Learning a new language

Kind of looking for some mental support....  For those of you who have learned a new language as an adult- man this is a hard phase....

Right now, we are learning Finnish- for a planned visit there.  We are using Duolingo to learn it- which seems to be a good app, but sometimes its teaching you some odd words for tourists.  But apparently it's used a lot to get a Euro language rating.  But that's not the problem.

The "problem" is that I'm now in the phase of learning a language that I know a decent amount of words, and if I see them, I can kind of remember them, a little less so for listening...  But I really can't think of the words on my own.  I've gone through this many times with Spanish (as I get to learn it every time we visit Puerto Rico), and that is so very frustrating to know things but not be able to think of them.

For those of you who have gone through this- how long does this phase typically take?

Not going to stop to try, but I do regret not doing this before my dad passed.  It would have been fun to talk to him in Suomea.

It's hard. I struggle with all of my second languages, and can't really offer any magic solutions. Even when I lived in Korea and spoke Korean every day I struggled. 

I will say this, though: In Finland, everyone I met from Helsinki to Rovaniemi spoke amazing English. I wouldn't stress too much about learning Finnish if the point of the language acquisition is just for a trip. The Finns (at least the ones I met) are generally polite and will help you if you want to speak Finnish but my experience has me convinced that the Finns would rather just speak English. 

^^ with that, maybe practice speaking English the way a Finn would. In motorsport they call it "rallienglanti" after the way rally drivers are interviewed.

I've heard something similar with traveling in Japan, if you pronounce the English word "in Japanese" they usually know what you mean.

Vitut, ma haen moottorisahan.

 Now that we've exhausted my Finnish (which was not just an attempt to avoid the filters)...

I went to grade school in a significantly Hispanic neighborhood where we did a fair bit of Spanish all the time. I studied German for two years in high school. I studied French for two years in college. I've got an 800-day streak in Spanish on Duolingo right now.

I am not functional in any of these languages. I'm getting there with Spanish, but I think if I really wanted to get there on any kind of deadline I'd be looking for a teacher/class/group to get some kind of conversational practice.

Maybe I'd feel like Duolingo was closer if I did more than one lesson a day. It's definitely improving my vocabulary and grasp of the language, but after two years of tiny increments I couldn't hold up my end of a conversation with a preschooler. Again, maybe I just need to do 2-3 lessons a day, but I'm not sure there's any substitute for in person.

EDIT: brandonsmash answered this while I was busy being verbose: I don't know how similar Finland is to Sweden in this regard, but if you mention to a Swede that you're studying Swedish (as my wife once did; we both worked for the same Swedish company at different times), they will ask why. Almost everybody in Sweden speaks slightly better English than I do, with American or English accent depending on where they learned. We'd walk into a restaurant or convenience store and be greeted in Swedish, and before we could get our brains in gear to either ask about English or ask for a table in rote Swedish, they'd see the bobble and greet us in English.

 Sometimes, of course, that's not the point, and you just want to learn the language.

Finnish is the odd man out as far as languages in Scandinavia  ,  so you really cannot use it in Sweden , Norway or Denmark , 

My Swedish buddy  needed a Finnish local to help order some parts  from an old school shop where the owners  did not speak Swedish or English ,  but the owners were old enough that a second language was not required in school.

Congrats on trying to learn another language , the locals will love it that at least you tried .

From my perspective, it's a matter of using the language actively (IOW, speaking it). English is actually my third language but by now, the one I believe I'm most fluent in simply because I use it every day. My French (second language) is extremely rusty, and I regularly have Wortfindungstoerungen (inability to find words, just in German) when speaking German. Which happens to be my first language, and I still use it fairly regularly but mostly in a passive manner - basically reading and watching German language YouTube and Netflix content.

My advice? See if you can find a Finnish tutor to practice speaking as that's what is supposed to expand your active vocabulary.

I find that I sort of learn in a trial-by-fire manner when traveling, and many of us probably do this more than we realize. You've already done way more than I do when I travel, and I feel like I've always managed enough to find my way around places and talk to people (Japan, Thailand, Greece, etc.). You can go and read all about pretty much any subject (language, driving race cars, assembling IKEA furniture), but until you actually go and do that thing, you will feel like you don't know it (because, without practical use, you don't know it). Of course, front-loading by educating yourself beforehand does make it much easier, and the more you do beforehand, the easier you will probably find it to put it into practice. You'll probably find that by the end of your first day there, you'll be pretty comfortable with it.

Do you have an inner monologue? (You might find that to be a silly question, but there's a good chance that 30% of the people reading this a.) don't know what that is, b.) will google it to find out, and c.) will be shocked to find out that maybe half or more people "hear" their own thoughts/think in spoken speech.) If you do, you might find that there will be a transition while you're traveling where you stop thinking: "Why is the cat in the library?" -> translation engine runs -> "¿Por que esta el gato en la biblioteca?", and instead just think straight into "¿Por que esta el gato en la biblioteca?". If you can sort of bypass your own translation engine, and just live in that language, you've won.

