My native language is Finnish and this is my take on Finnish language learning resources

Hey fellow language learners. I’ve been checking out this sub for a while and it feels like Finnish does not have much exposure. I decided I’d make a list of all the resources I use on daily basis, and what you could learn from using them. I wont however share the Finnish media I consume in case some of you want to get interested into Finnish culture as well. # Language learning resources ## Finnish media First off, Finnish is unknown to most people outside of Finland, or perhaps Europe. But it (Finnish) is not as complicated as people make it out to be. Finnish is an Ugro-Finnic language, and has many similarities with Hungarian, Estonian and Sami. But you can still learn to understand and speak it. Finnish grammar can be a bit confusing to english speakers because Finnish has only one case in plural, but 10 cases in singular. It’s also common for Finns to speak in passive voice, as we use it a lot. **Language learning using other media than Finnish media** - **Overall difficulty, 2/5** ## Duolingo Duolingo is fun app and website to learn Finnish. It focuses a lot on grammar, spelling and using tenses correctly. There are a lot of Finnish people on Duolingo so you can find yourself a language partner if you want to, and get feedback to your writing. Duolingo also uses a lot of passive voice, and it teaches you easily the most common Finnish cases (NOM, GEN, PART, EGO, INS and INS). Overall Duolingo is a great resource to start learning Finnish if you’re an absolute beginner. There’s lots of lessons, and you should be able to use Finnish everyday in simple situations in no time. **Overall difficulty - 2/5** ## Babbel I don’t have babbel myself, but my girlfriend has it and she studied Finnish with it for half a year. Now I can have conversations with her, and she understands pretty much everything I’m saying. Babbel is more expensive than Duolingo, but she claims that it is easily worth it. Babbel has taught her vocabulary and grammar into level where she could use it in everyday situations. **Overall difficulty - 2,5/5** ## Uppo-nalle Uppo-nalle is a Finnish language learning app, which is used in Finnish schools. It teaches you the basics of Finnish and it has lots of exercises, so you should be able to learn as much from it as you do with Duolingo. **Overall difficulty - 2,5/5** ## Helao Helao is another Finnish language learning app. This one you can download on your phone. It teaches you the basics of Finnish with games and exercises. But it doesn’t teach you as much as you can learn from other apps. **Overall difficulty - 2/5** ## Rochstar Rochstar is a Finnish band that has a channel in Youtube, where they teach English speakers how to speak Finnish and Finnish people how to speak English. The host is funny and understands the problems English speakers have while learning Finnish. **Overall difficulty - 2/5** # Finnish media If you’ve been learning Finnish for a while, it’s time to check out Finnish media. I’ll list here the best media to check out (in my opinion) and what you can learn from them, and then I’ve included overall difficulty on scale 1-5, This might sound crazy, but you’ll definitely be able to learn even more from Finnish media than from language learning resources. And if you get to a point where you can understand Finnish language, you wont have to rely on these resources anymore, expect enjoying the language and speaking and writing it like a native. You can find more Finnish media from Youtube, Spotify and Netflix, so check them out. ## Niilo22 Niilo22 is a Finnish youtuber, who has two channels. One has English content, and the other has Finnish content. In his Finnish channel he posts videos where he goes through different things in his life, and talks to his viewers in Finnish. His videos are a good place to start as they are a lot shorter than other youtubers videos do. He speaks clearly and doesn’t mumble, so you should be able to understand him. **Overall difficulty - 3,5/5** ## Juuso Karppinen Juuso Kappinen is a Finnish magician. He posts videos in Finnish and English, so you can check out some of his magic tricks in english too. His videos are a bit longer than Niilo22’s, but he has a similar speech to him. He speaks clearly and doesn’t mumble. **Overall difficulty - 3,5/5** ## Simo Frangén Simo Frangén is Finnish mentalist. He posts videos in Finnish and English. His videos are long, sometimes even 3 hour long, so you can practice listening to Finnish for a long period of time. He is a bit harder to understand as he speaks a lot faster, but he also speaks clearly. **Overall difficulty - 4/5** ## Niina Backa Niina Backa is a mindset coach, and she has worked as a weightlifter and a dancer. She posts a lot of videos in Finnish and English, and her videos are quite short. She has a very clear speech, so she is easy to understand. **Overall difficulty - 3,5/5** ## Huvila.com Huvila.com is Finnish magazine, that has stories and articles. Some of the topics are very Finnish, so you will be able to learn Finnish culture and vocabulary at the same time. But there is some global topics that you might be able to relate to if you’re not Finnish. There are not that many pictures on the magazine, so you have to read a lot to get the point of the article. I recommend reading the articles in computer, as the font size is quite small in mobile devices. **Overall difficulty - 4/5** ## Mtv3 Mtv3 is a Finnish news channel, and they post news in their website. There are pictures and short summaries, which is good for beginners. If you want to learn more, you should check out the article, where they have longer texts. Mtv3 posts their news in neutral, but sometimes I can see a Left-wing bias. But that doesn’t change the fact that it is great resource to learn Finnish. You can easily compare the news to global news channels, so you can understand the news better. **Overall difficulty - 3,5/5** ## Ilta-Sanomat Ilta-Sanomat is another Finnish newspaper, where you can find news. The articles are short and there are a lot of pictures, so this is a good resource for beginners. Many times Ilta-Sanomat posts clickbait articles, so be aware of the headlines. They also have somewhat of a Right-wing bias, but it is mostly seen in their politics. **Overall difficulty - 3,5/5** # Final words Thank you for reading this post. I hope you found some good resources to learn Finnish and Finnish media. There is a lot more of it out, but I’ll leave you to find it out yourself. Don’t hesitate to ask for more resources, or ask me any questions about Finnish language or Finnish culture. **TL;DR** I listed here some good resources to learn Finnish language, and some Finnish media to get you started with Finnish language learning. Check out Finnish media for lots of exposure.

My native language is Finnish and this is my take on Finnish language learning resources

Comments (14) 26330 👁️