Introduction to Finnish as second language Finnish 1 and 2 S2

1. FINNISH – THE
MOST DIFFICULT
LANGUAGE IN
THE WORLD?
Finnish I and II
Laura Parkkinen

2. FINNISH AS A LANGUAGE
FINNISH
• Finnish – the most difficult
language in the world?
• 1) Finnish is not a difficult
language – it´s different!
• 2) Almost all the languages spoken
in Europe are related to each other
– Indo-European family of
languages
FINNO-UGRIAN FAMILY
• 3) The Finnish language is a
member of the Finno-Ugrian
language family (like Estonian,
Saami and Hungarian)
• 4) Finnish is not related to Russian
or Swedish 5) The structure and
vocabulary is different

3. NO ARTICLES
Finnish has no articles
(cf. English a, the).
bussi a/the bus tomaatti a/the tomato
NO GENDER
Finnish words have no
grammatical gender
(cf.
German der, die, das).
Even the
pronoun hän ´he, she´
is used for both sexes.

4. PRONUNCATION
• For Finnish pronunciation, you’ll only need to focus
on two consonants and vowels which separate the
tongue from English
• TUULI (WIND) TULI (FIRE)
• SUURI (BIG) SURI (TO BE SORRY)
• KUURI (DIET) KURI (ORDER)
• LAAVA LAVA
• CONSONANTS:
• TAPAA (TO MEET) TAPPAA (TO KILL)
• KUKA ( WHO) KUKKA (FLOWER)
• PUURO (PORRIDGE) PURO

5. SOME WORDS
• GOOGLATA
• TOMAATTI
• BANAANI
• SUKLAA
• KAHVI
• MAITO
• PALTTOO ( MANTEAU)
• TEE ( TSAJU)
• LIKKA
•
•
•
•

6. HOW TO
INTRODUCE
YOURSELF IN
FINNISH?
• Hi! Hei!
• Moi!
• Good day! Hyvää päivää!
• Good evening! Hyvää iltaa”
• Nice to meet! Mukava
tutustua!
• I am Laura. Minä olen
Laura.
• Minun nimeni on Laura.
• My name is Laura.
• Who are you?

7. WHERE ARE YOU FROM?
I am from
Sweden.
I am Swedish.
Minä olen
Ruotsista.
Minä olen
Ruotsista.
Minä olen
Kolumbiasta.
Minä olen
kolumbialainen.
+ lainen

8. I N F I N N I S H C O U R S E Y O U
W I L L L E A R N B A S I C
F I N N I S H I N E V E R Y D AY
S I T U AT I O N S A N D S O M E
G R A M M A R .
• The course is based on
• Sonja Gehring&Sanni
Heinzmann: Suomen Mestari 1.
FINNLECTURA
• Teacher will give you some
material.
• You will do a short oral
presentation by yourself (10 min) or
with a partner. You can for example
tell shortly about your country, food
etc.
• You will have a written exam.
• We are going to listen music and
learn about Finnish traditions.
• WELCOME! TERVETULOA!