Where's the best place to study Finnish - Helsinki, Espoo?

[dessa]

I'm frustrated by the amount of places offering Finnish courses. I'm hoping to find a place to study -spring 2009. Anyone recommend a good school,lecturer, college or course? Or a place to avoid

cheers

[Lazydriver]

Well there's always the internet, and since you'll be moving to Finland, that's a BIG help.

You could use my method of instruction. It's worked for me regarding German (still working on my German, but hey, I love German).

#1: Listen to Finnish music. (Luckily, it's actually good if you're into metal.)
#2: Start catching onto words when you look over the words.
#3: Play with your words and say them to yourself and have the English meaning in your head with it, start looking at the grammar order.
#4: Look over the online instruction on grammar and such every so often, there are plenty of fantastic resources out there to use for almost any spoken language. I like the Finnish instruction kits, in some ways, they're better then the Spanish ones I've seen!
#5: Rinse and repeat.
#6: With German, it's been three years in and I can survive on the streets of Baden-Baden with relative ease. Since Finnish is harder, having sixteen cases instead of four, it will take you more time to learn. Not to mention few cognates and a whole different pronunciation system that makes you question why they went with the Latin alphabet instead of a specialized Latin, (a good comparison would Cyrillic instead of Greek for Russians), it'll probably take longer but don't let the length bother you. Enjoy the challenge, you don't have to have any word order in Finnish, there are NO articles, NO genders, and you can arrange the words into any order you like, and YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE TO MENTION MINÄ/SINA/HÄN/ETC (just like Spanish, but no word order requirement). I'm just starting to learn Finnish, so I could be wrong. The downside is that in exchange for not having all those prepositions, the words become the carriers of grammar themselves with different parts of the word meaning "on" or "off", etc (ie, On the table would be phrased in a matter that only involves one or two words, depending on how you put something on the table instead of an entire sentence). But I don't speak Finnish, just starting to study it myself.

If you live in Finland, that makes life easier. Unfortunately, most people will try to speak English to you to make your life easier. Typically language learning is faster when there's a desperation level to it, and halves the time of learning.

I think most universities in Finland will give you a Finnish degree for learning Finnish though, look into it. I'm sorry I couldn't help you find a single university, but this solution should help you in the meantime, no? It also helps to have an actual instructor to correct you on how you say things!

[Rosamunda]

I think most universities in Finland will give you a Finnish degree for learning Finnish though,

Oh no they won't.

Just 'cos learning is free don't mean they give 'em away

[Lazydriver]

I think most universities in Finland will give you a Finnish degree for learning Finnish though,

Oh no they won't.

Just 'cos learning is free don't mean they give 'em away

Does Finland have a system like Germany when it comes to certification of knowledge of a language? I know Germany has Göthe-Institut branches around the world that'll give you a certificate for knowing German if you pass a test (which is reasonably inexpensive, it's like $35).

[Rosamunda]

Not really. There is a language test that can be taken (and is obligatory for citizenship) but it is not widely available. If I understand correctly, it equates roughly to completion of "Part 4" of a Finnish foreign language curriculum. If you take a Finnish course at one of the aikuisopisto or kesäyliopisto I think you can ask for a piece of paper that states you have attended the course but it doesn't indicate your level of fluency/accuracy.

@dessa

Use the search engine as there have been many posts about the different places offering FFL courses and some of those threads even mention the names of teachers. In Helsinki most people use the summer university http://www.kesayliopistohki.fi/ or the adult education centre in Töölö www.helsinginaikuisopisto.fi

[maurine]

http://www.helsinginaikuisopisto.fi/ they always have courses in Finnish, also evening classes.

[onkko]

I did online test for finnish language and did score 2nd best possible, thats bit embarassing since im finnish

[jazzori]

I think it doesn't matter that you study in Helsinki or in Espoo. I think it's a matter of what kind of teacher you're lucky to have and, most important, it's a matter of own determination. If you're really willing to learn Finnish, you become a human sponge and absorb all the info you get from your teacher, the environment you're living in and from the books you're studying in your spare time. Isn't it?
So worry less about the location and create a library card.