Product Description
Specially written by experienced teachers for self-study or class use, the course offers you a step-by-step approach to written and spoken Finnish. No prior knowledge of the language is required. ... Read more

Product Description

Bestselling language courses now with audio CDs!

From Danish to Spanish, Swahili to Brazilian Portuguese, the languages of the world are brought within the reach of any beginning student. Learners can use the Teach Yourself Language Courses at their own pace or as a supplement to formal courses. These complete courses are based on the very latest learning methods and designed to be enjoyable and user-friendly.

Prepared by experts in the language, each course begins with the basics and gradually promotes the student to a level of smooth and confident communication, including:

• Up-to-date, graded interactive dialogues
• Graded units of culture notes, grammar, and exercises
• Step-by-step guide to pronunciation
• Practical vocabulary
• Regular and irregular verb tables
• Plenty of practice exercises and answers
• Bilingual glossary

The new editions also feature:

• Clear, uncluttered, and user-friendly layout
• Self-assessment quizzes to test progress
• Website suggestions to take language study further

Customer Reviews (15)

Good to take your first steps with, but supplement it immediately with other textbooks
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 isdedicated 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.

Good to take your first steps with, but supplement it immediately with other textbooks
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 isdedicated 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.

Good to take your first steps with, but supplement it immediately with other textbooks
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 isdedicated 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.

Good to take your first steps with, but supplement it immediately with other textbooks
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 isdedicated 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.

Very Good!
This is a great book. Both the text and the CD's were very helpfull. Easy for anyone to use and learn finish. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Fantastic- -but not for everyone
This book is an excellent introduction to the Finnish language.The approach of the book is to stay entirely within Finnish itself, with no resort to translation or even explanation in any language but Finnish.This approach would make the book extremely difficult to use for self-study by someone who doesn't know the language; you really need a teacher to help you through at least the first few chapters.On the other hand, by the time you master those first chapters, you will have the knowledge you need to get through the remainder on your own.

What makes this book stand out from other Finnish texts is its extremely strong and well-presented grammatical rules which refer to and rely on the predictable phonological processes of the language.Students are introduced to vowel harmony and consonant gradation as early as chapter 3, making the regular sound changes consequent with the addition of word endings for case or agreement entirely predictable.For the linguistically inclined, this approach showcases the beauty of the language.

Each chapter begins with a small box giving a brief overview of the new grammar focus for the lesson.Then follows a text or set of short dialogues in which the grammar point is demonstrated and new vocabulary is introduced.Following this is usually another grammar box, with more details or notes about the grammar point, and then more text or dialogues.Finally come written exercises, which focus the grammar points.The texts and dialogues are often related to aspects of Finnish geography or culture, and the vocabulary is well chosen from common words or words related to student life.The progression of the grammar presentations is very conducive to communication, starting with simple sentence structure with the copula, then locative cases, plural, genitive, partitive, numbers, transitive, and intransitive verbs, etc.If you make if all the way through this book, volume 2 completes the grammar with the possessive suffixes, lesser used cases like the abessive, comparative and superlative forms of adjectives and adverbs, and the potential mood.Of these later grammar points, only the possessive suffixes are essential for everyday usage, and it would have been useful to see them presented early on in the first volume.

While extremely well executed in its linguistic approach, this book is not for everybody.The Finnish-only approach makes it an excellent text for mixed language groups studying in Finland.For such groups, there are also bilingual vocabulary lists for the book sold separately in a variety of languages.But at the same time, the Finnish-only design also limits the usability of the book for independent study.I would highly recommend the book for linguists.For others, I would suggest giving it a try, but keep in mind the target audience. ... Read more

Product Description
Part of a series that offers mainly linguistic and anthropological research and teaching/learning material on a region of great cultural and strategic interest and importance in the post-Soviet era. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Best for learning Finnish.
This is listed as out of print, and perhaps it is, but I got it by mail from the publisher (Indiana University) and the tapes were available also by mail from the Indiana University Language and Computer LaboratoriesAudio Tape Library.It is by far the best learning tool for Finnishcurrently available.A good second is the book and recordings used by theForeign Service Institute and available from the Department of Commercethrough their NTIS series.Both courses use the same methodology (I ownboth), and they are effective and enjoyable to use.

Lehtinen providesconversations and ample exercises, all reproduced in the book and recordedon the cassettes, and it explains grammar and Finnish sound changesclearly. It explains important aspects of pronunciation that I have notfound in any other Finnish textbook, such as the occurrence of the glottalstop, which is pronounced but never written.The Foreign Service Institutecourse does equally well but is oriented toward the needs of StateDepartment personnel.

Other Finnish courses on the market are less thanthis (I own most of them too), and considering the complexity of Finnishthey are just not up to the job. ... Read more

Product Description
In this monograph Katsura Aoyama presents a series ofpsycholinguistic investigations on consonantal distinctions in Finnishand Japanese. The author deftly describes differences in adultproduction, perception, and child acquisition of these distinctions.This is an important work for those interested in recent developmentsin theoretical and psycholinguistics. ... Read more

Product Description
Includes compounds, phrases, and idioms, and features 15,000 entries on each side. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

too little value for money
There is simply no more in it than in a pocket dictionary, which, considering the size and price of this book, is definitely not good enough. Serious students of Finnish would be better off with, for example, the Standard Finnish Dictionary(Finnish-English English-Finnish), published by Continuum in London and widely used in Finland. Athough it will cost you a little more, it will give you more far more information and much better coverage of the language.

NTC English-Finnish-English Dictionary
As a student of Finnish with no prior experience, NTC'sFinnish-English-Finnish dictionary provided me with a practical source forthousands of English-Finnish translations of common words. Because Finnishis of no gramatical relation to English, many of the words at times end inlong suffixes. If the user of this dictionary wishes to translateword-for-wordEnglish sentences to Finnish sentences, the resultingsentence may not be understood by a Finnish speaker, as many times wholeFinnish sentences end up being a single, excruciatingly long jumble of caseendings. All in all, this dictionary is worth the money for someone whowishes to use it to translate single words. However, for a person whowishes to simply use this dictionary to create whole sentences, the"Teach Yourself" course in Finnish (along with the cassettes) isrecomended, so as to give the user an understanding of the syntax of thiscomplicated, yet worthwhile language. ... Read more

Product Description
Explores many interesting details of Finnish syntax, morphology, phonology and lexicon, providing the linguist, for the first time in English, the opportunity for cross-language comparisons and detailed linguistic analysis. ... Read more

Product Description
This book proposes a new theory of definiteness in language. It argues that definiteness should be viewed as a cover-term comprising three basic oppositions within the areas of familiarity (locatability), quantity (inclusiveness) and generality (extensivity). Further, the oppositions are not discrete but scalar, and lend themselves to characterization in terms of fuzzy set theory.Dr. Chesterman examines these themes, firstly by drawing on several traditions of research on the rich system of articles in English, and then by looking at how the concept of definiteness is realized in Finnish, a language that has no articles and typically leaves definiteness to be inferred by a variety of means.On Definiteness provides a thorough and sensitive discussion of an intricate semantic problem. It highlights two important theoretical points:the fuzziness of the linguistic concept of definiteness, and the differences among languages in the ways in which they draw the line between syntax, semantics and pragmatics. ... Read more