1. Finnish 101: The 30 Minute Crash Course in Finnish Johanna Lahti

2. 44 Weeks from today… …you will have: General Professional Proficiency in Speaking Finnish (S3) and General Professional Proficiency in Reading Finnish (R3)

3. Category I: 23-24 weeks (575-600 hours) Languages closely related to English Afrikaans, Danish, Dutch French, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, Swedish Category II: 30 weeks (750 hours) Languages similar to English German Category III: 36 weeks (900 hours) Languages with linguistic and/or cultural differences from English Indonesian Malaysian Swahili Language Difficulty Ranking http://www.effectivelanguagelearning.com/language-guide/language-difficulty

4. Category IV: 44 weeks (1100 hours) Languages with significant linguistic and/or cultural differences from English Albanian, Amharic, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Bengali, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Burmese, Croatian, Czech, *Estonian, *Finnish, *Georgian, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, *Hungarian, Icelandic, Khmer, Lao, Latvian Lithuanian, Macedonian, *Mongolian, Nepali, Pashto, Persian (Dari, Farsi, Tajik), Polish, Russian, Serbian, Sinhala, Slovak, Slovenian, Tagalog, *Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uzbek, *Vietnamese, Xhosa, Zulu * Languages preceded by asterisks are usually more difficult for native English speakers to learn than other languages in the same category.

5. Category V: 88 weeks (2200 hours) Languages which are exceptionally difficult for native English speakers Arabic Cantonese (Chinese) Mandarin (Chinese) *Japanese Korean * Languages preceded by asterisks are usually more difficult for native English speakers to learn than other languages in the same category.

6. Finnish? Easy......even squirrels can read it!

7. Finnish from times immemorial... ANTEDILUVIAN TIMES oral language: Finnish business: Middle Low German administration: Swedish religious activities: Latin 1500’s Mikael Agricola, Father of the Finnish language comprehensive writing system and Finnish language literature. 1800’s J.V. Snellman modernization improve the status of Finnish Elias Lönnrot development of modern vocabulary Kalevala

8. ...till present Approximately 6 million speakers, roughly 5 million live in Finland Billions of squirrels around the world &

9. Sigurd Wettenhovi-Aspa: Kalevala and Egypt, the Golden Book of Finland II (1935) All civilization originates from Finland Using intuitive permutation wanted to prove that many foreign names and words can be derived from the Finnish language Fennoegyptology

10. Common features in Finno-Ugrian languages (Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian, Sami...) 1. Absence of gender ( he, she = ‘hän’) 2. Absence of articles 3. Long words due to the structure of the language 4. Numerous grammatical cases 5. Personal possessions expressed with suffixes (koirani, koirasi, koiransa…) 6. Postpositions in addition to prepositions 7. No equivalent of the verb ‘to have’ September 23 Autumnal equinox 7:06 am

11. Vocabulary and word formation Since Finnish is Finno-Ugric and not Indo-European, its central vocabulary is different from that of more common European languages: EnglishGermanFrenchFinnish motherMuttermèreäiti sunSonnesoleilaurinko FinnishFinnischfinlandaissuomalainen personPersonpersonneihminen Therefore, it is often difficult to guess what an unknown word means. The primary stress of every Finnish word falls on the first syllable. October 10, Day of Finnish Literature, American Voices! 7:48 am

12. Lainasana Loan word pizza/pitsa pasta television/TV radio auto psykologia teoria laboratorio sinfonia ooppera rokki-musiikki The primary stress of every Finnish word falls on the first syllable.

13. Numerals 1 yksi – one 2 kaksi – two 3 kolme – three 4 neljä – four 5 viisi – five 6 kuusi – six 7 seitsemän – seven 8 kahdeksan – eight 9 yhdeksän – nine 10 kymmenen – ten The primary stress of every Finnish word falls on the first syllable. November 27, Thanks Giving Day 8:49 am

14. Finnish is a concise language lentokonesuihkuturbiinimoottoriapumekaanikkoaliupseerioppilas airplane jet turbine engine auxiliary mechanic non-commissioned officer student The primary stress of every Finnish word falls on the first syllable. December 6, Finnish Independence Day 9:07 am

15. Why Finnish words are so long 1: Compounding Words look longer in Finnish because compounds are always written together as one word: puhelinluettelotelephone directory matkapuhelinmobile phone matkakorttitravel card Compounding is much more common in Finnish than in English, and Finnish uses a compound in many cases where English has a separate word: sanakirja (word+book)dictionary It helps to learn the basic words that make up these compounds (puhelin, kirja, kortti…) so you can identify them and get a better idea of what the whole word means. Words generally stay in their basic forms when part of a compound, and tend to be in the same order as they would be in English.

