Welcome to study with the Puhutsä suomee? – Spoken Finnish Online materials

This material has been created to help non-Finnish students understand Finnish conversations better and to encourage discussions in Finnish. The site includes:

• situational videos with Kristina, who has moved to Finland, and her new Finnish friends Juho and Villehart. We follow them in different everyday life situations. With the example from their informal discussions, we encourage students to start using more Finnish.
• instructional videos in which the teachers behind Puhutsä suomee? (Hertta Erkkilä, Emmi Pollari and Laura Uusitalo) explain some differences between spoken and written Finnish
• online exercises with automated feedback to help students practice spoken Finnish words and forms. These exercises can be done on your own.
• ideas for different oral and written assignments to be returned to a teacher (if the site’s materials are used in a course)

These materials were created as part of a project called DIGIJOUJOU (2017-2020) for Finnish teaching in different universities and schools of applied sciences in Finland. It is possible to turn the materials in Puhutsä suomee? into a course: the materials have a CC license, so teachers can freely use them for non-commercial purposes. If you are a higher education student in Finland, you can check if a ready-made course is offered on Digicampus (www.digicampus.fi).

Using Spoken Finnish

• As you have probably noticed, written Finnish and spoken Finnish differ from each other.
• In this material we show spoken Finnish features that you might hear a lot, especially in the capital region and in popular TV and radio shows.
• Please notice that there is not just one way to speak Finnish – everybody speaks in their own way.
• There are also a lot of different dialects in Finland, so people around you might be speaking differently to the language examples we discuss on the videos.
• Nevertheless, there is some kind of consensus of typical features of general spoken Finnish, and that is something we try to cover on the videos.
• Different situations might also demand different kinds of spoken language, e.g. while discussing with a friend or with your boss. But even when talking to your boss, it is totally ok to use the general spoken Finnish features we discuss on the videos.
• Spoken Finnish forms are used when talking but they are also used in informal written messages (Messenger, WhatsApp, etc.).
• In formal texts you should use the standard written forms, e.g. in job applications, essays, articles, in formal e-mails, etc.
• We encourage you to observe how the people around you speak – use those forms that you find the most suitable.

How to use the material

• It is recommended that you already have some knowledge of Finnish, since on the instructional videos we compare written Finnish with spoken Finnish and we assume you have already studied the written Finnish forms in some Finnish courses. But even if you haven’t studied Finnish much yet, especially the videos in Module 1 are pretty easy to understand.
• On the instructional videos we explain the grammar and changes in words both in Finnish and in English and we give a lot of visual examples.
• Since written Finnish forms and words differ from the spoken Finnish ones, it might be difficult to find their meaning in traditional dictionaries. Hence, we made a list of the words used in our material here.
• When filling in the correct answers to the online exercises, you will need the letters ä and ö. If you don’t have a Finnish language option in your word processing software, sometimes it might be useful to write your text here http://finnish.typeit.org/
• While watching the instructional videos, make notes, since you will need the spoken Finnish examples in the exercises. You can write down the spoken Finnish forms, or you can take pictures of the videos.
• Practice self-assessment: evaluate if you can understand and if you can already produce the language features
  • feature --> do I understand this feature when I see it?
  • feature --> do I understand this feature when I hear it?
  • feature --> can I produce this feature while writing?
  • feature --> can I produce this feature while talking?
• The material can be done independently. In “Palautustehtävät” there are exercises that you can do on your own, even if you don’t have a teacher.
• If you want to share videos you have made, it might be simplest to create a Google account and share your videos through YouTube, where you can also make hidden videos.

The instructions in English

• many instructions concerning the exercises on this site are only in Finnish. Here are the most commonly used instructions both in Finnish and in English:
  • KATSO (video) = WATCH (the video clip)
  • TEE HARJOITUS = DO THE EXERCISE
  • KUUNTELE = LISTEN
  • KIRJOITA = WRITE
  • VASTAA KYSYMYKSIIN = ANSWER THE QUESTIONS
  • PUHU = SPEAK
  • YHDISTÄ = CONNECT
  • REAGOI = REACT
  • VEDÄ = DRAG
  • ÄÄNITÄ PUHETTASI = RECORD YOURSELF SPEAKING
  • KERRO = TELL

Where to find a Finnish language buddy

• If you don’t yet have a Finnish friend (study colleague, girlfriend/boyfriend, neighbor, etc.), you can find a Finnish language buddy.
• See if your university has a course called tandem or each one teach one.
  • At the University of Helsinki, see e.g. Language Buddy and Alice.
  • The Unitandem course on Digicampus (where two students teach each other their native languages)
• You can also find a buddy with the application LanGo (for this you need a Facebook account). Remember to say which town or city you live in.
• Check if your town or city has Language Cafés (Kielikahvila)
• If your language proficiency level is already B1, sign up for the courses on Adult Education Centers (työväenopisto/kansalaisopisto). Consider, for example, taking a cooking class or a knitting class! You will find interesting things to do – and you will be surrounded by native speakers. Just don’t let them speak English (or other languages) to you. You can tell them “mä en osaa englantia”, that might reduce their eagerness to speak English with you!