I Learned 100,000 Words in Finnish Using LingQ
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Table of Contents
Why I took a reading approach to learn Finnish
How long it took to reach 100,000 words
The benefits of reading for learning grammar
What kind of books I read (and what you should read)
My proficiency level at 100,000 words
Conclusion
Recently, I reached a milestone I never thought I’d reach.
Learning 100,000 words in Finnish.
When I started learning Finnish, it just seemed too far-fetched of a goal.
However, as time went on, and I stuck to my reading habit, it just sort of… happened.
The words kept accumulating as I was enjoying good books, not thinking much about it.
How did I achieve this? What does 100,000 words mean for my proficiency level in Finnish?
This post will show you how powerful reading is in language learning, and how you can learn a language using this same method.
No matter if you’re learning Finnish, or another language.
Why I took a reading approach to learn Finnish
There are many different ways to learn a new language.
Why take a reading approach?
For a few reasons:
It’s easy to track the progress (especially using the app I used)
It makes understanding when listening easier
It’s the most effective way to build a large and rich vocabulary
Another big reason was that are not many resources for learning Finnish, like seriously, it’s a struggle! (especially back when I got started. Now there are a few more, but still not very many).
You’ve got to come up with your own learning roadmap.
I had heard about the power of reading for language learning, especially when it came to acquiring a large vocabulary, which made me curious to try it out for myself.
Language guru Steve Kaufmann said:
“The main activity in language learning should be to focus on learning a lot of words”.
I pretty much took that and ran with it.
Why I chose to read with LingQ
I started reading very early in my Finnish learning journey.
Since I was still just a beginner, I knew that picking up a regular book was going to be way too difficult and painful at this stage.
I decided to use LingQ, which is an app that makes reading books hassle-free.
You can click on each word to see their definitions, hear how it’s pronounced, and get whole sentence translations.
It color-codes words as blue (new words), yellow (words you’re learning), and white (words you know).
It also keeps track of all sorts of statistics, which is very motivating as it gives you a sense of accomplishment.
One thing LingQ keeps track of is the total amount of words you have learned, so-called “known words”.
Without it, I would have had no idea how many words I knew. It would just have been a wild guess.
I knew I was close to hitting 100,000 words since LingQ kept track of it for me.
How I did it and my daily routine
My process for reading was very simple.
I bought an e-book, uploaded it to LingQ, and then worked my way through it. I read the sentences until I understood them, clicked on all the words to see the definitions.
I used “sentence mode” a lot in the beginning, since it was a lot more manageable to go one sentence at a time. Especially when still being a beginner and reading was challenging.
I never re-read any chapters or did any type of deliberate reviewing with flashcards or anything like that. I just let the reviewing of words happen naturally in the books I was reading.
I read until the end of my book and then immediately started the next book.
I just continued that I reached 100K words (around 17 books) and I’m still going!
As far as daily reading goals, I had different daily goals at different stages.
Sometimes I would have a more intense daily reading goal for a few months. I might then read until I had added at least 100 new “known words” each day (which happens faster in Finnish, but more on that in a bit).
Other times I read at a much more casual pace.
The main thing was just that I did it.
Every day without fail.
(I have a streak of over 1,700 days in LingQ in Finnish, which is exactly how long it's been since we got back from our honeymoon. I took a break for that—obviously!).
How long it took to reach 100,000 words
I started using LingQ in April 2019, which means it took me just over 5 years to reach 100K words.
That might sound like a crazy long time.
But years is a meaningless number. We need to look at the hours spent.
Sure, that 1-2 hour reading session happened (especially when I was working night shifts in Norway a few years ago).
But often, it was just 15-20 mins a day, or even as little as 5-10 minutes a day.
(which is honestly a lot less than I recommend if you want to see fast progress)
“Why so little time spent each day?” you might ask.
There were a few things that slowed down my process.
The main one was that I was learning two other languages (Cantonese and Spanish) at the same time.
And also, I just wasn’t in a rush.
I was committed to Finnish for the long term. I was gonna have the language for the rest of my life (my wife is Finnish).
Because of that, I didn’t want to overdo it, burn out, and end up taking long breaks.
