012: Stand-Up Comedy as a Finnish Language Hack - with Jamie McDonald AKA HappeningFish

And, but if, you, you need to find a reason why you would, like, why you would invest so much of your time and your emotional sense of self-worth into learning a language that only a few million people speak. So it's not like you're gonna take this language anywhere else on the planet and impress people with it. It's, ,

welcome to this episode of How I Learned Finnish with Ohe. Today I have another special guest and, , without further ado, very interesting story of how I met him as well. But without further ado. Yeah, let's, , let's get into it.

Alright. Let's do a quick rapid fire, so yeah, what is your name?

Jamie McDonald.

What is your age?

I am 48.

Profession.

I'm a standup comedian and artist.

And nickname

Happening Fish, I guess. ? That's my stage name now.

Yeah. How did that come about? 'cause that's very unique.

Well, the thing is, it's actually from a, it's from a song by a very Canadian band called The Rios Statics, and they have this one song called Digital Beach and it has the phrase, you're such a happening fish. And for some reason I grabbed onto that like many, many years ago. . When it was all about like having a funny internet handle.

Yeah.

Right. So I have had that as my internet name for like a long time, like 30, no, like 25 years.

Right, right.

So finally I just thought when I have to change my stage name, . I might as well just make it this name that I've been using everywhere all the time anyway. But I had to change my stage name because there are lots of Jamie McDonald's.

I would imagine. Yeah. That is a

And you can't be you can't legally be a performer with the same name as another performer in the Anglosphere because of like mix ups with like agents and bookings and stuff like that. You have to have another name.

Oh, okay. Is who's the most famous Jamie McDonald?

Well, right now there's another standup comedian who is like, he's in Glasgow. . And , he's, , he's got the name Jamie McDonald. . And at for a while I wasn't sure, like, is he gonna keep going? Is he gonna get, but then, but then, and then he started appearing on British tv and I'm like, ah, that's where I'm dead. I'm Yeah. To do something else. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. Well that segues right perfectly into my next question, which is like, how, well question for more for myself, but like how I found, like, found the guest and , I was recently with a friend at this standup show, English all English lineup. And you were one of the performers. And we were talking after the show. And 'cause my understanding was you are not exactly part of that group. You are just a local that they added to the show.

Yeah. They have, there's a few people running this concept called Red Mic. . And it's a branded thing that they have, like there's a red microphone and that's how, you know, , but they had this idea because there's so many standup comedians in Europe right now. Who are either they're native English speakers or they're doing sets in English, even though they work in like the Netherlands or Germany or France or whatever. . And there was this idea that, hey, why don't we try to create some buzz with the circuit of people who are already like, quite skilled but working in Europe, in . In English. And so that's when they made this like red mic channel. . And, , so they go through all the different cities and then some people come with them. On tour. . Once or twice. And then some people just go to another city. I went to Amsterdam and performed there, and then a few weeks later, I was at the gig in Helsinki.

Right. Yeah. Okay. Because it was so random. Like my, my, the way I saw it was like that you are a local performer and then you kinda linked up with them. But then no, no offense to them. I mean, not, not that they were like, like bad or anything. They were great. But then you happened to be the funniest as well.

Well, if I have the, if I have the local knowledge, that sometimes helps. Well fair. Yeah. But thank you. Thank you. If I was funny. Yeah,

it was, it was because the friend that I was with, we were, after the show, we were talking about it and it was like yeah. It was like there were all, pretty much, everyone was great. Yeah. Yeah. There was like, but who was, and then it was like, nber one, I was like, yeah, nah, I gotta, I got it. Yeah.

Nice.

Alright briefly, how does Finland show up in your life story? What brought you here? How long have you been those things?

Right. So how long I've been in Finland? First off, my mother is Finnish, so she's born in Helsinki and she moved to Canada when she was, I think like 23, 24 years old to study nursing. And then she had friends there. She met my dad, I came along, et cetera. So she just never left. And , and she stayed in Canada. And then when I kind of grew up, like I came here a few times as a kid. Like, when I was three, I came here and I started to speak a little bit of finnish, and then I forgot it all. And then I would come again at like 10 years old and have like three words of finnish and that's it. And then finally when I came back, like I was like 24 and I came back to Finland after I finnished my, like, bachelor's at the University of Toronto, because I was like, I guess I'll just go abroad for like a year and see what happens. And that was like 20 years ago. So now I'm like, I'm, I did the same thing my mom did. I was like, ah, I shoot, I moved and I got stuck.

Wow. Okay.

But I have been here for a long time and I have my, my finnish has always been really weird because I've been more I've, been more kind of a little bit more native to the. Culture and to a lot of the traditions and stuff. . Because, you know, we made with my mom, we made Himmeli at, Christmas, you know, these straw, like triangle shaped. . Very traditional thing. We made those, we made these traditional pastries at Christmas, . These are like, yeah. And these are things that are like known to me. Yeah. But then when I and I've been here, I visited as a child, but then coming over, I didn't really speak the language aside from a few, a few things.

Yeah. Okay. And this was, you made the move, the accidental move

Yeah.

After uni.

Yeah. Yeah. I just, I just popped over after uni and I was like, oh, I'll do some stuff . For a little while. And then I either would get involved in like, I maybe I'd get a job that seemed good and I wanted to stick with it for a while. . Or I just didn't have a reason to go back quite yet, so. Right.

Yeah. Before you, which year would this have been?

2002, I came over.

Okay. And then between then and to the level, from the level you were then and the level that you are now, how long did you, when did you feel like you got to the level that you are kind of now?

I mean, it's always evolving and it's it's getting a lot better. Yeah. Like all the time. But I would say I didn't really get confidently conversational until around 20 20, 20 21.

Okay. So it took quite some time.

Yeah. Yeah. And mostly because I had a lot of jobs where I was using English. . Like I was a English language copywriter. I used to do copywriting for Nokia websites.

Wow, okay.

Yeah, that was fun. I used to do I used to teach English as a second language to people. And then. Yeah. All my jobs have involved, like English language copywriting and working in English, except, and then I've been working as an artist. . And at the university. And those have been mostly in English, except that like, I would have to go to philosophy lectures in finnish, and I'd be like listening furiously going like, I heard Fuko write that down. Try to look it up later. Like it was, such, it was horrible. , and, , . yeah And I had a lot of, , Finnish friends. Yeah. And a lot of friends who were not Finns. And you know how it is, like whenever there's 10 people, if one of them doesn't speak,

then it switches to English,

then it just switches to English, right? Yeah. So even when I, even when my finnish was starting to get better, then it would still default a lot. And also I was lazy.

That's, yeah. Yes. That's, ,

I was lazy.

Understandable. . Understandable. But wait, how do how's one studying in English mostly. And then all of a sudden you have. Not one of the easier subjects as well. Philosophy in Finnish.

Well, because like it's, you know, it's, it's art studies, ? So it's like critical theory just reading because a lot of these, like, especially the French philosophers, well a lot of philosophers in general have talked about art and aesthetics and ethics and things that a lot of artists like are interested in, in their work. So they tend to reference this theory or be inspired by the theory. So if you end up getting to know people's work, you end up getting to know like what inspired them and what they were thinking. So yeah. A lot of art studies is philosophy, ? Which is it has its good points and its bad points, but it's kind of, it's interesting too,

right? Right. Yeah. As a, as a very, as a self-professed, very unartistic person these are, all like news to me. So, yeah. So initially oh two, and then the, you, you said you until like 20, 20 ish was when you kind of got to about this level?

