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.