Viides opitunti ja ajasta / The fifth lesson and about time

As I missed the lesson before the hiihtoloma break I got given 2 tekstin ymmärtäminen papers with answer keys and one fill in the blanks / complete the sentences exercise with answers which the class had had as homework previously. This fill in the blanks asks partitiivi- vai akkusitiiviobjekti? So it is a test of grammar skills (urgh). I will save the pratice papers and the grammar exercises for the time between my lessons ending and the test (2 weeks) wher I’ll be on my own prepping for the test and blogging about it of course!

I also got the answer key for 2 tekstin ymmärtäminen practice papers which we had as homework weeks ago. In these I scored 14/25 or 56% a FAIL and 13.5/20 or 67.5% another FAIL 😦 I do fine on the true/false questions and multiple choice questions – I got 8/8 for one set – but I always fail at the free form answers, usually I just don’t get what they want me to write. This is going to be a hard problem to fix before the test as I think it takes time to improve my reading comprehension, it’s not something, like vocabulary or case endings, which I can memorise or train. I’m open to any advice anyone has how I can try to improve in this area and pass the paper! I’ll be asking the folk at Let’s Learn Finnish Language for their help too.

Right, onto the lesson itself. We started with a pairs exercise, the first time we’ve worked in pairs, which was designed to train us for the ‘2 minute speech’ part of the puhuminen part of the test. We had to tell our pair about the type of house we lived in or the weather and different seasons or rather:

Kerro kodistasi / Kerro mitä ajettelet säästä ja vuodenajoista

We had lots of prompt questions to work through so this was easier than it will be in the test. It also helped to be talking to someone else rather than just onto a tape as we will do in the test. It also helped me that my partner didnät speak English so if either of us needed to explain the meaning of a word to the other we had to do so in Finnish.

After that we did a puheen ymmärtäminen practice paper. I scored 13/16 or 81% on this so this is part of the test I’m more confident about. i liked the listening paper because it was based on everyday announcements for example at a train station, at a shopping centre.

We then did something new looking at a particular set of vocabulary in this case how to arrange to meet and how to talk about time. This should be useful for the puhuminen part of the test. For me talking about time is surprisingly difficult because the numbers need to take different endings. For example you an answer the question

Mihin aikaan sinulle sopii?

in different ways which affect the endings you need for the numbers. For example you could answer:

Minulle sopii…

kahdeksalta / kello kahdeksan (at 8)

kahden jälkeen (after 2,  kaksi -> kahden)

ennen neljää (before 4, neljä -> neljää)

yhdeksään asti (until 9, yhdeksän ->  yhdeksään)

yhden ja kolmen välillä (between 1 and 3, yksi ja kolme -> yhden ja kolmen)

viidelta seitsemään (from 5 until 7, viisi -> viidelta, seitsemän -> seitsemään)

I feel like talking about time is something I should have got down ages ago at beginner level. This is definitely something I need to revise and commit to memory!

We were then given the timetable for a muotimessut and twelve questions which we had to answer using the time expressions above. Two examples:

Mistä mihin messut ovat avoina?

Yhdeksältä kahdeksaan.

Mihin aikaan kilpailun voittaja arvotaan?

Seitsamältä.

For homework I had three formal emails and one opinion piece. I’ll give model answers next time. I also had a reading comprehension paper which I spent 45 of the given 60 minutes on. I’ll let you know my score next week.