Anyone doing Finnish for Foreigners Level1?

[efahey]

I'm taking the same course too! Which class are you gonna enroll? I've been with the same teacher for 1, 2 and will be in her class again in 3. She uses Finnish only from the very first day of Finnish 1. She does explain something in English though if we still couldn't understand what she's trying to tell us in Finnish, but that's rare.

I am enrolled in the Monday evening from 6:15-8:00pm at Unionkatu. Hope to see you there if you are!


I actually found it suprising that people didn't get to speak a lot in the Helsinki University summer courses. Our teacher had us blabbering non stop to each other, and she wouldn't let us sit next to anyone who was our same background/base language. It was pretty awesome.

And for the university courses. I think usually they are pretty decent. The classes are a bit bigger. Penelope is right about the Aukiosopisto (or whatever!) they have great classes. I took I, II and III with her and I really enjoyed them also.

Liz

[Amiel]

Ahhh Liz! Were you one of my classmates for 1 & 2??? I was doing the evening classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays in January and I did 2 in August.

[Paul_D]

Paul...you win the monopolising contest ...

Yeah, I answer often the teacher's questions and I ask complicated ones to him. But I am always torn inside : is it good for others that I answer often, even after having let several seconds for someone else to answer before me ? Is it good I ask questions about very detailed grammar points, such as "Why is there nominatiivi in Täällä on kuuma vs partitiivi in Kursilla on hyvää. ?" I discussed on thursday evening with an other student of this course, he's quite upset that there is so much grammatical details, so I am afraid some of my questions can irritate him.

the american girl (megan) is not there that often!

Ooops I meant : the australian-new-zealand girl.... I thought she was american, by her accent. She's nice, but she surprised me at the first course I attended (the 3rd one) by asking something like "isn't it akward that the partiivi is used for plural, like Otan yksi olut - Otan kaksi olutta I mean, it's quite odd, isn't it ?" I thought to myself "Wahou, she's gonna interrupt the courses quite often..."

Our teacher is obviously some form of academic linguist...he loves explaining everything in several languages. The other day he used Arabic!

Yeah, but he doesn't do it too much, does he ? On the other hand, he also does it to strengthen his own knowledge of other languages, so I think it's quite nice that sometimes we teach the teacher !

The amount of grammar we are studying is huge...I'll be able to conjugate verbs in the present tense but will have no idea about using vocab!

Well, the vocabulary has to be studied in advance... You should practice the long-texts and keskutelua-lauset before-hand. Writing the words and their translation, and learning that by heart... It's extra homework, but it pays to learn the grammar while knowing already the vocabulary, the meaning of the grammar sentences.

The grammar is painful to learn, but I guess that once it is stuck in the mind, it's much easier to learn how to speak properly. It has to become a reflex... At primary school, finnish children have to learn by heart "se, sitä, siihen... puhun puhut" and so forth. It has to become a reflex !

And the finnish people who makes significant grammar mistakes when they speak (example : "ymärtän, sä et oo helsinkista"), well, they are afflicting good speakers of the language...

Anyway, I'd like to do the level 2 but it is too much for John to have be home by 3.30 everyday to look after Sophie...I cant quite see Kimmo letting her come along!

Pity for you... But as some point, your child will be grown enough to let you attend level 2

/Paul

[rita]

AZMom wrote:
Has anyone had experience with the language courses offered at the Helsinki University language Center? The website makes them sound pretty good. The classes are twice a week.

Hey AZMom I've taken the first 3 Finnish courses at the Lang. centre and am on my 4th now. I totally recommend them, they go through the grammar at just the right pace and you learn so much vocab on the way. The courses are great and the teachers seem very nice - Sari Paivarinne is great to have as a first teacher.

By the way is anyone doing Suomi 4 at the Lang. centre this term?

[kalmisto]

scoobymcdoo

Here are some English-Finnish Vocabulary Quizzes for you :

http://iteslj.org/v/f/