Yeah, I would say so,

yeah.

And it, yeah.

And you said a good chunk of that was 'cause you were lazy and which is I, I also had that for for a good chunk because in my situation, I, I came when I was 11,

right.

And then I left Finland back to Ghana for high school, and I did all, I've done all my education in Finland, in English , fifth grade, sixth grade, junior high, , uni.

So were you at like the international school or International schools?

Yeah. Okay. Which schools were you teaching at actually?

Oh, I was teaching for Les, so I was teaching adults.

Oh, okay, okay.

Like in, in different, like

Gotcha, gotcha. Yeah. Yeah. When he said he taught ESL, I was like, oh, I'm I, my like English as a second language, . I have

a friend who. Who taught in English at one of the international schools, but I don't think it was, I'm not sure It was high school. My friend Rebecca how could I possibly forget her last name? It'll come to me now because like, I, I lived with her for like 10 years.

Oh, okay.

So how can I not have her last name in my in my internal Rolodex, but basically, okay. She taught English at one of the international schools, but I think it was for just under high school,

right? Yeah. So junior high. . Yeah. I, don't know if I've had a Rebecca name, a teacher named Rebecca, so maybe not. Yeah. But, , yeah. 'cause yeah, so anyways, so for me it was like a kid, as a kid you're not paying bills. So , I wasn't thinking of things like, oh, I need to learn, finnish, 'cause it helps me in any way. I just went to school. Yeah. And then I came back from uni, I came back, went to uni or university of Applied Science, then. I graduated on the year I was graduating. I was, when I got my first, , job as a, also as a software dev. And so it was, up until then, I, I can definitely chalk it down to like, yeah. Laziness was part of it because, or just, I just never saw the importance of it.

Yeah. There's, yeah, there's a couple kind of funny things that happened in there with like, like lazy is like kind of a short shorthand of what, like what's behind the laziness. And like for me, like one thing was I definitely had this like Anglo thing where I don't like being not smart, so that's really hard. . A lot of people who are like really good with their native language especially I've found are they're, they go through a real humiliation . Yeah. And it's very emotional. Like, I used to throw tantrums about having to speak Finnish and like then I would see people who were, were, . I, I guess I could, you know, describe people who are not quite as intellectually oriented as I was. And they, they pick up the language fine, and they just go for it. And I'm like why, How? I'm smart, so why can't I do it? . And it's like it's, emotional, right? It's,

yeah. The intellectual orientation thing is I, relate so much, but it was, for me, it was one of those things where it was like, I think one of the quotes I had was like is it, life threatening or is it just ego threatening?

Yeah. Yeah. That's a good one. Yeah. It's definitely ego threatening.

Yeah. Very. Because I'm like, I'm like, I'm used to being smart. Yep. What am I doing with like . Babbling around like a baby. . You know? So it's like,

I'm a standup comedian, so obviously I love the idea of being smart verbally in front of people. It's almost, you can think about it as like. A little puzzle or a little, you know, battling with an idea. And if you win, you get a great reaction. But, so, . Yeah. It's like, yeah, it's brutal to, but I gotta start doing, I gotta start doing standup in finnish, because that'll be the real test.

I, I would, I would love to maybe try that as well one day, because I remember when I was trying to learn the language, there was some guy, like, he was like, oh, why are you doing this? Are you just doing this for attention? And, you know, you know, somebody says some shit. You, you wanna really punch them in the face.

That's crazy.

Yeah. And it was like, oh yeah. He would say some, some very db, db stuff. And I wanted like, have, do something like that and finnish just to and then call him out in the, set. . I've never mentioned his name, but in the, his set, I'll say his name. . Just, yeah. Just, yeah. But who, but, . Yeah. So in your case then, so oh two and then to 2020 was the journey, but then at what point then, 'cause it seems like then something prompted you to like, okay, I should learn this. . So what prompted you to learn the finnish language? Was there like a specific need or turning point or

I was slowly working on it the entire time. . Really slowly, but, and not not putting myself outside of my comfort zone the entire time. And I really wanted to learn it the entire time. But I would say that it was when I, it when I got married, when I, when I met my current husband, because his parents make us speak. He, they made me speak, finnish in their house, which is a totally reasonable thing to ask. Totally reasonable. And yet I, you know, I freaked out and now. It used to be that I would only kind of speak Finnish with people when I'd had a couple beers or I was just feeling a little bit confident or something. And when I started getting into this thing with a few people who were like, okay, I'm only gonna speak Finnish to you, and I would be like please don't do that. I, feel terrible. , and nowadays, like I will kind of meet somebody and, and start in finnish and kind of continue in finnish if I can.

Mm

, and, , . That's kind of, that's kind of nice. But yeah, I would say probably his parents were the ones who actually like pushed me over the edge. . 'cause there was nothing else to do. I had to sit there at the dinner, dinner table and be like the moron son-in-law who, just

refuses to speak.

Yeah. He was just trying to get through this language and so, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It's, I, I, yeah. I completely get, , yeah. I get it. So, yeah. So it's been a slow, . Gradual kind of baking process in a way.

Yeah. Yeah. And I, I picked up a lot of things, but also it was, it was, I noticed as well that I didn't, you know, people would buy me, like somebody bought me a, or loaned me actually a copy of, "Sinuhe" Egyptilainen

Mm-hmm.

And I got through the first paragraph and I was like I'm done. Like I'm not reading this is too, I love reading, but I was like, this is just torture. And then so many other things like films and culture.

Yeah.

Like this is a horrible thing, but when you come from, especially also if you come from like a very dominant culture, like the English language. . There is so much culture to catch up on all the time that, in my mind, like the Finnish culture would be like, that's if I have extra time, I can't see that there's, is there anything here that's really gonna. Speak to me directly. Yeah. Is there any, like, how, how much do I have to work to get something out of it?

Yeah.

And , so it's been hard to, like, one challenge is to find like songs or movies or stuff like that, that are finnished that I cannot also really enjoy.

I, I've noticed that, , I've noticed this to some regard because I was, I had to kind of also like force myself to kind of consume media . . In Finnish, music has not really been it for me. It was for me, it was more of podcasts and then at the time that I was, I had so just context. So my thing was like January, 2022. . Like first January I put it on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, wherever, that if you know me and you speak, finnish, we're only speak in finnish. Whew. You did it. Yeah. Yeah. That gets you across the hurdle of I don't have to tell everyone individually.

Yeah. Yeah.

Two, it's one of those like, I'm just jping in and I'll drown if I drown. So it, it is like a lot of the hurdles that you normally would encounter on a day to day. You just bypass it by just like, I'm tossing myself in the deep end. . That's it. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, so during that period, I was more of podcast than say music. And and you said the "Sinuhe" Egyptilainen I, the book that I tried to read, I, I don't, there's an element of cockiness here. Yeah. The book that I tried to read, to be fair, I had never read it in English either. . So I didn't know, but it was this book called Sapiens.

All the, , Evolved, ,

yes.

Yeah.

Have you, looked at it?

We have a copy of it at home. . My husband's read it. I haven't read it yet. .

