NORMAL LIFE: You Know You’ve Learnt Something When…

… you are on the tram and you are finally able to translate a sentence (well, in this case, a two-word statement) after five and a half years! Not only are you able to translate it, you able to rationalise how it was translated.

In the case of the above photo, Lippuja kuljettajalta, means 'tickets from the driver'. While the translation has always been helpfully provided in Swedish, English and German, my confusion stemmed from the fact that, until now, words that ended in -ja were, so I thought, related to occupations (e.g. ajaja = driver, siivoaja = cleaner, valvoja = supervisor, johtaja = director).

In this current Finnish course (level 3 of 6), however, I have learnt that words ending in -ja can also be plurals. For example, lippuja means tickets, karhuja means bears, while kirkkoja means churches and tyttöja means girls. Note for diary: -ja = occupations and plurals.

This was the least of it. In this course, we have also learnt many different plural systems, konditionaali, imperitiivi, intransiiverbi and passiivi. One thing is for sure: by learning another language, you learnt alot about your own language.