Customer Reviews

Finnish: An Essential Grammar (Essential Grammars)

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is a comprehensive, yet concise reference grammar of Finnish. Karlsson starts with a brief overview of history, then turns to pronunciation and sound alternations. Following these topics, he presents the general nominal declensions and the conjugation of verbs. He then delves into much deeper detail with the case system and the verb systems, followed by the comparison of adjectives and word formation. He closes the main text with an extremely useful chapter on the colloquial spoken language, in which he explains which rules discussed above were only theoretical, and what people actually say.

This book has pictures of intonation patterns, nominal declension charts in all 15 cases in both the singular and plural, and a handy appendix of complete verb declensions. Important grammatical rules are printed in eye-catching boxes, while key grammatical endings are printed in bold in the numerous examples. I've found this book to be tremendously useful at all stages of my development in Finnish language skills. I read it intensively when I was first studying the language, and I continually turn to it for reference today, although I can now speak Finnish fairly fluently. If you want to learn Finnish or learn about Finnish, you need this book.

This book was written in Swedish for people who must use Finnish in Finland correctly. It is SO GOOD that it has been translated into English and for a long time sold for $89.00 in a paperback edition on cheap paper that began yellowing almost immediately. I bought this expensive, low-quality edition and have never regretted it. My only negative thought was that it might fall apart before I do. Now Routledge has eased that fear by publishing the book on better paper and for a (slightly) lower price.

It is not for beginners. It is for those who have sweated over the complexities of Finnish morphology and sound changes and STILL have doubts. Karlsson's understanding of Finnish structure is so perfect and his ability to explain it so skillful that he has produced a reference work that transfess that clarity of view to the student.

Finnish is an agglutinative language -- that is, words are inflected or conjugated through "gluing" new endings, each of which has adds its own meaning, to basic word forms. Among this volume's most valuable features is the chapter entitled "A survey of word structure," which describes exactly and understandably how these endings are added to basic forms, and in what order. Most "learning Finnish" courses are designed to transmit this knowledge... eventually -- but few if any (none that I've found) explain the basic logic of Finnish words so straightforwardly, and where it ought to be explained: at the beginning. It's cleared up a lot of my confusion -- now I've got a solid structure into which I can fit everything else I've got to learn about declension and conjugation. The rest of the book is just as magnificent at explaining the complexities of Finnish grammar intelligently and intelligibly, with scads of examples and numerous tables. It's clear to me: if you want to learn Finnish, get a good basic course text, a decent Finnish-English-Finnish dictionary -- and this book.

Having purchased a copy of Routledge's "Greek Grammar," i was very skeptical of Karlsson's Finnish Grammar, Primarily because of its publisher. Although this may seem like an enormous generalization on the part of Routledge's books, in the past I have not been pleased with their guides to grammar on a variety of languages. But being the fan of Finnish that I am, and the lack of good Finnish courses available, I decided to give this grammar a try-and what surprise was i in for. The first page of this book gives a brief but useful explanation of the roots of the Finnish language, and its close and distant relatives. Although judging by the first review of this book, possible buyers may be swayed by the fact that it appears to be unsuitable for beginners, i found the opposite to be true-it is ideal for beginners. Although I know a few words of Finnish, and the conjugations of some verbs and a few suffixes, this book explains everything that a beginner would need to know-or for that matter that anyone would need to know, and explains the complicated vowel graduation, and agglutinative concepts that can frighten away people not familiar with the agglutinative languages. All in all, this book is a priceless resource to anyone wanting to become familiarized with the Finnish language.

This is not a step-by-step type of programmed course, but it is EXTREMELY well organized. Anyone who knows how to get the most out of a table of contents can learn Finnish grammar with this book. I can't imagine a more thorough, concise, or user-friendly grammar book. The index is not exhaustive, but the table of contents makes up for it. I would have paid more for this book, and would have bought it in hardcover. Look no further - this is the Finnish grammar you want.