But the, it, the, it's it's actually one of the more intellectually oriented books as well. . So the language is not it's not normal every,

it's specialized language.

Right. . And that was the first one that I decided to go with. And boy did I, boy did I suffer. And I went, I think I did like one third of the book as well. . Which is crazy. That's

pretty good.

Yeah. . Because considering how much, it was so much friction involved, but it was like, 'cause I had publicly announced I'm gonna do this. I didn't have a choice. . That was also another thing. . Because you publicly announced it, so you're forced to do it. Yeah. And yeah. I, I was just, whew. Every other. Sentence or word I was dictionary every other . Pre chat gpt as well. So manually.

Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, that's another, that's a whole other conversation that the, easiness of using the translate and stuff like that.

, Yeah.

It, I, I love that I can use it to participate in convers. I did it today. Like I helped, I helped myself participate in a conversation. But if I don't actually write the thing in, finnish by myself, I will not learn. . That damn thing at all. . At all. It's not, helpful.

Yeah. How do you bypass that?

One, one way that I will do is I try, like I try to write in finnish. . And then I go through and I check , I check with the translate. Like how off am I?

Okay. Gotcha.

What verb endings did I mess up or what? . What, when did I choose a word that's maybe not appropriate? But then on the other hand, those translation engines are also notoriously they don't necessarily quite understand the context that you're looking for either. So they're not perfect, but you know, they, it's, it's kind of a, I help, I just try to get a bit of help with it.

Okay. Yeah. I I, I, I do this where I, I write a thing and finnish. Yeah. And I'm like, I so similar, just like, okay, fix this for me. . Grammatically correct. And then,

but I think like my finnish is a lot better in terms of like speaking, like, I'm terrible at writing. I'm not bad at reading. I'm much better at like listening and speaking, because that's where I've been learning. . And also because, because I do, I do stand up, so I go to nights where like I'm performing in English, but. Maybe everybody else isn't finnish.

Yeah.

But the thing is, then you get to hear people's material 10, 15 times if you see them a lot. Right. So I can go like, okay, I didn't get this joke last time. . And then I hear it again. I'm like, ah, that's what they're talking about. . And that's what kind of cool, 'cause you start to hear, like, you start to do, you pick up like another word every time and then it kind of, it kind of helps. It's kind of, it's nice.

Yeah. That, that's a good cheat code. I thought about it.

It's good. Yeah.

So then it makes sense why when people listen to music . That it helps. ´´´´ . Because you hear music has a good, repeat listen ability. . Yeah. Repeat standup. Okay.

And then the one thing I watched that I was like, okay, this is genuinely, I want everybody to see this. . Was the, , Ms. Romantic, Ms. Romantic, the, it was on Yle a few years back. It was the series this like, , it was so dark. Amazing comedy, like dark comedy series

in finnish.

Yeah. About, , people on a boat. . Like. On one of those, , on one of the Sweden boats. . And it was just like a, like darkly comic look at . finnish life. And it was, it's perfect. It's so good.

Okay. . Okay. I'll check that out as well. And, okay. So in your learning journey, just walk me through, like what do you think worked and what didn't?

That's a good question. For me, I kind of like, I took a lot of classes. Okay. I even took a finnish class back in Toronto, in university. Okay. Like, not necessarily knowing that I was gonna come here, but that I kind of wanted to learn some finnish. So it's the kind of thing I take a book out from the library and then I'm like, okay, I'm gonna mastering finnish and then I master it, but. All of the book learning all of the classes. . Which was, this was all odd for me because like all through school, I was a person who did learn from books and did find it easy to pick things up.

Yeah.

And just practice them and, and do them. 'cause I wanted to, and for some reason languages were something that I would get into like a little bit and enjoy myself and then not progress very far at all. So all of these exercise books and grammatical rules and classes they always just kind of leave me depressed and, and demotivated and I don't know why, but it's not my, it's not my kind of best way of learning a language. I think for me it's just to. Get over oneself and to kind of learn like a toddler learns, ? Where you hear things and you kind of take it in. And then once in a while you try something new out of your face. And then if nobody corrects you, then you think, Hmm, maybe I'll try that again. You know, it's just like over time, new new words and new formulations, right. Pop up. But it's always, and I used to listen to the radio, the selkosuomi, on the radio too, which I could actually even 10, 15 years ago, I could parse those pretty well.

Right, right.

So I had, I had like that level of understanding. But that doesn't help you when you're kind of going for the more interesting verb styles or you know, the, you know, the, the endings where it's like it's, like passive voice on top of passive voice and. I have to stare at the sentence for age to figure out like who is the subject in this sentence? It's something, it's something very finnish and very weird. Whereas like the person whose the cup belonging to a person whose cup it was like it's a very weird kind of case and stuff. . Like all of those are, people use them, but if you don't, like they don't teach you those in the books 'cause they're so complex. Yeah.

Right, right. Yeah. Yeah. I've had a few of them, those sentence where it was like, okay, let's, let's kind of break this down. . This first part said this. the second part said this The third, but put together, they don't actually mean.

Yeah. 'cause I would have always have this problem. I'd read the newspaper, I'm like, okay, either a dog bit a man or a man bit a dog. But I can't tell which one because in English you just, you just put the, the, you put the word order, right? . And that tells you who's the subject, subject and who's the object. Here it's like, no, it has to agree with the, and I, I, I guess like, I don't have the patience to look at the ending of both words and go like, which one matches with the verb? Like, mm-hmm. My brain's just like, no, no, no. This is who wants to bother with all of that. I don't know why. Yeah.

So in, and so basically for you, books were not something that worked, but then what about the classes? Do you feel like they were effective?

I don't think they were that effective. . For me, like I, I'm so happy if they work for other people. But I've noticed that I don't really do well in them. . And then last year at like, at university, 'cause I get. I get access to language courses through the university. So I thought, okay, I'll see where my level is about and I'll take a course . Just to like kind of bolster what I'm doing now. . And that was pretty okay. I think I actually picked up quite a few things. It was an online course, which doesn't help me that much because I, I need to be in the room, like concentrating with people. But also I noticed it was really funny because out of the whole class, I probably was in the top three to five, four speaking. . And just sort of fluency and just production of language. . And then somebody would say like, well then would come up a question like, how do you say this? Or How do you like. What verb, what case does this verb take? Yeah. And I would be like I have no idea. . I have no idea. I only know what sounds right and what doesn't, because I've picked it up like a kid.

Yeah. Yeah. I think that was one of the effects of me doing it the way that I did it as well. . That now I'm like, when I'll have a guest on, then they'll, I, for example, I, I had Deborah on and then she would, she was saying something like she would tell the rule of something. And then I'm like, I'm glad she didn't ask me further questions. 'cause I, I don't know the rule. . I just know what sounds okay. . And she's like, yeah. So I completely understand. Which

is odd because like I, I know the rules in English. . I'm okay with the rules in English. I enjoy the grammar rules in English.

Yeah.

, but in, in Finnish, like I, yeah they seem, very daunting.

Yeah. But I think in that regard, I think because you taught English as well, so that probably helps you qualify and quantify. The English language as well.

Yeah. Like I have a, my, my BA at in Toronto was, , like an English . Literature. . So yeah. Eng and having a job as a copywriter is basically like proofreading and . Correcting, you know, people's English. Yeah , Or helping people understand exactly what their usage is saying.

