A chance encounter
I recently met an Italian woman who asked me what I do for a living.
“I help people learn Finnish.”
“Oh, so you’re a Finnish teacher?”
“Sort of, not exactly. I teach people the process of learning Finnish.”
She looked at me quizzically, “But why would I need the process? I can go to classes to learn Finnish.”
In an ideal world, you would go to Finnish class and – voila! You’d speak Finnish.
If that were the case, you wouldn’t be reading this and you’d be connected to your inborn ability to learn language. It’s your birthright after all.
How Finnish humbled me
There was once a time when I thought I had a natural talent for language learning. I thought learning Finnish would be easy for me and that I would succeed where others had failed.
Then, after a few years, a lot of effort and tons of frustration, I had a thought:
Maybe I’m not so good at learning languages after all…
It was a humbling moment. The distinct discomfort I felt was of the variety when your identity is threatened. My mind raced with all these implications. The sting of failure prompted me reach for any other thought.
There has to be another explanation, so I paused for higher wisdom to fill me in.
A new beginning
What if something else is going on here?
This, I would later realize, was the beginning of my questioning everything I knew about language learning (and by extension, myself).
The more curious I remained, the more I saw. These insights eventually led me creating the Finnish Through New Eyes program.
Most of us, I realized, hold fixed notions about what learning Finnish requires – and many of these notions are false.
Without an understanding of process, we can waste ages in dead-end Finnish courses and vast amounts of energy doing assignments which possibly lead nowhere.
Our frustration mounts, our progress is non-existent and we might mistakenly conclude that learning Finnish is impossible. (It’s not.)
If you’re open to a better way, I can lead you there
Want to understand the dynamics behind why we struggle with Finnish and start breaking the pattern? Consider joining my online community!
You’ll get free access to a course I created called Demystifying the Finnish Struggle. This course is the first step I recommend towards reconnecting with your inborn ability to learn Finnish.
