Overview of the Finnish Basic Course

This is the basic course in Finnish, emphasizing the spoken language with pronunciation drills and a large glossary. Developed by the Foreign Service Institute for teaching diplomatic personnel, the textbook and audio courses are perfect for independent or small group study. FSI courses are thorough, comprehensive, and widely regarded as the best available. Intended for beginners, the Conversational Finnish course provides transcripts of the Finnish dialogues with idiomatic English translations plus notes on structural patterns and explanations of essential points of grammar. The course provides a variety of exercises with instructions in English. This is considered the most intensive conversational Finnish course currently available.

How to use the text

Each day or unit should begin with your own dialogs. Think about how you would approach a Finn in a particular situation such as, for example, "Getting to know you." How would the encounter go? What would you want to say? What do you think the Finn would say? How would you answer?

Hearing It

You will begin the units by listening to the taped dialogs. First try to undertand as much as you can. Then listen again and get used to the stress, rhythm and intonation of Finnish and learn to associate the sound with the spelling. All the dialogs are taped both in standard Finnish and in more frequently spoken, colloquial Finnish. Use the audio lessons for independent study to work upon your comprehension of both standard and colloquial Finnish, pronunciation, and repetition.

Dialogs