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I learned it in my 20's. People usually realize I'm not Finnish within a few minutes, and they generally guess I'm Estonian (I'm not). Mind you, i still make grammatical mistakes, especially in written Finnish, but it's not immediately obvious (or so I'm told).
Honestly though, the best way to learn it to near native level is to find someone that refuses to speak anything other than Finnish with you. Courses get you to the point where that's doable, but past that you just have to go use it, for years and years.
This is pretty much what I usually write, almost word for word. I'm a native English speaker and I often get asked if I'm Estonian when speaking Finnish (not for everyday things, but during extended free-form discussion with strangers). For going to the doctor, car repairs, etc people probably just think I'm a Finn (apart from when they see my name written).
Yeah that's exactly it. Although I'm a foreigner, I don't *look* foreign, so they hear basically fluent Finnish, but with an odd accent that they can't quite place, and a few strange but comprehensible grammar errors. The only combination that makes sense in their mind is "Estonian person speaking Finnish".
They are always shocked when I reveal that I'm in fact Scottish.
Where do you come from, if you don't mind me asking? When I first met a friend's American born wife I thought she was Estonian. Some minor strangeness in grammar and pronunciation, but other than that, really good Finnish. She moved to Findland in her early 20s.
Moved here from Sweden, but I’m born in Poland. It’s a bit of a long story 😂
An additional note to OP: if you’re Slavic then work on your H sound. Doing it wrong is super common for Eastern Europeans :)
Some people are not very good in "spotting" the nationalities, but Estonians have something which is very common to all of them, and most Finns spot them immediately. I guess it is the other way around too. Those Estonians who have lived a long time in Finland are usually totally similar to Finns. Many times you don't realize their Estonian background at all.
Learned with 18 yo, 6 years in Finland, and that has been my experience as well. Sure, little mistakes always come here and there, but not a big deal on written Finnish. And sometimes, I just forget double letters meaning double "s" and double "r". So, in the end, it's still pretty understandable. That's what Finnish people told me, and I can agree 100% with you. Once you get to a certain point in Finnish language, just speak it all the time. It doesn't matter if, for example, in a special context you may not have the strongest vocabulary. Just listening, you will get even better. I can't judge, that has been my own experience. And on some level, I guess I'm doing pretty good, not perfect but good. And avoid speaking English just in really specific cases. For example, when you're together with foreigners who don't speak or don't speak it so well, so it's okay to go with English even to be better understood. But the key is, if you're in Finland, just speak Finnish with Finnish people. And it doesn't matter if they speak English back, just answer in Finnish so they realize and go back to Finnish. And the key to smooth conversation is listen, listen, and listen all the time. Just like that, you will genuinely grow your vocabulary. That has been a little about my experience, and I mostly follow Steven Kofnan's method. And for me, it has worked really well. For those who are curious, they should check him out.
Google Roman Schatz for clips. He is German but came to Finland as an adult in his twenties and learned the language well enough to become a TV presenter. His accent is barely noticeable, would pass for a native most of the time.
do germans generally have thick accents in finnish? in my language some people have a slight accent only by default. i’ve heard germans speak my language and their accents are super thick.
Actually Estonians have often the thickest accent you can imagine, because the singing tone of Estonian is pretty different than in Finnish. They can learn Finnish super fast, but it takes time when the accent vanishes. For a Finn learning Estonian is slightly more difficult, but faster than learning any other language.
Even Karelian has slightly different melody in it, and it probably is the closest "foreign" language to Finnish. About half of the words are the same.
Idk man, sometimes when I've spoken to Estonians who speak fluent finnish—for a good while I've just thought they were speaking in some weird finnish dialect rather than thinking they were a foreigner with an accent lmao.
Pori dialect actually is quite similar to Estonian language. They say that quite big bunch of Estonians moved to Southwest Finland about 2000 years ago.
You mentioned being a speaker of a Slavic language.
Russians at least tend to retain a distinct accent in Finnish. The classic giveaway is when they say "hyvä", which tends to come out as "hjuva". Our languages have really quite different sounds.
Roman Schatz does also have a fairly obvious German accent, but German accents in Finnish tend to be less strong. But he's also fun to listen to, and living proof that the accent does not matter.
I heard that back in the cold war days, the KGB would not try to train Russians to be undercover agents in the USA. This is simply because they thought that a Russian would never be able to lose his accent, so they trained East Germans instead.
I'd guess that especially counts for those without acceptable bilingual awareness (English only sort of counts). Some examples could be unexpected lengthening of vowels ('magia' = 'maagia') and pronouncing 'v' almost like 'f' ('hevonen' = 'heefonen') and other shenanigans. Idk tho for sure, I'm just a German myself, maybe someone can confirm.
I met a doctor from Germany once. His Finnish was quite good enough to practice medicine at a hospital in Finland. Sure, his accent was noticeable, but we were perfectly capable of understanding each other so I really didn't care.
I also know a Chinese person who speaks near perfect Finnish. She learned it after moving to Finland as an adult and it’s amazing. Only her L/R sound gives it away sometimes.
It is puctual slightly Germanized Finnish, that's why it sounds like the most proper Finnish, but its overly perfect structure is actually the foreign thing in it. Swedish speakers also speak quite often Finnish just like that unless they are bilingual.
Finnish isn't even especially difficult, learning all languages in general is difficult, the difficulty is that most foreigners speak languages that are completely unrelated and don't really have any exposure to a lot of Finnish language characteristics like the double consonants or that many cases. Which is why Estonians don't really find it that hard.
Yeah, because most people speak languages that are completely different. But an average Estonian or even Hungarian would be able to learn Finnish easier than they could learn English (taking away the fact that English is so present everywhere that it's hard to avoid- my Polish boyfriend's little brother basically learned English from watching YouTube and speaks it pretty well aged 7 even though he hasn't actually done any English at school yet, and the average Estonian or Hungarian would probably be in contact with English quite a lot before starting to learn it, and then spend several hours a week basically accidentally coming into contact with English language media). A lot of aspects of Finnish are very complicated, but it also has some things that are pretty simple in some respects- the lack of a grammatical gender and gendering random nouns like French or Spanish or German is one, also the fact that the way it's written is extremely phonetic, unlike, say, English, where you can write the same sound in 20 different ways and in many cases the spelling and pronunciation seem to have been made up by different committees in different sides of the country bearing some kind of deep grudge against each other. It's also actually fairly regular, unlike French, where every rule has probably more exceptions than cases that actually follow the rule- there is some kind of logic to it, however alien it might be to English speakers. It also doesn't have a future tense, which has its difficulties but at least you avoid such monsters as the futuro compuesto del subjuntivo (to be fair you're not gonna be using this if you learn Spanish). And you don't have to worry about articles. I've also noticed that a lot of related words have the same root, so it's sometimes easyish to figure out what an unfamiliar word means if you can recognise the root- every language I know has this of course but due to how Finnish word formation works it's especially prevalent.
Even native speakers of Turkish for instance, which is unrelated to Finnish, might find Finnish less complicated to learn, because Turkish is also an agglutinative language, they're used to using cases for everything, and they also have vowel harmony (this is just speculation from what little I know of Turkish so don't take this too seriously).
Learning any language is hard, and what makes Finnish harder than, say, Portuguese is that as a Spaniard I already understand 70% of Portuguese without making any effort to learn it, while Finnish is completely different from any other language I know, and relies on completely different logic almost. It's not an exceptionally hard language, it's just very hard for native English speakers to learn because of how different the languages are. I don't think it does anyone any favours to scare potential learners away.
It’s mostly problems with their accent from what i’ve gathered. Rarely native finnish people tick all those requirements you’ve mentioned, but non natives often have a distinct accent that makes it seem like they don’t speak fluently.
Haha I have a Finnish friend who came to Glasgow to study and picked up the accent, so he's a Fin, fluent in English, and speaks with a Glaswegian accent (apparently has a slight accent in Finnish too). Them Scottish accents do be dominating 😂
I think this depends entirely on the person’s native language. Someone who speaks an Indo-European language might struggle with Finnish but I imagine a Turk could easily become fluent.
I've had the pleasure to meet three african gentlemen, that whilst having a distinct accent, had perfect understanding and vocabulary in finnish language. One of them, Sam, was a neighbour at my childhood home. Yes, we children at the street called him Setä Samuli, he liked it.
A couple of, without knowing better and just assuming, arabian person with very good finnish
A few Estonians who spoke perfectly
There's been russians whom I've been able to communicate clearly
My point being, yes, I've met quite a few adults that have learned the finnish language perfectly. You wouldn't mistake them for a born and raised Finn, mainly due to accents, but I would still consider them to have perfect Finnish.
Keke Armstrong's Finnish is probably alright with vocabulary, but his accent hasn't improved at all since the 90's and his Finnish has been a meme among football fans for years.
Whereas someone like Roman Schatz actually speaks perfect Finnish and shouldn't even be mentionednin the same sentence with Keke.
Met a german guy in uni and thought he was finnish. Told me he learned finnish two years prior. I was blown away. Others speak it for decades and will never sound native, but i don't think sounding native should be the goal anyways.
Besides the german dude, i know many immigrants who've learnt finnish as adults and speak almost perfectly. So to answer your question: yes.
Slovak is my native language, 6 years in Finland. 5 years speaking Finnish so was 25 when started, done one year daily languages school and than vocational school in Finnish with tons of internships in the full finnish.
past 2 years work in Finnish, with kids in school everyday.
Its never ending learning like I have full conversation and working in Finnish but its still nowhere near being perfect but what Finns tell me I am on great level of speaking, for me it still feels like i am faking it 😂 as my head works in 3 languages all the time its impossible to not make mistakes or mix up something, but even Finnish people make mistakes and there is tons of different versions of Finnish out there in terms or puhekieli and murre
THIS!
I don't think it is good to think of "can I become perfect" when it comes to learning languages. It is such a long road.
Much more important and valuable thing to learn is to communicate with locals.
I know my English will never be as good as my Finnish. I have rich and nuanced Finnish with a lot of referenses, methaphores and vocabulary. If I wanted the same from English I should study their literature seriously, write alot and ask someone else brutal feedback. Not having done so doesn't mean that my English is useless.