Also, download Google Translate and learn to use it. It will help you tremendously when you're in that hotel room in Tokyo, and the HVAC controls are strictly in Japanese, and there are WAY too many buttons on the overly-complicated panel to just poke things and see what happens. It can do live speech, too. Uh, actually, if you have an Android phone, that will now do automatic live translation of your phone calls if you'd like. Consider getting that configured, too.

So I'm not all that concerned about the language in Helsinki, Turku, or Rovanemi.  I am in Alajarvi and Kuusamo.  Both are where my Great Grandparents came from, and I know my distant relative who still lives on the family farm does not speak English.  I suspect that Kuusamo is more a Finnish tourist area, and will see less English as well.   Alajarvi is where my grandfather's side came from, Kuusamo where my grandmothers side came from.

Not that I actually worry about it- but I do think it's a sign of respect to know some of the language.  Especially since it's my heritage.  

We will use Google translate, for sure.  It's just that I'm in a phase of the language where you know something, but it's really a struggle to come up with the words without help.  I should be able to get through it, but it's frustrating.

BTW, cali... Finland isn't part of Scandinavia.  Don't ask me why, as I have no idea, but they are very proud to not be part of it.  Could be that they were subject to Sweden for a very long time (my last name is actually a Swedish word combo).  Learning about how I got that name has been a  pretty interesting process.  My dad had some leads, but we hired a local geologist to track it, and he's got actual years when they got the name.

This is not a useful bit on learning language for travel, but I'm going to add it because it's amusing, I hope.

A few of us tried to learn a little Japanese prior to traveling there. It was predictably way too big a thing to make significant headway on, and we quickly reverted to just learning a few useful phrases (hello, please, thank you, etc).

When we were in Kyoto, we rode a bus across town. The way it's done there is that you get on the bus, ride to your destination, then pay your fare as you depart the front of the bus.

As I got to the front of the line, I fumbled my handful of coins and dropped them all over the floor. Quickly, I was on my hands and knees, scrabbling for coinage and trying to stop holding up the works as quickly as I could. The whole time, repeating "Excuse me, excuse me".

Or so I thought. In that frantic moment, I hadn't come up with sumimasen ("excuse me" or "pardon me"), but wakarimasen, which means "I don't understand" (or "I don't know").

We still laugh about the busload of people and how they must have cracked up later relating the story of the American scrabbling on the ground and announcing his bafflement at the world...

I think it's always good to learn a language; it can definitely help both to show making an effort and sometimes even really poor language skills can bridge the gap with someone who doesn't speak your language at all, even if it's not smooth. It can also provide hilarious stories of embarrassment, but maybe it was worth it. I hope nobody was late for anything important, and it was only a few seconds really.

One of the big shortfalls in our language teaching system is that we get hung up on teaching the "right" way. Full sentences, proper verb conjugation, don't learn bad habits. Most classroom instruction and apps lean heavily on this. 
 

But we don't actually speak that way. We truncate responses, listen to only half of what is said, and frequently answer anyway  (even when we don't know what the complete question was).

I got much better at languages when I realized it was ok to answer yes or no, or with a nod or a partial sentence answer.  I figure if I can converse at the level of a 3 year old, that's pretty good.

Its very common to have better comprehension when listening without actually being able to speak clearly (not recalling the vocabulary, etc)

If you are able to understand a decent amount that is spoken or written, you are well ahead of the crowd. 
 

There is actually a good thing about having a limited vocabulary readily accessible... it forces you to listen more, and talk less.  That's excellent to learn language structure, regional nuances, accents, etc.

Sounds like you are doing great- don't be ashamed to utilize translators (it communicates respect to them too when you ask for help)

Good luck!

see if you can find some finnish podcasts or youtube videos to listen to / watch.  you'll get a lot of repetition that way.  after all, as I baby, that's how you began learning your "mother tongue", sitting and listening with lots of repetition.

when I was in Germany, and commuting a lot, I got to listen to a bunch of radio on the drive... and that helped me with the limited bit that I ended up picking up.  Not listening to the radio probably contributed to how little Polish I picked up while in Warsaw.

I've been working on Spanish on Duolingo, current streak is just over 750 days. Without immersion in the language, I don't expect to make much progress.

However, I was dreaming in Spanish when the alarm went off this morning.

My dad runs the local Finnish Brotherhood hall, I'm sure that he could find someone to help tutor you. You'd just have to move to Berkeley, CA! 

This isn't especially relevant, but potentially interesting nonetheless. I was listening to a podcast where they were interviewing someone who treated PTSD and other maladies with psychedelics. The individual mentioned how after the treatment, one's mind stayed "open" for several weeks during which time one could learn in the manner in which a child would. I thought that might have interesting applications to language learning. If during the receptive period, one could receive lots of exposure to a foreign language, perhaps the absorption process could be sped up considerably. He did mention that, at the least, he'd seen patients get considerably better in their accents and intonations so that they would be less mechanical sounding.    

