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I'm not interested in learning Finnish, but I do have some interest in Latin. I suspect that this is the case (no pun intended) because Latin only has 5 cases (plus a 6th that is used sparingly), but Finnish, on the other hand, has 15. I find this rather unusual because Latin was written around 1,900 years ago and had 1/3 of the cases of Finnish, a modern language. I saw in the word suomi that the word has this on it "Inflection of suomi (Kotus type 7/ovi, no gradation)" but the declension of lengua says "First-declension noun". The Latin word is much simpler, making me think that we should try to learn Latin again.

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    You can get used to Finnish morphology pretty fast, because it's very regular (unlike Latin, which is full of special flourishes and variations). Syntax is another matter, in both cases; since so much of the language is marked, word order becomes available for stylistic effect instead of distinguishing subject from object. – jlawler Oct 16 '19 at 22:11

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Languages can be easier or harder for a lot of reasons, so you may find the lack of familiar words in Finnish to be something that makes it harder. One thing that I think could make it easier is that it is "more regular". One way or the other, you have to learn how to say "from a house; in a house; of a house; into a house; al a house". The partitive suffix is -ta – it is the same in the singular and plural, and there aren't masculine, feminine or neuter differences. There are some changes in noun and suffix form depending on phonological context, which is a form of opaque regularity that some people have troubles handling – it depends on your teacher / sourcebook, whether you can get the pattern behind the surface complexities of Finnish phonology. See this, for instance – the partitive is probably the most complicated suffix.

user6726
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  • All suffixes except for nominative, genitive and the annoying into case whose proper name I forgot are the same in singular and plural. Partitive happens to be one of the few cases where singular/plural suffix agreement is not quite as strong! – Jan Oct 17 '19 at 07:33