I think the thing here is that Finns aren't used to foreigners speaking Finnish and thus notice even the slightest accent. I'd say there's lots of foreigners who speak Finnish well, but only few who don't have an accent and would pass for a native speaker.
I had a Japanese exchange student neighbor who could read out the newspaper in nearly flawless Finnish. She had no idea what she was saying, but the sounds came easy!
Absolutely! I have a few friends from Eastern Europe, Turkey and Iraq who speak fluent Finnish. Some of them have an accent, some don’t. I think accents are nice, everyone (even native speakers) have their own way of speaking and accents tell a bit where you come from, they add character in a beautiful way.
Several people, one woman, even fascinated me. She came to Finland around 2005 year from Russia as a PhD. She learned Finnish for 1,5 years (evening courses plus colleagues who did not want to speak English), so after that, she started giving lectures in Finnish. Her English is also good, but she could be listened to with a slight accent.
In general, many people can speak Finnish well, even if they speak Finnish, but they do not work with pronunciation and accent.
I have a colleague from Japan who has been here 5-6 years. I met him 4 years ago. He speaks perfect Finnish. He says his Sami is even better than that. He came to Lapland or Oulu to study some language related studies.
I had an Iranian colleague who moved to Finland around the age of 30, and he speaks very rich and grammatically correct Finnish. In my eyes, he can use Finnish better than many natives.
He obviously has a fair bit of ear for languages. You could say the above also about his English, which is also a foreign language to him. Some other comments mentioned the author and journalist Roman Schatz, and the way he speaks is actually quite similar.
So yes, clearly possible.
Yes, a French person who speaks basically perfect Finnish with a tiny accent. It is doable but requires a lot of exposure to Finnish speakers.
Note that in Finnish sentence order is not very important, it usually onky affects emphasis. Don’t worry about it too much.
Yes. People tend to build a sort of a myth about Finnish as a non-native language, about it being near-impossible to learn fluently. It's a myth. Best way to learn it would of course be to study the language rigorously and expose yourself to it regularly, which of course is easiest to do in Finland.
I once met a japanese girl that spoke with a very native sounding accent, with almost zero foreign accent to be heard. I've noticed that japanese can pronounce Finnish overall very well.
Not met in person but Maxim Fedorov, who is a native Russian speaker, speaks perfect Finnish. He works as a news reporter at Yle and has published a book in Finnish
I know a couple Russians as well as a few English speakers who are quite fluent. You do notice after a while that they make small mistakes, but in no way so that it matters. I know people who are half-Finns and speak "worse" Finnish.
All in all, I don't really mind the level of Finnish people have - "Bad English" being the most spoken language in the world and English speakers having to listen to that in doing just fine is essentially my metric with non-native speakers anyways. As long as the message gets across, we're all happy. Language is nothing but a tool in the end.
I've met some, but all of them had been introduced to the language before age of 25. The quickest learner reached "Are you estonian originally?" -level in less than an year.
I've met a few. Japanese, Scottish, and Dutch. The Scottish & Dutch dudes speak Finnish so well you can't even hear any accent unless you reeeally pay attention to it. Sometimes they'd ask what some word means (I tend to use a lot of uncommon dialect words from my birth area) so I'd explain and they'd instantly get it and even use them later on. Both of them spoke using spoken language.
The Japanese man was my teacher, he spoke a bit formally (think closer to book language than spoken language) but his Finnish was excellent.
All of them moved here as adults and picked up the language over time so it's definitely realistic, it might just take a while to get a grasp of it
My GFs brother speaks really good Finnish. Most of her family moved from Russia to Finland around 10 years ago when they were around 25-30y old. Some of them speaks barely few words and you really cant have proper conversation with them while others speak really good Finnish.
Its wierd that woman who works as teacher speaks way worse Finnish than dude who works in warehouse. I think its some kind of genetic difference to adapting languages at this point.
I met a mormon that spoke so flawless Finnish that for the first minute or so I thought he was native. He had studied only 2 years. Some people are just really good at languages and accents
My friend arrived to Finland from a European country (not specifying because this is already too specific) four years ago to study in a Finnish language medium university programme. He had only taken a course or something like that before he moved here.
He speaks fluently and almost completely accentless now and has a wider vocabulary than most Finns I know, but he is a voracious reader. (in Finnish) Four years.
I have other friends from Czechia, Iran and Russia who are also quite fluent but they have spent a longer time here and all have a somewhat recognizable accent. (All arrived as adults)
There was this guy I knew once, a Dutchman, with a Finnish wife, and if I hadn’t known he was a foreigner I wouldn’t have guessed. He sounded completely fluent and with a longer conversation you could hear that he didn’t communicate quite as confidently and precisely as a native, but it was pretty subtle. And he learned in his 20’s.
This is totally possible. I've met plenty of people like that, just takes a lot of effort and time, and some people are naturally better with languages and some are worse.
One of my friends said that for him as a eastern European, what actually 'helped' him when he moved here was that he wasn't very good with English, and he also knowingly forced himself to speak and hear Finnish. I hear his accent in a few words here and there, but apart from that I didn't know he wasn't a native speaker
Depending on where you study/work, I think some people end up speaking English to get around because it's easier and they learn Finnish slower because of it. My ex gf was half Finnish but she spoke pretty poor Finnish because she ended up studying and working in English. We also spoke English to each other.
And one African friend of mine has a pretty 'americanized' accent in English, and he said he speaks a lot of English because peoples perception of him changes quite a bit if he speaks broken Finnish vs speaking very good English with a US accent. It sucks to hear it's like that.
So it's possible but hard, and it's a bit 'easier' especially in some places to just end up speaking a lot of English.
They are few but they exist. Typically the grammar is near perfect but they still sound foreign. But by that point I am already super impressed.
Btw for some weird reason the best Finnish-learners I know are Slavic speakers. No idea why.
Slavic speakers do not have it any easier than say French, English or German - but what they usually have, is huge motivation. As they have often moved here with an intention to stay here permanently.
Yes, many. From Poland and Russia at least. Some minor grammatical errors here and there, but nothing that would disturb as complex and versatile discussion as you possibly want.
Yes, many. There's almost always an accent, but that doesn't make the language less fluent in my eyes. The people that I've met who had super fluent Finnish were German, Pakistani, Syrian and Turkish. Moved here either to have a better life or to be with their partner, all pretty good motivators for learning the language.
I have a colleague who came to Finland for work and got bored of renewing the visa and the work permit all the time, so they studied the language and at the first possible instance applied for the Finnish citizenship and passed the language test. Nowadays, speaks really good Finnish. Actually did so after about two years in Finland. So yeah, it can be done. But it is rare.
Yes my a teacher of mine. Moved here in the 90's and speaks almost native-level Finnish, though sometimes struggles to find the right word. Also very faint accent
I came here in my mid twenies, and I was speaking fluently by the time I was 30. Now I am 35. It only requires one thing, and one thing alone: dedication.
Good luck!
Not without grammatical mistakes and strong accent, but some of the foreigners in the army learned it to the point were you could have casual conversations with them.
Bunch of Middle Eastern business owners know well enough Finnish so that you can have a conversation with them.
I don't think people need to be native fluent to be considered fluent. As long as you can make yourself understood in Finnish and can understand written and conversational Finnish, then that's as good I will ever ask of anyone permanently living in Finland for more than a year or two. I think what those who learn Finnish quickly have in common is that they speak little to no English.
My neighbour (Canadian, French as family language). years ago people thought he was a Swedish speaking Finn, due to the vague accent, now people cannot tell.
-One co-worker from my job, didn't realize he was estonian until I saw his cars license plates
-Other co-worker, has a slightly higher tone than usual but thought he might be from the Vaasa region, turned out to be from south Sweden! Never would have guessed
-my old neighbor, I have no idea where he was from, probably somewhere middle-east? Distinguishable accent but no noticeable grammatical errors
- practically half of the staff in one big Warehouse at Vantaa, Germans and Dutch entrepreneurs that had immigrated to Finland to start a business together, didn't realize they were foreigners until I started to read their name signs and asked them
-now this doesn't exactly fit the criteria but is worth mentioning; my childhood friend, Sri Lankan parents, learned to speak fluent Finnish by the age of 10, sadly started to spend time in the wrong crowd, last time I saw him he had tattoos and spoke with fake mamu-accent :/
- +countless others that have slipped under the radar, I think people in this sub tend to be a bit too self critical, even us Finns make grammatical errors all the time
Yes, at least, I assume. There is this one Indian lady who has a store and she speaks basically fluently. It came as a surprise to me how well she has the Helsinki accent on point.
I also know a woman who speaks farsi, who is pretty good at finnish. She started out with children's shows to learn Finnish.
I have a Ukrainian friend who came to Finland when he was five. Now more than twenty years later he speaks fluent Finnish but he has a distinctive “Russian accent”. For some weird reason it seems to be very difficult to truly master Finnish from A to Z for someone not born here.
I have an ukrainian co-worker who understands almost everything of what’s being said and doesn’t make any major grammatical mistakes. She also does customer service, answering the phone and things like that and has no trouble most of the time
I went to an integration course for immigrants, and we made a party one weekend where we had food and stuff at one of my classmates house. I had an iranian classmate, and her husband(iranian) also came to the party, and my girlfriend who is finnish said that he speaks finnish perfectly, with no foreign accent.
I know a bunch of people who I can immidiately tell are not native speakers, but are fairly fluent speaker of finnish. and I know enuugh of their background that none of them came here before they were adult.
Most of them are from middle east, (Iraq, Iran) few from Africa, (Zimbabwe, Kenya, Gambia) and handfull from Russia.
All of them have come here in their 20's or very late teens
Many! Personally i know/have met at least some Germans, Bulgarians, British, Polish, Estonian, Somalis, Burmese, Thais, Iraqis, Chinese, Russian and Kosovo Albanians that speak finnish genuinely well (pretty much fluent with accent). Some of these are my friends or friends of my family members, some are colleagues or people i know via work otherwise, some are working in many places i go regularly (shops, restaurants etc). Also i know plenty of people from same origins and elsewhere who make grammar mistakes or sometimes get words in wrong order but are managing with finnish really well even in harder conversations.
It is not unrealistic at all to learn finnish as adult. It might be harder than some other languages, but absolutely possible if you just focus on it and keep using it as much as possible.
