“I’d heard Finnish before, and thought it sounded nice”

Sunday 9 April is the Day of The Finnish Language. Not every language is blessed with its own day, but with words like Rautatieasema, Joulupukki or elokuva, which make foreigners scratch their heads, that special status is more than deserved. Joep Dominicus traded his dorm room in Leuven for an internship in Finland.

Before heading to more northern regions, Dominicus went to CLOT in Leuven every Tuesday, one of the few places in our country where’s it’s possible to study Finnish. “My goal was to have some basic knowledge of Finnish before I went to Finland”, Dominicus says.

“I would go do an internship after all for my teacher training. Here in Belgium I was studying to become a teacher in History and English. In our training we get the opportunity to do an internship abroad. When I saw Finland was a possible destination, I applied as candidate immediately. I had never been there before, but it spoke to me, one reason being the good reputation of the Finnish education system. I was definitely not familiar with the language. I’d heard Finnish before, and thought it sounded nice, but I didn’t really understand much.

make do a bit

With a couple months of CLT Dominicus tried to change that. “Those were definitely fun classes, but Finnish definitely didn’t seem easy. Last academy year I followed class for one trimester, before heading to Finland. There I would teach English in an elementary school, as they learn it at a very young age already. I didn’t have to speak a lot of Finnish in class, but it helped that I could make do a bit.” Even though it was mostly exactly that: make do. “When Finnish was being spoken, I just understood the words that I knew. Deriving something from the context, like you can do with French for example, isn’t possible. The language sounds so different from what you’re used to, that you have no idea what’s being talked about.”

Despite this Dominicus didn’t regret his choice for Finnish and Finland. “Right before I arrived, it was -30, but eventually I didn’t experience those kind of temperatures. I did see a lot of snow, which was quite nice. Also the fact that, even in the city where I lived, there was always a lot of nature nearby, was very appealing. Currently there are now plans in that direction, I’m in my dorm room in Leuven again, but should the opportunity ever arise to go live and work in Finland, I would do it, I think. And thus trying to master the language once more.”