| From: [email protected] (Don Bork)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Summary: How to learn Finnish, Books, etc.
Date: 22 Mar 90 19:25:45 GMT
Organization: McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario
Thanks for all the replies to my question on learning Finnish, I've now
got a fairly respectable list of titles, and I managed to meet up with
an old exchange student friend. (Isn't the net great?)
Here's a summary for all those people who requested that I post it.
>From: [email protected] (Ari Ollikainen)
Finnish for Foreigners, Tenth Edition (1978):
ISBN 951-1-00397-6
Kustannusosakeyhti� Otava
>From: [email protected] (Harold Stuart)
The old standby "Teach Yourself Finnish" is useful for learning
elements of grammar and vocabulary, although I found it a little too
academic for my liking.
The book is also a little out of date -- some of the anachronisms are
quaint.
I write:
Another book (set of books) highly recommended is Suomea Suomeksi
published by the Finnish Literature Society. These books are the ones
used by Radio Finland in their Learning Finnish course. (Good courses
for someone new to the Finnish language, repeated every 10 weeks).
I've lost the ISBN number for Suomea Suomeksi, but it seems to be the
best one around. (If we could only do something about the 7 week
shipping time!)
Don Bork
(Rotary Vaihto-Oppilas '85-86)
--
Don Bork Kakiak (n.) Leader of Fools
[email protected]
"Don't let school get in the way of an education" -Stoker '88-89
|
| From: [email protected] (Louis Janus)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: Studying Finnish outside Finland
Date: 20 Mar 91 16:00:46 GMT
Organization: University of Minnesota, Academic Computing Services
In article <[email protected]> [email protected]
(Saku Setala) writes:
>
>So this is the question 1: Where in USA can you study finnish ?
>
Here are the places in the USA and Canada I know of:
University of Minnesota
Dept of Scandinavian Studies
9 Pleasant Street S.E.
200 Folwell Hall
Minneapolis, MN 55455 USA
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Dept of Scandinavian Studies
1306 Van Hise Hall
Madison, WI 53706
University of Indiana - Bloomington
Dept of Uralic and Altaic Studies
Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
University of Massachusetts
Dept of Western European Area Studies
South College
Amherst, MA 01003 USA
Suomi College
Hancock, Michigan 49930 (undergraduate institution)
My understanding is that University of Toronto is setting up a Finnish
Program, but I don't have details or addresses.
I might be wrong, but I thought that Yale taught Finnish. I am working
from the 1989 Directory of Scandinavian Studies, published by the
Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study. Perhaps other
universities might teach Finnish, but the Scandinavian Departments
might not list these courses.
One more I just found"
Columbia University
____
Louis Janus
Dept of Scandinavian Studies
Univ of Minnesota
Minneapolis, MN 55455
|
| From: [email protected] (HOLMAN EUGENE)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: A... (erm) question on Finnish language tutoring programs.
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1993 11:37:24 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki, Computing Centre
About six years ago I wrote a program called FINNMORF. Although not a
tutoring program in the proper sense, it is extremely useful for
students of Finnish. Finnmorf has three modules:
1) A program manager
2) A verb conjugater
2) A nominals decliner
The basic function of the program is to produce full paradigms for any
Finnish word that can be inflected. To put it differently, if you give
the verb module the dictionary form (= the first infinitive), it will
display all the several hundred other forms of the verb. If you give
the program the dictionary form (= nominative singular or nominative
plural of pluralia tantum words) of a noun, adjetive, pronoun, or
numeral, it will display all the other forms, with or without a
possessive suffix, if necessary.
The output can be directed to a diskfile, and students can thus collect
the forms of words they are having trouble with, in addition to which
teachers of Finnish can facilitate their work by having the program
take care of the tedious chore of writing paradigms. Finnmorf was
reviewed in Linguistic and Literary Computing (1988?), and I wrote an
article describing it and the principles underlying it in Computers and
the Humanities (1988??).
