Mastering Finnish (cassettes) [Audiobook] [Audio Cassette]

Borje Vahamaki (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 15, 1999 | ISBN-10: 0968588115 | ISBN-13: 978-0968588116

These two cassettes, recorded by native speakers of Finnish, are an integral component of the Mastering Finnish learning package. The cassettes perform multiple service: in addition to improving listening skills, they facilitate good pronunciation, offer invaluable phrases and vocabulary, and offer sentence patterns worth memorizing. Repeated listenings many, many times over produce the best results. The cassettes are best used together with the textbook Mastering Finnish.

Editorial Reviews

Review

The CDs have the same outstanding Finnish radio voice of Sinikka Sokka as do the cassettes. -- Lauri Toiviainen, Vapaa Sana, March 30, 2003 --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

About the Author

Börje Vähämäki is a professor of Finnish language and Literature at the University of Toronto. He has also authored the textbook with which the CDs correspond. --This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Aspasia Books (November 15, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0968588115
• ISBN-13: 978-0968588116
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 4.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,757,644 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best one-volume Finnish textbooks, December 5, 2000

By 

M. S. Green (Anchorage, AK United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mastering Finnish (Hippocrene Mastering Series) (Paperback)

Mastering Finnish is designed as a textbook for teaching Finnish in classroom settings (and can in fact be purchased with textbook-style binding), but it's also ideal for self-study at home. It offers a wealth of practical information on Finnish society and institutions in company with a systematic approach to building vocabulary and grammar, with numerous dialogues, narratives, grammatical notes, and exercises. Colloquial as well as standard written Finnish are covered. It also includes a detailed reference grammar. Vähämäki based his book on years of experience as a teacher of the Finnish language at University of Minnesota and at University of Toronto, where he currently director of the Finnish Studies Program and editor of the Journal of Finnish Studies. He's also a translator and editor, making Finnish-Canadian, and Finnish-American literature available to readers in English-speaking nations. (You can find others of his books here at Amazon.)

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A bit confusing, March 22, 2001

By 

Jason Frandsen (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mastering Finnish (Hippocrene Mastering Series) (Paperback)

This is the first book that I bought in trying to learn Finnish. Along with this book I bought a Finnish to English dictionary. I found myself searching around the book and my dictionary constantly looking for words in the text. I got frustrated with this book and bought Teach Yourself Finnish by Terttu Leney, and it was a MUCH better book for learning Finnish. But still, there were gaps. I also bought Finnish, an essential grammer which filled in the gaps.

So my suggestion, is that if you want to learn Finnish, buy a Finnish to English dictionary, Teach Yourself Finnish by Terttu Leney, and Finnish: an essential grammer.

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Dry and academic, but well-designed, April 23, 2004

By 

Craig MACKINNON (Thunder Bay, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mastering Finnish (Paperback)

This is the text that is used in Lakehead University's Introductory Finnish (language) course. In the full-year course, we covered 10 chapters out of the book (it has something like 16 chapters in total), but also covered additional material prepared by the professor. I was a student in the course, and offer the following review from that point of view.

The good points: it is arranged conversationally. That is, each chapter introduces some new grammatical structure, but chapters are mostly divided by subject content - e.g. "A Visit to the Doctor", "Travel by Train and Bus", etc. I anticipate this to be incredibly useful for trips to Finland. As a class, we went to the local Finnish restaurant as a "Field Trip", and the Finnish-speaking waitress easily made herself understood to us, and we to her. I'm sure our grammer was simplistic, but the point of an introductory course is conveyance of information, not composition of epic poetry.

Another important point - the book avoids colloquial "Finnglish", which is apparently creeping into the language, especially in young people in the large cities (who are exposed to American/British TV, films, and music). The vocabulary is strictly "real" Finnish.

Unfortunately, there are a number of bad points. First and foremost is the lack of a universal glossary/word list - extremely frustrating!. Readers will require a Finnish-English dictionary. Secondly, the author uses grammatical terms that are not commonly known, at least to those that haven't taken a university-level course in English grammer or Latin. He throws around terms like "nominative", "genative", etc., without really defining what these terms are.

As a textbook, I think this is a fairly good one. As a stand-alone, teach yourself type book, I would be seriously hesitant about recommending it. Make sure you brush up on your grammatical terms beforehand, and get an English-Finnish dictionary, too.