A Taste of Finnish is a free, independent online course for anyone getting ready to spend a term or a full degree at a university in Finland or simply to move to the country.
Curious learners are just as welcome: if you already live in Finland, the lessons work well next to a classroom course or as a self-study path of their own.
The course has 10 chapters with three lessons in each. Every lesson combines a short story text, dialogues with audio, a grammar section and exercises.
When you need to look something up, turn to the grammar summary that gathers every structure from the lessons in one place.
For extra reading, listening and practical information, browse our collection of useful linksas well.
By the end you will have a solid first feel for the language and enough phrases to manage everyday situations in Finnish – a real taste of it.
Hauskoja opiskeluhetkiä!
HOW TO GET THE MOST OUT OF IT
Set aside fixed times in your week for Finnish. Short, regular sessions beat one long session now and then.
Before Chapter 1, read our short introduction to the Finnish language and its sounds.
Work through the chapters in order and come back to earlier lessons often; new words stick when you meet them again and again.
Listen to each dialogue first, then read it aloud, either on your own or along with the recording, to train your pronunciation.
A good dictionary will help a lot. Many universities give their students access to licensed dictionaries after logging in , so check what your own school offers. If you have no such access, you can use a free Finnish–English web dictionary.
HOW THE COURSE IS BUILT
The lessons follow one story from start to finish, in the spirit of classic course books for exchange students. European language-learning programmes have long shown that learners remember more when the language comes with a story, so here you follow Lucas, a French exchange student, from the day he arrives in Helsinki to the day he flies home. Along the way he meets his neighbours, finds his way around the city, sits in Finnish class, drinks a lot of coffee and spends a weekend at a summer cottage.
Each lesson introduces a few new grammar points through Lucas's everyday situations, and the exercises let you use them straight away. The grammar summary then collects everything into one reference you can return to at any time.
All dialogues come with recordings, so you can hear natural Finnish from the very first lesson and practise until the sounds feel familiar.