This book is a must for those that have started to learn the Finnish language and are confused about the technical aspects of the language. It COMPLETELY explains how to contruct finnish words out of the stems and case endings. If you are like me, you were extremely frustrated with the starter books about Finnish that basically just touch the surface on the technical aspects of the language. If this describes you, then this book is a must-have.

I've been a student of the Finnish language for years, and this is by far one of the most clearly informitave and easy to understand texts I've ever come across.

Not so much a "teach yoursef" book as it is a reference guide for students of Finnish, Karlsson's book goes into everything from word structure, verb conjugation, etc., to a wonderful chapter on colloquial Finnish.

I highly recommend this book for any student of Finnish. Next to your English-Finnish dictionary, this is the most important reference volume you can have!

Well, the ground isn't exactly thick with Finnish textbooks, so I figured I'd give this one a go and see what happened. As it turns out, I was delighted - no, ecstatic - at the quality of this book.

The first couple of Finnish books I'd used were of the "teach yourself" variety. These were good for learning useful phrases - almost like a Berlitz book, but with more cartoons and some practice exercises - but were absolutely horrible for learning the nuts and bolts of the language. I learn languages in much the same way as I do logical or mathematical structures, and am lost without thorough explanations of grammar and syntax from the get-go, so I needed something better than (or at least something to go along with) these books.

This book is the one. It starts out with amazingly precise guides to pronunciation and word structure, and the first few chapters contain detailed explanations of phenomena that ABSOLUTELY NEED to be understood to make sense of word formation (i.e., consonant gradation and pre-"i" vowel changes). These first chapters immediately cleared up many of the word changes that had previously mystified me.

The rest of the chapters are just as good as the beginning ones.

What really stands out about this book, though, is the enormous wealth of examples - sometimes between ten and twenty for each grammatical point. (These examples are the main reason the book is 200-odd pages long instead of 100-odd pages.) There are so many examples that, after looking at the first few, I can cover up the Finnish text and translate the rest of them as "exercises."

Even more astoundingly, this book wasn't originally written in English. The quality of the translation is so good that this book appears to have been written äidinkieleksi in English.

If you get this book, some sort of "teach yourself" book (mostly for the conversational usage), and a bunch of flash cards for vocabulary (

Put simply, "Finnish: An Essential Grammar" is much like a university textbook one is encouraged to buy along side university supplied study guides or class notes. While the class notes or study materials may be sufficient to complete exams, textbooks provide detailed and thorough explanations of topics one may fail to grasp, ultimately providing insight.

To speak a language and to speak a language well are two very different goals indeed. If you do not have the luxury of a Finnish spouse, this book is essential for understanding the finer details of the Finnish language that will ultimately lead to refinement of your skill, much to the delight of native speakers. A book definitely worth the parchment it is printed on.

Fred Karlsson originally wrote this Finnish grammar for Swedish speakers, but after it was translated into English and published by Routledge in 1999, it has become one of the most popular companions for beginners in Finnish.

Karlsson's book has all the grammar that students need to know for the first 18 months or so of Finnish studies (assuming you're going at the pace of University of Helsinki's Finnish for foreigners classes). It's not a textbook -- you'll need something like Terttu Leney's TEACH YOURSELF FINNISH if learning on your own, or whatever your Finnish course assigns. However, Karlsson's book is a helpful reference for looking up all the dizzying paradigms of Finnish nouns and verbs, and for understanding the various, often subtle uses of cases.

Many beginners, especially those living outside of Finland, are unaware that Standard Finnish is essentially confined to writing, and the spoken language is vastly different in all aspects: phonetics, vocabulary and grammar. Karlsson does end his grammar with a brief description of the Helsinki variety of spoken Finnish, but the student will have to seek out other books to really understand spoken Finnish. For that purpose I'd recommend KATO HEI by Maarit Berg and Leena Silfverberg (Helsinki: Finn Lectura, 1997), but it requires a firm knowledge of basic Standard Finnish first.