In reply to Kreb (Forum Supporter) :

It would be a lot easier to head up to the UP and find lots of Finns up there.  That's where my family moved to, and where Suomi College used to be.  But I might be able to find someone down here, too.

I've learned several languages just well enough to make the locals happy to switch to English...   I suspect that's most of what you need for a visit.  In addition to duolingo, you might try listening to CDs while driving.  After listening to the Pimsleur CDs enough times to know them fairly well, I was proficient enough in Spanish to function there as a tourist.  Then again, Spanish isn't a particularly tough language.  Other things I've tried included a free online high school Spanish course with videos, a textbook, and workbooks.  It was pretty intensive.  I work better with a combination that includes written language and progress was pretty quick.

I'm learning Portuguese now which is a royal PITA, using a combination of Pimsleur CDs, Practice Portuguese online (like duolingo but more extensive), and a private tutor for an hour a week.  The tutoring, which includes a video file of the session and pdf's of lesson material is the most effective and not expensive.  It's definitely not as easy as it used to be.  Maybe dropping acid is the right strategy? 

I am typing this from Finland :)

Kiitos is all you need. 
 

Mrs preach is learning Spanish from duolingo.

I am learning a specific dialect of Hindi from my beer store. I am only up to about 5 phrases but I'm trying. The ancient guy and the 12yo reactions have been priceless when I say hello in their language.

When I lived in Puerto Rico I had a friend that I did not know spoke English until one of my last days there (4 years) when he told me to go berkeley myself in perfect New York English. I almost pissed myself.

2020 I was mobile in the lockdown that was Covid San Diego. one of the only places I could get food was a Mexican joint. I tipped well, but I got extra food because I spoke to them in Spanish.

Minimal effort, but seeing someones face when you speak their language is amazing. Highly recommend. 

In reply to Slippery :

Kittos for the hyva advice.  

But I have to hope a different cousin is around if we meet the cousin who lives on the farm- who doesn't speak English.  

Finnish is very fun - and challenging. It's unlikely to be similar to anything else you've ever learned, unless you've also learned Estonian and Hungarian. It's not part of the Scandinavian language family, so like if you learn some Swedish you can sort of fudge your way through Norwegian and Danish, to a lesser extent. It's one of the few languages spoken in Europe that doesn't belong to the overarching Indo-European language family, which the Germanic, Slavic, Romance, etc. languages belong to. So in learning Finnish your brain doesn't really have anything else to hang onto (like, "oh I can remember this because it's similar to this in English") so that can make it daunting. (FWIW I've found Finnish more daunting than Arabic, where you have to learn to read and write in a very different alphabet in the opposite direction.)

I've done Finnish on Duolingo for about a year and a half, and I agree - Duolingo is not the best at teaching you useful travel phrases, unless you're likely to find yourself in situations where you're commenting on the bad behavior of someone's cat, or order some mämmi (black rye Easter pudding) or praise a woman you just met on her lovely kantele playing. (I did learn about sisu through Duolingo so there's that.)

I will echo other people's advice to watch YouTube videos or listen to podcasts in Finnish, just to get a feel for how the language sounds. Learn some basic phrases, try and develop a vocabulary in something you're interested in (for me this is always food).

Good luck on this adventure!

So I found finnishpod101's YT site that more verbal teaching.  I'll add them to my duolingo work.  Probably repeat some of the short lessons over and over again.  They seem to have some conversational travel videos.

One thing I've also noticed is that duolingo may not use the right words- they use terve for a greeting when FP101 uses hei for "hi" and hyva paiva (ignore the uumlats I'm missing) for a formal "hello"- which is how my dad said hello, too.  So it wil take some work to make sure we talk closer to real.

RBCA- I've known about Sisu all my life, lol.  And its interesting to be reminded of words my grandparents used.  

I dunno if this will work, because motorsports commentary can tend to get excited/fast and thus hard to follow (plus it can be difficult to differentiate names vs words), but there's a lot of content here:

In reply to RBCA :

I figured you would enjoy this thread 

One thing someone once told me about Finnish, is that the tenses and everything are so difficult that even native speakers are usually grammatically incorrect.

This struck a chord with me, as it seems like the people I know with the best English have it as a second language.  And how many native English speakers do you know that are flat out out-there with their grammar and such? But we communicate just fine.  Mostly.

I had to study an obscure foreign language an embarrassingly long time ago, long before YouTube was even a thing, in a country where everyone spoke English.  One of the best tools for me was plain old TV.  A lot of what they broadcast was English-language TV and movies, and it helped tremendously to read the Icelandic subtitles while listening to the English dialog.  I don't know how easy it would be to replicate that effect while still in the states but it is worth looking into.

alfadriver said:

I've known about Sisu all my life, lol.

Have you, though?  I only learned a few years ago that it is also the name of a truck brand.

Also, I am now reading your posts in a Hydraulic Press Channel voice/accent...

In reply to DarkMonohue :

Didn't know about the trucks, I will say that.  

I think sisu gained some exposure from the Mika Hakinen segment on Topg Gear.