“How dare you?!” might be the question you are going to ask me. But no worries – I will tell you how to relax and rejoice in your holidays and at the same time not to totally waste your time during the summer and keep studying in a non-intrusive and fun way. It will definitely help you start your new study year in a smoother and easier manner. 🙂
Why not learn Finnish?
In the summer, you might happen to have some more free time than usual, which allows you not only to waste it and indulge yourself but also to keep your brain working actively. Although we all are from different faculties and have different major subjects, we still have something in common – guess what? The Finnish language, of course!
That is, the language of the country where you are probably already studying or going to do that in the near future (believe me – the remaining 2 months before the autumn semester 2021 will just fly by). Well, if your Finnish language proficiency level, like mine, is not advanced yet, it might be a good idea to devote some time to learning a little bit of Finnish during the summer period (blasphemous as it may sound :-).
What I mean is that you can allocate a couple of hours a week and read a kids’ book in Finnish like I do. Although I have been struggling with Finnish for a couple of years already, I have to admit that my Finnish proficiency level is far from desired. This summer, my inner “Pikku Myy”[1] is always watching me diligently to make sure I don’t overdose relaxation and do at least a tiny bit of language practice on a regular basis. Can you imagine, besides reading about Moomins’ adventures, I sometimes even do grammar tasks in “Suomen Mestari”[2] under her strict control! And it does feel good, knowing that you do it for your own fun and not for an exam.
You can spend quality time sitting on the beach enjoying the sun or lying in a hammock in your cozy garden or on a balcony, reading some exciting light children’s story in Finnish. It might help you look at the language from a totally new perspective, since you will leisurely pick up language skills without having to think about any assignments or tests. Your brain will just say “thank you” (or “kiitos”, for that matter) and will really appreciate your “efforts” if you keep “feeding” it with the language regularly.
Or English?
Alongside Finnish, you might also want to improve your English language proficiency level in an unconventional manner. Did you know that a new episode of the iconic sitcom series «Friends» was released in May, 2021? You sure do. Many of us had been waiting for the release for quite a while.
So if you didn’t have enough time to watch «Friends: Reunion» straightaway during the semester, being overloaded with your studies back then, in summer season you have a great opportunity to treat yourself to the show and watch it in the original language with or without subtitles (I would recommend the latter option 🙂 ).
“Friends” is certainly not the only series which we can watch with pleasure. Now, when the summer is here, we can finally binge-watch all the shows and movies we could only dream of during the hectic study year and couldn’t afford watching due to the lack of free time.
On summer holiday, you can throw outdoor parties (yeah, I wouldn’t recommend any indoor parties because the Covid thing is still here) with your friends, watch movies (why not in English?), and discuss them afterwards – take some fresh drinks, snacks and pizza and enjoy your time! Breathing fresh air, having your buddies around, and practicing English – what else could one want?
All that said, I would like to wish you a nice, warm and productive summer. We all need and deserve quality holidays to refill our batteries and to regain our powers before the coming study year. Let your language studies be a pleasure, not a burden! To conclude, the more you master foreign languages, the more books and articles devoted to your research interests you will be able to read and the broader perspective on your thesis subject matter you will gain. The benefits are obvious, aren’t they? 🙂
– Valeriia
[1] Pikku Myy (eng. Little My) – a tiny friend of Tove Jansson’s Moomin troll family, brave and keen on adventures. The favorite character of the blog author.
[2] Suomen Mestari – one of the most popular Finnish language course books for foreigners. It IS good.
