Learning Finnish is like diving into another world. It has other rules and laws, original logic. Many people are afraid of his grammatical structure. The notorious 15 cases, postpositions, non-standard verbal controls, consonant alternations can discourage you from even starting to study it. However, not only difficulties, but also pleasant surprises await the person who dared to conquer this language. Finnish contains a huge number of borrowings from Russian. The word tavara, for example, means goods, and viesti means news or message. Words are read as they are written. The stress is always placed on the first syllable. Finnish has few exceptions and no articles. And all difficulties can be reduced to nothing with the right approach to studying it.
The right textbooks and tutorials are the first step to success
You should start by choosing a textbook suitable for independent work on the language. There are a lot of them on the Internet and bookstores. But which one do you prefer?
One of the best is Chertka's manual “Finnish. Basic Course” from the Berlitz series. Each lesson contains lexical and grammatical material, as well as voiced dialogues on topics typical of everyday life: shopping, hosting, going to the cinema. To consolidate what has been passed, the author gives exercises with keys for self-control.
Koivisto D. Koivisto's "Short Course in Finnish" is a good tutorial. It perfectly explains the basics of grammar, provides diverse exercises with answers and texts for reading.
Beginners will benefit from the "Textbook of the Finnish language" Chernyavskaya VV With its help, you can master the lexical and grammatical minimum necessary for the basic level. The material in it is presented somewhat scattered, so it is recommended to use it as an addition to the main course. With these study guides, you will learn Finnish from scratch on your own at a basic level. But what next?
The next step is study guides published in Finland
Having mastered the basics, you can proceed to more serious publications. These are textbooks created by native speakers and published in Finnish.
Suomen Mestari is rightfully considered the best. It clearly and concisely presents grammar, a lot of tasks for listening. The manual will help develop the skills of understanding oral speech and improve pronunciation. The author writes in simple language, so there should be no problems understanding the rules.
Hyvin Menee's textbook will allow you to gain a good vocabulary and significantly enhance your grammar skills. It is divided into two parts. The first is devoted to the literary language, and the second- colloquial. At the end of the course you will reach level B1.
And what about those who have already mastered the language well? The Finnish textbook Suomea paremmin is suitable for an advanced level. With it, you will be able to pass the language test for citizenship.
Objective necessity: reference books and dictionaries
Some textbooks are not enough for serious language learning. You need to have a good grammar guide handy. The self-instruction manual often cannot give exhaustive answers to all questions. For beginners, the book by N. Bratchikova “Finnish language. Grammar Handbook. It is divided into sections, each of which is devoted to a certain part of speech and has its own color. For example, green is for adjectives, and blue is for verbs. This design makes it easier to find the right topic. Grammar material is collected in tables and provided with comments.
Questions can also be caused by unfamiliar words in foreign textbooks or reference books. Dictionaries are used to solve this problem. They are necessary for people who seriously take up the Finnish language. For beginners, electronic versions and specialized Internet resources are suitable. However, the best option would be solid paper publications, such as the Big Finnish-Russian Dictionary by Vohros I. and Shcherbakova A. It contains about 250 thousand lexical units on various topics and will help in almost any situation.
Video and audio courses to help learn Finnish
For people learning Finnish on their own, special videos andaudio courses. By studying them, you will increase your passive and active vocabulary, develop the skill of listening to foreign speech, consolidate grammar.
Check out the video course Supisuomea, developed with the participation of the Finnish TV and radio company Yuleisradio. When creating it, the authors paid attention to both official and spoken language. The video course covers topics such as home and family, food, gifts. It covers basic grammar.
Especially for motorists, an audio course "Finnish driving" was created. It will help you learn to understand foreign speech and speak correctly on simple topics. After listening to it, you will learn the most common expressions in colloquial speech. However, you should not expect that with the help of audio and video courses you can easily and quickly master the language. Finnish will remain a mystery to you if you trust only this source of information.
Online resources are a treasure trove of useful information
In addition to the above tutorials, there are many useful online resources for learning Finnish. Noteworthy is the project of Alexander Demyanov "Finland: language, culture and history". The site contains a variety of information. There are Finnish lessons for beginners, grammar materials, exercises of varying difficulty with attached answers for self-control, video and audio courses, reading texts that will definitely not be boring. Among them are the fairy tales of Timo Parvelo, written simply and with a sense of humor. The author also publishes articles about culture, cinema, music, literature and history of Finland. The site is suitable for different levels of language proficiency.
The project of Natalia Savela "Site about the Finnish language, Finland and …" is also of interest. It will be helpful for beginners. There are Finnish lessons with grammar and vocabulary exercises. The words on the site are voiced and accompanied by illustrations. The author brings to the attention of visitors materials about Finland, in particular about holidays and obtaining a visa.
Communicating with native speakers is best practice
An important component of learning a foreign language is its application in practice. Communication will bring more benefits than hundreds of phonetics exercises. It is good if native speakers become your interlocutors. If you don't have friends from Finland, use specialized resources. One of them is the Italki website. In the "Language exchange" section, find a Finn interlocutor who wants to learn Russian. You can also practice Finnish on the Suomi24 Internet resource, in the thematic groups of the social networks VKontakte and Facebook. There you can find both native speakers and people who study it. For a live conversation, use Skype.
Fun Finnish learning app 50 languages
What other resources are suitable for people who decide to learn Finnish? For beginners, the Android app 50 languages will be useful. Download it from the Play Market, activate your account and get started. Here you can learn the alphabet, numbers, wordson various topics. Each section is voiced and equipped with test tasks, for example, you need to understand the inscription or recognize the word by ear. The application has a lot of vocabulary games, and there is also a voiced dictionary with pictures.
Maximum immersion in the language will provide quick results
The more foreign language you have in your life, the faster it is learned. Listen to Finnish radio on the Internet. Watch TV shows and movies in the language you are learning. Read adapted or original books, online magazines, newspapers. Change the language on your tablet and phone from Russian to Finnish.
Practice equal parts writing, reading, listening and speaking, and then you will achieve your goal: learn a foreign language. Learning Finnish is not so difficult, the main thing is the desire and regular classes.
