Learn Finnish with Finn-Guild in London

Ever wanted to learn Finnish or brush up your knowledge of the language?

Finn-Guild is organising two Intensive Study Days this spring, where you can really get to grips with the language.The intensive days will be held on 29 March and 17 May 2014 at Finn-Guild offices, two minutes from Mornington Crescent tube. 

These study days are real hothouses for learning Finnish, and include refreshments, lunch and five hours of intensive study. Both days start at 10.30am and finish at 5pm and include coursework and a Certificate of Attendance.

The prices of the Intensive Study Days are £65 each for Finn-Guild members (£85 for others). 

Spring Offer

Attend both Intensive Study Days for £120! (Finn-Guild members only)

For more information and to sign up for the courses please contact Finn-Guild at mail@finn-guild.org or on 020 7387 3508 . Book early to ensure your place.

Tervetuloa!

Finn-Guild online: http://www.finn-guild.org/en

Finns are different

One explanation why we Finns are so odd must be the language.

It's been cited as the second hardest language to learn after Cantonese. Having never tried to learn Cantonese, I'm not sure this is correct. Besides, how do you measure the grade of difficulty? I suppose the 13 cases, and endings rather than prepositions make a difference. There must be a number of linguists who are at this very point shouting at their screens reading this, but not being one myself, it seems strange to me that you can be so specific about a human brain. (I must interject here that whenever I say the word linguist I always think of a particular James Bond movie. If you know the joke you know what I mean.)

That aside, Finnish is my mother tongue, and as those of you who have been reading my tale 'How I came to be in England' know, I learned Swedish when living there as a child. So really the only language I had to consciously learn was English.

But I find now, after hmm, 25 odd years here in the UK (how time flies), my Finnish is deteriorating. Sometimes I forget words and have to look them up. It's on these occasions when I feel almost a foreigner in my own language. Take for instance the word sinusitis. I could not remember what it was in Finnish. Husband suggested 'sinukkisia'. He has this theory that he can turn any word into Finnish by adding a number of k's and 'ia' at the end of it. Sometimes it works but on this occasion the proper word turned out to be, wait for it....

Poskiontelontulehdus

In Finnish the word sounds as painful as it is, but I know it's not onomatopoeic. It actually means inflammation of the cheek cavities. So now I feel really unwell.

PS. Antibiotics are on their way so normal service of the blog will be resumed within 24-48 hours.