Yeah. Because one thing that I've noticed is that when I ask natives, . About why something's the way they are. It is, they don't really know why. But then for somebody in your position who with English, you've studied it at that level, . Then you can probably like verbalize why something's the way it is.

Yeah. Yeah. And if, like, if you, like, I know what a, a, a und of case is in English, so I understand what it's supposed to be in finnish, but it's, but I don't wanna

that is my Favorite example.

Don't wanna think about it.

That's, that is, it is, this is such a weird coincidence. The gerund is my favorite example to use when I talk about this concept. . And I'm like, a lot of people don't, would not know what it is. But it's basically when a word as ING. And you would think it's a Verb but it's actually a noun. And then, and that's what, whenever I talk about this call, that's the exact example. So this is so funny that you said the exact same thing. Yeah. What resources did you use and were they any that surprised you, how, like useful they were? And also useless.

I've used well I've used a lot of like little textbooks and you know, back in the day using the dictionary, I had my grandmother's English to finnish dictionary. So, you know, she had a her English was actually quite good. But she so I, I had her dictionary, which I was using it all the time. And I do remember, like, I've done things like gone to the YLE app and sometimes you can get this sort of, either it's like a Teksitys like a, a, bit of a text or there's kind of like they will do a simplified finnish version. Of something to like, help you understand the news or a show. And I've used that a little bit just for, for interest sake. Actually, one of the things that helps me a lot is subtitles on tv. I don't love them when I can hear the English. . Because then it's like, I read the finnish and I'm like, I know what they're gonna say 'cause, but they're gonna say it like more interestingly in English, because of course you have to make the subtitles shorter. But I, the subtitles, just watching subtitles on TV has been something that's really been useful just for picking up little phrases and seeing how they, you know, sort of things like, because you know what an idiom is in English, but then to see really how it's like, who decides that if you're watching some movie and, and people, they're using some phrase like like. Somebody's a dead man walking, which is, it's not really literal what it is, but there might be a, there's a finnish equivalent or something that's close to that in meaning, and then when you see it written in finnish, then it's like, oh, okay. So that has a similar kind of vibe to this one. And I think that helps with like the idioms back and forth because they're not interchangeable. Like they're not, they're not exact, but to get a sense of like, what's the vibe of this word? As opposed to other words.

. And the thing you mentioned about the, when you hear people stand up sets repeatedly. Yeah. And then you start picking that up. So I noticed that with also with the subtitles, that if. There's an episode of something and they're talking about some concept, it comes up repeatedly. . And because it comes up repeatedly, I see the subtitles like, okay, this phrase came up when he said this thing. . It comes up again when he says that thing again. Yeah. Then I say, oh, so therefore this equals .

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

So that, that's also, yeah. And the thing with one of my previous guests was Hamed was saying like, 'cause with those ones, 'cause whatever you're watching is probably something you enjoy watching.

Yeah.

So that's also like a huge boost in the learning, that it's not stressful. And it's like there's, like, they're good hormones are produced in the brain and stuff like that.

That's true. That's, and that reminds me as well, like for the longest time, like I had like a a really weirdly anatomical like I, I could barely tell you what the weather was outside, but I could talk about like my selkäranka, and like, because, because I did a lot of yoga and a lot of dance classes, you know, in a theater degree and I was, and so a lot of these were run in Finnish and I would follow along physically, but then also be picking up verbally what they were talking about. So like this "Niitä sisään" and like all this kind of stuff would be like, I would understand what it was from the context. So for, yeah, that was actually really, I learned quite a lot by going to yoga classes. Because I was doing something I liked. And it all, it repeats again. . And it's very kind of formulaic in a way. And I, I know what it is from English and from doing it before.

Yeah. It's, it's, yeah. I think one of those that I, I didn't necessarily think of when I was doing my learning, but as he said it, it's like, yeah. I think, 'cause for example, with podcasts, for me, I tell people to listen to podcasts, but then it's kind of odd if the person isn't someone who enjoys podcasts. Yeah. Yeah. So then for me, I enjoy podcasts. I, I grew up in a household where my grandma had the radio on in the background all the time.

Yeah. I love radio. I listen to radio Helsinki all the time. . In my car, like for instance, . The only radio station that's on is radio, tv, radio. . And I I shock myself by like, I listened to like an entire interview. Yeah. And like, but I understood the whole thing. So what's happening here?

It's like, damn, I might not actually be good. Shoot. Yeah. What resources did you find were useless?

For me, the, in general, a lot of the courses are not so useful. A lot of the learning books are not so useful. I don't know what it is about them. Either it's that like my brain is too fried by social media to want like these , yeah, this instant kind of way of doing things. Or maybe it's just not the kind of learner that I was for language, but they never worked for me. And yeah, I feel kind of bad because it was always, oh, and this idea that you're supposed to be at, like at a B two level or a C one or an eighth. It's like all of those, how, how on earth do you put a level on. Somebody's language. . It's like either you can be understood or you can't.

Fair, point. Fair point. Yeah. I personally also feel the same with, , with the courses with duolingo a hundred percent

useless. Ooh. Yeah.

And in my opinion, I dunno what you think about that.

I think it, I did some Swedish with it. It's fun. Yeah. But I, I didn't do the finnish with it. 'cause I was like, this will just frustrate me.

'cause a lot of people I, a lot of people I know might have like, I don't know, a 500 day streak in Spanish. . But can't do anything with it. . And it's, yeah. But, , but then the number looks good and it's like you have this false sense of like, you know, I'm there but you're not.

Yeah. But I feel, I feel like there's, because I also grew up in Canada where we all studied we all studied French. In English Canada. And we studied it from like grade four up until like mandatory, at least like grade 10. And I took like the extra years of it because I enjoyed it. But, and it's the same when like finnish speaking, kids here learn Swedish, right? Like if you do it by the book and if you do it like with a bit of media and sort of, you know, these, you're supposed to make little speeches in class and you're supposed to fill out all the grammar books and everything. And then I remember in grade eight, like they took us to Quebec, , on a field trip, nobody could understand a damn thing. And at that point I was like, but we're getting, I'm getting A's in my classes in French. So what is happening here? And I feel like there's a like kind of a disconnect between do you kind of understand the sort of language as a concept and you can kind of. Work with this language intellectually. And then there's, can you just talk, like, can you use it as a tool? . To to communicate? And those, like for me, they're kind of different learning centers in my brain or something. That's a very silly thing to say because it's not backed up by any science, but it feels like that,

oh, this, this is all feelings. No facts, all feelings, no facts on this show.

But that's the, that's the feeling I have, is that it's possible for me to like memorize and enjoy a language. Like I was enjoying memorizing magic, the gathering cards or something if I did that . But then to just, to use it is more like, can you skateboard? . You know, can you actually like physically and and in, in real time can you teach way, way through this? That's

a good, yeah, that's a very good,

yeah. '

cause you can learn all about how to do a kick flip. But then like, can you do a kick?

Can you do it? Yeah. Yeah.

Right. That's, yeah. Fair. What observations have you made about other people learning?

A lot of anglos are very slow. And then I'm always shocked when there's somebody who's like a native English speaker who's really good in finnish, right? , I'm like, wow, you, you broke the code. Like so what other observations about people? , I feel like a lot of people, a lot of people do suffer quite a lot and I think a lot of us are kind of trying to learn alone. I mean, and you have to do it like it's you who has to do it, but it feels like a very kind of solitary

thing,

even though I have a lot of friends who are learning finnish

right?

