Hi. I would hear a lot of times the Pronunciation. Then I would use texts and translate that. And then would build my own glossary. About the palace I dont know how to use it well. I prefere link and others. For this I would select the the 10 or 20% more dificult only to put in palace or other systems. Its more easy. Just ideas
They all dont speak english there? Ive heard they have one of the best education systems in the World.
Yes virtually everyone speaks some English which makes it all the more difficult to learn. As I live here permanently learning the language is a necessity, and my kids will grow up speaking it so its important I can understand them.
I have had some success in learning the language, but my vocabulary is weak. As the language is inflected there are a lot more word combinations than English for example. A word may seem very close to another word but mean something very different. Recognizing a word takes some skill and experience as the words are able to be bent in many different ways. That makes use of mnemonics tricky. Its also why the comprehensible input approach does not work. Chunking also not that effective, as often changing one word means all words must change.
A more grammatically oriented approach is better, so as to understand the framework of the language and then gradually try to get a feel for the nuances of the inflections. What “sounds” right or not. On the plus side sometimes the language can be very easy and simple, when you get a none inflected sentence for example its as easy as English.
Seems very complex. Maybe you can watch another similar but more easy language to compare. But I think is difficult to find it. There not swedish words in the language? Swedish I understand is similar to German that is difficult too. I dont know. You know far more than me but I can have some ideas. Why dont you put some words in another language? Like have a composition in english and you could replace one on one by swedish words. Its not a grammar aproach but you could learn to use it. Grammar of a language is the worst. Not even native People knows well. And using speech in my opinion is easiest. For example my english is not good but trying to write this brings to me words and rules forgotten.
I only nos kitos because tarja said 
. Besides the other you could make a palace or something of 1000 words. Its not much but its a lot if are dificult words. And then try to use it in sentences. And make it funny. I like to do that.
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Just brainstorming how I would try to solve this… (My only knowledge of Finnish is only what I could find on Wiktionary and this seems hard to solve so take it with a grain of salt)
This feels right to me. I would try to memorize the roots of words.
If we take hätkähdyttävä.
Is the present participle of hätkähdyttää.
With the causative suffix yttää.
So it only leaves the verb hätkähtää (startle).
Syllabification is hät‧käh‧tää.
This means three hooks, that I need to keep in the right order so everything is clear. (Or otherwise said, you know what you have to start with, it’s these three syllables. So hook your mnemonic on precisely that. You can be as creative as you want in what you put on it, but the hooks can’t be vague.)
Hat K Tee (=tea for me, first thing that came to mind)
There is a hat on the ground, I take it up, under it is a Kellogg’s box, which suddenly sprouts hot tea at me startling me (which is the meaning of the word).
If you’re using a memory palace, the hat will be placed at one locus (maybe it’s on your office chair and you have to pick it up to begin working, it’s what you do in an office chair> internal logic! It’s what works best), helping start the chain of hooks.
If you have PRE-fixes. I would still concentrate on the root, meaning hopefully you’ll be able to recognize them as a prefix and concentrate on the root to “decode”.
I suppose it is a bit of work to “dissect” words like this, but if it allows you to understand how the language works, it’s worth it. To maximise the results you get with it, you can learn at the same time several words using the same root. Or maybe it would confuse you and it’s best not? Something to experiment with.
Also it would be worth it to invest in a few lessons with an experimented teacher, at least to get started.
- They can evaluate where you are and what they think you’ll need in priority.
- Working on prononciation and understand the phonology of the language is always the first thing to nail down for any new language and it’s much easier with somebody who knows what they’re doing and can pinpoint what your problems are in this area. Also it really really boosts your listening skills, making it easier to find comprehensible input (as a side note, you need to listen to content that is simple, yes, but idiomatic and NOT artificially slowed down… but it’s a pet peeve to discuss another day).
- If you come to them with a precise problem (I want to learn more vocab and I struggle because of X and Y - you have to be precise and not just say “it’s hard”) they should be able to give you some ideas and/or ressources.
- One approach that is effective but intense is to choose words/sentences you think important, make sentences with them (or ask someone else to do it). Ask your teacher to correct them to make sure the sentences / dialogue sound natural (get the audio file from them). Listen to them on a loop, learn them by heart. Then during the next session with the teacher talk with them about that subject. Then do it with the next subject you deem useful.