Why 100,000 words in Finnish is not as crazy as you think
100,000 words might seem like an insane amount of words.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s definitely a sizable vocabulary.
However, because of the nature of Finnish, it’s a bit inflated.
In LingQ, every inversion of a word counts as its own word: “Olen”, “ole,” “on”, “olemme”, “ollaan” (all inversions of the word “is” or “to be”) count as separate words.
It definitely increases the word count.
In a language like Spanish, the same amount of reading would add up to maybe 40-50,000 known words (A guess based on having read about half of that in Spanish, where I know around 24,000 words).
How you can reach this goal faster than me
If you’re only learning only one language (instead of 3 like me) you can reach 100,000 words in a significantly shorter time than I did.
By the time I had reached 100K words, I had read around 1.5 million words according to LingQ (which is mainly from reading 16-17 books, plus a few other random things here and there).
If you set as your daily goal to read 3,000 words/day, you would hit 1.5 million words (and roughly around 100,000 known words, if you’re learning Finnish) in less than 1.5 years.
Now 3,000 words is a lot to read daily, especially when you’re just starting.
But it’s not unreachable if you want to go for it, especially given my next point.
It only gets easier…
As difficult as it is right now to read in your target language, the good news is:
That’s as difficult as it’s going to get.
It’s only going to get easier, faster, and more comfortable to read.
In the beginning, it was definitely challenging for me. Reading was slow and most of the words were unknown to me. It also required a lot of brain capacity and I for sure got tired (another reason why it’s better to read a little bit every day, rather than a lot sporadically).
With time, there were more and more words that I knew, which made reading easier and easier.
Right now, it’s very comfortable for me to read with LingQ. While I can read quite well without it, I still prefer using it because getting instant definitions of words is so handy.
Also, I like being able to track my process, making language learning feel more like a game to level up in.
Recently, LingQ added a feature that has context-based AI definitions of words.
This provides a more accurate definition of a word in that particular sentence (since words can have multiple meanings depending on the context).
This makes reading even faster and more convenient with LingQ.
AI provides more accurate and
context-based translations in LingQ
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I talk about this and other language secrets in my guide “Intuitive Language Secrets”.
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The benefits of reading for learning grammar
Reading is also a great way to learn grammar naturally.
Even though Finnish has very complicated grammar, I skipped studying it altogether, figuring I would naturally assimilate it through enough reading.
Because here’s the deal:
Even if you conjugate a word wrong, you’ll most likely be understood.
It’s much worse not to know the word in the first place. Because it might be a word that’s very important for understanding what someone is talking about (which is why knowing a lot of words helps tremendously).
The more you read, the more the grammar gets refined.
Another thing you’ll notice is that the more words you know the more it frees up your mind to focus on other aspects. Such as how and when a certain word form is used (i.e. grammar).
It works like a charm. It’s just a less controlled and more intuitive way of learning grammar.
Are there any downsides to a reading-heavy approach?
Some strongly believe that reading should only come at a much later when learning a language.
They suggest that if you start too early, you’ll develop bad pronunciation habits.
I think this is a flawed understanding of what actually makes up good pronunciation (see my post: The 5 biggest pronunciation MYTHS you need to stop worrying about for more on this).
I have started reading very early in several languages I have learned, and I would say pronunciation is probably my strongest point.
Having said that, it’s important to not only learn through reading.
You need to be listening as well.
Otherwise, the way you speak the language won’t sound as natural as a native.
You want the way the language is formed in your head to not only be “word-based” but “sound-based”. That will give you the flow, intonation, and rhythm to sound natural in your target language.
I would advise you to listen every day.
Ideally, you should listen as much as you read. If not more. Which is easy to do, since you can listen while doing other things at the same time.
(a great listening-based resource is Finnish Me. I highly recommend it if you want to get used to the spoken language in Finnish.)
Although I deliberately listened during certain periods, I probably should have listened much more than I did.
I was in a bit of a unique situation though.
I got so much listening for free by just being around my wife’s family, and hearing Finnish 24/7 when spending time with them.
Even though it was challenging for a long time, reading made time spent with my Finnish family easier. Because I was often recognizing and understanding words they were saying from all the reading I had been doing.