Some friends who are around the same level as myself, but for some reason, like we don't like share help or anything like that, which is kind of an interesting thing. And also the accent is really hard

for pronunciation you mean

. Yeah. For most people. I got a free pass because what I learned how to speak it as a little kid, and even though I forgot it. Yeah. I didn't forget the sound. My, my accent sounds way better than my actual finnish is

now that you say this because you said that in your set. . You said that in your set.

it's true.

That because you sound . Like you should, know how to speak it. . When you speak, and it sounds not, and what you're saying is not exactly correct. Yeah. Then I, I forgot how the joke went.

Like this very unique sort of stroke that, that somebody's had. Like, yeah, because I can, I sound good, but I can't produce language.

But that, that I, that part related, I related to. That's why I, that's why I remembered. I related exactly to that because, 'cause I came, so when I was 11.

So you picked up

the sounds. The sounds, yeah. Very well. Yeah. So when I talked, I remember I, there's a clip that I have on my TikTok. 'cause I was, when I was trying to relocate, I called the landlord on the phone and then later we had a video call. And then he was like, wait, I thought you were finnish. I was like, and I was like, Yeah. So I, I completely relate to it, to that, element of the Yeah.

But I love, I also love listening to like i, love listening to people speak Finnish with an accent. That's, and that's one thing that I like, I, I really wish we saw on TV and on radio more. I want to hear more accented finnish. . Because I think it's a, I think it's kind of a shame that we have people, I've seen a few things on like morning news where there's somebody being interviewed and their finnish is like it's good enough to be there, but it's it's a, it's heavily accented. . And in like in English, we are so used to everybody speaking it at whatever language, like whatever level they've got right now. . And we do our best to like, makes sense . And we just go like, Hey, this person's like, this person's doing their best and they're amazing for, for speaking English. But I think fins are really not used to hearing people. From the media speak it differently because they get very, like, they get very impatient. You know, they're like, oh this, just say it in English and, you know. Yeah. .

That was, I good that you mentioned that. That was one of the things that I feel like with the way I did it, it requires a lot of, , certain personality traits to be able to do it. 'cause when somebody is like, just say it in English, my attitude is like, you. . You're gonna sit through this. I'm gonna say it in however I'm gonna say it. And it was so weird because it's like. I'm, I have a people pleasing tendency. . So my normal is like when you say that, yeah, I would, but the finnish version of me is like nah, we ain't gonna do that. Like, we ain't gonna do that. Yeah. Yeah. Because I remember most specific car ride where I was trying to explain something to my friend, my friend Nama, shout out to Nama. And then he was like, and it was like, just say it. Just say it in English. It was like, in, in my head I was like, nah, I don't think I will. I just continue to Finish it.

Amazing.

But oh. Do you have any hot takes by the way,

about finnish language or fin people

just the learning of finnish language?

, one hot take is that adult English speaking people who have been here for multiple decades. Can't have a conversation in finnish are big babies and they need to get over themselves.

You heard it here first. I need to add this question to my, to my what? What is your hot take? Because you know the show Subway takes.

Yeah. I love it. I love it.

I've been thinking of doing that in helsinki

love so much. Yeah. One on the Orange Metro.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. . One of my favorite card games was a game called Hot Takes. . I dunno if you've played it before.

I haven't played it, no.

Okay. But yeah, it's okay. Are there any surprising or unconventional things that you did that most people might not think of?

Standup comedy is definitely one. Standup comedy and yoga are kind of unusual ways to learn languages. I know I've done some really silly things. But though I think those are the ones that have really been kind of unusual.

And I suppose the dance, 'cause that was, goes with the yoga, I guess, anyway.

And I, I tried a lot of things, like I, I started projects where I'm like, I'm gonna read this book and, and circle every word and then look it up. Or I'm going to only speak, finnish on Tuesdays. Or like, I tried a lot of these kind of New Year's resolution type things. . But most of them did not stick, like either I didn't commit to them enough or there was something about the, it wasn't really, maybe it was that I didn't really want to do it that much. 'cause maybe it is that, just that like whatever tool you use . As long as you stick to it and you do it and you put the work in, then you get something out. But if you just kind of wish for the tool to do the work, then it's not going to Right. Happen.

. That's my theory. That's why I tell people about taking courses. People think that it's, this is not like going to biology class. . You can't just go to biology class and then get, and then achieve the goal of passing the test. And that's all you need. . It's, it's more than that. The tool's not gonna, like you said, the tool's not gonna do that thing for you. Yeah. You takes a bit, you have to run your brain through the factory line basically. And Yeah. But, , when you say this, this finnish on Tuesday's things, this actually. Sounds pretty I feel like this is a great place for somebody to start.

Yeah. If that, if that kind of thing works for them. . , I think like I had to, at that point, it was something like, my husband was also like, Hey, we're only gonna speak finnish on Tuesdays. And I'm like, okay. I hate this idea. And then I was still kind of emotionally in this place where I hated the humiliation , but I think now I would possibly be more, more into it. I'm scared. I'm really scared of the idea of just saying to everybody, look, if you know me and you speak, finnish, just let's do finnish. 'cause also, I should be doing standup in finnish, and I should be, you know, I, I could be, I can tell that like, career wise and all of these things, it's really limiting politically, super limiting. Because you don't really know what's going on in this country. Unless you read in finnish or Swedish, because there's no real analysis coming out in English. . It's the, the news that comes out in English is sort of like, this person said this, or this law is being passed, or here is a nice story about a, teenager who invented a bird feeder. Like it's all this like very soft news. . But the real critical analysis and opinion stuff is all done in finnish Or Swedish.

This is, as you say this, this is an untapped market for anybody who wants to do a podcast. This

a hundred percent. Like if somebody, like at one point Ali Jahangiri and I had this like, comedy podcast that was also talking about stuff that had happened in the news in Finnish. And this was kind of great because like he would kind of explained it was fun because like he's Ali and he's lived here for ages and he understands, and I'm like the, half finnish. . Doesn't really get it. . So he's like explaining Finland to me. . And so, but he'd be explaining like, what's in the news and, and doing the commentary and, , and then COVID happened and we stopped doing that podcast.

Oh, okay.

But it is a really, really, really great idea for, somebody to do, to do like real independent analysis because I think the, like Wiley they do a really good job with what they do. But they have really, they have limited resources to be

for sure,

Like, ,

chasing everything

really out there. And also they have to be, , very neutral in their . Well, whatever counts as neutral. . They have a, a mandate to, to do the news in a particular way.

Right. Right Okay. So standup committee and then the yoga was the unconvention things. Yeah. And, did you wanna say something?

No, I'm good. Okay. I think about that.

Okay. What are the passive things that you did? Or basically this question I kind of struggle with a little bit, but, , things that have already been set up or they just happen to be in a certain way that have helped you.