16. Why Finnish words are so long 2: Agglutination Long words are due to a process called agglutination: grammatical markers and endings are joined to a word stem. In many places where English uses small words like conjunctions and prepositions, Finnish attaches suffixes directly onto the word: talohouse talo-ssain the house talo-i-ssain the houses talo-i-ssa-niin my houses talo-i-ssa-ni-kinalso in my houses talo-i-ssa-ni-kin-koalso in my houses ? talo - i - ssa - ni - kin - ko also in my house-s? The primary stress of every Finnish word falls on the first syllable. December 22, Winter solstice 9:25 am

17. Phonetic language Neat one-to-one correspondence between sound and spelling Spelling bees are useless Memory and concentration contests Speaking-while-inhaling contests www.tyoehtosopimuksenyleissitovuudenvahvistamislautakunta.fi The primary stress of every Finnish word falls on the first syllable. January 30, Midway, week 22! 8:39 am

18. Nouns and their cases (don’t panic!) The case system is one of the most important distinguishing features of Finnish. Cases are a series of 15 endings that attach to nouns (and adjectives) and perform different functions. March 21, Vernal equinox 6:19am

19. Nouns and their cases (really, don’t panic!) Here are all 15 cases of Finnish on the noun talo ’house’: Nominativetalobasic form, subject Accusativetalonobject Genitivetalonsame as ’’s’ or ’of’ Partitivetaloaindefinite, ’some’ Inessivetalossasame as ’in’ Elativetalostasame as ’out of’ Illativetaloonsame as ’into’ Adessivetalollasame as ’on’ Ablativetaloltasame as ’off of’ Allativetalollesame as ’onto’ Translativetaloksichange of state Essivetalonasimilar to ’as’ Instructivetaloinsimilar to ’by means of ’ Abessivetalottasame as ’without’ Comitativetaloineensame as ’with’, rare The good news: You will never have to remember their names (Finnish people can’t either). People will still understand you if your object has no -n on it by mistake. The ones on the bottom are really, really rare (comitative = 0.1%). The primary stress of every Finnish word falls on the first syllable.

20. When you are about to face a noun Stay calm, please do not panic: Is it possible to avoid using the noun? Yes -> then don’t use No -> self confidence is your key to success

21. Good sounding language No restrictions to the number of consecutive vowels! Köyliöläisen yötyöläisen hääyöaie. A wedding night intention of a night-time worker from Köyliö. The primary stress of every Finnish word falls on the first syllable. May 1, vappu 5:16 am

22. Consonant / vowel length as a distinctive feature Kokoa kokoon koko kokko! Koko kokkoko? Koko kokko! Minä tapaan sinut huomenna. I’ll see you tomorrow. Minä tapan sinut huomenna. I’ll kill you tomorrow. The primary stress of every Finnish word falls on the first syllable. June 21, Summer solstice 3:54am

23. July 3, 2015, 4:03 am! 1.j ä rki = reason, sense, intelligence 2.j ä rjest ää = organize 3.j ä rjestelm ä = organization 4.j ä rjestelm ä llinen = organized 5.j ä rjestelm ä llistytt ää = organizationalize 6.ep ä j ä rjestelm ä llistytt ää = unorganizationalize 7.ep ä j ä rjestelm ä llistytt ä m ä t ö n = having unreflectional attention to antiunorganizationalize 8.ep ä j ä rjestelm ä llistytt ä m ä tt ö myys = unreflectional attention to antiunorganizationalize 9.ep ä j ä rjestelm ä llistytt ä m ä ttomyydell ä = with unreflectional attention to antiunorganizationalize 10.ep ä j ä rjestelm ä llistytt ä m ä tt ö myydell ää n = with his unreflectional attention to antiunorganizationalize 11.ep ä j ä rjestelm ä llistytt ä m ä tt ö myydell ää nk ö = is it with his unreflectional attention to antiunorganizationalize? 12.ep ä j ä rjestelm ä llistytt ä m ä tt ö myydell ää nk ö h ä n = I wonder if it is possible, with his unreflectional attention to antiunorganizationalize? 13.ep ä j ä rjestelm ä llistytt ä m ä tt ö myydell ää nk ö h ä nk ää n? = I wonder if it is possible, even with his unreflectional attention to antiunorganizationalize?

24. Missä on suomen kurssi? Where is (the) Finnish course? Language courses and online courses (CIMO) http://www.cimo.fi/programmes/finnish_language_and_culture/summer_co urses_in_finland/other_finnish_language_courses Summer Universities http://www.kesayliopistot.fi/koulutustarjonta/finnish_language_courses/cale ndar_finnish_language_courses www.finnishcourses.fi

25. Minä haluan puhua suomea Minä haluaisin puhua suomea. I’d like to speak Finnish. Voisitko puhua suomea? Could you speak Finnish, please? The primary stress of every Finnish word falls on the first syllable.

26. Reads immediately, never speaks Couple yrs of practice before speaks, nearly 7 years before reads OravaJohanna Prof. Aikhenvald More than 10 yrs Learners of Finnish

27. Fulbrighters 44 weeks Learners of Finnish