I know what you’re thinking: “Is it even possible to learn Finnish in one year? This must be a joke.” And I have to say that for most people, realistically, it isn’t. But not because of the traditional excuses like Finnish is too difficult or there isn’t enough good learning material available.
It’s because the time and effort needed for learning Finnish, or any language for that matter, in a year is quite considerable. And the required time investment depends on a multitude of things: your native language, how many & which other languages you speak, your age…
That said, I have seen it happen. So it’s not impossible either!
In this article, you will learn a 4-step goal-setting process you can use to plan and execute your Finnish studies. Everyone is different of course so you might need to adjust it to your needs, but this has worked for me many times with my language studies.
This process is not about how to study, but how to commit to an objective and follow through with your plans. You should switch your thinking from ‘what do I need to do?’ to ‘which objectives do I need to achieve?’ – and then take the necessary actions to achieve those objectives.
For the ‘how to study’ part, I can only recommend the natural learning method, the scientifically proven best & most efficient way to learn a language, that I teach in my online course Finnish Me: Understand.
Learning Finnish in a year might not be realistic for you timewise. But you can apply the exact same process I walk you through in this article to 18 months or 2 years – which is still a great achievement and probably more realistic for you.
And if you do have the extra time and want to learn Finnish in just 12 months, go for it!
Ok, let’s cut the waffle and jump right into the first step of the process.
The first step in this process is to reverse engineer your goal. This means that you first have to define your end goal at the end of your chosen time period.
Let’s say that in one year from now, you want to be able to speak Finnish with ease with your friends or colleagues.
Just a note: when I say speak Finnish with ease, I do not mean speaking like someone born and raised in Finland. I studied English for 10 years and have been working in English for the past 5 years, and I still don’t consider myself as a native-level speaker (pretty close though 😉).
Speaking Finnish with ease means that you can express yourself without translating in your head; if you don’t remember one word, you can easily go around it to explain what you mean; and you understand without effort what your friends are saying.
So back to the reverse engineering. Once you have your big end goal, you will need to identify the main milestones. I explain what those are with an example of the time I learned Italian (in one year, by the way). The two big milestones for me were:
When I understood pretty much everything I listened to in Italian – slow, fast or Italian normal speed a.k.a. super fast.
When I could speak it fluently without too much effort – the big end goal.
I linked the videos I made for each phase so you can hear more about how I did it.
In my case, I achieved the first milestone after about 4 months. That’s 1/3 of the time I had available to reach my end goal. You can use a similar split regardless of how long your time period is.
To track your progress, you have to break the milestone into smaller objectives – which leads me to step 2 of this process.
The key for keeping up with your progress and making sure you gain the necessary skills, you need to have smaller, more tangible learning objectives.
Traditional language learning methods would break the learning into something like this: greeting vocabulary, the present tense, conjugation of the verb ‘to be’, negative clauses, etc.
In the natural method, the breakdown I use is more like:
Understand slow simple sentences
Understand slow talk
Understand medium speed talk
Understand normal speed talk
Milestone 1: understand pretty much everything you listen to in Finnish
With this method, you automatically assimilate all the different grammar subjects that are the only goal of the traditional learning method.
Notice that I haven’t said a word about speaking yet – that comes later.
So now that you have these 4 objectives + 1 milestone, you need to put them in your calendar. For simplicity, let’s say that you give yourself one month for each objective. Now “all” you have to do is to make sure that at the end of the month, you can confidently say that you understand slowly spoken simple sentences in Finnish, for example.
I say “all” because this does require time and effort, there’s no way around it. But I do think the natural method is the most painless and actually a fun way to learn a language, so it’s not all doom and gloom.
Extra step if needed: Adjust
If at the end of the month you have not reached your objective, no need to panic. This can mean 2 things:
This particular objective just takes a bit more time, and you can catch up with the next objective.
You have to make some changes into your learning routine; maybe add an extra session per week or study in the mornings instead of evenings when you have less brainpower.
So just adjust your plans and continue with your studies accordingly, until you reach milestone 1.
Ok, let’s say you have successfully reached the first milestone. The 4th step is to repeat the same process with milestone number 2.
Now you understand Finnish very well and you have great sentences in your head in Finnish, but when you try to say them, you freeze.
This is normal, it has happened to me many times and is part of the process. The trick is to climb over that wall that stands between understanding and speaking Finnish.
The good news is that unlike with traditional learning methods, where you are forced to speak when you don’t yet understand normal talk and your vocabulary is extremely limited, now you actually understand what your interlocutor is saying and you have a large vocabulary to exploit.
And the only way to get over it is to just speak. Or should I say: force yourself to speak – because that’s what it will feel like in the beginning.
This is what the progress looked like for me with Italian:
Speak single simple sentences (I used to form the sentence in my head before saying it)
Speak several simple sentences back-to-back without pausing to think too much
Speak several more complex sentences that you prepare in your head
Speak several more complex sentences more automatically (this comes from the natural method: you will be able to use more difficult structures without preparing in your head, because “it just sounds right”)
Milestone 2: speak Finnish fluently without too much effort
As you move further on this scale, you also gradually reduce the number of mistakes you make, the amount of time you think about your next sentence, as well as the need to replace words you don’t know with English/other language words.
For me, steps 2 and 3 were the most difficult ones. Once you get over those, normal conversation becomes easier, even if you still struggle and feel uncomfortable when you are telling a story, everything is going well, and then suddenly you can’t remember how to say ‘I was waiting’ (this happened to me in Spanish the other day).
As with the first milestone, you will put these objectives into your calendar and ensure enough practice to actually achieve them. And with practice I mean SPEAKING. Speak to yourself if you don’t have Finns around you (again, that’s what I do with Spanish).
You must be thinking: ok so I have my milestones set, objectives scheduled, and study sessions planned – but how do I actually keep consistent and follow my plans?
Your motivation is up the roof now but trust me, it will wear off. It always does.
Which is why you will not rely on motivation to get to your goals – EVER.
Motivation is great when you have it, and you should definitely ride the wave when it comes, but the only tool you need to achieve any objective is willpower.
Because willpower will help you follow through your plans even when you don’t feel like it.
And in a way that’s the secret to success. If we only did things we feel like doing, we’d probably spend all our time watching Netflix or eating Ben & Jerry’s (nothing wrong with that though!).
The good news is: willpower is like a muscle and it can be trained. You should start with small things, such as deciding that you will study Finnish for 15 minutes in the morning and then just do it. Over time your willpower muscle will get stronger, and you will know that whatever you commit to doing gets done.
Perhaps it’s worth noting here that your plans should be realistic, as you can’t expect to be able to study for 3 hours a day with a full-time job/studies, children, hobbies, a dog and a goldfish.
One hack to help you with your willpower is to remember why you are learning Finnish. This is not to get more motivation but to understand why you will choose to study even when you’d rather do something (or anything) else. To be reminded of those reasons, take a look at this video.
If you’re ready to make the commitment, start following this process and have great conversations with your Finnish friends & family in a year or two, sign up on my free masterclass Mastering Everyday Finnish: The Pathway to Understanding and Connecting with Finns. See you there!