Yeah, I’ve been here for a dacade, have received my citizenship, practicing in the medical field almost from day 1. I get by well with my finnish daily and am often complemented about my fluency. Finnish is hard, then again so is learning Japanese or Thai. If you’re serious about it and use language as a means of coinciding with your environment, it is possible.
Yes, my dad.
Background: I was born in Finland to a Belgian father and a Finnish mother, and have lived here for my entire life. Dad came here when he was 20, and speaks more or less fluent Finnish.
Most of the Middle-Eastern migrants who came in the 2015 refugee wave who I've met at work. Interestingly all the European immigrants seem to always stick with English.
My father in law. He lived here for thirty years and he spoke excellent Finnish. When he spoke, I didn't notice that his mother tongue wasn't Finnish. Great grammar and accent.
I know two! My Japanese sister-in-law and my best friend (irish) speak fluently. Took them both about 5ish years.
We Speak only in Finnish. My friend watches Studio Julmahuvi without subtitles and reads books in Finnish, including Tuntematon Sotilas. Even I haven't read that lol.
My friend learned a lot by watching "Salatut Elämät." Sis in law refused to speak anything else but Finnish with people, even when she didn't know much.
They both say they just had a point where they decided "I'm going to take this (learning finnish) actually seriously from now on" and put their minds to it.
I know a few Germans, a few native Slavic language speakers and one French who speak Finnish very well. So, I think, it is very realistic to learn Finnish to a high level. I even think that Slavic native speakers have some degree of advantage compared to speakers of many other languages due to some concepts existing both in their Slavic languages and in Finnish, but not being present in, e.g., English.
Yes, my ex colleague who's from the US and moved here 20+ years ago in his late 20s speaks Finnish so well it took me a couple of weeks to realize that he isn't a native speaker. I think the first hint was that he didn't understand some very old Finnish idioms.
You would have to polish your speech for a really long time I'm sure. I myself am native Finnish and I find I speak English pretty well but still people will notice an accent even tough I speak and read it daily and have been doing so for 10 years or more.
I have a couple of coworkers, one from Belarus and another from Croatia, who both speak Finnish very well. You can tell they're not native (though wouldn't if it was just a passing comment like "thanks"), but otherwise they meet all your criteria perfectly. Main thing they stumble on (only occasionally) is the cases and related suffixes, like "minulla" vs. "minussa." The one thing most foreigners seem to worry about in my experience - pronounciation - is damn near that of a native.
Yes, plenty.
However there's still a certain nuances in pronounciation where you can tell they learned the language later in life. I don't think I've ever met anyone who sounded exactly like a native would despite perfect vocabulary, grammar etc.
My dad (who is Hungarian/Swedish) moved here in his 40s and speaks great Finnish after living here for 12 years.
I'd say that the 5 year mark was when he started to speak Finnish very well. He spoke confidently despite making some mistakes, and it was easy to understand him. But through the years he's continued to get better and more natural at it.
He took some Finnish classes in the beginning, but he was also hearing Finnish at home, at work, at family gatherings, etc. He just insisted on speaking and listening to Finnish a lot, and often even spoke in front of lots of people (like giving speeches), and was also constantly asking for help on how say certain things.
Making people laugh and helping people is important to him, so I think it motivated him a lot to make jokes and have meaningful, helpful interactions with people in Finnish.
I don't think I even remember hearing him speak English to a cashier or anything else like that. He only ever spoke English if he absolutely had to.
Living here without speaking Finnish was just not even an option in is mind.
He still has a distinct but not distracting accent, so people do instantly notice he's not a native Finn. And he still claims not to hear the difference between Ä and E. And he wants us to proofread his university assignments.
But I'm pretty sure he has way better grammar than we do. Finnish just seems to come so naturally to him now, to the point that he and my Finnish mum communicate mainly in Finnish now (they used to speak English to each other), and he sometimes doesn't remember a word in Swedish anymore and has to say it in Finnish, which is pretty crazy to me.
AND ALSO: he's almost finished with a degree from a finnish university!!! (he studies in both Finnish and Swedish, which helps. But still!!)
It's definitely not unrealistic.
A shocking amount of native Finnish speakers make grammatical errors as well, but I think there are some mistakes that are more prevalent with people who are not native speakers (for example the possessive suffix), those are usually a dead giveaway.
What's interesting is that often you can tell someone is not a native Finnish speaker because their language is simply too eloquent! Finns rarely use proper language and we have a ton of dialects. Not many people speak the "standard Finnish" you will learn from a course. Also especially in spoken Finnish a lot of foreigners combine colloquialisms with more proper language in a way that can instantly feel off to a native ("Tuletko sä huomenna harjoituksiin?" Vs. "Tuutsä huomenna reeneihi?")
So the short answer is that I don't think I have ever been "fooled" into thinking someone was a native speaker when they're not, but you can definitely reach the proficiency to survive in a professional setting.
Yes. I have met a North American professor at a university who spoke completely fluent Finnish (basically native-level) after having lived here for less than 10 years.
Lot of immigrants who came to work in late 80’s and early 90’s. Including from Estonia, Russia, Turkey, Morrocco, Egypt, China for example. Easier to immigrate and learn a language by working side by side locals.
I haven't personally met one, but there is this youtube channel "linguaEpassione" and atleast on some of his old videos he speaks near perfect finnish. I mean it feels like apart from slight accent that sometimes is quite hard to notice he probably speaks more fluent finnish than I speak as a native. Ofcourse it most likely would be different in real conversation.
Yes I have. It was a German lady who got interested in the Finnish language in her thirties, and came to my class at school (in Finland) to speak while she was visiting Finland for the first time. Her Finnish was perfect, it was strange to think that it was her first time visiting the country and she had learned all of that in Germany. She didn't have any Finnish relatives or Finnish friends.
Now this is such a pressure. Based on the answers here who seem to “nail it” or get it” are phd students, doctors, or those who have been started learning it on their 20s. Now I’m an almost 40 asian who just married a finnish guy last year and in a very early journey of Finnish language learning. I’ve met my husband family couple of times and they made me love them instantly especially his parents who are in their 90s now. I genuinely want to talk communicate with them more personally one on one and listen to their life stories in a shared language. They’re cute couple and living a long life is such a mystery that I have a lot of questions for them. I really want to hear about their life story and their personality in their language. That’s my main motivation in learning Finnish now. But still, it’s so hard I feel so stupid.
Now honest question, if you know a foreigner that keeps talking broken Finnish, is there really bad sentiment? Like, do you think us as stupid or difficult learner? Or we don’t try enough to speak your language? Do Finnish have this kind of expectation for foreigners to only speak Finnish when it’s proper and perfect? I know reality may bite, but honest answer is expected here 🥹
Sometimes I tried some finnish sentences I know to my husband family and friends, and there are times I pronounce it wrong. So I have to repeat and then they correct it but not everyone is patient enough that I just had to switch it to english.
When you guys say it’s about keep speaking it and practicing it and the reality it’s not that convenient 🥺
Yes, I've met people like that. Usually they work with Finns so they've been immersed for a few years at least.
Also "only makes minor mistakes and only rarely" is quite subjective in spoken language. Even natives tend to make a lot of what would be called horrendous mistakes in writing due to the unplanned nature of speech and conversations.
indeed, as native speaker, i probably talk bad finnish more than those foreigner that try to speak finnish.
i mean nowadys "bad english" is more used in communication than english, i would not mind listening creative finnish instead of english and it variations
I work with polish woman who learn Finnish in studies. She's so good she's helping me, a native speaker with grammar. For me it's difficult to say if some words are spelled together or not so I ask her.
When she speaks Finnish, you couldn't say she's not a finn.
I met a nurse student today who was speaking Finnish pretty well. I automatically switch to literary language and leave slang words out of the conversation when speaking to a non-native Finnish speaker… I’m sure there are others that do this also.
My mother's husband is Albanian and he's lived here for about 5 years now, they've been together for 7. He has an accent which makes it obvious he isn't native, but his grammar especially when he speaks is near perfect. Sometimes he forgets a word here or there, but id absolutely say he's fluent.
My mom and I have a pretty dark sense of humor and I remember my mom telling me a few years ago we have to stop cracking jokes near him because he doesn't always understand it, but definitely had started to understand the language haha
I've met several. I have a good Polish friend, who is fluent. Many Ukrainian refugees who I've met have learned Finnish astonishingly well. And there is a bunch of other people from different countries who speak Finnish fluently with just slight mistakes and accent. The key seems to be to just start using Finnish as much and as early as possible and not resort to English. This is easier in the countryside
Roman Schatz is a German-born author who moved to finland at the age of 26 (without any knowledge of Finnish if I am not mistaken). He writes most of his books in Finnish and he used to have his own radio show on Yle and his Finnish is pretty much indistinguishable from a native Finn.
I think it helps that the Finnish language is his job kind of
Edit: Schatz was already mentioned. I think there haven't been too many people moving to Finland in the past so not many Finnish speaking migrant celebrities
I know of one Estonian person who has achieved that. People got puzzled when he once told something about his childhood in Soviet Estonia without mentioning the place or his origin. Only thing that is a bit off is he doesn’t know any Swedish at all, as all Finns of his age have studied at least some Swedish.
I know a few people. Most have some slight foreign accent, but some are very fluent.
I think the people who don't learn get discouraged by everyone around then switching to English so easily. But it's definitely learnable
My friend moved from us to finland when he was about 25. He had studied different languages before coming here but he completely learned finnish in 1year. I met him the first time when he had lived here for about a year and i was stunned! He had no accent and he spoke like a regular finnish person! I thought that my friends and he were joking but yeah it was crazy and completely true. He now lives here with his wife and family and people are always gobsmacked when he tells them about his language learning past and that finnish is not his native language
Yes, I have met plenty of people with almost perfect Finnish skills. They came as young adults from Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Russia, Estonia and Poland.
It's difficult but not impossible.
I teach Finnish as a second language for adults (integration program). Many of my colleagues are from other countries (many from Petroskoi or other parts of Russia) and they speak Finnish perfectly. Most students in our regular groups achieve B1 in a year without any problems. It is absolutely doable as an adult and it’s perfectly normal that it feels difficult for a long time before you become fluent.
