Learn Finnish
Find guests whose situation matches yours — your life circumstances, learning method, or language level. Relatable methods of learning, not a one-size-fits-all approach.
Learning Finnish as a Parent
Anita Anttila arrived in Finland in 1996 as a young mother who barely knew a word of Finnish. Years later, a language barrier during a divorce meant she didn't understand what she was signing — and she lost custody of her sons. That moment made fluency non-negotiable. Deborah Laajanen sat Finland's most demanding language exam while pregnant, then got into law school. Parenting in Finland doesn't pause while you learn the language — and for these guests, that pressure became the fuel.
2 episodes →
Learning Finnish as a Student
Matthias arrived at Aalto University in February 2020 — weeks before COVID lockdowns — having already memorised over a thousand Finnish words from a vocabulary book before he landed. He joined a choir, listened to children's audiobooks on repeat, and conducted therapy sessions in Finnish to give the language emotional weight. He was fluent within a year. Jojo Pratt arrived with no plan, ended up in a Red Cross refugee camp, and attended Finnish classes so obsessively that his teacher propped the door open so he could listen from the hallway. Student life in Finland is one of the best windows for immersion — these guests show what it looks like when you use it fully.
5 episodes →
Learning Finnish with a Finnish-Speaking Partner
When Chloe Järvinen flew to Helsinki for a weekend to see Finnish rock music, she met the man who would become her husband — and moved to Finland two months later. Living with a Finnish speaker didn't automatically make her fluent, but it gave her a daily classroom she chose to use. Oheneba, the host, had a Finnish girlfriend whose natural corrections became one of his most effective learning tools. Deborah Laajanen married a Finn and eventually passed the valtionhallinnon kielitutkinto and earned a place at Finnish law school. A Finnish-speaking partner is a powerful asset — but only if you treat every conversation as practice.
5 episodes →
Learning Finnish Without a Finnish-Speaking Partner
Hamed arrived in Finland from Iran in 2004 with no Finnish-speaking partner and no plan to stay. He found his breakthrough through a friend's Finnish-speaking girlfriend who refused to switch to English with him — "That's exactly why I'm speaking to you, so you'll learn." Emily spent years learning from a Vietnamese-speaking Finnish tutor who could explain the language from the perspective of someone who had also acquired it as a second language. Magdalene built her Finnish through patient interactions at the grocery store and conversations during nursing placements. The absence of a Finnish partner at home just means finding the language somewhere else — and these guests found creative ways to do exactly that.
4 episodes →
The Full Journey: From A1 to C Level Finnish
Starting from zero and reaching C-level fluency in Finnish as an adult is considered one of the hardest language journeys possible. Jojo Pratt started in a refugee camp with no Finnish and got there through mentality above all else: "Nobody can teach you Finnish. You have to learn it yourself." Matthias memorised Finnish vocabulary before he ever arrived in Finland and was fluent within a year at university. Chloe Järvinen rejected the idea that Finnish is impossible and worked her way to a project management career conducted entirely in the language. Every guest in these episodes made the full journey — each of them differently, but all the way.
10 episodes →
Breaking the Intermediate Plateau: From B1 to C Level
Getting to B1 in Finnish means you can hold a conversation and handle daily life. But reaching C-level — where you work, argue, and think in Finnish — is a different challenge altogether. The intermediate plateau is where many learners stall for years. Oheneba, the host, solved it by publicly committing to speak Finnish wherever possible for an entire year, simulating the conditions of someone who couldn't fall back on English. He was fluent enough to land a new job partly because of his Finnish by that summer. Emily broke through with a bilingual tutor and now uses AI to proofread her Finnish writing. The strategies that get you to B1 are rarely the ones that get you past it.
1 episode →
Learning Finnish with Kids at Home
Deborah Laajanen sat her most important Finnish language exam while managing a pregnancy and adjusting to life in a new country. The exam — a prerequisite for law school — required months of intensive study, and she passed it. Anita Anttila's story is perhaps the starkest illustration of what is at stake: a language barrier during her divorce led to her losing custody of her sons. She got them back. Both stories make clear that for parents in Finland, Finnish is never just personal development — it carries real weight in the moments that matter most.
3 episodes →
Learning Finnish Through Immersion
Hamed kept a notebook of Finnish words he kept hearing — including words from the junk mail ads that came through his letterbox, which were short, contextual, and came with pictures. Jojo attended Finnish classes while others in his refugee camp skipped them, because he had already decided Finland was his home. Oheneba spent a year pretending not to speak English, building daily habits around Finnish podcasts, translated phrase banks, and books in his areas of interest. Real immersion doesn't mean moving to a remote cabin — it means finding Finnish everywhere your life already takes you, and choosing not to switch language when it gets uncomfortable.
11 episodes →
Fast-Paced Finnish Learning
Matthias memorised over a thousand Finnish words before arriving in Finland, then reached fluency within a year at university. Oheneba committed to an intensive year of Finnish-only communication in 2022 and was fluent enough to land a new job partly because of his Finnish by that summer. Jojo Pratt spent his first year in a refugee camp — with no English safety net — and came out fluent. These timelines are real, and the guests are specific about what made the difference: not talent or shortcuts, but an unusually high daily investment in the language, sustained over a long enough period that it became automatic.
5 episodes →