I can give you more information about it if you contact me:
[email protected]
Eugene Holman
Department of English
University of Helsinki
|
| Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic,sci.lang
From: [email protected] (N.O. Monaghan)
Subject: Books for Learning Finnish
Sender: [email protected] (Usenet News System)
Date: Tue, 1 Mar 1994 14:36:58 GMT
Organization: Royal Rat Catching Institute
BOOKS USEFUL FOR LEARNING FINNISH
Here is a brief incomplete list of books aimed at non-native speakers
learning the Finnish language. I have appended short notes describing
the contents of the book and my own views.
If people would email me ([email protected]) I would be
happy to add the comments and views of people who are acquainted with
these books. I would also be interested in adding other books to the
list as I know that there is at least a couple of more recent books to
whose details I do not have access. Books based on other languages than
English would also be very welcome.
GRAMMARS, PRIMERS, PHRASE BOOKS.
J. Atkinson: Finnish Grammar (Helsinki, 1956)
{ A course in Finnish grammar for the learner. It concentrates
on explaining the grammar and thus contains only a
few short reading passages and a very limited vocabulary.}
Berlitz Finnish for Travellers
Various editions in various languages.
{ A typical inexpensive Berlitz pocket language guide. Not of great
use unless you actually know a little bit already, but then helpful
for vocabulary in various situations - especially menus.}
Bjo"rn Collinder: A Handbook of the Uralic Languages. Part 2. Survey of
the Uralic Languages (Stockholm, 1957) [This may have been
issued separately entitled 'A Finnish Primer'.]
{ Although a book aimed at compartative linguists, the Finnish
section contains a graded grammatical introduction together
with reading passages and a vocabulary.}
Leena Horton: First Finnish (Helsinki, 1982)
{ Teaches a very basic knowledge of Finnish with a limited
vocabulary through pictures. There are no grammatical
explanations beyond the translations in the vocabularies for
each chapter. This book was designed for use with children in a
classroom situation.}
Fred Karlsson: Finnish Grammar (tr Andrew Chesterman, WSOY,
Porvoo-Helsinki-Juva, 1983).
Finnish edition: Suomen peruskielioppi (1982)
Swedish edition: Finsk grammatik (1978).
{ Karrlsson systematically covers the grammar of Finnish. This
is an excellent book - the grammar rules are easy to read and
understand and numerous examples are given. The book uses a very
clear and understandable style of layout. However, it is a
grammar and will need to be used in conjunction with other
material.}
John B. Olli: Fundamentals of Finnish Grammar (Northland Press, New
York, 1958)
{ This book concentrates mainly on long lists of declensions and
conjugations. The approach taken is not a very helpful for the
learner.}
Anges Renfors: Finnish Self-Taught (Thimm's System) with Phonetic
Pronunciation (Marlborough's Self Taught Series, London, 1910)
{ Quite a old one! It is really a structured vocabulary with a
brief grammar and a mini-phrase book. Very similar in many ways
to the modern Berlitz books.}
Arthur H. Whitney: Finnish (Teach Yourself Books, Hodder and Stoughton,
1956)
{ Being available in the cheap Teach Yourself Series, this book
is easily and widely available. Which makes it such a shame that
it is so bad. It consists of 20 chapters each of which has a
grammatical section, a vocabulary, and exercises including short
reading passages. The grammar is dreadfully complicated with the
reader learning rare variations almost immediately. It is also
very poorly laid out with no attempt at making it even vaguely
easy on the eye and brain. The vocabularies seem somewhat
pointless - they are normally 4 or 5 pages long which is an
incredible amount of learning expected for a single chapter - it
would have been better to include them alphabetically at the end
of the work and then tell the reader "learn the words beigining
with 'a' today". The exercises and reading passages are short
and no great aid to someone working alone - as 'Teach yourself'
implies.}
[ Ag, I cannot remember the author/title of this book -
annoying as it is one of the better ones. It be
called Finnish for Foreigners]
{ A good book to work through, it teaches grammar and
vocabulary in small chunks with plenty of grammatical exercises
and reading exercises. The emphasis on obtaining a practical
command of the language (even if mainly a reading knowledge)
makes it very useful. I think there may well be an updated
version available these days.}
READERS
Robert Austerlitz: Finnish Reader and Glossary (Research and Studies in
Uralic and Altaic Languages No 14, Indiana UP, 1963)
{ It is some time since I have seen this and cannot remember
much about it.}
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
N.O. Monaghan IRC: varg
[email protected] [email protected]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [email protected] (Eugene Holman)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: Books for Learning Finnish
Date: Wed, 02 Mar 1994 08:35:39 +0200
Organization: University of Helsinki
Whitney's notorious _Teach Yourself Finnish_ has been superseded by a
new Finnish textbook compiled according to the Council of Europe's
Threshold guidelines on language learning. Also called _Teach Yourself
Finnish_, it is by Terttu Leney and is an excellent introduction to
spoken and written Finnish. The book is published by Hodder and
Stoughton and costs �8.99 in the UK. An audio cassette is also
available. ISBN 0-340-56174-2.
