s0:05 so I'm going to do a little bit

0:08it going to ask

0:09since and all you have to do is answer
0:12are you ready okay first question there is
0:18can you learn the answer yes or no on your head
0:22and the second question can you learn the hardest language in the world did
0:30you see what happened there
0:32maybe you weren't too sure with that second one wasn't as easy as the first
0:35did you say no did you say maybe
0:39did you say probably i don't know because if you did then you just
0:44experience with the majority of foreigners feel when they come to
0:47Finland excited ready to learn Finnish and then everyone tells them it's really
0:53hard language and the the grammar is impossible
0:57it will take you years and so what I want to do today is I want to
1:03deconstruct this question a little bit and then I want to talk about three
1:07things that I think influence how we answer this question because I don't
1:12really think the answer has anything to do with your ability and at the same
1:19time I want to reassure the fins in the room that this is also a discussion for
1:22you
1:23so I'm going to go through a bit of a language coaching exercise there's going
1:28to be a lot of questions for the things you can pretend it's another language
if
1:31you want or you can just try to empathize and see what it's like for for
1:35us at the same time i'm going to use some examples from gymnastics coaching
1:41because that's also something i do and it puts learning in a bit more of a
1:44visual context
1:46so the first part of the question is why learn because sometimes we get so
1:53wrapped up in the subject that we're learning that we forget all about the
1:57process but luckily her our speakers haven't forgotten about that today so
2:01we've talked a lot about that i wanted to show the process by asking people on
2:06facebook
2:07what words do you associate with learning and this is what they told me
2:12so the process in itself
2:14can be really really in reach enriching as well of understanding commitment
2:19dedication motivation knowledge
2:21curiosity so then why learn the hardest language in the world
2:27why not do something else with our time the fair question but the short answer
2:33is because it will transform you
2:37you might feel like you're stuck in one personality one language one way of
2:43seeing the world but once you experience life and the world your world from a
2:50completely different side of yourself you'll see a side of yourself
2:54that's not bound by social obligations or the well-rehearsed habits that you
3:00have in daily life
3:02you'll see more of who you really really are and language is just as universal
3:07concept is learning and just as unavoidable as breathing sleeping eating
3:15as humans we all have a deep desire to be understood and to understand one
3:21another
3:22so let's move on to these three these three factors that i told you about
3:30first of which is perspective and I guess my phone changed from the previous
3:35slide
3:36got to adapt so what if i told you that your your strengths don't impact what
3:43you can or can't do
3:44they only focus how you're going to do it so that you keep on doing what you
3:49like to do and then you keep on learning whether for you that means
experimenting
3:55with a new recipe doing science experiments in your garage or playing
4:00the violin
4:01how do you love to learn because i'm willing to guess that whether you
4:08realize it or not you use progressions in your learning and progressions can be
4:12thought of as the trees that make up this forest
4:17it's basic
4:18when you take one process and you break it down into little pieces and then you
4:23practice those little pieces on their own and then you put them back together
4:26and you've learned something no
4:28so let's take a visual example it's gonna get a little wild so bear with me
4:32from my gymnastics background so the cartwheel
4:37I've been told to rearrange my shirt yes you hear me ok so the cartwheel is a
4:42really really cool scale because we use one word cartwheel just say arms up by
4:48your ears
4:49keep your back in Legs relatively straight as you lower your hands onto
4:52the ground lift up your back leg push off this other leg split your legs and
4:56then square your hips dont forget to point your toes and I skipped a couple
4:59steps so don't forget don't I mean don't worry if that didn't make any sense to
5:03you
5:04it wasn't supposed to it just goes to show that there's really no such thing
5:07as being talented at doing a cartwheel
5:10because what people who are doing cartwheels are actually doing are a
5:14series of progressions all synchronized to look like one thing and when we
asked
5:21okay so what's the first progression here and you might be actually be
5:25interested to know
5:25fun fact about cartwheels so the first step is just shifting your weight from
5:31your feet to your hands and back onto your feet again
5:34so it has nothing to do with throwing your legs over your head and actually
5:39you don't even have to do it in a straight line that comes much later
