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Talking
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British professor David Kirby says Finnish is an easy language, I disagree
Many years ago, as a student at the University of East Anglia, I attended a promotional seminar by history professor, David Kirby. I recall being very impressed and subsequently purchased his book, ‘Finland in the Twentieth Century’, which I read in a single weekend. Lacking the dryness and staidness of the stereotypical history book, it captivates the reader and remains the only history book I have read from cover to cover. I would have no hesitation in recommending it to a Finnish reader.
Fast forwarding to September 2006, I was delighted to read in the Helsingin Sanomat, International Edition that Professor Kirby has written a new book, ‘A Concise History of Finland’. I am very much looking forward to reading this.
In the article Professor Kirby also stated: "Finnish is fairly easy. The grammar has clear rules. It is much more difficult to learn Swedish." Lacking the Professor’s qualifications, expertise and years of experience, it is perhaps churlish of me to disagree with his statement. What follows are purely my opinions, based on my experiences; as such they have no academic standing.
As a truly phonetic language Finnish is easier for children to learn than non-phonetic languages such as English. This would partly explain why Finnish children learn to read at such a young age. English is most definitely not phonetic. One of my earliest childhood memories is asking my father, “Why does that label say ‘new ree-cipe’ instead of ‘new recipe’?” Even adults are confused by the non-phonetic nature of the English language, for example: ‘we must polish the Polish furniture’ and ‘when shot at, the dove dove into the bushes’.
It is true to say that Finnish has clear grammatical rules, and published research suggests that we have an amazing human ability to learn grammar, which remains with us as long as we live. However, as we age, learning a foreign language becomes more difficult and many believe that the adult brain goes into ‘a state of shutdown’ relative to the child's ‘neurological state of readiness’. The problem is as we get older the brain’s ability to absorb new vocabulary diminishes. As Finnish words have no resemblance to English words this problem is especially acute. It might be possible to learn the grammar but without sufficient vocabulary it is impossible to put it into practice.
Contrastingly, in 1990, I lived in Stockholm for three months. As the Swedish language contains many words that are similar to their English language equivalent, I was quickly able to establish sufficient vocabulary to function in many everyday situations. Once I had learnt the vocabulary, the grammar fell into place naturally. Even after eight years of living in Finland, my Swedish vocabulary remains far, far, wider than my Finnish. When a Finnish person is unable to understand my English, I often revert to Swedish in order to get my message across. Likewise, when shopping or at the cinema, I read the Swedish text and not the Finnish.
I know that learning Finnish would enhance my quality of life and open new doors for me. In particular, recently, I have been having serious problems with my Housing Association and my lack of Finnish has been an immense drawback. On the other hand, I know of people who have lived in Finland for over 20 years and know even less Finnish than me. Additionally, they don’t have the advantage of my basic Swedish. My detractors say that I don’t want to learn Finnish and that I am lazy. I can confess that I would rather go skiing or roller blading than study, but I don’t believe I am lazy; I simply come from a country without a linguistic culture. Only one in ten workers in the United Kingdom can speak a foreign language!
Mike Bangle is the owner of Talking English language consultancy and can be contacted at mike.bangle(at)phnet.fi
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