Finnish Short Courses Levels

Course description: Level 1 is for people with no previous knowledge of the language or minimal knowledge such as some greetings and the alphabet. The course runs over three ten week terms and each session is two hours long. The course includes all four skills: reading, writing, speaking and listening. The course will cover the following:

Topics: the alphabet and pronunciation, greetings, numbers, time, days of the week, months and seasons, nationalities, languages and countries, weather, my family, appearance, my house, average day, travel, modes of transport, shopping, enrolling on a course, faults and problems. Cultural references: polite exchanges, typical Finnish pursuits.

Functions: introducing oneself, understanding numbers (prices, telephone numbers), talking about time, describing your family, describing people, describing your house, talking about your average day, buying clothes, buying food and clothes, asking for help, enrolling on a course, reporting a fault, checking into a hotel, describing a trip.

Grammar: personal pronouns, verb types 1-5, negation, consonant gradation, question words, question particle, genitive, habitive construction, partitive, local cases, nominative plural, existential clause, impersonal predicative construction, demonstrative pronouns, imperative 2nd person singular, noun types -i, -e, -nen and -si.

Study materials: S. Gehring and S. Heinzman (2011) Suomen mestari 1. Helsinki: Finn Lectura; Teacher’s materials.

TextBook materials Suomen mestari 1 by Sonja Gehring and Sanni Heinzmann.

Course description: Level 2 is for people who completed Level 1 or who have some knowledge of the language acquired through regular visits to the country or through self-study. The course runs over three ten week terms and each session is two hours long. The course includes all four skills: reading, writing, speaking and listening. The course will cover the following:

Topics: food and drink, parties and celebrations, dates and ordinals, work, professions, directions, restaurant and menus, clothes, interjections, temporal expressions, health and illnesses, body parts, at the doctor’s, summer holidays in Finland, nature, features of colloquial spoken Finnish. Cultural references: Finnish food and drink, celebrations and public holidays in Finland, sauna and summer cottage culture.

Functions: talking about food and drink, describing location, inviting people to a party, asking for and giving directions, describing professions and job tasks, talking about your job, ordering food and drink, describing past events, describing clothing, using temporal expressions, talking about illnesses, talking about Finnish sauna and summer cottage culture, understanding colloquial spoken Finnish.

Grammar: partitive and mass nouns, partitive plural, postpositions, forms of the object, inflection of personal pronouns, consonant gradation and verb types 3 and 4, subordinate conjunctions, noun types ­As, -in, -Us, -Os and -es, reverse consonant gradation, relative pronoun, necessive construction, revision of the forms of the object, third infinitive, transitive and intransitive verbs, verb type 6.

Study materials: S. Gehring and S. Heinzman (2011) Suomen mestari 1. Helsinki: Finn Lectura. S. Gehring and S. Heinzmann (2012) Suomen mestari 2. Helsinki: Finn Lectura. Teacher’s materials.

Course description: Level 3 is for people who completed Level 2 or who have sound knowledge of the language acquired through extensive visits to the country or through self-study. The course runs over three ten week terms and each session is two hours long. The course includes all four skills: reading, writing, speaking and listening. The course will cover the following:

Topics: free time and hobbies, running errands, weddings, relationships, celebrations and customs, education and work, personal history, shopping, cars, bikes, phone conversations, feelings, small talk, travel, news headlines, advertisements. Cultural references: educational system in Finland

Functions: talking about hobbies and free time, running errands, describing and arranging weddings and other celebrations, describing your personal history and education, buying things, complaining, suggestions and planning, expressing opinion, writing letters, CVs and emails, giving advice, reading authentic texts, summarising stories, expressing uncertainty and feelings, initiating small talk.

Grammar: negative past tense, verbal noun, verb + cases, perfect tense, pluperfect tense, noun types ­Ut, -NUt and -Vus, indefinite pronouns, possessive suffixes, plural, comparative and superlative, conditional, passive, translative and essive.

Study materials: S. Gehring and S. Heinzmann (2012) Suomen mestari 2. Helsinki: Finn Lectura. K. Kuparinen and T. Tapaninen (2008) Hyvin menee 2. Helsinki: Otava. Teacher’s materials.

Course description: Level 4 is for people who completed Level 3 or who have good knowledge of the language acquired through living in the country or through using Finnish regularly. The course runs over three ten week terms and each session is two hours long. The course includes all four skills: reading, writing, speaking and listening. The course will cover the following:

Topics: newspaper articles on different contemporary topics, important events in Finnish history, Finnish political system, Finnish educational system, major Finnish writers, artists, sportsmen, historical figures, famous Finnish films. Cultural references: regional customs, arts and crafts, films, key literary texts.

Functions: analysing a film or a book orally and in writing, skimming and/or translating newspaper articles of interest, writing reports, reviews and essays, defending a point of view, talking about Finnish history, culture and important figures in general terms; understanding and talking about the school system and the political system, familiarising oneself with literary works.

Grammar: more about the passive, contracted sentences, participles, more about the comparative and the superlative, less productive cases.

Study materials: teacher’s materials. 

Course description: Level 5 is for people who completed Level 4 or who have very good knowledge of the language acquired through living in the country extensively or through using Finnish regularly through work or personal relationships. The course runs over three ten week terms and each session is two hours long. The course includes all four skills: reading, writing, speaking and listening. The course will cover the following:

Topics: specialised topics of interest, colloquial expressions, dialeccts. Cultural references: historical highlights, politics, music, current affairs.

Functions: understanding colloquial language, understanding Finnish dialects; expressing preference, supporting an argument, public presentations; expressing gratitude, sympathy, appreciation, regret and indifference; defending and accusing.

Grammar: colloquial and dialectal grammatical forms, synonyms, antonyms, polysemy, word building.

Study materials: teacher’s materials.