Major: French philology, bonjour!
Minor: Estonian language and culture, English philology and pedagogical studies.
Study Year: This is my 4th year at the university of Helsinki.
Hobbies: Yoga, cycling, writing, reading and I usually ponder the deeper existential questions in the candle light while enjoying a cup of vanilla tea. Oh, and I also collect Magic the Gathering cards.
Hometown: Espoo, just moved there!
Relationship status: I have a teddy-bear fiancé who shares my passion for Star Trek.
You’re majoring in French Philology, where does your love for all things French come from?
I suppose it comes from the fact that deep down in my heart I am a true aesthete. I remember having my first ”true contact”, pardon my French, with the French language in middle school and the three words I would use to describe it are: stunning, beautiful and musical. The funny thing is that I used to find French to be quite difficult back in the day, but the more I studied, the more I fell in love with the language and the culture that comes with it – you language lovers know what I’m talking about! Also, nearly all my friends and loved ones are aware of my passion towards French music and poetry, especially my passion towards the great French vocalist and writer, « Femme, maîtresse et mère » Mylène Farmer, who was and still is a signficant source of inspiration for me.
Tell us about your recent trip to Paris!
My fiancé’s family and I decided to spend the New Year in Paris to celebrate both my father-in-law’s 60th birthday and my fiancé’s recent graduation. In addition to studying French, I had also spent an exchange year in France when I was a bit younger so I was pretty familiar with the culture and mannerisms. I remember my fiancé turning to me with a serious face at the airport in Helsinki and saying: “Honey, remember that I am not going to say a single word to the locals, you’ll do the talking and whatnot there.” And that suited me just fine.
On New Year’s Day my fiancé and I took a long walk around the city and we ended up in the Notre Dame square, which was typically loaded by tourists. We sat down on a bench and started talking about the first day we met and it felt magical thinking about the journey we had together; at that exact moment I didn’t want to be with anyone else be anywhere else. And we got engaged at that exact spot surrounded by hundreds of tourists and gargoyles, which I believe were all smiling towards us. It was perfect.
Languages have always been near and dear to my heart, even though I haven’t always realized it. I’ve always joked with my friends that languages are sometimes as serious as meaningful relationships: there are the bad days when you feel so inarticulate that even saying something as simple as “My name is…” sounds like you’re insulting someone; but there are also the good days – more often than the bad ones – when you notice that you can actually express your innermost feelings and ideas in a foreign language and find new sources of inspirations with it. That to me makes it all very worthwhile.
You’re going to become a French teacher, how important is foreign language learning/teaching in Finnish schools? Are the children you’ve taught excited about French?
It’s clear to me that a rather small country like Finland needs extra assests to make its quiet, but unique, voice heard in today’s globalised world, and I believe that learning and teaching foreign languages is very beneficial, espeically now. I personally believe that the Finnish foreign language teaching is far too narrow to begin with and since the government is cutting more and more funding to education (especially to optional languages), the situation probably isn’t going to change very much at all in the near future. I find it to be true how learning new languages can introduce completely new ways of thinking and experiencing the world, so having the opportunity to learn a range of foreign languages is also an investment to personal growth.
From my teaching experience, both children and adults are usually excited to learn French, but like all people, they are too afraid to make mistakes, so I need to keep repeating and emphasising that it’s absolutely normal and human. Even I sometimes make mistakes after all these years of studying, and it really isn’t the end of the world if you conjugate a verb a bit funny [Editor: French grammar can be so tricky!]. By the end of the day, if you can laugh at your mistakes and still learn from them, you’re on the right path to learning a new language. And that also applies to our everyday life.
Finally, what are your plans for the summer?
I think this summer I am completely ready to throw any detailed plans in the garbage and live one day at a time. My fiancé and I had just moved to our new home, which is actually rather close to the sea and I’m already imagining spending most of the summer days by the seaside, drinking lots of iced tea and enjoying the beauty of Finnish summer. Maybe I could squeeze in a little bit of studying as well: a course on Estonian literature and on its kindred languages, which are both compulsory for us studying Estonian.