u/peterherold

8 months after starting to learn Finnish and having reached maybe A2 level - I'm half-way through once-a-week group conversation lessons for A2 students - I have worked out how to use ChatGPT (I have Plus, €20/month) to practise speaking out loud. My previous attempts to do this were spectacularly unsuccessful, so maybe others can learn from this, or make suggestions to improve my system.

Background: I have learnt using a combination of WordDive (Basic Finnish 1, A1 completed), YLE Selkouutiset, sanakirja.fi, Karlsson’s ”Finnish: An Essential Grammar”, ChatGPT to type-chat with and improve what I write ... but until the start of April 2026, with my A2-course, had never spoken - I don't have anyone to practise conversation with.

What I do: Using shorts little texts I prepared, e.g. to introduce myself, talk about sports and hobbies, jobs, etc.,

1. I then switch to interactive talk mode and say "Moikka CHAT Ghey Pay Tay" so we start off in Finnish and ask it to ask me questions "Kysy minua, mikä on mun leempiharrastukseni!", "Kysy minua, miksi tykään siitä!" This too works well: I see the text of ChatGPT's question and have time to think about an answer (or go and look something up 😉). Often it starts talking before I have finished replying - I pause a lot, you know?! - and so I have learnt to say "Aana minulle alkaa vastata! (Let me answer!)" and "Älä keskeytä! (Don't interrupt!)". I often have to tell it to slow down, but then it does. In this way, I practise exactly that brain overload moment when you have to formulate a response and already use the trick of repeating the question ("You want to know why I like swimming, right?") which I'd forgotten since I no longer need to do this in English, Italian and German.

Has anyone else tried similar systems? Thx, Peter