Nyt, minä puhun vähän Suomea!

In a recent post I mentioned my Fresh New Start. Well, that was three months ago and, yes, it was a fresh new start.

I has not been easy to get up in the mornings but the fabulous (and very patient) J has been driving me to "school" every morning. This has meant the whole family getting up & dressed in time to get me there and this has not been easy. Monkey & Mouse take after me and are not morning people, so poor J has three grumpy, tired folk to deal with! 

He really has been a saint... on top of the morning shenanigans, he has become a full time Dad. He does the school run for Monkey and has Mouse all morning and then both children all afternoon. I often have busy evenings, too, with homework and other obligations and so he really has been full-time Daddy.


I love him for that (amongst other things, of course!) 


I am a very social person and starting a full time course has meant a whole new social circle for me, as well as building the knowledge and confidence to start communicating in Finnish, I have made some good new friends and as well as learning, I'm also having fun! I think if I weren't having fun, then I wouldn't be learning... 


We are all together in a class named "Nopea Suomi" which means Fast Finnish. It is the first time such a course has been run at this level. None of us are beginners but we are at various learning levels. Some have a high level of grammar but struggle with vocabulary; others have much vocab but less grammar. I started with a bit of each but had not put them together and used them at all.  


One aim of the course is integration. As foreigners, we must learn about living in Finland. As well as the language, we also learn about everyday life - including the Education System, the Health Service and naturally the job market. We also learn about Finnish festivities! We had a picnic for Vappu (MayDay) and we regularly have "kevyt iltapäivät" or light afternoons when we go bowling or to play billiards or something similar; all the Finnish Language classes together - arranged and supervised by the school. 

These social events actually have helped us to bond as a group and has certainly lead to a greater level of understanding and support in the class. We are not in competition with each other but normally help each other out. In classes that are being taught almost exclusively in the language we are learning, we often don't all understand what the teacher is saying... but we feel comfortable enough to ask our class mates what is happening? what did he/she mean? was it this or that?


As a native English speaker I have noticed particular advantages & disadvantages. Everyone in this class (although not all classes) speaks English, so I am able to communicate with all my class mates BUT... I am the only member of the class who does not have a second language! I learned French at school and even took a few modules at University but since I started learning Finnish, I found I was confusing the two and have been trying to file away all my French. I now realise this may have been a mistake; having no knowledge of another language puts me at a disadvantage in a class which includes bilingual and multilingual people - even some translators & interpreters!  

Billiards

Playing Mölkky at the Vappu picnic

Kielioppi/Grammar - just to prove we do some work, too!

The Finnish Language is not easy but I am getting there... recent tests proved to me that, on paper, I am definitely improving. This weekend was Midsummer, spent with J's family, so I put my new found confidence to the test and had whole conversations with my mother-in-law & sisters-in-law. This was, for me, a far more realistic test of my speaking & listening skills - and far more successful, too!


Now we have a week off, so I have a chance to catch up with the rest of my life and maybe find my desk... and catch up with my blog.... 


... this has been fun... I really should do it more regularly!