5:41actually
5:42so what I'm going to do is I'm going to do that car wheel again but i want you
5:49to see the trees that make up the forest
5:52so if the cartwheel is the forest and the shifting of the weight is the trees
5:55that's the progression so look for it as I shift my weight from my feet to my
6:00hand to my feet again so i hope you never see the cartwheel the same way
6:07again and just realize that these principles also apply to language
6:10learning
6:11yes we have cartwheel and then we have language learning that's a really big
6:14concept but at the same time the bigger the concept
6:18the more flexibility you have in terms of how you break that down
6:22how you choose your progressions based on how you love to learn
6:25there's a lot of talk in language learning
6:29I motivation is the key to doing anything and that's been mentioned
6:33tonight as well but motivation doesn't happen in a vacuum and I actually think
6:39that the true source of your motivation is your belief about whether or not you
6:44can actually do that thing
6:46so loop sorry do you believe you can learn
6:49do you believe you can learn Finnish or the hardest language in the world
6:53because whether you think you can or can't either way you're right and that's
6:59what Henry Ford said and when I think he was talking about is that if we don't
7:04control our beliefs or find a way to control them then they're going to
7:08control us so we need to bring awareness we need to break down this question
7:12further because I warned you there would be lots of question and figure out
what
7:17is it that we really believe and how can we influence those beliefs
7:21so let's go do past experiences
7:25show me that I can so as a gymnastics coach if my girls don't believe that
7:30they can cartwheel
7:32they're not even going to try it happens every week so it's up to me to cook up
7:35experiences to show to them that they can and most of the time it works out
7:42really well with progressions because they don't even realize that they're
7:45learning cartwheels they just think they're jumping over blocks are doing
7:50somewhere kind of break dancing thing in a circle which is what that cartwheel
7:53looks like that i was talking about earlier
7:54so um how do I feel when I try because even if I'm super super motivated i have
8:02all the reason in the world to learn Finnish if I get stuck in that
8:06uncomfortable feeling the beginning steps of learning where everything feels
8:09really hard and you just realize how clumsy and bad you are you might give up
8:13right been in there and when it comes to this specific task in Finland learning
8:18Finnish everyone speaks English anyway right
8:21so I know this because i also started out in 2010 learning Finnish right here
8:28well not right here right right here in some pathetic and
8:32you know I realized that the words that are coming out of my mouth
8:35we're not what other people were saying they sounded clumsy and I got this
8:39really weird habit of speaking with a really high-pitched voice and everyone
8:43would ask me why I would speak that way when i was speaking finished so I get
8:46really embarrassed and then i would start whispering or mumbling and then
8:51people couldn't even hear what I was saying
8:53and as embarrassing as these experiences were in the beginning and it took me a
8:57while to overcome that
8:59um it pales in comparison to how I would feel when I would go to a party
9:04hang out with some friends and say okay look I'm having this normal life in
9:07Finland things are coming together and all of a sudden the language would
9:11switch from English to finish and I had no idea what was going on
9:15so studies have actually shown that if we feel socially rejected or socially
9:21isolated the same areas are active in our brains as when we feel physical pain
9:27think about that for a second because for me that was a huge light bulb moment
9:33and I realized that the reason that I kept trying to learn Finnish was because
9:38the alternative was so much worse than that short-term discomfort
9:43it just kept pushing me even when I didn't know if I actually could
9:47or how I would be doing that a lot of those things you have to figure out as
9:50we go now are others doing it successfully
9:54this is a great question because ultimately we want to know if that thing
9:57we set out to do is possible at all right
10:00and then once we start seeing that people are indeed doing it
10:03you probably heard myths about foreigners are not myths but like tables
10:07of foreigners learning Finnish right then we want to know if it's possible
10:10for us
10:11so you want to watch out for that little voice in your head that goes oh it's
10:15easy for her
10:16easy for her to do cartwheels because she was probably born in romania and
10:20she's really short and flexible born flexible I don't know
10:25so it's okay to have those sides because we all have them I do and I'm really
10:30I'm sure that most of you do to all of you but the problem is when we start