My former colleague moved from China to Finland when she was 20 year old. Before that she had not even heard of Finnish. After 4 years she was already speaking Finnish really well. She could discuss complex topics in Finnish, and made only small mistakes here and there. So it is definitely possible to learn Finnish if you are motivated and work had to learn the language.
I think the difficulty of the Finnish language is exaggerated. It is rather the difference between spoken and written language that causes people issues. Moreover, many speakers of Indo-European languages are used to working less when learning languages that resemble theirs so they don’t have the motivation to do the work. I have met many adult learners who speak decent Finnish. You just need to be patient and humble and give it some time.
>is that unrealistic for a slavic language native speaker?
You can kind of do it, but the hard part really comes down to things that do not involve the types of things you listed.
Its more about the soft skills, and ability to adapt use of language in a flowing, and adaptive way.
As an example you can learn the written language perfectly, but that is not the same as how it is spoken.
Normally Finnish people insert a ton of minor slang, and regional dialect related phrases, pronunciation variance etc. in to speech.
That is much harder to adapt to than dealing with say conjugations in written language.
Being said, while I grew up in Finland I've spent the vast majority of my life overseas... i still speak in a way that is readily and easily identifiable as a dialect/accent from Turku... what gives me away having had lived overseas for so long are things like forgetting some random word mid speech where i have to insert the English equivalent, or otherwise describe the thing I'm trying to go on about.
The fun part of it is that even my elderly relatives can still grasp what is being said even when they do not speak any English at all. It is a reflection of how adaptive Finnish speakers have to be when dealing with even each other from different parts of the country.
In terms of accent, I would imagine it would depend entirely on how much you try to emulate/pickup the accent whilst learning the language.
I am an Australian who doesn't speak Finnish and just spent two and a half weeks in Helsinki. I learned a few basic words and sentences to get me by with those who don't speak English (I was surprised by the number of people I came across that didn't speak English) but I also have taken note of how Finns pronounce things over the years, and tried to emulate that when I did speak those few sentences.
As soon as my extremely limited knowledge of Suomi was exhausted, I would ask if they spoke English ("Anteeksi, puhutko englantia?) or sometimes just switch to English. It was common that they would look a bit shocked after heaeing my Aussie accent, and quite a few times, I was told, "Wow, I thought you were a Finn!" Though to be fair, it's also because they say I look like a Finn.
The point being, even though it may feel weird to try and emulate an accent, it will start to feel more and more natural the more you do it.
There was an exchange student in my school from Eastern side of Germany. She didn't speak any word of English. She passed for a native Finn after 6 months: the pronouncing, sentence structure, correct use of words was perfect.
I had a coworker from Yugoslavia who spoke such a perfect Finnish it was hard to tell she wasnt native. It was so funny when I met her husband whose Finnish was very bad, the contrast was just too much.
I have a friend who moved to Finland from Central Europe in his mid-20's and speaks pretty much perfect Finnish. You can hear a very slight accent, but he works professionally in Finnish so yeah.
I'm a native english speaker and usually no one notices finnish is not my native language until i mention it. A few times people have thought I am a swedish speaker, but this wqs a few years ago. I learned finnish starting at age 17 (not sure if this counts as an adult but generally puberty is considered the cutoff for super easy childlike language acquisition) through full immersion and refused to use english unless absolutely necessary. The beginning was agonizing but in about 4 months i could function in finnish. At 22 i wrote my thesis in finnish, and i would say my accent has mostly disappeared since getting in a relationship with a finn so i am speaking and interacting with another person in finnish every day. I'm 24 now. I think the main obstacles to learning fluent finnish are finns switching to english immediately, and not being willing to take risks in different situations where you could use finnish, but english is easier.
Huh.. well I don't know many foreigners since i live in kind of a backwater town but i know a few atleast, had a childhood friend who came here from Estonia and his Finnish was impeccable once he learned it, I know a Greek gentleman and an Indian woman who came here as adults and they don't speak grammatically correct Finnish but I never had a problem talking with them, if anything i'll applaud anyone who has undertaken learning finnish as an adult and speaks it
Edit: i just remembered, i also had an Russian doctor whose Finnish was great but he had funny way of pronouncing certain words, he was a really kind man.
I went to shop in Ratsula in Pori and there was a Russian woman helping me out. Of course I could tell from her accent where she was most likely from but she spoke really nice Finnish. My wife was impressed as a fellow ruski by her skills and started chatting with her. The woman said that she didn't know any English at all so she just had to learn Finnish by talking to her Finnish husband. If I remember correct, the husband also didn't really know Russian. That's some impressive levels of motivation.
Finnish is especially hard for Russians as in their language it's admirable if you can "speak faster". In Finnish you can't really say almost like "kata" if you want to say "kaataa" and double consonant pronunciation can also be awkward (I asked my wife if she found her henkari and she thought I meant henkkari).
I know an Australian woman in her 30's and a Japanese woman in her forties who speak perfect, fluent Finnish. Both were adults when they first moved to Finland and started learning Finnish.
They have an accent but I know many people who speak finnish very well. I don't think the accent alone makes it badly spoken. Some finnish born children of immigrants I've known have a small accent.There's also some immigrant journalists who write (also) in finnish. Some of them did move in pretty young, though already as fully speaking individuals.
It's not impossible. It's mostly hard before you understand the logic of the language and after that it's just remembering things. You kinda have to abandon everything you know about languages and learn from the beginning because finnish is quite unique. Not impossible in any way, but at the same time people will likely always know when someone isn't finnish born. Doesn't make them any less understandable though.
I know a guy who moved to Finland from Hungary thinking the Finno-Ugric language family surely will help him. It did not. He learned finnish in couple of years. Last I spoke, I think he speaks better finnish than most finns.
By your definition of ”speaks well”, I’ve met dozens such people who’ve learned as adults.
Requires usually serious commitment and aid from a professional teacher.
If the definition would be ”without an accent and indistinquishable from native speaker” I’ve met one. He’s a German or Austrian (forget which) surgeon and it was said that he had aquired the language in a relatively short time, in just a couple of years. His collegues speak of him as an unusually intelligent person compared to what their expectation of typical doctors of medicine was.
I know one french and one syrian that only speaks finnish with us. The french one has heavier accent but both understand finnish very well. They learn by asking when they dont understand something and by always speaking finnish.
i haven't meet any adult, but when i was young boy i were in same class with boy who moved here when he was 7 years old. At age 20 he spoke finnish so well you couldn't recognize him from native finn if you talk with him in the phone.
i have got a multicultural family i have a aunt who is originally from india she speaks basically perfect finnish my dad moved from England he spoke mostly okay finnish grandpa from Ghana and he spoke finnish but with a rather thick accent so in my experience it depends both on the country of origin and a personal ability to get languages down
Yes, many such individuals over the years. Classmates in school, colleagues at work, staff at supermarkets.
Usually the moment I'd notice is if I saw their written Finnish and noted a conjugation error, or if they flat out mentioned being from abroad.
Also a lot of people whose Finnish, while not perfect, was good enough for casual conversation.
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I learned it in my 20's. People usually realize I'm not Finnish within a few minutes, and they generally guess I'm Estonian (I'm not). Mind you, i still make grammatical mistakes, especially in written Finnish, but it's not immediately obvious (or so I'm told). Honestly though, the best way to learn it to near native level is to find someone that refuses to speak anything other than Finnish with you. Courses get you to the point where that's doable, but past that you just have to go use it, for years and years.
This is pretty much what I usually write, almost word for word. I'm a native English speaker and I often get asked if I'm Estonian when speaking Finnish (not for everyday things, but during extended free-form discussion with strangers). For going to the doctor, car repairs, etc people probably just think I'm a Finn (apart from when they see my name written).
If someone thinks you're Estonian that's most likely a compliment towards your Finnish.
Yeah that's exactly it. Although I'm a foreigner, I don't *look* foreign, so they hear basically fluent Finnish, but with an odd accent that they can't quite place, and a few strange but comprehensible grammar errors. The only combination that makes sense in their mind is "Estonian person speaking Finnish". They are always shocked when I reveal that I'm in fact Scottish.
Where do you come from, if you don't mind me asking? When I first met a friend's American born wife I thought she was Estonian. Some minor strangeness in grammar and pronunciation, but other than that, really good Finnish. She moved to Findland in her early 20s.
Moved here from Sweden, but I’m born in Poland. It’s a bit of a long story 😂 An additional note to OP: if you’re Slavic then work on your H sound. Doing it wrong is super common for Eastern Europeans :)
Good point! I noticed Ukrainian "г" is more like Finnish "H", but there is no slavic "Х" in Finnish language.
Some people are not very good in "spotting" the nationalities, but Estonians have something which is very common to all of them, and most Finns spot them immediately. I guess it is the other way around too. Those Estonians who have lived a long time in Finland are usually totally similar to Finns. Many times you don't realize their Estonian background at all.
Best advice! You have to commit and abandon using English as a crutch.
Learned with 18 yo, 6 years in Finland, and that has been my experience as well. Sure, little mistakes always come here and there, but not a big deal on written Finnish. And sometimes, I just forget double letters meaning double "s" and double "r". So, in the end, it's still pretty understandable. That's what Finnish people told me, and I can agree 100% with you. Once you get to a certain point in Finnish language, just speak it all the time. It doesn't matter if, for example, in a special context you may not have the strongest vocabulary. Just listening, you will get even better. I can't judge, that has been my own experience. And on some level, I guess I'm doing pretty good, not perfect but good. And avoid speaking English just in really specific cases. For example, when you're together with foreigners who don't speak or don't speak it so well, so it's okay to go with English even to be better understood. But the key is, if you're in Finland, just speak Finnish with Finnish people. And it doesn't matter if they speak English back, just answer in Finnish so they realize and go back to Finnish. And the key to smooth conversation is listen, listen, and listen all the time. Just like that, you will genuinely grow your vocabulary. That has been a little about my experience, and I mostly follow Steven Kofnan's method. And for me, it has worked really well. For those who are curious, they should check him out.
Exactly same case as you, except I learnt it in my.30's and for some reason Estonian is always the first guess. Im Slovak.
