Finnish Culture

Something the Finns are famous for are saunas. Saunas, saunaing. Many saunas are made from Finland. The sauna is a very important part of Finnish culture, and it is disrespectful to turn down the use of a house's sauna when it is offered to you as a guest.
Finnish people have a heritage of universal suffrage and egalitarianism, which are values I strongly believe in.
Pagan traditions are still celebrated today, such as Ukonjuhla (now called Juhannus, after John the Baptist). Ukon Juhla is the Finnish midsummer. On Juhannus, bonfires are burned by the lakeside.

Also, Finland has a very prominent heavy metal and rock scene. Many bands have emerged Internationally, such as Nightwish, Lordi, Sonata Arctica, Stratovarius, and Korpiklaani.

Pronunciation

Finnish pronunciation is usually rather easy, except for a few letters:

R - trilled like Spanish perro

Y - like in bureau

Ö - like in stir (I have trouble with this one, still)

Those three are the most difficult, in my opinion.

Something that's nice about Finnish is that most words are pronounced exactly as they look, and there aren't any special rules, or things that are just plain weird, like in English.

I'm not quite sure how bad my accent is, but I suppose I'll find out when I talk to a Finnish person.

Learning Vocabulary

Spanish is much easier than Finnish for a native English speaker. You already have a large vocabulary in Spanish, because both English and Spanish have Latin roots. However, in Finnish, very few words are the same, or even similar. They are also very long. Even basic Finnish words are difficult to remember for an English speaker, because they are so long. The only way I could I could improve my vocabulary is to write the words while saying them over and over again. I didn't do this enough during the quarter, so my vocabulary is still minimal.

Also, when I message Jenni, it's much easier to remember the words after I've used them while talking to her. It seems more like a real word.

Noun Cases

This week and last, I took notes on noun cases. I don't have them quite memorized. They are very tricky and confusing, I will need help from Jenni on these, I think.

Verb Conjugations

This week and the past week, I have been studying verb conjugations. I wrote an email to my penpal.

This is the letter I wrote:

Hei!
Haluan syödä porot. Porot ovat söpöjä. Haluan tuhatkolmesataaneljäkymmentäkaksi porot nyt. Minä opiskellen.
Ymmärrätko kun minä puhun?

It translates to

Hi!

I want to eat reindeer. Reindeer are cute. I want 1342 reindeer now. I am studying. Do you understand what I say?

Currently, in her area, Vasa, Finland, it is 10 degrees celcius, or 50 degrees Fahrenheit.

First Post!

This quarter, for my passage, I will be teaching myself Finnish. So far, I have a "Beginner's Finnish" book, and a pen pal who is quite eager to help me with my Finnish. I haven't started on the book yet, but I have talked a little bit with Jenni, my pen pal.

In the book, there are 297 pages, along with two CDs. This means that on each school day, I will have to read at least 8 pages for every school day. I'd like to have everything the book teaches memorized by the end of the quarter, so I think that will be the overall goal of my passage.

I will definitely continue studying after this quarter.

I am learning Finnish for two reasons. The first is so I can speak the language, and the second is so I can understand the lyrics of the Finnish songs that I listen to.