Finnish language

Bibliography

English books

• Finnish for Foreigners 1 (Maija-Hellikki Aaltio: ISBN 951-1-08145-4)

:This is the first of 2 volumes, each of which has an associated exercises book. There is also a reader.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

:Volume 1 is grammar based, but takes things in nice small steps, so it isn't intimidating. It generally teaches the written language, but does point out the main differences in the spoken language. By the end of volume 1 you would have quite a good grasp of the language for everyday purposes.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

• Teach Yourself Finnish (Terttu Leney: ISBN 0-340-56174-2)

:Quite good: the pace is quite fast as it covers all of FFF1 and some of FFF2, and includes exercises.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

:There are a couple of irritations: the chapters are long and rambling without any clear focus, and the vocabularies don't always contain all the words used in the dialogs.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

• Colloquial Finnish (Daniel Abondolo: ISBN 0-415-11389-X)

:This book tries to cover most of what you need to know in 300 pages: from complete beginner to familiarity with both the written and spoken languages. It uses an original approach to the grammar which is challenging, but well worth tackling.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

:The book is intended for beginners willing to invest some time and energy into learning Finnish, as well as for those who have a fair grasp of the language already, but would like to improve their understanding of more colloquial aspects of Finnish — aspects largely neglected in other grammars. The spoken language dialogues are especially useful, as they let you know what you can expect to hear, rather than what you will read in the newspaper. The grammatical explanations are built around the dialogues, not cloned from previous grammars.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

• Finnish: An Essential Grammar (Fred Karlsson: ISBN 0-415-20705-3)

:This book is much like Colloquial Finnish but deals mainly with the written form of the language (although pronunciation is dealt with). It is not laid out in a lesson-based format, so is suitable for those who are familiar with the language but need to consolidate their grammar, although 'no prior knowledge is assumed on the part of the reader'. If you are a beginner, use this as a reference to back up your course book.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Finnish books

• Aletaan (Eila Hämäläinen & Salli-Marja Bessonoff: ISBN 951-45-4895-7)
• Jatketaan (Eila Hämäläinen & Salli-Marja Bessonoff: ISBN 951-45-4872-8)

:Together, these books and their associated exercise books form a fairly complete course in Finnish, roughly equivalent to the Finnish for Foreigners books. However, the production quality is rather spare: typewriter font throughout and poor layout. This book is not of so much use without a teacher.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

• Kato hei! (Maarit Berg & Leena Silfverberg: ISBN 951-792-028-8)

:It is an attempt to cover how Finnish is actually spoken. However, it is not designed to teach Finnish, and pulls no punches about the language, so the reader needs a good grasp to make use of it. There are no exercises. This is one of the several stools between which Colloquial Finnish fell!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

• Tarkista tästä! (Hannele Jönsson-Korhola & Leila White: ISBN 951-792-007-5)

:Finnish relies heavily on changing the endings of words to indicate their role in a sentence. For example, there is one verb which means both "lend" or "borrow", but the direction is indicated by the ending of the person you are lending to or borrowing from. This book contains the rules for this and hundreds of similar situations.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

• Suomen kielioppia ulkomaalaisille (Leila White: ISBN 951-8905-65-7)

:A comprehensive treatment of Finnish grammar, concentrating on the written language. Useful for reference only.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

• Stadin snadi slangi (sanakirja) (Juhani Mäkelä: ISBN 951-0-22477-4)

:A Finnish-Helsinki-Finnish dictionary. Useful to residents.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

• Suomea ennen ja nyt (Laila Lehikoinen: ISBN 951-8905-80-0)

:A comprehensive coverage of the history of both written and spoken Finnish, including a detailed discussion of the regional variations found in the spoken language.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~