Customer Reviews

Teach Yourself Finnish Complete Course Package (Book + 2CDs) (TY: Complete Courses)

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

 

 

Before moving to Finland for graduate school, I purchased Terttu Leney's TEACH YOURSELF FINNISH. Leney's is the most widely available Finnish textbook in the English-speaking world, and it did equip me with enough basic Finnish to comfortably settle into life in Finland. However, the book is not perfect, and in spite of its strengths it pales in many respects to other, more obscure textbooks.

Leney's book generally follows the contemporary Teach Yourself format: dialogues are followed by vocabulary (first phrase-for-phrase glosses, then individual new words), then come exercises, and finally at the end of each lesson is a dialogue spoken more quickly in more authentic language that the student is challenged to at least get the gist of. Each lesson is dedicated to a specific subject, such as shopping, going to the doctor, or (towards the end) talking about history and politics. There are Finnish-English and English-Finnish vocabularies and, something which all other TY volumes should emulate, some advice on where to go next (books, websites, radio, etc.).

While things like asking directions is a typical topic in beginner's textbook, I rather disagree with Leney's giving it so much attention. The lost tourist asking directions in limited Finnish is likely just going to be answered in English, Finnish people being so at ease with talking to foreigns in it. Rather, the challenge for people new to Finland is feeling at ease with a group of native speakers, such as classmates or coworkers, and so starting off with asking directions isn't so efficient, nor is the early emphasis on talking to bank tellers.

The CDs are absolutely essential. With a sound system so different from English, Finnish is not a language that can be learnt well just off the page. Even if you have a couple of Finnish friends, chances are they couldn't enunciate like the folks on the CDs. Teach Yourself CDs vary widely in quality, but these are very good, with a large cast of voice actors so you just used to different voices, and a good mix of clear and "street" enunciation.

What's wrong with Leney's course? Well, as a one-volume course its exercises are woefully insufficient. Agglutinating languages need much more drill than, say, Spanish or Italian, but the exercises here are few and train the student more to utter stock phrases than to internalize the huge amount of endings that conversational Finnish requires. It would have been better if Teach Yourself had commissioned a course from Leney in two volumes, a beginner's and an intermediate, which would have provided space for much more drill. Teach Yourself has done this for some languages, but regrettably not "smaller" ones.

If you want to learn Finnish, by all means acquire TEACH YOURSELF FINNISH. However, at the same time you need to get a few other books. In my Finnish for foreigners courses at University of Helsinki, the assigned textbooks were Leena Silfverberg's SUOMEN KIELEN ALKEISOPPIKIRJA and SUOMEN KIELEN JATKO-OPPIKIRJA (both published by Finn Lectura). While it might be a bit of work ordering those, and much in them is designed for classroom use, they abound in just the type of rigorous exercises that Leney's course lacks. Leela White's From Start to Finnish (Finn Lectura, 2003) is also a useful textbook, and is available though this very site.

This is not a bad course. However, like breakfast cereal that advertisements claim to be part of a balanced breakfast showing it in photos alongside bread and fruit, Terttu Leney's TEACH YOURSELF FINNISH is but one element towards profiency in Finnish.

I am about to spend 6 months in Finland and am trying to learn what I can about the language. I bought lots of books and have a degree in linguistics and some idea about how people learn languages. I really like way this is done, the way it teaches grammar with practical uses. For instance, when you say "hi, how are you," (hey, mita kuuluu) you are using the present tense, second person, but you don't REALLY need to know that. It's hard enough just remembering the new words and pronouncing them right. This book introduces a few variations and then points out the grammar rule that you have already been learning. It is always a pain learning a new language, but this is a good book for Finnish.

This was the first book I bought when I decided to independently teach myself Finnish. It is a good introduction for someone who has no previous knowledge, I guess, because you have to start somewhere. HOWEVER, I found that you can't really just work your way through it without spending a LOT of time on each chapter. There is too much vocabulary at once and it seems like they expect you to just memorize everything the first time they say it.
The CDs were very useful, but there is no way you could use them by themselves. They REALLY help with the pronunciation. The native speakers speak very slowly and clearly, and there is a good variety of voices.
There are not nearly enough exercises in this book, and next to NO grammar! Although, I know that this is mostly due to the fact that Finnish is a very tough language and the grammar is crazy. Most people say that it is better to learn Finnish (at least at first) by just memorizing words and phrases.
Anyways, my point is, This book is alright. The CDs are handy. I suggest it to learn the correct pronunciation. It's not the GREATEST, but there aren't too many Finnish books out there to begin with...and it's really good value for the price.

This is a great starter product for those who want to learn the basics but who also want to expand on their chosen language. The only flaw with the book are the CD's, they go pretty fast but that's no problem. The information in the book is very helpful as they pretty much break it down for you. All in All i would learn another language with this product.

On page 8, the dipthongs are listed in one order and then not in that order when they are used in sample words. Then, on page 13, the phrases are said super fast and only once. You have no time to process the phrases or even practice them yourself. For the alphabet on page 14, same thing. The speaker literally races through the alphabet. You have no time to say anything yourself. That was only the introduction! It appears they want you to have one hand on the book and one on the pause button. If you want to go over or refer back to material that you would like to hear or practice again, even just a few seconds back, it is not possible; you have to start the entire section over. For a point of reference about these critical comments, I am multilingual, have studied languages from diverse language families and have taught a foreign language. This item belongs in the category of the worst instructional material I've ever seen. Based on this, I would not try any other languages in the series. The only other "complete" thing about this package was that it was a complete waste of money. It is, at best, a supplemental review for non-beginning Finnish language learners.

This book was terrible. When I finished it, I knew some vocabulary but the grammar was so confusing. The author explains things in a roundabout way that ends up just confusing you.

So, if you are looking for a good Finnish book, buy Finnish for Foreigners I and II. That book is great!

I enjoy this book. this is the book only but you can get some type of audio that goes with the book, but i have no clue where. if you don't have any knowledge of the language then I would try and find some audio to familiarize yourself with the way letters sound because its tricky trying to make sense of the examples in the book.

This book is impossible if you have no previous knowledge of finnish. The book skips deliberately very important grammatical rules and cases making it impossible to create sentences on your own.
However as a vocabulary course it may work for you....
Better start with Beginner's Finnish (Hippocrene Beginner's)(w/2 CD's)

It is okay, I thought it came with a CD, but it didn't, once agian I didn't do my homework, the only way to learn a language with a book is too have a learning CD and the words, helps much better!

unless you know a good bit and know how to pronounce finnish, or have a finnish mom like i do, pick another language, this one is devilishly difficult (14 cases!)