[Finnish/French] - First meeting in a café

Our group is composed of three people: 2 Finnish, Getuar and Nina, – 1 French, me. I learn Finnish and teach them French. We decided to teach some language backgrounds but we are also really interested in culture.

Our first meet was in a lovely café to be more comfortable. As I am learning basics of Finnish and Nina knows already some basics words in French, our first meeting was focused on Getuar to teach him some basics sentences in French like saying hello, thanks, how are you, bye, my name is … During this meeting we spoke a lot to know each other and we have already noticed lots of differences between our two culture about education and way of living.

This is our first teaching. We translate it in English to understand better:

ENGLISH	FRENCH	FINNISH
Hello/ Good morning	Bonjour	Moi! Hei!/ Hyvää huomenta
Good evening	Bonsoir	Hyvää iltaa
Good night	Bonne soirée/Bonne nuit	Hyvää yötä
Goodbye	Au revoir	Näkemiin
Bye	Au revoir/Salut	Moi Moi/ Hei Hei
See you later	A plus (tard)	Nähdään myöhemmin
See you tomorrow	A demain	Nähdään huomenna
How are you?	Comment ça va?	Mitä kuuluu?
Fine and you?	Bien et toi?	Kiitos hyvää. Entä sinulle?
Thank you (a lot)	Merci (beaucoup)	Kiitos
Your welcome	De rien	Ole hyvä
Sorry	Désolé/Pardon	Anteeksi/ Sori
It’s ok/Never mind	Ça ne fait rien/Ne t’inquiète pas	Ei se mitään
Nice to meet you	Ravi(e) de te rencontrer/Enchanté	Hauska tavata!
Me too/ The same	Moi aussi/De même/Pareil	Kiitos samoin
Welcome!	Bienvenue!	Tervetuloa
Yes	Oui	Kyllä/ Joo/ Juu
No	Non	Ei
What is your name?	Comment t’appelles-tu?	Kuka sina olet?/ Mikä sinun nimi on ?
My name is	Je m’appelle	Olen/ Minun nimi on

I knew that French was difficult but during this first meeting I noticed that teaching French is really a difficult task. Our language is very complicated. We don’t pronounce all the letters of a word and lots of sounds are the same but can be written differently. Moreover, Finnish and French language don’t pronounce letters in the same way. For instance, in France the letters “Y” and “I” have the same sound but in Finland their “Y” is pronounced as an “U” for French people. On top of that, contrary to France there is no gender in Finland so it was a bit complicated to explain that things have a feminine and a masculine and that it depends only on the word, there is no rule. Therefore I teach them some word which show that is a feminine or masculine word:

Feminine word article : une, la, l’

Masculine word article : un, le, l’

Next time our meeting will be more focus on culture. I will cook a typical French meal: Crepes because it will be “Chandeleur Day” in France.