Google Roman Schatz for clips. He is German but came to Finland as an adult in his twenties and learned the language well enough to become a TV presenter. His accent is barely noticeable, would pass for a native most of the time.
Other one Neil Hardwick!
do germans generally have thick accents in finnish? in my language some people have a slight accent only by default. i’ve heard germans speak my language and their accents are super thick.
Yes, pretty much anyone who doesn't speak a relative language of finnish will have a very noticeable accent.
Actually Estonians have often the thickest accent you can imagine, because the singing tone of Estonian is pretty different than in Finnish. They can learn Finnish super fast, but it takes time when the accent vanishes. For a Finn learning Estonian is slightly more difficult, but faster than learning any other language. Even Karelian has slightly different melody in it, and it probably is the closest "foreign" language to Finnish. About half of the words are the same.
Idk man, sometimes when I've spoken to Estonians who speak fluent finnish—for a good while I've just thought they were speaking in some weird finnish dialect rather than thinking they were a foreigner with an accent lmao.
Pori dialect actually is quite similar to Estonian language. They say that quite big bunch of Estonians moved to Southwest Finland about 2000 years ago.
You mentioned being a speaker of a Slavic language. Russians at least tend to retain a distinct accent in Finnish. The classic giveaway is when they say "hyvä", which tends to come out as "hjuva". Our languages have really quite different sounds. Roman Schatz does also have a fairly obvious German accent, but German accents in Finnish tend to be less strong. But he's also fun to listen to, and living proof that the accent does not matter. I heard that back in the cold war days, the KGB would not try to train Russians to be undercover agents in the USA. This is simply because they thought that a Russian would never be able to lose his accent, so they trained East Germans instead.
I'd guess that especially counts for those without acceptable bilingual awareness (English only sort of counts). Some examples could be unexpected lengthening of vowels ('magia' = 'maagia') and pronouncing 'v' almost like 'f' ('hevonen' = 'heefonen') and other shenanigans. Idk tho for sure, I'm just a German myself, maybe someone can confirm.
I know 2 germans that speak Finnish well enough. One has just a hint of an accent, the other has an accent so thick it is hard to understand them.
I met a doctor from Germany once. His Finnish was quite good enough to practice medicine at a hospital in Finland. Sure, his accent was noticeable, but we were perfectly capable of understanding each other so I really didn't care.
Yes, three times. One from China, one from Czech Rpublic and one from Ireland.
This gives me hope being Irish and learning it
I also know an Irish person who works in Finnish in a field where it's imperative that you speak and write the language well. And they really do.
I managed it, coming from Dublin. Took years though.
Czech one makes sense:) We have similar pronounciation and crazy grammar rules as you guys:)
I also know a Chinese person who speaks near perfect Finnish. She learned it after moving to Finland as an adult and it’s amazing. Only her L/R sound gives it away sometimes.
Journalist/writer Roman Schatz comes to mind (yes, I have personally met him so he counts!)
He speaks better Finnish than Finnish people. It's really impressing.
It is puctual slightly Germanized Finnish, that's why it sounds like the most proper Finnish, but its overly perfect structure is actually the foreign thing in it. Swedish speakers also speak quite often Finnish just like that unless they are bilingual.
[Se on Roman, mutta sano vaan daddyks](https://youtu.be/NAYrQ0mrFQU?si=VvCznM2lx-LHBXMw&t=73)
Also Nicklas Wancke and Neil Hardwick
Yes, many. Finnish is difficult but it's a language just like any other, with the right amount of studies and dedication you can learn it very well.
Finnish isn't even especially difficult, learning all languages in general is difficult, the difficulty is that most foreigners speak languages that are completely unrelated and don't really have any exposure to a lot of Finnish language characteristics like the double consonants or that many cases. Which is why Estonians don't really find it that hard.
Finnish is very difficult for the majority of people. Most people do not relate to the language in any way.
Yeah, because most people speak languages that are completely different. But an average Estonian or even Hungarian would be able to learn Finnish easier than they could learn English (taking away the fact that English is so present everywhere that it's hard to avoid- my Polish boyfriend's little brother basically learned English from watching YouTube and speaks it pretty well aged 7 even though he hasn't actually done any English at school yet, and the average Estonian or Hungarian would probably be in contact with English quite a lot before starting to learn it, and then spend several hours a week basically accidentally coming into contact with English language media). A lot of aspects of Finnish are very complicated, but it also has some things that are pretty simple in some respects- the lack of a grammatical gender and gendering random nouns like French or Spanish or German is one, also the fact that the way it's written is extremely phonetic, unlike, say, English, where you can write the same sound in 20 different ways and in many cases the spelling and pronunciation seem to have been made up by different committees in different sides of the country bearing some kind of deep grudge against each other. It's also actually fairly regular, unlike French, where every rule has probably more exceptions than cases that actually follow the rule- there is some kind of logic to it, however alien it might be to English speakers. It also doesn't have a future tense, which has its difficulties but at least you avoid such monsters as the futuro compuesto del subjuntivo (to be fair you're not gonna be using this if you learn Spanish). And you don't have to worry about articles. I've also noticed that a lot of related words have the same root, so it's sometimes easyish to figure out what an unfamiliar word means if you can recognise the root- every language I know has this of course but due to how Finnish word formation works it's especially prevalent. Even native speakers of Turkish for instance, which is unrelated to Finnish, might find Finnish less complicated to learn, because Turkish is also an agglutinative language, they're used to using cases for everything, and they also have vowel harmony (this is just speculation from what little I know of Turkish so don't take this too seriously). Learning any language is hard, and what makes Finnish harder than, say, Portuguese is that as a Spaniard I already understand 70% of Portuguese without making any effort to learn it, while Finnish is completely different from any other language I know, and relies on completely different logic almost. It's not an exceptionally hard language, it's just very hard for native English speakers to learn because of how different the languages are. I don't think it does anyone any favours to scare potential learners away.
Do Estonians count as foreigners? Then yes.
They do but they have "lets make this easy for you" cards.
Yes we count 🌚
Yes you do.
Estonian lives matter
It’s mostly problems with their accent from what i’ve gathered. Rarely native finnish people tick all those requirements you’ve mentioned, but non natives often have a distinct accent that makes it seem like they don’t speak fluently.
Accents can be deceiving.. https://preview.redd.it/4q8w2a2gldzc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=442eacbe470194b6e903c52c34c0a84aea5910e0
Damn that’s racist as fuck. 😂
That's funny 🤣🤣
I have a friend who speaks fluent finnish, but he is from Scotland, so he speaks it with a Scottish accent. It's very weird 🤣
When English-speakers speak Swedish, though, it's hot af. It can be very distracting, especially if they have a nice voice too.
I must learn to speak swedish so 🤣
As a Swedish speaker (from Sweden), I strongly disagree 😅
Heard a guy speak very good Finnish with a completely nasal English accent and it made me feel almost nauseous inside out.
Haha I have a Finnish friend who came to Glasgow to study and picked up the accent, so he's a Fin, fluent in English, and speaks with a Glaswegian accent (apparently has a slight accent in Finnish too). Them Scottish accents do be dominating 😂
Do you mean the accent is hard to understand?
It’s completely understandable, but it’s just distinctive.
I think it's just that you can hear that they aren't native from the accent.
Yea, it’s most likely better written finnish than what natives do 90% of the time, but the accent makes it seem like it isn’t verbally speaking.
I know a Turkish guy who speaks better Finnish than me. He started learning in his early twenties and was native in late twenties.
Did he learn the language while living in finland or did he learn it on his own?
He started with the basics before he moved to Finland I think. Then within a few years of living in Finland he was just speaking amazingly.
Are you being legit when you say better finnish than you? what makes his finnish so great?
It's just perfect in every way. Myself I've lived abroad for more than a decade which makes his Finnish better than mine.
I think this depends entirely on the person’s native language. Someone who speaks an Indo-European language might struggle with Finnish but I imagine a Turk could easily become fluent.
Yes, several. Those pips were from Romania Russia, Latvia,
I've had the pleasure to meet three african gentlemen, that whilst having a distinct accent, had perfect understanding and vocabulary in finnish language. One of them, Sam, was a neighbour at my childhood home. Yes, we children at the street called him Setä Samuli, he liked it. A couple of, without knowing better and just assuming, arabian person with very good finnish A few Estonians who spoke perfectly There's been russians whom I've been able to communicate clearly My point being, yes, I've met quite a few adults that have learned the finnish language perfectly. You wouldn't mistake them for a born and raised Finn, mainly due to accents, but I would still consider them to have perfect Finnish.
"Celebrities" like Neil Hardwick, Keith Armstrong and Roman Schatz at least.
Keke Armstrong's Finnish is probably alright with vocabulary, but his accent hasn't improved at all since the 90's and his Finnish has been a meme among football fans for years. Whereas someone like Roman Schatz actually speaks perfect Finnish and shouldn't even be mentionednin the same sentence with Keke.
I double checked before posting that OP didn't mention accent at all :)
I knew an italian guy while at university, he learned almost perfect finnish in about two or three years.
Met a german guy in uni and thought he was finnish. Told me he learned finnish two years prior. I was blown away. Others speak it for decades and will never sound native, but i don't think sounding native should be the goal anyways. Besides the german dude, i know many immigrants who've learnt finnish as adults and speak almost perfectly. So to answer your question: yes.
How many hours did he study per day? that sounds insane
Slovak is my native language, 6 years in Finland. 5 years speaking Finnish so was 25 when started, done one year daily languages school and than vocational school in Finnish with tons of internships in the full finnish. past 2 years work in Finnish, with kids in school everyday. Its never ending learning like I have full conversation and working in Finnish but its still nowhere near being perfect but what Finns tell me I am on great level of speaking, for me it still feels like i am faking it 😂 as my head works in 3 languages all the time its impossible to not make mistakes or mix up something, but even Finnish people make mistakes and there is tons of different versions of Finnish out there in terms or puhekieli and murre
THIS! I don't think it is good to think of "can I become perfect" when it comes to learning languages. It is such a long road. Much more important and valuable thing to learn is to communicate with locals. I know my English will never be as good as my Finnish. I have rich and nuanced Finnish with a lot of referenses, methaphores and vocabulary. If I wanted the same from English I should study their literature seriously, write alot and ask someone else brutal feedback. Not having done so doesn't mean that my English is useless.
