András Szabó is a Hungarian doctoral student at the university of Vaasa. He writes songs and, occasionally, newspaper articles.

Much like everyone in Hungary, I was told in elementary school that my mother tongue and Finnish were related. This bit of knowledge did not prove especially useful until much later, when, on my university student exchange in England, I finally met some Finns. Curious about what being language siblings meant in practice, I asked my new friends to say something in Finnish, wondering how much I would understand.

After some quick exchange of looks, a sentence was uttered, and I was awestruck. I couldn't even tell where one word ended and where the next one began, let alone understand the tiniest bit of it, but it sounded like the most beautiful language I had ever heard. It was the textbook definition of euphony!

When my new friends, smiling, showed me a pack of cigarettes, and informed me that I just heard “smoking seriously damages your health and that of those around you” in Finnish, my enthusiasm just grew further. How did a sentence like that actually manage to sound pleasant?!

That night, I learnt my first Finnish word too. It happened to be teinimutanttininjakilpikonnat, which means “teenage mutant ninja turtles” – this shows how committed I became towards Finnish. A pack of cigarettes got me hooked on a language.

But maybe it was a sign that this was already going to be a rocky relationship. It took me two years to finally get to Finland, full of plans for how I will master the language in no time; but now that I've been here for a while, I wonder if I ever will get even to a decent enough level. If it is supposed to be easier for me because of the language connection, what must others be going through?

Don't get me wrong, I still love Finnish. What I love a lot less is the seemingly ubiquitous obsession with grammar. As if rule number one, two, and three of the Finnish teacher's club were “grammar is all you need!” Granted, no one can get very far without getting to know the basics – among others, that great mystery of universe that is known as partitive case – but how about giving conversations and speaking exercises slightly more space?

After trying numerous courses, I was lucky to find a great private teacher, and we quickly realised that playing alias – explaining words using other words – was one of the best ways to practise talking. It was way more efficient than anything I did in the classroom.

But the private lessons had to end, and when I saw the ad of yet another conversation course, I couldn't resist enrolling. The name stated it plain and simple: Puhutaan suomea! (Let's speak Finnish!). I was hoping this was going to be something different – until, about ten minutes into the first class, we were given the first batch of photocopied grammar exercises. My heart sunk. My grammar skills got one step closer to perfection.

But really, I'd only like to learn to speak a bit...