By Ronan Browne
Copyright yle
Personally, I feel like you lose a lot of depth and detail in communication with people if you only speak English.
The language on the courses is very different from how people actually speak, so what is the point of studying it?
Even with my B1-B2 Finnish, I still struggle to find decent work. And you know what the real kicker is? They see my foreign name on the CV and assume I cannot speak Finnish anyway.
This is just a small sample of the feedback we received from APN listeners when we asked “should you learn Finnish” while preparing for this episode.
The many responses revealed a wide range of opinions, experiences and emotions — demonstrating that this is a very pertinent and personal question for Finland’s immigrant population.
Trials and tribulations
In our search for answers, we visit a Finnish language and integration class at Tampere’s Adult Education Centre TAKK, where we ask about the students’ reasons for studying Finnish.
“I would like to open a restaurant with my husband. And if I want to do it, I need to speak Finnish as fluently as I can. So I hope this course, this class will help me with that,” one student tells us.
We also hear about the struggles people face, despite their enthusiasm to learn.
“I think the general feeling from a lot of us is why or how are we going to invest in a language that takes so much, so much out of you when you don’t even know if you will be living in the country in the near future,” Mariana asks.
“I wish I could learn Finnish. My children speak Finnish, but for some reason, it just hasn’t happened for me,” Daniel says. “It is literally one of the reasons why I think I should move the family back to the United States, but I also know that it’s much better here, so I have to struggle.”
Building for the future
These thoughts of leaving Finland because of the challenges posed by the language are shared by many others, as evident from the results of a recent survey by two tech sector bodies.
Respondents said their Finnish language skills — or the perception of them among employers — was the main reason they find it difficult to get work, while it was also the number one factor affecting Finland’s attractiveness as a place to live.
“We need people to feel that Finland is a country that they are happy and settled in and then expect language to come from that, and not the other way round,” Owain Hopeketo of Academic Engineers and Architects in Finland (TEK) tells the show.
Yle’s education unit meanwhile has updated its online offering for Finnish language learners, and the new content includes a video series called Töissä Suomessa (Working in Finland) with has a specific emphasis on language learning for the workplace.
“Our task is to give people the skills and knowledge they need to operate in this world we live in at the moment,” Eve Mantu of Yle’s education unit says.
“We wanted to find and create new videos because people like audio visual products, short videos, and we wanted to do something that’s very 2025.”
We also round up the rest of the week’s news from Finland, and we have our regular tip for what to stream on Yle Areena.
Listen to the episode via this embedded player, on Yle Areena, via Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
Join the conversation!
Ronan Browne produced and presented this episode of All Points North and the sound engineer was Matias Puumala.
If you have any questions or want to share your thoughts, contact us via WhatsApp at +358 44 421 0909 or at yle.news@yle.fi and allpointsnorth@yle.fi.
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