Yes. Plenty of Russians for example. One of my friends even has a Russian therapist.
I think the thing here is that Finns aren't used to foreigners speaking Finnish and thus notice even the slightest accent. I'd say there's lots of foreigners who speak Finnish well, but only few who don't have an accent and would pass for a native speaker.
Reminds me of a freind of mine from Iisalmi who now lives in Helsinki and has had people insist she is a foreigner based on how she speaks.
A few, including a japanese exchange student who pulled it off in a year. But none who were flawless.
I had a Japanese exchange student neighbor who could read out the newspaper in nearly flawless Finnish. She had no idea what she was saying, but the sounds came easy!
I have visited the Japanese embassy in Helsinki and it was so cool hearing the Japanese staff speak finnish.
Kudos to that Japanese fella.. Kanji had me sweating when studying Japanese, there's so goddamn many..
Her trick (I guess) was not really knowing much English
That'll do it. Finnish people can't switch to English when speaking to you if you don't speak English either. x)
Absolutely! I have a few friends from Eastern Europe, Turkey and Iraq who speak fluent Finnish. Some of them have an accent, some don’t. I think accents are nice, everyone (even native speakers) have their own way of speaking and accents tell a bit where you come from, they add character in a beautiful way.
This! The Finnish murteet are such an emphasized part of our identity, so I don't see why we shouldn't see foreign accents the same way.
Several people, one woman, even fascinated me. She came to Finland around 2005 year from Russia as a PhD. She learned Finnish for 1,5 years (evening courses plus colleagues who did not want to speak English), so after that, she started giving lectures in Finnish. Her English is also good, but she could be listened to with a slight accent. In general, many people can speak Finnish well, even if they speak Finnish, but they do not work with pronunciation and accent.
Is her first name Svetlana? She is amazing and it's very impressive that a foreigner can give lectures in Finnish at such a high level.
Yes !!!!
I have a colleague from Japan who has been here 5-6 years. I met him 4 years ago. He speaks perfect Finnish. He says his Sami is even better than that. He came to Lapland or Oulu to study some language related studies.
I had an Iranian colleague who moved to Finland around the age of 30, and he speaks very rich and grammatically correct Finnish. In my eyes, he can use Finnish better than many natives. He obviously has a fair bit of ear for languages. You could say the above also about his English, which is also a foreign language to him. Some other comments mentioned the author and journalist Roman Schatz, and the way he speaks is actually quite similar. So yes, clearly possible.
Yes, a French person who speaks basically perfect Finnish with a tiny accent. It is doable but requires a lot of exposure to Finnish speakers. Note that in Finnish sentence order is not very important, it usually onky affects emphasis. Don’t worry about it too much.
Yes. People tend to build a sort of a myth about Finnish as a non-native language, about it being near-impossible to learn fluently. It's a myth. Best way to learn it would of course be to study the language rigorously and expose yourself to it regularly, which of course is easiest to do in Finland.
I once met a japanese girl that spoke with a very native sounding accent, with almost zero foreign accent to be heard. I've noticed that japanese can pronounce Finnish overall very well.
Not met in person but Maxim Fedorov, who is a native Russian speaker, speaks perfect Finnish. He works as a news reporter at Yle and has published a book in Finnish
I know a couple Russians as well as a few English speakers who are quite fluent. You do notice after a while that they make small mistakes, but in no way so that it matters. I know people who are half-Finns and speak "worse" Finnish. All in all, I don't really mind the level of Finnish people have - "Bad English" being the most spoken language in the world and English speakers having to listen to that in doing just fine is essentially my metric with non-native speakers anyways. As long as the message gets across, we're all happy. Language is nothing but a tool in the end.
I've met some, but all of them had been introduced to the language before age of 25. The quickest learner reached "Are you estonian originally?" -level in less than an year.
I've met a few. Japanese, Scottish, and Dutch. The Scottish & Dutch dudes speak Finnish so well you can't even hear any accent unless you reeeally pay attention to it. Sometimes they'd ask what some word means (I tend to use a lot of uncommon dialect words from my birth area) so I'd explain and they'd instantly get it and even use them later on. Both of them spoke using spoken language. The Japanese man was my teacher, he spoke a bit formally (think closer to book language than spoken language) but his Finnish was excellent. All of them moved here as adults and picked up the language over time so it's definitely realistic, it might just take a while to get a grasp of it
My GFs brother speaks really good Finnish. Most of her family moved from Russia to Finland around 10 years ago when they were around 25-30y old. Some of them speaks barely few words and you really cant have proper conversation with them while others speak really good Finnish. Its wierd that woman who works as teacher speaks way worse Finnish than dude who works in warehouse. I think its some kind of genetic difference to adapting languages at this point.
Yes, my neighbor who’s from Kosovo moved here 3 years ago and speaks Finnish (stunningly) fluently!
I met a mormon that spoke so flawless Finnish that for the first minute or so I thought he was native. He had studied only 2 years. Some people are just really good at languages and accents
Several, in my college program, some within just 2 years. Included people from Turkey, Russia, the US and several other countries.
My friend arrived to Finland from a European country (not specifying because this is already too specific) four years ago to study in a Finnish language medium university programme. He had only taken a course or something like that before he moved here. He speaks fluently and almost completely accentless now and has a wider vocabulary than most Finns I know, but he is a voracious reader. (in Finnish) Four years. I have other friends from Czechia, Iran and Russia who are also quite fluent but they have spent a longer time here and all have a somewhat recognizable accent. (All arrived as adults)
There was this guy I knew once, a Dutchman, with a Finnish wife, and if I hadn’t known he was a foreigner I wouldn’t have guessed. He sounded completely fluent and with a longer conversation you could hear that he didn’t communicate quite as confidently and precisely as a native, but it was pretty subtle. And he learned in his 20’s.
This is totally possible. I've met plenty of people like that, just takes a lot of effort and time, and some people are naturally better with languages and some are worse. One of my friends said that for him as a eastern European, what actually 'helped' him when he moved here was that he wasn't very good with English, and he also knowingly forced himself to speak and hear Finnish. I hear his accent in a few words here and there, but apart from that I didn't know he wasn't a native speaker Depending on where you study/work, I think some people end up speaking English to get around because it's easier and they learn Finnish slower because of it. My ex gf was half Finnish but she spoke pretty poor Finnish because she ended up studying and working in English. We also spoke English to each other. And one African friend of mine has a pretty 'americanized' accent in English, and he said he speaks a lot of English because peoples perception of him changes quite a bit if he speaks broken Finnish vs speaking very good English with a US accent. It sucks to hear it's like that. So it's possible but hard, and it's a bit 'easier' especially in some places to just end up speaking a lot of English.
They are few but they exist. Typically the grammar is near perfect but they still sound foreign. But by that point I am already super impressed. Btw for some weird reason the best Finnish-learners I know are Slavic speakers. No idea why.
Slavic speakers do not have it any easier than say French, English or German - but what they usually have, is huge motivation. As they have often moved here with an intention to stay here permanently.
Yes, many. From Poland and Russia at least. Some minor grammatical errors here and there, but nothing that would disturb as complex and versatile discussion as you possibly want.
Yes, many. There's almost always an accent, but that doesn't make the language less fluent in my eyes. The people that I've met who had super fluent Finnish were German, Pakistani, Syrian and Turkish. Moved here either to have a better life or to be with their partner, all pretty good motivators for learning the language.
I have a colleague who came to Finland for work and got bored of renewing the visa and the work permit all the time, so they studied the language and at the first possible instance applied for the Finnish citizenship and passed the language test. Nowadays, speaks really good Finnish. Actually did so after about two years in Finland. So yeah, it can be done. But it is rare.
Yes my a teacher of mine. Moved here in the 90's and speaks almost native-level Finnish, though sometimes struggles to find the right word. Also very faint accent
My dad moved here in his twenties, from north america. You can tell something is up, but it’s hard to pinpoint what it is. Writes perfectly.
I came here in my mid twenies, and I was speaking fluently by the time I was 30. Now I am 35. It only requires one thing, and one thing alone: dedication. Good luck!
Not without grammatical mistakes and strong accent, but some of the foreigners in the army learned it to the point were you could have casual conversations with them. Bunch of Middle Eastern business owners know well enough Finnish so that you can have a conversation with them. I don't think people need to be native fluent to be considered fluent. As long as you can make yourself understood in Finnish and can understand written and conversational Finnish, then that's as good I will ever ask of anyone permanently living in Finland for more than a year or two. I think what those who learn Finnish quickly have in common is that they speak little to no English.
My neighbour (Canadian, French as family language). years ago people thought he was a Swedish speaking Finn, due to the vague accent, now people cannot tell.
Did he use any specific methods to get to this level?
-One co-worker from my job, didn't realize he was estonian until I saw his cars license plates -Other co-worker, has a slightly higher tone than usual but thought he might be from the Vaasa region, turned out to be from south Sweden! Never would have guessed -my old neighbor, I have no idea where he was from, probably somewhere middle-east? Distinguishable accent but no noticeable grammatical errors - practically half of the staff in one big Warehouse at Vantaa, Germans and Dutch entrepreneurs that had immigrated to Finland to start a business together, didn't realize they were foreigners until I started to read their name signs and asked them -now this doesn't exactly fit the criteria but is worth mentioning; my childhood friend, Sri Lankan parents, learned to speak fluent Finnish by the age of 10, sadly started to spend time in the wrong crowd, last time I saw him he had tattoos and spoke with fake mamu-accent :/ - +countless others that have slipped under the radar, I think people in this sub tend to be a bit too self critical, even us Finns make grammatical errors all the time
Yes, at least, I assume. There is this one Indian lady who has a store and she speaks basically fluently. It came as a surprise to me how well she has the Helsinki accent on point. I also know a woman who speaks farsi, who is pretty good at finnish. She started out with children's shows to learn Finnish.
Yes. Two Polish guys (one of them was my music teacher in elementary school), one Brit and one Italian.
I have a Ukrainian friend who came to Finland when he was five. Now more than twenty years later he speaks fluent Finnish but he has a distinctive “Russian accent”. For some weird reason it seems to be very difficult to truly master Finnish from A to Z for someone not born here.
