Kavita Pillay recently moved to Helsinki with her Finnish husband and half-Finnish daughter. While husband and daughter effortlessly embraced their new linguistic surroundings, Kavita…didn’t. In this episode, she seeks guidance from other immigrants with varying degrees of Finnish mastery. Among them, an opera singer who finds melody in verb conjugations, and an Iraqi-born linguistics major whose fluent Finnish is sometimes questioned by locals.
Photo by Sauli Pillay. Music by Greatfool; Farrell Wooten; Jharee; Aoroa; Vanity Street; Raymond Grouse; Matt Large; At The End of Times, Nothing; Dye O. Read a transcript of this episode here.
My husband’s grandparents (father’s side) came from Finland but he never learned a word. He said he would occasionally catch his father speaking Finnish to his uncle on the phone but it wasn’t passed along. Too bad, really. A very interesting language. Sounds like learning it is a real adventure.