When Amber Rikkonen decided to stay in Finland for good, she knew that learning the Finnish language would be the key to truly feeling at home. The difficult language did not deter her, and she found the WordDive app to support her learning process. Amber has efficiently combined various methods of studying to learn the language and get to know Finnish people and the Finnish society better.
For Amber Rikkonen, who lives in Finland, learning the Finnish language is not just about developing a skill. It is the key to a deeper connection with Finnish people.
“I want to be able to speak to people in their own language. In the Helsinki region it’s really easy to get along in English. But when you come across an older person or travel up north, English isn’t something that everyone uses,” she says.
She moved to Finland 11 years ago to take up a teaching position at the International School of Helsinki, but the Finnish culture and people were what convinced her to stay.
“I thought that if I’m going to be living here, I might as well learn the language,” says Amber.
Language is the key to integration and relationships
Amber began studying Finnish 10 years ago through methods such as courses provided by the University of Helsinki. Having previously studied both Spanish and Mandarin Chinese, she was surprised to find that learning Finnish presented her with new kinds of challenges.
“I’ve got to say the grammar here is like Godzilla grammar,” she laughs and compares the Finnish language to a jigsaw puzzle:
“Once you understand how the words fit together, then it is just a puzzle to be figured out. You really gotta figure out what you want to say before you say it, because you have to inflect all the words in the correct way to be understood.”
Before moving to Finland, Amber worked as a mathematics teacher in Kuwait and the United States. Currently, she teaches at the Espoo International School, where the working language is English. Learning Finnish requires active effort on her part to gain enough practice in her everyday life.
“I’d like to learn more about the puhekieli (spoken language). And I wanna be able to speak to Finns in their own language and develop those friendships a bit more.”
Knowing Finnish helps in everyday life
Amber says she often encounters situations in her daily life where she wishes she was better at Finnish. As one example, she describes a situation where a maintenance technician could not communicate in English, so they had to communicate through Google Translate about the maintenance work related to her apartment.
Although learning the language has at times felt challenging, small moments of success have helped her notice how she is already experiencing the benefits of what she has learned in her daily life.
One memorable moment was when Amber was at a grocery store, and she was able to ask another customer for advice on choosing the right type of flour. Although the conversation required a bit of help from Google Translate, she was proud of herself for making herself understood in Finnish.
“Learning Finnish has really helped with social skills here. You can talk to strangers as long as you speak a little bit more in Finnish than you do in English,” Amber says.
Finnish studies supported by the WordDive app
WordDive is a Finnish language learning app that offers courses for learners at different levels in Finnish and 9 other languages. Studying with the app is based on a learning algorithm that customises the repetition of the learning material for each user, making the process efficient and meaningful.
Amber found WordDive while looking for a language learning app to support her studies on a Finnish language course. WordDive won Amber over with its clear structure and gradually increasing difficulty.
“I was fascinated that this app could help me out with learning this language.”
Amber feels that WordDive has significantly helped her in areas such as expanding her vocabulary.
“The app is with you for your entire language journey. I like how much content there is. It’s not the surface level only, it really goes into quite a bit from beginner’s Finnish to the advanced level.”
Currently, she combines her WordDive studies with daily exposure to the language by listening to Finnish music, reading in Finnish and watching the news in Finnish. Amber has even learned to sing the song “Sama nainen” by Finnish pop artist Chisu in karaoke, an accomplishment she is particularly proud of.
Persistence pays off when learning Finnish
Amber plans to continue studying Finnish with WordDive, as she plans to take a language proficiency test this year in the hope of working towards Finnish citizenship. The tests for the National Certificate of Language Proficiency (YKI) are used to demonstrate the level of language proficiency required for citizenship.
“I don’t feel that I’m confident enough to be able to really express myself in Finnish. I can read, I can write and I can listen. But speaking is just not there.”
Amber’s advice for others learning Finnish is to stay persistent. “Just keep at it,” she says. Learning Finnish may feel challenging at first, but Amber wants to remind others that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and that the language can be learned.
“You will get better at this language with practice, and WordDive is one of the better ways for you to practise the language individually.”
