  sisu = persistence. ;)  According to Wikipedia:  Sisu is a Finnish concept that combines inner strength, determination, perseverance in the face of adversity, and a strong work ethic. There is no direct English translation, but the concept can be somewhat expressed as tough as nails or hard-bitten.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisu     For me, the hardest thing about pronouncing Finnish is when you have a double vowel followed by a double consonant (such as aamm, for example). Gets me every time. I always want to turn it to amm or aam.  Well, Finnish is most cases very forgivable language, but there are some words where it is important to make long or short vowels, such as t u li 'fire' and t uu li, 'wind' and few others.     Wtf is Swahili doing in Grade 1?? It's not even Indo-European!  Maybe it just is easy to learn? It wouldn't suprise me that most popular language of Africans might be easy to learn with simple grammar.