Right. So like the passive Yeah. Yeah. The way that things are set up so that they, would help one of the most, I don't know if this is exactly passive, but the fact that there are a lot of environments where people can rescue you in English . But they don't. Is one thing, like being in a class where it's basically all in all in finnish or something like that. Or being in a movie theater where. You know, if it's a Finnish film and even if there's subtitles also in Finnish or in Swedish, then it's like, that's kind of a a thing. But I, there's something about like the way that, , the way that finns are very proud of their language and very, not necessarily like overly protective of their language, but they are protective and they are, they do want to like, keep it growing and living like very proactively. . But somehow like the kind of the pride in the language, I think here, helps motivate you to get involved in that. And also to understand that this is like it's a very serious and personal thing for your friends and loved ones who are Finnish here. Yeah. That, that you can. Take part in the society. I don't know if that's a great answer, but

Yeah. But I mean something if, if I'm just like so basically the pride that Finns have in the language helps you along in a way? I

think so, yeah. Okay.

. What about the active things that you did? So did you have like a study routine, speaking habit? Things that you were like, okay, we're doing this?

Yeah, I had lots of like, routines and habits that lasted all of three weeks. So basically the the habit that I picked up that now really works for me is that if I meet somebody new and they're finnish, I don't start with English anymore. No. I start with finnish. I don't know how long I'm gonna have to talk to them. It could be just, you know, ordering a coffee. I was sat on a plane going, where were we going? Flying back from, I think it was Budapest or Vienna. And I was sat next to this guy who was going to Oulu, and he's like 20 something and he's chatty and I'm like, chatty guy in Finland. But we just spoke in finnish the entire time and it was like, you know, hour and a half flight and we just never switched to English. We just talked the entire flight.

Yeah.

And I was like, that never happens, but, but I thought like once I'd started in finnish, I couldn't stop and switch. . Because it was still, you know, I was still going at enough pace that I'm like I can't, flip over now. Yeah. But that's probably the, the most useful kind of habit that I have now, , is of, starting in finnish whenever possible.

Gotcha, gotcha. Okay. What about, like, did you make any, what conscious decisions what conscious changes did you make in your life that made it easier to practice than to not practice? I think this one definitely falls in there. . Than one you just said.

Yeah.

But what other things that conscious changes you made that made it easier to practice than to not practice?

I think it was like a lot of, it was kind of like an, attitude shift of just consciously not wanting to be such a, , like such a little weakling about it. Like, you know, like not to be so in my feelings about it. Yeah. , and not to, not to worry, of course that kind of, that showed up more with practice. Like the more that I do practice, the better it feels. And so I don't have these like really oh, I have to throw myself off a bridge every time I start speaking, finnish. But just kind of consciously also going like, Hey it's, not a big deal. You can just do it. One thing that like didn't help actually now is that, 'cause we have a, we have a toddler who's three. And for a while I was just switching up English and, and finnish with him because he speaks both languages. And , of course we watch like shows in finnish and we read books in finnish. But then. It kind of came down through the pipeline that we should really kind of keep our languages separate for him. Ah, and it helps him a lot if I only speak English to him and my husband only speaks Finnish to him, so we, we do that like 99% of the time.

Gotcha.

It's one or the other. Yeah. Even if he's, if he, if he speaks to me in Finn, I'll answer him in English and then he can even speak to me in finnish, but I will answer him in English. . Just so that like he understands how separate they are. And that kind of slowed down my finnish a bit because I was like, I was actually practicing with my kid. . Which is also not necessarily what you like as a child, you want to hear somebody who is speaking . Fluently. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. You don't want to have somebody who's not better than you.

Gotcha. Yeah. Okay. Actually, there's a element of that I kind of forgot, but, so we kind of went straight to the part where you already kind of, when you hear things, you kinda understand them and then you are already able to kind of force out words and stuff like that. . But the gap between beginner to get in there. What, like where did you get vocabulary? Where did you get yeah, I think vocabulary and grammar at the beginning. Like how did you work on those?

I had a super baby vocabulary when I arrived, so I already like these really funny words too. 'cause they're like Aku Ankka, Miki Hiiri, Roopa Setä, jäätelö, peruna. Yeah. Like yeah, they were really, these are words that I knew hyvä yötä? Like these were things that I knew when I all my life. But when I came here like I couldn't, I couldn't produce the difference between a and ä

Oh, okay.

, I could hear almost everything else. I could not hear double. Consonants. . Unless they were very obvious.

Very strong. Yeah.

Yeah. And it took me a long time to hear double letters really properly and a long time. And I, I still mess them up. And I still, sometimes when I'm talking, I mess up a and a, like my, my, it's like two pathways and sometimes I just go down. The wrong one.

Wrong one. Yeah.

The rest of them, I don't have a, I don't have so much of a problem differentiating, but actually I remember many, like over many years of listening to finnish, like first I couldn't even tell where one word ended and the next one began. 'cause you just hear this, like all these sounds and Ks and Ls and, and all these just repeating kind of sounds. And then I remember when I could start to actually parse what the words were and you know, how many words were in the were in a phrase, or I could look at a street sign and. Like if it's something I don't know . Kuutamotie Like understanding what all the blocks were. And understanding what, what were the basic parts of the world. Like, I remember also discovering that I thought that Finnish name, place names were like, really magical and beautiful. And then I realized that like Järvenpää, is like Lakehead. oh, right, right, right. And joensuu is River Mouth. It's like, it's exactly the same as everywhere on Earth. Everywhere has like these place names that just describe what the thing is. . I was, I was like, oh these are just as boring.

Yeah. I think when I moved here, the first street was this long name. It was like Palovartijantie . And then later on I still was like, oh, fire guard. . Street. ay.

Easy peasy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I remember, like I did do a lot of kind of I did do a lot of like the sort of basic learning vocabulary, the numbers, the, how do you talk about like how do you get all the food?

Yeah,

the food you pick up pretty quickly because you have to buy groceries. So you have to know the difference between maito and piimä Like, 'cause you're only gonna mess that up once and then you'll know, and then you'll know. Yes. But, and many times, like looking at sokeriton, sokeriamaton, and like looking at these, , and trying to figure out if that exactly means, and this is before like before Google translate and not having a dictionary with you in the shop and just staring at like, which milk is fat free and which milk is like, like cream and, yeah.

Yeah. So the, regarding the, the but the how in specific, so the, regarding the vocabulary, it's like, okay, so by, just by kind of these practical mistakes and. It helps with them. But then did you have a thing where you, I don't know, have, go through a book and like, okay, these are the words, this is what these words mean, or dictionary?

Yeah. I did, I did that

dictionary and stuff.

I would, I would, , go to I had lists of words that I would go through. . I think they were kind of like learning general, like learning vocabulary words, but I would have like lists that I would , go through and try to learn, like, you know, the partitive case and stuff like that for these. And then I would try to read newspaper articles and just look up, find a short article and look up all the words that I didn't understand.

Mm.

Or yeah. I I, I seem to remember a lot too that like you pick up 200 or so words really quickly. 'cause they're the sort of the practical things of like, I'm going. To the Tori, like, all of these, or I'm going, I'm, I was just at the and all, when you have those like first 200 words, you can actually get quite far. Like you can do a lot with that, but everything after that is just like feelings and verbs and stuff. , Yeah, there was never there wasn't, there was a lot of practical problem solving and not a lot of emotional describing of what things are.

Okay. Okay. The words that you used to go through, besides the newspaper that you would get them from, where else were you getting the, those words from?

There were some books I tried to read.

Okay.

