Hei kaikki,
I’m an international student who will be staying in Finland for the next four years. After taking a beginner Finnish class, I realized I wouldn’t have enough time or mental energy to learn the language while also working on my dissertation. But I would still love to learn, at least enough to understand when people speak Finnish to me on the street or in stores.
From my experience learning other languages, I know I learn best in a relaxed way, for example by watching shows. That’s how I got the idea to watch Pipsa Possu in Finnish on YouTube (e.g. https://youtu.be/mZi5eiiBmds). It’s been very helpful because it has both Finnish and English subtitles shown simultaneously, since my listening comprehension isn’t very good yet. And because it’s a kids’ show, the characters speak quite slowly.
I’m running out of episodes, though. Do you have any recommendations for similar shows? I’d prefer ones that are free, but I don’t mind paying if the price is reasonable for a doctoral student’s budget.
Kiitos!
Edit: The part that is especially helpful is the Finnish and English subtitle shown together, because then I could slowly learn sentence structure, spelling, and while also listening to how the Finnish is pronounced. But thank you for all the lovely suggestions, I will check them out once I have a better handle on the language!