One of my favorite activities to do while living in Finland was to go shopping at thrift stores. I nearly always found something exciting to get and as my family quickly figured out when they came to visit and pick me up, I was pretty successful at finding many good teaching items, home decorations, books/DVDs, and clothing items, many of which I did not want to leave behind in Finland. Good thing they brought nearly empty suitcases!
Have you heard of Salolampi yet? Salolampi is a Finnish language camp that offers programming for all ages and stages of learners. It is located in Bemidji, Minnesota USA. It is part of Concordia Language Villages, which operates villages for 15 different languages (including English!).
It is where I started my infatuation with Finland, the cultures and the languages. You might call it a Finnfatuation. I first started attending as a 10 year old and fell in love immediately. To read more about that and my personal journey with the Finnish language and culture, check out this blog post.
Before I lived in Finland, I really did not drink coffee. I maybe would have some kind of sweet coffee drink now and then, but it wasn’t a regular occurance at all. When I lived in Oulu, that changed pretty quickly. I got a tiny yellow coffee maker (the tag said it was a coffee maker for a cabin) at a thrift store and bought some Finnish branded coffee from the grocery store. I figured I may need these not for me to make coffee every morning for myself, but rather for hosting guests. What I hadn’t neccissarily seen on the horizon were two years of coffee visits with friends and family of the friendship family (kummiperhe) I was connected with through the University of Oulu, as well as with some of the friends of my university friends.
How does one obtain proficiency in the language that is cited as “difficult”? Although there are many ways to approach a “difficult” language, I have found in my 20 years studying Finnish that the number one quality one must have in order to obtain a working proficiency is: sisu. Sisu is, of course, a Finnish word described as “extraordinary determination, courage and resoluteness in the face of extreme adversity. An action mindset which enables individuals to reach beyond their present limitations, take action against all odds and transform barriers into frontiers. An integral element of Finnish culture and also a universal capacity which we all share.” (SISUlab)
If you do not think that it takes at least a little sisu to learn Finnish as a second language, then you probably have not tried to learn it yet.