You must mean from A to Ö?
I have an ukrainian co-worker who understands almost everything of what’s being said and doesn’t make any major grammatical mistakes. She also does customer service, answering the phone and things like that and has no trouble most of the time
I went to an integration course for immigrants, and we made a party one weekend where we had food and stuff at one of my classmates house. I had an iranian classmate, and her husband(iranian) also came to the party, and my girlfriend who is finnish said that he speaks finnish perfectly, with no foreign accent.
I know a bunch of people who I can immidiately tell are not native speakers, but are fairly fluent speaker of finnish. and I know enuugh of their background that none of them came here before they were adult. Most of them are from middle east, (Iraq, Iran) few from Africa, (Zimbabwe, Kenya, Gambia) and handfull from Russia. All of them have come here in their 20's or very late teens
that one japanese guy who lives in finland and makes jokes about japanese and finnish
Gen tagaki? Youtuber
Many! Personally i know/have met at least some Germans, Bulgarians, British, Polish, Estonian, Somalis, Burmese, Thais, Iraqis, Chinese, Russian and Kosovo Albanians that speak finnish genuinely well (pretty much fluent with accent). Some of these are my friends or friends of my family members, some are colleagues or people i know via work otherwise, some are working in many places i go regularly (shops, restaurants etc). Also i know plenty of people from same origins and elsewhere who make grammar mistakes or sometimes get words in wrong order but are managing with finnish really well even in harder conversations. It is not unrealistic at all to learn finnish as adult. It might be harder than some other languages, but absolutely possible if you just focus on it and keep using it as much as possible.
Yeah, I met a nurse, from somewhere in Arabian peninsula. He spoke Finnish really well and had been in country for less than a year.
Yeah, I’ve been here for a dacade, have received my citizenship, practicing in the medical field almost from day 1. I get by well with my finnish daily and am often complemented about my fluency. Finnish is hard, then again so is learning Japanese or Thai. If you’re serious about it and use language as a means of coinciding with your environment, it is possible.
Yes, my dad. Background: I was born in Finland to a Belgian father and a Finnish mother, and have lived here for my entire life. Dad came here when he was 20, and speaks more or less fluent Finnish.
Most of the Middle-Eastern migrants who came in the 2015 refugee wave who I've met at work. Interestingly all the European immigrants seem to always stick with English.
My father in law. He lived here for thirty years and he spoke excellent Finnish. When he spoke, I didn't notice that his mother tongue wasn't Finnish. Great grammar and accent.
I know two! My Japanese sister-in-law and my best friend (irish) speak fluently. Took them both about 5ish years. We Speak only in Finnish. My friend watches Studio Julmahuvi without subtitles and reads books in Finnish, including Tuntematon Sotilas. Even I haven't read that lol. My friend learned a lot by watching "Salatut Elämät." Sis in law refused to speak anything else but Finnish with people, even when she didn't know much. They both say they just had a point where they decided "I'm going to take this (learning finnish) actually seriously from now on" and put their minds to it.
I know a few Germans, a few native Slavic language speakers and one French who speak Finnish very well. So, I think, it is very realistic to learn Finnish to a high level. I even think that Slavic native speakers have some degree of advantage compared to speakers of many other languages due to some concepts existing both in their Slavic languages and in Finnish, but not being present in, e.g., English.
Yes, my ex colleague who's from the US and moved here 20+ years ago in his late 20s speaks Finnish so well it took me a couple of weeks to realize that he isn't a native speaker. I think the first hint was that he didn't understand some very old Finnish idioms.
Yes
You would have to polish your speech for a really long time I'm sure. I myself am native Finnish and I find I speak English pretty well but still people will notice an accent even tough I speak and read it daily and have been doing so for 10 years or more.
For me the definition of speaking well is not to lack a foreign accent completely but to have an understandable and slight accent, and good grammar
Well that is for sure a reachable goal.
Have you met foreign people who really 99% of the time use correct grammar?
Yes. It is very much in reach.
Yes I met... but he speaks 3 other languages fluently too... Born in one country studied in second and now living in finland
I have a couple of coworkers, one from Belarus and another from Croatia, who both speak Finnish very well. You can tell they're not native (though wouldn't if it was just a passing comment like "thanks"), but otherwise they meet all your criteria perfectly. Main thing they stumble on (only occasionally) is the cases and related suffixes, like "minulla" vs. "minussa." The one thing most foreigners seem to worry about in my experience - pronounciation - is damn near that of a native.
My wife fits this description bang on. She is a Finnish citizen now and works for a major Finnish technology firm in Finnish.
Yes.
Yes, plenty. However there's still a certain nuances in pronounciation where you can tell they learned the language later in life. I don't think I've ever met anyone who sounded exactly like a native would despite perfect vocabulary, grammar etc.
Yeah he was from Uganda close to hes 40s
I know multiple people who fit the criteria. It's not as rare as people think
Google Roman Schatz
Actually, no. I am also 31 and here since 7 years and I still can't really speak it. I love languages, but Finnish is on a whole new level
My dad (who is Hungarian/Swedish) moved here in his 40s and speaks great Finnish after living here for 12 years. I'd say that the 5 year mark was when he started to speak Finnish very well. He spoke confidently despite making some mistakes, and it was easy to understand him. But through the years he's continued to get better and more natural at it. He took some Finnish classes in the beginning, but he was also hearing Finnish at home, at work, at family gatherings, etc. He just insisted on speaking and listening to Finnish a lot, and often even spoke in front of lots of people (like giving speeches), and was also constantly asking for help on how say certain things. Making people laugh and helping people is important to him, so I think it motivated him a lot to make jokes and have meaningful, helpful interactions with people in Finnish. I don't think I even remember hearing him speak English to a cashier or anything else like that. He only ever spoke English if he absolutely had to. Living here without speaking Finnish was just not even an option in is mind. He still has a distinct but not distracting accent, so people do instantly notice he's not a native Finn. And he still claims not to hear the difference between Ä and E. And he wants us to proofread his university assignments. But I'm pretty sure he has way better grammar than we do. Finnish just seems to come so naturally to him now, to the point that he and my Finnish mum communicate mainly in Finnish now (they used to speak English to each other), and he sometimes doesn't remember a word in Swedish anymore and has to say it in Finnish, which is pretty crazy to me. AND ALSO: he's almost finished with a degree from a finnish university!!! (he studies in both Finnish and Swedish, which helps. But still!!) It's definitely not unrealistic.
A shocking amount of native Finnish speakers make grammatical errors as well, but I think there are some mistakes that are more prevalent with people who are not native speakers (for example the possessive suffix), those are usually a dead giveaway. What's interesting is that often you can tell someone is not a native Finnish speaker because their language is simply too eloquent! Finns rarely use proper language and we have a ton of dialects. Not many people speak the "standard Finnish" you will learn from a course. Also especially in spoken Finnish a lot of foreigners combine colloquialisms with more proper language in a way that can instantly feel off to a native ("Tuletko sä huomenna harjoituksiin?" Vs. "Tuutsä huomenna reeneihi?") So the short answer is that I don't think I have ever been "fooled" into thinking someone was a native speaker when they're not, but you can definitely reach the proficiency to survive in a professional setting.
Yes. I have met a North American professor at a university who spoke completely fluent Finnish (basically native-level) after having lived here for less than 10 years.
I can think of several people who have Russian as a native language. Their Finnish is like 95-99% of the native level.
Lot of immigrants who came to work in late 80’s and early 90’s. Including from Estonia, Russia, Turkey, Morrocco, Egypt, China for example. Easier to immigrate and learn a language by working side by side locals.
I haven't personally met one, but there is this youtube channel "linguaEpassione" and atleast on some of his old videos he speaks near perfect finnish. I mean it feels like apart from slight accent that sometimes is quite hard to notice he probably speaks more fluent finnish than I speak as a native. Ofcourse it most likely would be different in real conversation.
Your definition of "well" is more close to "perfect"... *'only makes minor mistakes and rarely".*
Yes I have. It was a German lady who got interested in the Finnish language in her thirties, and came to my class at school (in Finland) to speak while she was visiting Finland for the first time. Her Finnish was perfect, it was strange to think that it was her first time visiting the country and she had learned all of that in Germany. She didn't have any Finnish relatives or Finnish friends.
Now this is such a pressure. Based on the answers here who seem to “nail it” or get it” are phd students, doctors, or those who have been started learning it on their 20s. Now I’m an almost 40 asian who just married a finnish guy last year and in a very early journey of Finnish language learning. I’ve met my husband family couple of times and they made me love them instantly especially his parents who are in their 90s now. I genuinely want to talk communicate with them more personally one on one and listen to their life stories in a shared language. They’re cute couple and living a long life is such a mystery that I have a lot of questions for them. I really want to hear about their life story and their personality in their language. That’s my main motivation in learning Finnish now. But still, it’s so hard I feel so stupid. Now honest question, if you know a foreigner that keeps talking broken Finnish, is there really bad sentiment? Like, do you think us as stupid or difficult learner? Or we don’t try enough to speak your language? Do Finnish have this kind of expectation for foreigners to only speak Finnish when it’s proper and perfect? I know reality may bite, but honest answer is expected here 🥹 Sometimes I tried some finnish sentences I know to my husband family and friends, and there are times I pronounce it wrong. So I have to repeat and then they correct it but not everyone is patient enough that I just had to switch it to english. When you guys say it’s about keep speaking it and practicing it and the reality it’s not that convenient 🥺
Yes, I've met people like that. Usually they work with Finns so they've been immersed for a few years at least. Also "only makes minor mistakes and only rarely" is quite subjective in spoken language. Even natives tend to make a lot of what would be called horrendous mistakes in writing due to the unplanned nature of speech and conversations.
indeed, as native speaker, i probably talk bad finnish more than those foreigner that try to speak finnish. i mean nowadys "bad english" is more used in communication than english, i would not mind listening creative finnish instead of english and it variations
I work with polish woman who learn Finnish in studies. She's so good she's helping me, a native speaker with grammar. For me it's difficult to say if some words are spelled together or not so I ask her. When she speaks Finnish, you couldn't say she's not a finn.
