
As you move through this FSI Conversational Finnish textbook, you will find it is built around principles which emphasize the development of basic communicative skills. The speech samples in this text reflect the language as it is spoken in practical, everyday social situations. The objective of each section is to introduce and to expand your ability to use the principal features of the Finnish language to satisfy your social and professional needs in the host country. The structure is introduced in large chunks for overview, and smaller pieces are practiced cyclically to give you flexible control of the structure with review and reinforcement built in.
The aim and purpose of your textbook, conversational Finnish, is to serve as a basic course. With this book you are expected to develop the skills needed for fluent workable proficiency in Finnish. This translates to a level of 2 to 2+ on the Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) scale and 'advanced' proficiency on the ACTFL scale. This book is designed for the first six months of an intensive ten-month course in US government language schools.
This book is also suitable for self-study. To facilitate its use for independent study, English translations, tapes, and answer keys are provided for practically all the Finnish text. The textbook is accompanied by tapes, a dictionary, and a workbook (with tapes). Conversational Finnish is organized into 14 topical units with structural notes in the end of each unit. The first four units should be studied in sequence as a block but after Unit V they can be studied individually in any sequence.
Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a Finnish dialect, are spoken. The Kven language, a dialect of Finnish, is spoken in Northern Norway.
Finnish is the eponymous member of the Finnic language family and is typologically between fusional and agglutinative languages. It modifies and inflects nouns, adjectives, pronouns, numerals and verbs, depending on their roles in the sentence.
Finnish is spoken in: Finland
Finnish is also called: Suomea, Suomi