better soon & do stay in high spirits. My 2 cents on languages: It doesn't hurt to learn a couple dozen important phrases in another language. That will open doors for you, get you out of trouble & even help you fit in better in your host nation.
Best wishes;)
Hope you feel better soon gal and you be on ur feet all charming again..
I think Finnish is similar to Estonian, ama?
i know there is some bird flu goin around have u confirmed it doesnt affect butterflies?
lmao about the guy saying u look punjabi..heheh..ive never seen u so yunno maybe u do??..but its the specificness thats too funny!
panna kummuta aikaisin!! ;-)
Hi gurl,
I came over to complain where u been coz you've been so quiet i figured it had to be the winter starting and all. Well, umeponea since i found a ka post albeit not a happy one.
Okie i'll fill you in on a little secret and i hope you think about it. When people move to finland for the first time, the first phobia they develop is for the Finnish Language. When i first moved here i thought i didn't need it since i study in English too.
Over the years , i came to realise that i was doing myself more injustice by ignoring the language. Can you belive i never attended the Finnish classes back then? I later started reading on my own, a little every night. Everytime someone spoke to me i replied and my first sentence was not "sorry i don't speak finnish" but "speak a little slower" I tried not to be shy..belive me building a little confidence while speaking no matter how bad helps. E.g at the shops, in the bus etc where you require just a few phrases. Pole pole and you'll get there.
Its kidogo unfortunate you don't live in Helsinki (right?) coz there is a really nice course at the University of Helsinki. You can attend in the summer in the evenings or something.
The book that helped me learn Finnish is called "From Start To Finnish" its the best book around and it goes for 24€ Fair price if you ask me.
Hope you get well soon. You know Finnish doc's are notorious for taking blood out of foreign patients and sometimes treating them of Malaria at the sign of any flu like sympotms lol.
Get well soon & Have a fab week.
All the best.
oh forgot to tell you, if you find Finnish so hard why don't you try Swedish coz its a little like English and you will get by with that too. Svenska is a little less traumatising. I love languages and i don't think i can have enough of them. At school we are required to learn Finnish & Svenska & 2 extra Optional foreign languages lol
@sanaa...hey..thnx for stopping by. its not that i hate finnish. and i will definately keep going for my classes...at least so i know the basics. iv already got so many languages in my head, i dont want to get all muddled up. but i shall definately look for that book! thanks for giving me the name. hope ur getting better!
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