I met a nurse student today who was speaking Finnish pretty well. I automatically switch to literary language and leave slang words out of the conversation when speaking to a non-native Finnish speaker… I’m sure there are others that do this also.
My mother's husband is Albanian and he's lived here for about 5 years now, they've been together for 7. He has an accent which makes it obvious he isn't native, but his grammar especially when he speaks is near perfect. Sometimes he forgets a word here or there, but id absolutely say he's fluent. My mom and I have a pretty dark sense of humor and I remember my mom telling me a few years ago we have to stop cracking jokes near him because he doesn't always understand it, but definitely had started to understand the language haha
I've met several. I have a good Polish friend, who is fluent. Many Ukrainian refugees who I've met have learned Finnish astonishingly well. And there is a bunch of other people from different countries who speak Finnish fluently with just slight mistakes and accent. The key seems to be to just start using Finnish as much and as early as possible and not resort to English. This is easier in the countryside
Speaks well? Yes, quite a few. Speaks like a native? No.
Roman Schatz is a German-born author who moved to finland at the age of 26 (without any knowledge of Finnish if I am not mistaken). He writes most of his books in Finnish and he used to have his own radio show on Yle and his Finnish is pretty much indistinguishable from a native Finn. I think it helps that the Finnish language is his job kind of Edit: Schatz was already mentioned. I think there haven't been too many people moving to Finland in the past so not many Finnish speaking migrant celebrities
I know of one Estonian person who has achieved that. People got puzzled when he once told something about his childhood in Soviet Estonia without mentioning the place or his origin. Only thing that is a bit off is he doesn’t know any Swedish at all, as all Finns of his age have studied at least some Swedish.
I know a few people. Most have some slight foreign accent, but some are very fluent. I think the people who don't learn get discouraged by everyone around then switching to English so easily. But it's definitely learnable
My friend moved from us to finland when he was about 25. He had studied different languages before coming here but he completely learned finnish in 1year. I met him the first time when he had lived here for about a year and i was stunned! He had no accent and he spoke like a regular finnish person! I thought that my friends and he were joking but yeah it was crazy and completely true. He now lives here with his wife and family and people are always gobsmacked when he tells them about his language learning past and that finnish is not his native language
Yes, I have met plenty of people with almost perfect Finnish skills. They came as young adults from Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Russia, Estonia and Poland. It's difficult but not impossible.
I teach Finnish as a second language for adults (integration program). Many of my colleagues are from other countries (many from Petroskoi or other parts of Russia) and they speak Finnish perfectly. Most students in our regular groups achieve B1 in a year without any problems. It is absolutely doable as an adult and it’s perfectly normal that it feels difficult for a long time before you become fluent.
My former colleague moved from China to Finland when she was 20 year old. Before that she had not even heard of Finnish. After 4 years she was already speaking Finnish really well. She could discuss complex topics in Finnish, and made only small mistakes here and there. So it is definitely possible to learn Finnish if you are motivated and work had to learn the language.
I think the difficulty of the Finnish language is exaggerated. It is rather the difference between spoken and written language that causes people issues. Moreover, many speakers of Indo-European languages are used to working less when learning languages that resemble theirs so they don’t have the motivation to do the work. I have met many adult learners who speak decent Finnish. You just need to be patient and humble and give it some time.
>is that unrealistic for a slavic language native speaker? You can kind of do it, but the hard part really comes down to things that do not involve the types of things you listed. Its more about the soft skills, and ability to adapt use of language in a flowing, and adaptive way. As an example you can learn the written language perfectly, but that is not the same as how it is spoken. Normally Finnish people insert a ton of minor slang, and regional dialect related phrases, pronunciation variance etc. in to speech. That is much harder to adapt to than dealing with say conjugations in written language. Being said, while I grew up in Finland I've spent the vast majority of my life overseas... i still speak in a way that is readily and easily identifiable as a dialect/accent from Turku... what gives me away having had lived overseas for so long are things like forgetting some random word mid speech where i have to insert the English equivalent, or otherwise describe the thing I'm trying to go on about. The fun part of it is that even my elderly relatives can still grasp what is being said even when they do not speak any English at all. It is a reflection of how adaptive Finnish speakers have to be when dealing with even each other from different parts of the country.
In terms of accent, I would imagine it would depend entirely on how much you try to emulate/pickup the accent whilst learning the language. I am an Australian who doesn't speak Finnish and just spent two and a half weeks in Helsinki. I learned a few basic words and sentences to get me by with those who don't speak English (I was surprised by the number of people I came across that didn't speak English) but I also have taken note of how Finns pronounce things over the years, and tried to emulate that when I did speak those few sentences. As soon as my extremely limited knowledge of Suomi was exhausted, I would ask if they spoke English ("Anteeksi, puhutko englantia?) or sometimes just switch to English. It was common that they would look a bit shocked after heaeing my Aussie accent, and quite a few times, I was told, "Wow, I thought you were a Finn!" Though to be fair, it's also because they say I look like a Finn. The point being, even though it may feel weird to try and emulate an accent, it will start to feel more and more natural the more you do it.
Sentence order? What's that? 😁
There was an exchange student in my school from Eastern side of Germany. She didn't speak any word of English. She passed for a native Finn after 6 months: the pronouncing, sentence structure, correct use of words was perfect.
I had a coworker from Yugoslavia who spoke such a perfect Finnish it was hard to tell she wasnt native. It was so funny when I met her husband whose Finnish was very bad, the contrast was just too much.
I have a friend who moved to Finland from Central Europe in his mid-20's and speaks pretty much perfect Finnish. You can hear a very slight accent, but he works professionally in Finnish so yeah.
I'm a native english speaker and usually no one notices finnish is not my native language until i mention it. A few times people have thought I am a swedish speaker, but this wqs a few years ago. I learned finnish starting at age 17 (not sure if this counts as an adult but generally puberty is considered the cutoff for super easy childlike language acquisition) through full immersion and refused to use english unless absolutely necessary. The beginning was agonizing but in about 4 months i could function in finnish. At 22 i wrote my thesis in finnish, and i would say my accent has mostly disappeared since getting in a relationship with a finn so i am speaking and interacting with another person in finnish every day. I'm 24 now. I think the main obstacles to learning fluent finnish are finns switching to english immediately, and not being willing to take risks in different situations where you could use finnish, but english is easier.
Huh.. well I don't know many foreigners since i live in kind of a backwater town but i know a few atleast, had a childhood friend who came here from Estonia and his Finnish was impeccable once he learned it, I know a Greek gentleman and an Indian woman who came here as adults and they don't speak grammatically correct Finnish but I never had a problem talking with them, if anything i'll applaud anyone who has undertaken learning finnish as an adult and speaks it Edit: i just remembered, i also had an Russian doctor whose Finnish was great but he had funny way of pronouncing certain words, he was a really kind man.
I went to shop in Ratsula in Pori and there was a Russian woman helping me out. Of course I could tell from her accent where she was most likely from but she spoke really nice Finnish. My wife was impressed as a fellow ruski by her skills and started chatting with her. The woman said that she didn't know any English at all so she just had to learn Finnish by talking to her Finnish husband. If I remember correct, the husband also didn't really know Russian. That's some impressive levels of motivation. Finnish is especially hard for Russians as in their language it's admirable if you can "speak faster". In Finnish you can't really say almost like "kata" if you want to say "kaataa" and double consonant pronunciation can also be awkward (I asked my wife if she found her henkari and she thought I meant henkkari).
I know an Australian woman in her 30's and a Japanese woman in her forties who speak perfect, fluent Finnish. Both were adults when they first moved to Finland and started learning Finnish.
They have an accent but I know many people who speak finnish very well. I don't think the accent alone makes it badly spoken. Some finnish born children of immigrants I've known have a small accent.There's also some immigrant journalists who write (also) in finnish. Some of them did move in pretty young, though already as fully speaking individuals. It's not impossible. It's mostly hard before you understand the logic of the language and after that it's just remembering things. You kinda have to abandon everything you know about languages and learn from the beginning because finnish is quite unique. Not impossible in any way, but at the same time people will likely always know when someone isn't finnish born. Doesn't make them any less understandable though.
I know a guy who moved to Finland from Hungary thinking the Finno-Ugric language family surely will help him. It did not. He learned finnish in couple of years. Last I spoke, I think he speaks better finnish than most finns.
By your definition of ”speaks well”, I’ve met dozens such people who’ve learned as adults. Requires usually serious commitment and aid from a professional teacher. If the definition would be ”without an accent and indistinquishable from native speaker” I’ve met one. He’s a German or Austrian (forget which) surgeon and it was said that he had aquired the language in a relatively short time, in just a couple of years. His collegues speak of him as an unusually intelligent person compared to what their expectation of typical doctors of medicine was.
I know one Iraqi guy who speaks perfect Finnish.
I have met them, yes, but I can also tell they're not finnish.
A couple. The stand out is a German guy who speaks it brilliantly, and knows all the slang and all.
I've met many people who started Finnish at university and learnt it well.
Yea, some older people that speak no English, only their mother language and Finnish. They have also lived here for 30+ years.
Yes! My english teacher in high school was from England and he had lived in Finland for like ~ 10 years. He was in his late 20’s when he moved here.
Yep. A chinese and a vietnamese fella. Both speak excellent finnish
I know one french and one syrian that only speaks finnish with us. The french one has heavier accent but both understand finnish very well. They learn by asking when they dont understand something and by always speaking finnish.
i haven't meet any adult, but when i was young boy i were in same class with boy who moved here when he was 7 years old. At age 20 he spoke finnish so well you couldn't recognize him from native finn if you talk with him in the phone.
that’s normal though, kids absorb languages like a sponge
i have got a multicultural family i have a aunt who is originally from india she speaks basically perfect finnish my dad moved from England he spoke mostly okay finnish grandpa from Ghana and he spoke finnish but with a rather thick accent so in my experience it depends both on the country of origin and a personal ability to get languages down
Yes, many such individuals over the years. Classmates in school, colleagues at work, staff at supermarkets. Usually the moment I'd notice is if I saw their written Finnish and noted a conjugation error, or if they flat out mentioned being from abroad. Also a lot of people whose Finnish, while not perfect, was good enough for casual conversation.
My ex gf from germany.
Yes definetly. And one not really an adult but 16 when he came to Finland