The advantage is that you choosing what is really important to you and that you’ll be able to use it. And also having things drilled means you can be fast enough to stop translating and having the language feel more and more natural to you. Which then goes a long way towards decoding more idiomatic language.
Hat K Tee, there is information loss here. Which I find to be the largest difficulty.
Hat K Tee maps to Hät Käh Tää. So when I come back to the word, I will not necessarily be able to infer the Hat K Tee from Hät Käh Tää. If I was, then the chances of remembering the associated mnemonic would of course be a lot higher.
Do you have a way of doing consistent mapping or just on a feel basis?
How I would go about memorizing this word normally? Well I would do a lookup of the word in Wikitionary try to get information about root etc. Look at the word used in a few sentences, do a lookup in Filmot etc. Write it down into an Anki card. Generally the more time spent “on” the word the higher chance of it really sticking. Also I try to pick words from a piece I am studying rather than just a random word list, so I know I will encounter that word again.
So yeah basically I have to “dissect” words, as you said. It takes some time and not like I can blaze through 100 words a day. 10 a day without having a meltdown is more realistic.
Regarding speed (X words a day):
unless you have a strict deadline (an exam) why rush it? Slow and steady wins the race. Better to learn well 10 useful words per day, then 10k words in a month and then be burnt out or simply “annoyed out”. (In fact honestly 10 new words a day seems a lot to me, if you can keep that rhythm up long term)!
There are on this forum threads written by people who have learnt a massive amount of vocabulary very quickly. But you need to be able to devote yourself full time to it for a few months. Which may or may not be realistic depending on the life you have right now. Also these people had a clear goal (I want to read this kind of books, to pass the exam X,…).
I realise that I don’t know what your goal is. In which circumstances do you expect to “meet”/use these words you’re learning? What exactly are you planing to achieve?
What is missing so that you will be able to recognize or reconstruct the final word? In which circumstances do you expect/want to use this word? I may have assumed some things that aren’t correct because I don’t know your goal.
The information lost are some critical letters. How would I not confuse that with other similar words? I am not guaranteed to reconstruct the correct hook. If we think in database terms this describes what I mean Hash function - Wikipedia
" A good hash function satisfies two basic properties: it should be very fast to compute, and it should minimize duplication of output values. Hash functions rely on generating favorable for their effectiveness, reducing access time to nearly constant. High table loading factors, key sets, and poorly designed hash functions can result in access times approaching linear in the number of items in the table."
Essentially with our minds we are doing the same thing, we are creating a hashing function for lookups for keys. But if we cannot do so consistently then how are we guaranteed quick lookups?
I have no problem with only 10 words a day to be honest. But if I can do a 100 then of course thats 10x better. But I would like to see what is possible. I see some people are making some pretty wild claims about learning 1000s of words in short periods of time. Naturally I want a piece of the pie.
Now perhaps it could well be they are not giving full disclosure because they don’t fully realize other critical factors which impact how quickly you can adopt words such as:
-The target language is something they are already very familiar with
-Their native language is related
-Experience in memorization
-Experience in learning languages
-They are actually really learning from SRS and Recall activities
For me, if you are always using a hat for the syllable hät, you are not losing anything.
Of course if you use a hat for hät, hat and haet (don’t know if these syllables exist in Finnish, but you get the idea) then yes you’re going to get confused, seems logical… It’s up to you to choose something else than a hat, or to say that your hat has polka dots on it if you’re forgetting your a is an ä.
If you want every letter transcribed exactly as it is, then you can use acronyms. I personally don’t like it, but it’s a possibility.
I’m not going into a debate about what other people have done, their threads are on the forum and it’s up to you to make up your own opinion. And to build up your own experience.
Hi I dont use the mnemonics son much. I prefer other systems. And I dont understand what youve said about finish. Seems very complex. But there is something I use. Maybe could help. You could write a short explanation if the Word is very difficult. And then remember the explanation with mnemonics.
The first syllable is totally fine.
I am referring to the others. They are missing letters.
After a few days I could come back to that second syllable and have totally forgotten what I am using there as there is no system for recalling how I arrived at K from Käh or Tee from Tää. K…could be anything!
I meant K, as the letter “kei”, the big red K on the Kellogg’s packages. Yes it could be anything, but since it’s the first idea my brain had when I thought “when I say käh what do I think of” I will probably remember it, because the connexion was already there so to speak.
