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Supisuomea
239 pages
First published January 1, 2003
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 22, 2010
SUPISUOMEA is a multimedia course designed by Finnish national television YLE in 2003. It consists of a DVD, a textbook and two audio CDs. The main part of the course is the DVD, and the book generally consists only of exercises to reinforce what is taught on the screen. Don't get the book on its own! (I haven't heard the CDs.) SUPISUOMEA is a very useful course for anyone studying Finnish, but total beginners would do well to start with Terttu Leney's TEACH YOURSELF FINNISH or Leila White's FROM START TO FINNISH.
The DVD consists of twelve half-hour programmes dealing with a given set of grammatical categories and aspects of daily life in Finland, along with a brief presentation of Finnish traditions or history. Each episode features the same characters, and we watch how their lives develop as time goes by. The scenes of each episode are linked together by a different immigrant to Finland, from an Italian to a Somalian, who have lived in the country for many years. If they have mastered the language, the course suggests, then you can too. And though a couple of them have a thick foreign accent, I came to see this as an advantage of the course, since the student would do well to come to grips with the way, say, Finland's Vietnamese immigrants pronounce the language; these are some of your future neighbours and co-workers, after all.
On one hand, SUPISUOMEA is a course in beginning Finnish. The grammar introduced is quite basic, with all the cases and tenses being presented, but not some of the more complicated noun stems (taival) or verb forms (the potential mood, the imperatives other than the 2nd person); those would be left to an intermediate Finnish textbook like Leena Silfverberg's SUOMEN KIELEN JATKO-OPPIKIRJA. On the other hand, the course does present highly colloquial Finnish at the speed you'll really heard it on the street, making no attempt to coddle the student. As a result, I think it would be a frustrating course for a total beginner in the Finnish language. However, I found the course very helpful as a source of listening practice, and when I return to Finland after long trips abroad, SUPISUOMEA is just the refresher course I need.
The SUPISUOMEA course DVD and textbook can still be had from Helsinki outlets. I do recommend it for anyone learning Finnish, as it is helpful and very entertaining.
The DVD consists of twelve half-hour programmes dealing with a given set of grammatical categories and aspects of daily life in Finland, along with a brief presentation of Finnish traditions or history. Each episode features the same characters, and we watch how their lives develop as time goes by. The scenes of each episode are linked together by a different immigrant to Finland, from an Italian to a Somalian, who have lived in the country for many years. If they have mastered the language, the course suggests, then you can too. And though a couple of them have a thick foreign accent, I came to see this as an advantage of the course, since the student would do well to come to grips with the way, say, Finland's Vietnamese immigrants pronounce the language; these are some of your future neighbours and co-workers, after all.
On one hand, SUPISUOMEA is a course in beginning Finnish. The grammar introduced is quite basic, with all the cases and tenses being presented, but not some of the more complicated noun stems (taival) or verb forms (the potential mood, the imperatives other than the 2nd person); those would be left to an intermediate Finnish textbook like Leena Silfverberg's SUOMEN KIELEN JATKO-OPPIKIRJA. On the other hand, the course does present highly colloquial Finnish at the speed you'll really heard it on the street, making no attempt to coddle the student. As a result, I think it would be a frustrating course for a total beginner in the Finnish language. However, I found the course very helpful as a source of listening practice, and when I return to Finland after long trips abroad, SUPISUOMEA is just the refresher course I need.
The SUPISUOMEA course DVD and textbook can still be had from Helsinki outlets. I do recommend it for anyone learning Finnish, as it is helpful and very entertaining.
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December 6, 2012good
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews