The Lord has blessed me to live in Finland for almost three years. I have made lots of friends here and met interesting people in my daily life. Nevertheless, like any other foreigner in Finland, I am no exception and I also struggle to learn Finnish. (Oh, I thought it was enough to learn svenska - Swedish!)
Having already taken Finnish Level One, this year I started with the jatkokurssi - continuation course. But, strangely enough, I do not feel the course is as challenging: many of the words I knew already and I also didn't find it that difficult to conjugate cases. What happened?! It's as if I had taken some extra courses already!
Until yesterday, I did not know where I had learned the words I knew. But guess what?! A huge percentage of my Finnish vocabulary I have acquired in the Church! We were learning positioning words and furniture, for example oikealla puolella (which I read every Sunday in Creed: at the right [hand of the Father]). There are many more words, such as koska, siksi, jos, leipä, taivas, koti that I realized I had learned by reading the day's Gospel in Spanish while I was listening to it in Finnish, or through repeating prayers or songs. |
Which has brought me to the conclusion that the best Finnish course is indeed the Holy Mass! Who could be better than Jesus at teaching you Finnish? And who could be a better assistant than Mary? The Rosary has taught me so many words. Finally, I ask you to pray for me, so I can soon overcome the difficulties I still have with the Finnish language and learn to understand this corner of the world better! |
About the Author
Yiran, or Maria Micaela. Born in China as a Protestant Christian but baptised in Spain (2015), being the only Catholic in the family. I came to Turku as an Erasmus exchange student and I stayed for my MSc studies. I'm also a participant of the Youth Weekends at Stella Maris. Cooking, running and photography are my hobbies. |