A thought on Finnish vocabulary

Finnish is a bit of an oddity language wise. Most European languages have the same root, and therefore have a lot of similarities, but Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian and a bunch of minority languages spoken only in rural Russia have taken a separate path. This lovely picture demonstrates these connections.

This difference really hits home when it comes to vocabulary. Because of Britain's long history of immigration our vocabulary isn't a million miles from that of the Spanish or French or German. The inconsiderate Finnish forefathers however didn't bother to visit back when it was all the rage and now, 1000 years later, I find myself with endless lists of completely alien vocabulary to memorise. The problem is that you can't just hit and hope like you can with Spanish; you either know the word or you don't and that means learning them. All of them.