I would like to draw a parallel with Québec French. I think it presents a similar distinction. For instance, “je suis arrivé” would be pronounced “j’t’arrivé”, and yet, it’s never taught or written that way. Learners do take a while to recognize this, though.
As a future learner of Finnish, I eventually want to learn all forms of the language too, but starting out with the written form is not a bad idea. However, I would be happy to get into colloquial pretty soon, at least at the intermediate level, if not at the end of the beginner level, when the basic grammar has been covered.
Ketutar wrote:
“It’s not more different than the spoken and written English or any other language. People speak dialects and slang, and that naturally differ, sometimes very much, from the “proper” language.”
Just what I thought. Once in a while I see all this “the differences between spoken and written [language X] is HUGE!”. Any language could be written closer to the spoken variety (imagine French for starters, and why not London English with glottal stops, dropped h, th fronting, vowel lowering…).
Swedish (hypothetical, but not totally unrealistic) example:
Tja, hu må ru, ska ru me på bio?
Nä, asså, ida kan ja nte. Ja ska…vettere…ut me grannens hund.
Ah, har an en hund? Ska ru ut me en gång?
Jo, eller…vene, han ante kommi än.
(How many of you Swedish learners get this, and/or would prefer this instead of the correct version?)
I just started the basic Finnish here and it is exactly what it is advertised.
Standard Finish; I just started with the Terve, Hei, Moi and all other standard greetings!!!
I performed the first 3 lessons and learned 15 words (which I did know prior to the start).
Both spoken and written Finnish are without dialect.
As my friend from Keuruu would say; it is from my village where we speak the proper Finnish without dialect!
I moved away from LingQ because it did not support Finnish; now that is does, I am back.
Background:
I have been a learner of Finnish for years, and can share my informed opinion about what is helpful as a learner of the language. After I had exclusively studied written Finnish for two years, I went to Finland thinking that I would be able to have a conversation and found that I could not understand much at all. This experience (and disappointment) was so strong that I remember exactly where I was standing at the old bus terminal in Helsinki as I tried to understand when the next bus was coming.
For this reason, the learner needs to gain experience listening to (and seeing) how Finns actually speak; they need to be able to practice both the written and spoken pronunciations. If I were to learn Finnish again, I’d learn both versions side-by-side so my language would be usable from the start.
Q: Why should colloquial language be included early on?
A: If I go to buy something, the seller might say “Kaks kyt yks” (21) and I need to understand that s/he means, “Kaksiymmentäyksi.” This example could be part of a beginner-level dialogue.
I vote for leaving the pronouns spelled out in their written forms (minä, minun, minulle, etc.) within written-form context, and for leaving pronouns spelled out in their spoken forms (mä, mun, musta, mulle, etc.) within spoken-form contexts. Please do not mix these two. A learner needs to know that minä is the standard rather than mä, mie, etc., even though all are correct.
Lastly, it is easier to provide feedback based on real material, so if you want me to beta test something, please let me know.