10:34believing them because remember that your strength determine how we are going
10:38to do something not whether or not you could do it and you'd actually be right
10:43about two out of three of those things and none of them had anything to do
with
10:46why I can cartwheel for the record
10:48so are others encouraging me to do it and this is where we start to see with
10:53this question and the previous one as well about people doing it successfully
10:56that the beliefs are not only individual
11:00we also have collective beliefs and it's good to ask how much of these
11:06conversations happening around the finnish language and it being really
11:09difficult
11:10how much of them are based on the objective reality that for you
11:14learning this will be really hard and how much of them are just a
11:18self-fulfilling prophecy from being told from the very beginning
11:22this is going to be so hard because remember your own hesitations with that
11:26second question right
11:27can you learn the hardest language in the world so as much as I like to
11:33compare cartwheels and learning Finnish i have to say that there is no
11:39environment right now or we have to kind of question and look at the
environment
11:43for learning Finnish because there is no gym where we can put up some building
11:48blocks and just learn Finnish in the same way that we do with gymnastics and
11:54yes there are language courses and they will give you basic knowledge that you
11:58definitely definitely need but to get to the kind of ease and comfort that we
can
12:03only dream of having and finish one day that requires more than individual
12:07effort that requires community and basically a life in Finland at least
12:13partially and finish
12:15so then we get this kind of catch-22 problem
12:19so how do i get a life and finish if I don't speak Finnish
12:23and how am I going to learn Finnish if I don't have a place to speak it
12:27that's a question in the name and that's actually why I'm here today because I
12:32believe that there will be as many solutions to this problem or two answers
12:36to this question as there are people in this room and I think that we need to
12:41start talking and sharing our ideas about how to do these things and then
12:45solutions will come
12:46so today I invite you to start a conversation with your friends with your
12:53family
12:54between foreigners and fins together and with yourself because we need to
answer
13:03we need to address our beliefs as well
13:05collectively and individually and each and every one of us as we've said many
13:09times tonight needs to figure out how is it that we learn and also what is it
13:15that we love to do because when we start doing those things for ourselves and
13:20then we start doing those things together
13:22that's how we're going to figure out how to do these things and finish as well
13:26so Tim donor said that language is about conversing with people and looking
13:34beyond cultural boundaries defining a shared humanity
13:37so why don't we start with that shared humanity because in my experience the
13:42people who moved to Finland are a lot more finished than you may think I see
13:47some nodding over there
13:49we all went through the same whether the same darkness but the only thing
missing
13:54are the words to share in an identity and to connect over an identity in the
14:01same way the fins do an identity built around language but don't get me wrong
14:07this is not a question of immersion or integration problems
14:12this is more of an identity crisis that affects us all
14:15each and every one of us so the good news is i think it can be solved and the
14:22way that it can be solved is by finished people sharing
14:25share with us your unique point of view share with us your language because
the
14:30English language
14:32I cannot properly articulate the finish way of thinking but that way of
thinking
14:38is so beautifully crystallized in the finnish language
14:41I can't even tell you because I didn't understand it myself until I
experienced
14:46it as a Finnish speaker so just imagine what this country would look like if
14:52everyone who chose to come here
14:54I felt at home here and if we didn't have to feel like we proved we have to
14:59prove that we belong
15:01every time we open our mouths to speak so this is where opportunity life in a
15:06small country celebrated for having the most innovative education system in
the
15:10world
15:11what if we put as much focus on finish as we did on engineering this reality
of
15:19a language that we share and an identity that we share is well within our
grasp
15:25all we need to do is collectively reach for it and get past this question of
can
15:32can what can I learn Finnish you know
15:34and together start designing the environments where people teach each
15:38other where people share and do what they love to do and learning just
15:41happens as a result
15:43so I'm going to ask you one more time can you learn the hardest language in
15:49the world and what are you going to do about it
15:52thank you