And if I use it again in other words with the same syllable, it will be reinforced (up to a point - if there are many words using that syllable, it may be better to chose variants - for example variations depending of the location of the syllable, to avoid many similar mnemonics/stories).
If you forget the majority of your associations maybe you’re waiting too long for your reviews? How do you schedule them? Even with the best mnemonic tricks regular reviews are still necessary, just less often than without. (In my stressed syllable english vocab memory palace in anki, the learning intervalls are 20min. 1hour for example).
Well the problem here is scale, as I said once I move beyond 100 things start getting forgotten, reviews or no reviews. Especially once I start getting collisions of words that may appear somewhat similar.
Memorizing in smaller batches (for example of 20 a day), does not scale either. As I will remember that 20 very very well and have no problem with review for a couple days, but then on the third or fourth day its mostly gone.
My learning and review interval is set to daily. I use the FSRS algorithm in Anki, with infinite reviews.
What would you suggest setting the review interval to?
Hmm… If you are already using f-srs your scheduled reviews should be fine… (Just keep in mind that if you have several decks, you need a deck preset just for this deck to be able to optimise every few weeks).
You have several options:
- You can persist to try to find the perfect mnemonic system at the risk of losing time but gaining experience with making mnemonics.
- Same for using memory palaces or location based mnemonics, will gain experience but probably use more time.
- You can do quick sloppy mnemonics and just be happy with the small percentage that sticks.
- You can forget all mnemonics and just drill with anki and trust the SRS to do its job.
- there may well be other options I didn’t think about
I’d just go with what my intuition tells me feels best. It’s not like you can’t change your system later again if you’re not satisfied with it.
Learning a language is hard and Finnish seems especially complicated. Maybe, in a while, you will have acquired a better intuition about its grammar and word construction which will allow you to make mnemonics more easily.
Also if you can use in context as many of these words you learn as often as possible, it’s really going to help. I don’t know if ressources in Finnish are hard to find, but simply talking to yourself under the shower, making sentences with the words you’ve learnt today helps a lot. Or find a study buddy who’s the same level as you and make crappy sentences together. Or talk to chatgpt in Finnish (it’s really good if you use the persona pattern and specific instructions).
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As I said before I have no problems with the studying aspect of the language. I have studied for almost 5 years now and am versed in the grammar and so on, my question is not in technical area. I am purely interested in word learning, as quick as possible.
I had hoped there was a more concrete mnemonics system for language acquisition, with repeatable and demonstrable outcomes, but it seems not. So I am a bit disappointed but, that’s ok.
Anyways, thanks for your help and suggestions I think I have a better understanding of whats what at least.
I will stick with using SRS and Anki (and of course the other usual learning activities), and take a light mnemonics approach, that feels the most natural thing to do for now.
If the mnemonic is very quick to make, and it sticks, then thats still better than nothing. I find the best ones seems to be the ones my brain almost makes automatically and even maybe it happens a bit on the subconscious level. Maybe after a while my brain will start generating these ideas with increased frequency - who knows!
Well mnemonics are effective, but a magic bullet they are not. Like everything else in life, it takes work and time practicing to get good at it.
Also they are extremely personal and you pretty much have to build your own systems for it to be effective. Nobody can give full mnemonics for a language that you only have to apply. Maybe you feel that’s why it’s not “concrete”? (I honestly don’t understand why you feel what we discussed isn’t concrete).
Honestly unless you’re learning the language full time I’d expect it to be slow. And to forget and relearn it… It’s a part of learning. Finnish seems difficult and you seems to do plenty of right things, you just may be too harsh on yourself regarding the results. 
edit: Maybe I should have posted this earlier, but since we talked about wishing for mnemonics that are systematic and encode every elements of a word, here I what I did when I began learning Hebrew: Person-action-adjective-object-animal-job - #9 by Hari-P
My summary is: it works, but it takes a long time to set up and it’s slow (so not usable for producing the language like for speaking, if you’re reading and you can take your time, it’s fine). I’m not using it systematically anymore, but only when I encounter words that, for some reason, are hard to remember for me.
Hi. Mnemonics are to memorize. To study are the study techniques. There a lot of systems of memory. Not only the palaces. I think you can combine systems. 40000 Words are a lot of loci.