My dad’s entire family is from Finland and moved to Australia when he was 10. So skip a few decades and I was born lol, meaning I was raised with very strong Finnish influences (my mummo probably being the biggest influence of Finnish culture on me) despite still living so far away from Finland. From 2005 to 2008 I also lived in Finland, due to my dad wanting my sister and I to experience our culture and meet family.
I wouldn’t say my Finnish is good lol it’s still super rusty, but I’m currently working on improving it, because I plan on moving back to Finland next year (I’m super excited about this ).
Yeah, it’s extremely difficult to find Finnish speakers, so it’s definitely a eureka moment to find them. (I’m actually really stoked to know that a Fin is actually reading my material, SO THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! )