Aaltio, Maija-Hellikki 1987, _Finnish for Foreigners_ 1-2, Excercises
1-2. This is the most complete set of Finnish textbooks available. A
complete revision of the original 1963 book which bore the same title,
this ihas long been the standard work for teaching Finnish to
English-speaking foreigners. The book is slightly dated with respect to
language teaching methodology, but it takes the student from the basics
to a solid command of the language. The 1987 edition devotes
considerable attention to the peculiarities of spoken Finnish. Audio
cassettes are also available.
Bell, Aili Rytk�nen & Augustus Koski. 1968 _Finnish Graded Reader_,
Foreign Service Institute. Department of State. A behemoth (744 pgs.)
of a book, this book takes the student from the advanmced elementary
level (approx. 500 words and basic grammar) up to unedited
journalistic, literary, and historical texts. Jam packed with
interesting exercises and information otherwise unavailable about
Finnish vocabulary, idioms and phraseology. In my opinion this is the
BEST BOOK AVAILABLE for mastering Finnish in all of its stylistic
variety after you have learned the basics. The book is a public
document and costs $17.50 according to the latest information I have
available. Audio cassettes are also available.
Davdijants, Artem, Inge Davidjants, Eugene Holman, Riitta
Koivisto-Arhinm�ki. _Terve, Suomi! Conversational Finnish in video_.
Helsinki/Tallinn 1992. This is the first attempt to produce an
audiovisual course in Finnish. The course consists of a 45-minute video
(VHS-PAL) dramatization of a trip to Finland, a 60-minutte audio
cassette, and a 140-page textbook. The English version is a translation
and expansion of the Estonian original. The course was produced under
difficult circumstances during the last days of Soviet Estonia, and it
has some unfortunate shortcomings. Nevertheless, it represents a
totally new approach to presenting and teaching Finnish as a foreign
langauge. Contact me for further information.
Holman, Eugene 1984. _Handbook of Finnish Verbs. 231 Finnish verbs
conjugated in all tenses_. Finnish Literature Sovciety. Modelled on the
famous Barrons 201 Verbs series, this book contains a detailed
discussion of all the regularities and peculiarities of Finnish verb
morphology, in addition to which it has information on the cases used
in conjunction with more than 1200 Finnish verbs.
Holman, Eugene 1986. _Finnmorf_. An MS-DOS computer program which
generates all the forms of a Finnish verb, noun, adjective, numeral or
pronoun if given the dictionary form. It is thus a computer emulation
of a handbook of Finnish inflectional morphology. Particularly useful
for teachers of Finnish because it quickly produces neatly formatted
full paradigms which can be saved as text files for further editing.
Available as freeware upon request from me.
Lieko, Anneli 1992. _Suomen kielen fonetiikkaa ja fonologiaa
ulkomaalaisille_ [Finnish phonetics and phonology for foreigners]. A
clearly written presentation of the Finnish sound system intended for
foreigners with a good reading knowledge of the language. The book
concentrates on the learning difficulties foreigners speaking a wide
range of languages face when trying to master Finnish pronunciation.
--
With best regards,
Eugene Holman
University of Helsinki
|