Finnish Proficiency Test outside of Finland?

[paha_noita]

Well I've come a long way from when I first began teaching myself Finnish. I have a Finnish boyfriend now with whom I speak only Finnish, can read most Finnish texts without any problems or dictionary consulting and generally feel content with my skills. I still get hung up over speaking and listening to rapid speech but hey, we can't all be perfect.

So I need to satisfy my university's foreign language requirement and was wondering if there is someway to take a Finnish proficiency test in the US? Does anyone have any ideas? Google didn't help one bit; all proficiency tests I found were related to classes at Finnish universities. Or perhaps it would be a better idea to track down a native speaker (besides my boyfriend of course as I'm sure they would have to be a total stranger to me) to back up my claims? What would you guys's solutions be?

Thanks a bunch! This forum was a great help for me back in the early days when the Finnish case system still made me scratch my head. I tell you, living in Finland for a short while is what really did the trick.

[interleukin]

How about contacting the Finnish embassy? If you are close to it, you could maybe go there and get an official to sign a paper saying you spoke to them fluently. Or if you are far away from the nearest Finnish embassy, at least they might be able to give info about taking the test.

[paha_noita]

How about contacting the Finnish embassy? If you are close to it, you could maybe go there and get an official to sign a paper saying you spoke to them fluently. Or if you are far away from the nearest Finnish embassy, at least they might be able to give info about taking the test.

Oh duh. Why in the world didn't I think once to do that? I'll phone them Monday and see what they have to say. The closest embassy to my state would be the one in D.C. but I see that my state is serviced by the embassy in the New York... I hope that won't be an issue. Anyway thanks for the obvious heads-up, haha.

[Tuonelan Joutsen]

When I studied German in high school, I learned that the Goethe-Institut does exactly this for German: universities that are affiliated with it administer exams at various levels (corresponding to the six levels of the Common European Framework), inside or outside of Germany. I've been trying to figure out what the Finnish equivalent is, if there is one, but I've been unlucky with Google too – so I'd be interested to see what you find out.

[Pursuivant]

Well, Columbia Uni has a Finnish department... but as far as the YKI's go looks like they organize them in Finland only.

[sammy]

Goethe Institut... remember that German, just like English and French, is a major language in Europe - for a minority language such as Finnish, it hardly comes as a surprise that there's no exact equivalent of the tests they offer (DAF and what have you). At least not in the sense that you could take such official Finnish language tests abroad.

KOTUS (www.kotus.fi) and certain other organisations deal with the Finnish language but as such they do not have any "official tests" that you could take. The National Board of Education tests (YKI) are the only ones I know -> http://www.oph.fi/koulutus_ja_tutkinnot ... itutkinnot, and as P said it's not likely they're available in other countries... you'd need to take the test in Finland.

But... if it's a question of satisfying your US university requirements, a statement from some US university department that offers Finnish studies might suffice? Click here for a list... I'm not sure if embassies can give you any language certificates, or statements. You can ask of course.