And like Aku ankka cartoons and also. Also doing things like official documentation, like trying to go through, like you get something from the Vero , and you're like, okay, because they didn't do any in service in English back then. Yeah. So you just kind of go through and go like, well, what's all this stuff? And eventually take it to a Finn and go like, please tell me.

Yeah. Gotcha. Gotcha. And, , at the beg at that, at those earlier stages, did you, I don't know, did you focus much on grammar?

Not a lot. Like I, I tried to, you know, get things kind of correct. I was, I think I was very overwhelmed with a lot of it. But I didn't worry that much about, I word endings always took me a really long time to hear and get right. And so I would just kind of focus on getting the words, the right words in some kind of out. State so that people would be able to just that I would be able to communicate something. I also remember now that, now that I mention it, 'cause there was also ' cause I studied theater and I've seen a lot of plays in English and there's , there's a lot of stuff that gets translated into Finn here. I was like I would go to something like, who's afraid of Virginia Wolf, but in Finnish, And because I knew the place so well, , having studied it in, in, in literature class and also as a scenes I kind of knew like what the lines were basically. So I could go to the theater if there was something in translation, and I would know exactly where we were in the text. Just from the acting and from a few words here and there. And that was actually kind of wild

I've realized that, , integration is like a huge factor in, at least with most of the guests I've talked to. And then also in my case, how have you integrated yourself into Finland and do you have any groups in your life that, , you could force to speak, finnish with you that . Helped?

I mean, the family I mean, the family that I married into,

yes,

I have family here right? In Porvo, but we don't really speak Finnish that much. We speak a bit more Finnish now but we also don't hang out that much. . So it, it, that, that didn't quite that didn't quite advance my Finnish that much at all. But integration is like, like first off, because I'm half finnish, I could basically declare my citizenship pretty early without having to do the language test. So I could, I already had like this kind of. I am integrated in the sense of like, I'm legally integrated. . Very, very quickly. Yeah. And , . One thing that actually has been like an integration thing is like, now that I have a kid, yeah. I have a finnish kid who is going to finnish school and is doing Finnish holidays with Finnish other Finnish parents. And so I keep that's a big thing is to kind of get involved with whatever kind of community. And I guess I've also, been very involved in like the L-G-B-T-Q community here. So that sort of, that's like another community that you can kind of get into because the whole Finnish speaking community isn't really a community that you can like, knock on the door and say, Hey, let's speak finnish. Like, yeah. It's not, it's not a fun club. It's, yeah. It's

just a living, yeah. Your life and then through that, right? . Gotcha.

So, but the, , but yeah, like, I was like the, the integration that really gets me is like the looking at the tabloids . In the alepa, and not knowing or caring who is on the cover in some scandal. . Like it's some Julkis, and I'm like, I don't know who that is. And I don't care. Like this kind of, I, I don't know the things that everybody like passively knows. . I would have to go and study like who is a celebrity? And that is if you watch like Finnish like Survivor, I don't know who anybody is and I, I don't, I'm not interested. So like, what am I gonna do? Am I gonna just like, , if I consumed Finnish media all the time, I probably would get to know who everybody is. But it's worse like to actually kind of study those sort of things. . Because then, . That's not enjoyable. No. And then you're like, kind of like. You're like the, the alien in a, in a room who is oh, humans enjoy this. You like, you write it down so that you can like Yeah. Blend in. You know? How do you do fellow kids? Like it's, like you're not supposed to study it. You're supposed to like, you're supposed to not want to know this. But you know it anyway. Just, yeah.

Yeah. It's like,

I don't want to know who nickelback are, but I, have no choice.

Yeah. From your experience, when people don't succeed at learning finnish, what has usually been

the reason I, I think most of the time is not being willing to put themselves outta their comfort zone. And not prioritizing that they should learn the language. You can get along in English so well here really well. Like perfectly fine. I know people who will live out the rest of their lives not really speaking Finnish, and they, they're English speakers, then they live here. And, but if, you, you need to find a reason why you would, like, why you would invest so much of your time and your emotional sense of self-worth into learning a language that only a few million people speak. So it's not like you're gonna take this language anywhere else on the planet and impress people with it. It's, , and it's not like, it's not like finnish poetry is known around the world and that you can be like a world class scholar on that or something. . Because finns are already doing that, but it's, , you have to have a reason to actually want to be here. You know, with the culture that you're, that you're in pretty much.

Yeah. Yeah. I think I've, I've noticed like a lot of people have this where I'm only here for a while.

I had that, I thought I was only, I didn't know how long I was here. . I didn't buy books for a really long time. 'cause I didn't want to acculate like a whole bookshelf. And then

hauling around

at some point. Yeah. And at some point it's like, I'm still here. I'm buying books. .

So what did you, what do you feel like you did that others don't? I'm

actually very slow, so mostly I'm watching people go like, oh, I did it. And I'm like, oh, that could be me. But. You know, after, like for the whole thing of like taking the plunge is just my friends who haven't done it . They, they just have not taken the time to put themselves out of their comfort zone and just go for it. And that was kind of done to me by my in-laws. But once I got like a little momentum, I feel a lot better with it.

Yeah. I'm all for, I'm all for, , how do I put this? Bullying,. He took the words right outta my mouth. . Bullying people with the success. . I'm all for that. Yeah. There's a lady on online, Cody Sanchez, I think her name is. . Yeah. It's like bully people. Bully your friends into success. Yeah. It's all for that. . But you when, you said that, that what you said, , there's something that I. I'll pick out of that, which is that changing your mind? Because you said you were here for a long time before. Yeah. And then you said you do it really slowly, but I feel like it was more of a, at some point you decided to just change your mind about

Yeah.

Things. And that's one of the things that as we grow older, we are less and less inclined to do. So that's, I think that's a huge factor in why you got to, why you were able to get . Achieve this, achieve this, this goal. 'cause Yeah. 'cause if you hadn't yet,

yeah. But also when you get older, it's like, there are maybe, maybe there's like, you know, there's, there's, you get sort of limited in the ways that you can change your. Like your life trajectory. . So in some ways, you know, like when you're young, you can make all kinds of decisions that take you anywhere. . And when you're older, you have like responsibilities and, and you can't really go so many places. But on the other hand, if I'm here and I, if I start working a lot more in finnish, that opens up a lot of doors. And that means that I can, , I can do a lot of things really differently. . And also when the, the older I get the, less worked up I get about what other people think. So I don't that's actually pretty common that I'm, people

Im waiting for the day. I get that.

No, it's like, like. Like 30 twenties and thirties are kind of like great, but like very anxious. And then forties is kinda like, oh, I guess I know what I'm doing. And then 50 I've heard is like, I no longer have any flips to give. I'm so happy. . Like, whatever I've heard, it just gets better after that in terms like,

I wish I could achieve that right now.

Yeah. Not, not worrying about like, not constantly thinking like, am I enough? Am I enough? I'm just like, okay, I'm just gonna do this.

Right, Gotcha.

You start running outta time, you're just like, I gotta do this now, or just shut up. You know, like,

yeah, yeah, yeah. . So let's start with speaking, how did you practice speaking?

Open your mouth and keep, , keep going. Just keep going. If the sentence is messing up, just keep going no matter what.

As in like, talking to people.

Yeah. Talk to people. Yeah. Always talk like, always practice it. 'cause you can't learn it by any other means except for speaking.

