Suomi mainittu. As an English speaker who moved to Finland and has been steadily learning Finnish over the last few years, I definitely have to agree: My progress would probably be faster (and more painful) if I actually had any immediate need to speak Finnish.
Don't twist my words here, I am still extremely grateful that Finns speak such excellent English. It's the only reason I felt like I could make it finding a job here after moving right after completing college. And it's definitely a cornerstone of Finnish success in international markets. I would very, very gladly take this tradeoff again. But, yes, trial by fire usually sets learning alight.
It's about as hard as you think, yeah. Its quasi-isolate nature means that both its vocabulary and its grammar structure are pretty alien to anyone from the outside looking in.
On the other hand, Finns are super active on the Internet. There's a lot of Finnish content out there if you know where to look. ChatGPT writes passable, if clearly English-word-ordered, Finnish, as confirmed by my native speaker wife. So it's a long climb to the top -- but at least you have a lot of comprehensible input to work with. Can't quite say that for, say, the Algonquian languages.
Don't twist my words here, I am still extremely grateful that Finns speak such excellent English. It's the only reason I felt like I could make it finding a job here after moving right after completing college. And it's definitely a cornerstone of Finnish success in international markets. I would very, very gladly take this tradeoff again. But, yes, trial by fire usually sets learning alight.