What kind of books I read (and what you should read)
This is the fun part.
With reading, you’re able to pick what interests you and learn through that.
I read all sorts of things:
Autobiographies from musicians and actors, books by Marie Kondo about organizing, Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life, James Clear’s Atomic Habits, several of the books from the Witcher series, and various personal development books, just to name a few (all in their Finnish translated versions obviously).
I could give you links to all of these books, but that would defeat the purpose of reading.
It’s about personalizing your learning journey and only reading what interests you.
My wife, for example, has read very different books than me to learn Swedish.
One thing to keep in mind, though, is that different genres vary in difficulty.
What books were the hardest?
For me, The Witcher books were by far the most challenging ones. Because the fantasy genre uses vocabulary that is not commonly used in everyday language, along with poetic and wordy descriptions.
Autobiographies, personal development, and other non-fiction books are easier to read. Those types of books are a good place to start.
One feature that LingQ has that’s very useful for beginners is the “simplify using AI” feature (I didn’t have this when I started) .
It’s great for those of you who are still beginners and find reading a whole book still a bit intimidating. This feature automatically creates a more beginner-friendly version of any text or book in a matter of seconds.
What are the best places to find e-books for LingQ?
Finding e-books that you can import to LingQ can be a bit tricky.
I’ll try to make it as easy as possible for you.
What you need is an online bookstore that lets you download the book in something like Epub or Pdf format.
I like Kobo. They have a lot of different languages and a large selection.
Google Books is another option (just make sure to choose e-books that has “flowing text”, otherwise you won’t be able to import them into LingQ).
For Finnish specifically, Adlibris, Suomalainen, and Ellibs are good places (although Kobo has a fair bit of e-books in Finnish as well).
Many of these require you to use a program called Calibre to be able to import them into LingQ (Adlibris is an exception). It’s a free program and there are clear instructions on how to do it if you just Google it. It’s a bit of a nuisance that we have to do that, but once you’ve done it one time it’s quick and easy to do it for all your future books.
You might have to do a bit of research to find the best places for the specific language you’re learning.
If you have any tips on good places to find e-books, let me know in the comments at the end of this post!
I’m always looking for good online stores to buy and download e-books.
My proficiency level at 100,000 words
When I started, my first goal was to learn 10K words.
At 20K I felt I could start having conversations with people at parties.
Now with 100,000 words learned, what’s my proficiency level?
I would say I have reached some level of fluency (with a lot of room for improvement still).
I can speak about any topic I want to and use it for professional situations as well.
Even though many of my Finnish friends are very fluent in English, I speak mostly Finnish with them nowadays.
I still make grammar mistakes, mispronounce words, or forget words, but that’s okay. I’m still improving and learning.
At this point, I could stop deliberately learning Finnish and still get better by using it (and paying attention to how natives speak).
Does that mean I’m going to stop my LingQ reading habit in Finnish now?
Not quite yet.
I want to continue increasing my vocabulary, but also because I’m reading a super interesting book right now (called “Hunt, Gather, Parent: What Ancient Cultures Can Teach Us About the Lost Art of Raising Happy, Helpful Little Humans” by Michaeleen Doucleff. “Metsästäjä, keräilijä, kasvattaja” in Finnish).
At some point though, I will probably stop my daily reading in favor of focusing on other languages.
Conclusion
The biggest challenge in learning a language and hitting 100K words is sticking to it long enough. Most people aren’t willing to stick with a language long enough to even get anywhere near that many words.
I kept up my daily reading habit through many seasons and changes of life:
Getting married, moving to Finland, moving to another country and back again (twice), becoming a father, struggling through 1-2 months of adrenal fatigue, and so many other life-things.
Still, I never missed a day.
If you do what most people aren’t willing to do, you will reap amazing rewards.
You just need a “why” behind learning the language that’s strong enough.
And then make a commitment to the language.
If you want to increase your comprehension and have a vocabulary that will surely impress natives, reading it’s one of the most powerful activities you can do.
It will help you assimilate even the most complicated grammar, without ever stepping foot in a language classroom.
And for me, I know no other app that makes reading as easy, enjoyable, and motivating as LingQ.
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