In, in the earlier parts of that journey, how do you do this when you don't have much? Words,

just you pick your context as well. Like if you're going into a shop, . You can probably do what's needed in the shop.

Okay.

If you're ordering a coffee, you can probably figure out how to order a coffee or like you get better at these contexts over and over. Or, , asking for directions or something like, but, or starting a conversation with somebody, a few sentences in finnish. And then if you have to switch, you switch. But like just start with it.

Okay. Listening, listening. Listening. Comprehension. Yes. How do you Radio.

Radio is so good because if, or if you listen to the news, you might like international news because you know what the news is anyway, from whatever language you're watching the news and reading the news in already, so you know what the news is and then you listen to it because they speak clearly and they really do enunciate and I find radio so much easier to listen to than like my friends who are slangy as crazy hell they are. They, I have to listen and go, like, I have no idea what's happening.

I'll say something on that note. When I tell people about listening to podcasts or radio, they say that, but I don't understand anything. Just keep listening. You'll at some point start making sense of, oh, this is not, this is a word. This is a word. And then you'll see at some point start seeing where the sentence starts and where the sentence ends.

Yeah.

And even though you don't understand totally here, and then you will start differentiating the difference between the different words and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah.

And the, news is pretty short. You know, it only takes like five minutes to hear the main stories . Of the day.

, How did you work on grammar?

That is a bit of book learning. Like looking at like what they actually mean and having it explained to me and context. Yeah, and you, you kind of, you kind of need it the least. I think you, can learn to speak without actually understanding why the grammar is what it is

a hundred percent.

But some people like to understand the grammar and then construct the sentence. . But, , you can, you can learn to communicate without really knowing what the grammar

is. And I think, 'cause you said that later on when you did go and take classes Yeah. You found it more beneficial. Yeah. Yeah. I

did.

And, and I feel like if you do this where you kind of just speak and then you eventually get to the part where you are already speaking, you just need to know how to make it correct. Then when courses with your grammar . Can actually make sense. So now you are saying the thing, but you're not like, oh, the thing I just said. I could have said it slightly differently. Yeah. Because now it's, there's actual benefits to it for . What about reading?

What's my favorite thing to read? I like the, I liked the little cartoons in in the back of the newspaper. In, back of hesari . Like just the daily little cartoons? Yeah. Or like FOK , or something like that. , FOK, , it's like, I think it's, I think it's in voimelehti Okay. Or, Fingerpori

Okay.

Because actually Fingerpori is great because it's like very short. Yeah. They're puns, they're jokes. So you have to figure out like what is being, like, what's the joke here? What's the twist? And that was like, you don't have to spend a lot of time like reading a whole text, but you then you end up working with you have a time to stare at the sentence and the, picture and go like, okay, what's the joke here? What's the, what's the twist? .

And writing

emails, that's not right. That's not the right way to do it. That's not the right way to do it. I am really for me, I will know that I really get finnish when I hear poetry as poetry or when I read finnish poetry, and I go, ah, right, yes. That's poetic,

right?

Because the moment I'm like, well, that, that looks nice. But I think probably more creative writing would be more fun, in, in finnish emails. Nobody likes writing emails, so why, why would you do something like that?

What I

arguing on Facebook.

Hey, a hundred percent yes. Telling people they're wrong. . Even though you have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about,

I'm motivated. Yeah.

What worked for me was just like describing like my day or stuff like that. . In Finnish. . And then last one how did you build vocabulary?

Mostly passively. . I ask very frequently what some, what one word is. Or if I hear a new word Mm. If I have the spoons, I'll, I'll ask. . , what it is. But I, I like picking up vocabulary. That part is not too difficult for me.

okay. Did you do it in your memorizing of words and stuff? Was it like, did you actually write them down to this study later or how did you go

sometimes? Sometimes I did that. . , but usually nowadays, like, 'cause there's a lot of words and so I don't necessarily pick one up the first time I hear it, or I get told what it is. . But I often see a word many times before, I don't know what it, when I don't know what it is. And then when somebody explains to me, I go like, oh, okay. And then the next time I say see it, I connect it and go like, I know what that is.

Gotcha. .

Or I will hear something like a few times and get told what it is and then ask again and get told what it is and then ask again. And like the fourth time is like, it's in there. Right. But, but it's just repetition. Gotcha.

I'm sure this one you've already answered throughout the thing. . Tell me of the times when you found it most difficult to continue chasing the goal.

The times has been most difficult to keep speaking, finnish. I literally had this thing where when my husband and I were gonna, we were dating then and we were gonna go over to his parents' place for for dinner. And the first time they. They made me speak Finnish the whole time, and it was like, stressful as heck. It was crazy. 'cause of course, I'm like meeting them. . And you know, my husband's no help. He's like, he's at home. So he's just like, ah, but it's fine. Chill. Yeah. Yeah. He's chill. And I'm like and, what happened, like the next five times we went over it is that I would start like acting cranky the same day hours earlier. And we'd be like, on our way there and I'd be like, I'm going home. , I, I'm not coming. I don't wanna come. I, I don't feel good. Like, just throwing a tantrum basically. Like, I hate this and I don't have to go here. . And then the tantrs got shorter and shorter, and then eventually they kind of stopped happening. And now I don't even really, and now I don't even feel anxious or bad about the fact that I'm going over and I have to speak Finnish. Like, it's just like, well, that'll Happen that's fine. . But like, also there, there were so many. I mean, I have wanted to like, give up so many times and just looking at, and hearing and being overwhelmed and going, like, I I can't stand it, but I I think, I think I am like maybe motivated by guilt or maybe motivated, like I should be here and really participating. And I'm very motivated by the fact that I feel like a second class citizen because I cannot participate fully in the civic discourse. . I don't know what's happening exactly. And I can tell that I don't know what's happening. .

Gotcha.

And

I can relate to that.

Yeah. And then I also kind of look at my friends who have been here for a long time, or I know who are gonna be here for a long time and they're not gonna learn the language. And I'm like I don't , wanna be like, I don't wanna be that.

yeah. Yeah. Gotcha, gotcha. What words of encouragement do you have for anyone who has gotten. Fed up

words of encouragement for someone who's fed up.

You suck.

Yeah. Bullying. More bullying. It's not that serious. It's just a language. You can do it.

You heard it here. Yeah. And lastly, how has your life become better now that you live in a fin, in a fin in now that your version of Finland is a Finland, where you speak the language?

It's fun. I really enjoy speaking in a second language. Actually. I have it's, a great brain puzzle all the time. And I, mess up constantly and I'm. Left staring out into space constantly. But I'm, I mean, I really do enjoy it. And I'm really excited about you know, like my son's watching the Moomins and he's gonna be also, he's gonna be encountering Finnish literature and culture for the first time in his life at all. But I'm also going to be discovering lots of things that are really important to the people around me that I haven't really been exposed to.

Yeah.

And just the finally getting this sense of I don't have to be so, solipsistic in my own culture and I don't have to care. Only about what the Kardashians are doing or like Steven Fry's latest audiobook. . Like there, I love Shakespeare. I could read Shakespeare for the rest of my life, but there's also like a lot out there. . , that if you put something into it, you can get a lot out. Okay.

That's great. , that's all for the episode and , I'm very glad you came, you did this and , yeah, I hope you guys get a lot out of this.