Finnish Courses
Start learning Finnish with us!
Intensive beginners’ course (starting 6 May 2023)
If you are interested in joining our intensive beginners’ course starting this spring, please fill out the registration form.
The schedule is as follows:
May: Saturdays 9:00-12:00 CET & Wednesdays 18:00 – 19:30 CET
June: Tuesdays and Thursdays 18:00-21:00 CET & Saturdays 9:00-12:00 CET
Classes will take place online and be taught in English and Finnish.
The course fee is 500 EUR.
The text book is Suomen mestari 1, which can be bought online or e.g. in Brussels from the European Bookstore. While the course is aimed at beginners, we also welcome students wishing to brush up on their skills to go forward in their studies. After completing the course, you will be ready to move on to Level 2 in the autumn!
Standard Autumn & Spring Courses:
We offer Finnish language courses at all levels and classes are open to everyone, no matter where you are based.
The course fee is 250 euros for one term. You must register and pay for each term separately.
One level of Finnish equals one year of classes (autumn + spring term), and we offer courses on 5 levels, from beginners to advanced. Please note that there must be at least 5 students enrolled for the course to go ahead.
Finnish and English are used as the languages of tuition. Should you wish to join a course halfway, you can, but we ask you to familiarise yourself with the topics treated in the previous term. You can check the course topics below.
Levels
LEVEL 1
This is an elementary course, aimed at beginners and consists of 1,5 hours per week. The group meets 14 times during the autumn term. The group will start from chapter 1 of Suomen mestari 1 (post-2020 edition).
Teacher: Merja Heikkinen
TOPICS COVERED IN THIS COURSE:
- vocabulary: languages, cardinal numbers, countries and nationalities, colours, days, weeks, months, seasons, weather, appearance, family and relatives, clock
- verbs: verb conjugation in present tense, verb types 1-5
- vowel harmony, consonant gradation (“k-p-t”)
- pronunciation
- nominative, genitive and partitive singular
- demonstrative pronouns
- minulla on -sentence
LEVEL 2
This course is an advanced course. The group will continue from chapter 6 of Suomen mestari 1 (pre-2020 edition). The group meets 14 times during the autumn term.
Teacher: Kaija Kauppinen
TOPICS COVERED IN THIS COURSE
- vocabulary: travelling, transportation, apartments and furniture, parties, food, work life and professions, ordinal numbers and dates
- verbs: imperative singular
- locative cases (Minä asun Belgiassa, Minä tulen Suomesta etc.)
- nominative plural
- partitive singular and plural
- postpositions
- the basics of object
- word types i-i, i-e, e, nen, si, in, as/äs, is
LEVEL 3
This course is an advanced course. The group will continue from chapter 1 of Suomen mestari 2 and meet 14 times during the autumn term.
Teacher: Merja Heikkinen
TOPICS COVERED IN THIS COURSE:
- vocabulary: travelling, clothes, time, illness and health, nature and summerhouse life, sauna culture, hobbies, everyday plans
- verbs: positive and negative past tense, transitive and intransitive verbs, verb type 6,verbs with infinitives (Menen nukkumaan.)
- genitive and partitive object (Minä luen kirjaa./Minä luen kirjan.)
- necessive construction (Minun täytyy opiskella suomea.)
- relative pronoun joka
- word types us/ys, os/ös, es, in, e, as/äs
LEVEL 4
This course is an advanced course. The group will continue from chapter 5 of Suomen mestari 2 and meet 14 times during the autumn term.
Teacher: Sanna Joutsijoki
TOPICS COVERED IN THIS COURSE:
- vocabulary: events and ceremonies, habits, education and work life, shopping
- verbs: perfect and past perfect tenses – word types ut/yt, nut/nyt, Vus/Vys
- possessive suffix (Minun kirja, minun kirjani)
- i-plural in different cases (Asun talossa. Asumme taloissa.)
- relative pronouns and pronouns
- comparison in nominative singular
LEVEL 5
This course is an advanced course. The group will continue from chapter 1 of Suomen mestari 3 and meet 14 times during the autumn term.
Teacher: Johanna Miettinen
TOPICS COVERED IN THIS COURSE:
- vocabulary: environment, recycling, sustainability, culture, arts, history, society, geography, sights, expressions of time, letters, and e-mails
- verbs: conditional present and perfect tense, passive present and past tense, passive perfect and past perfect tense, passive conditional, and imperative plural
- passive object
- word types: ton/tön, lämmin and kansi
- adjectives: ton/tön and -llinen
- adverbs: sti (nopeasti)
LEVEL 6
This course is an advanced course. The group will continue from chapter 5 of Suomen mestari 3 and meet 14 times during the autumn term.
Teacher: Sanna Joutsijoki
TOPICS COVERED IN THIS COURSE:
- vocabulary: family life, cultural differences, characters, home electronics, tools and sports
- cases: translative and essive – adjectives: comparative and superlative
- pronouns: kumpi, kumpikin, ei kumpikaan
- sentence types
Schedule
SPRING 2023
LEVEL 1 (FI1) – Tuesdays 18.00-19.30 CET, starting on 31.1.2023
LEVEL 2 (FI2) – Mondays 18.00 to 19.30 CET, starting on 6.2.2023
LEVEL 3 (FI3) – Tuesdays 19.45-21.15 CET, starting on 31.1.2023
LEVEL 4 (FI4) – Thursdays 18:00–19:30 CET, starting on 2.2.2023
AUTUMN 2022
LEVEL 1 (FI1) – Tuesdays 18.00-19.30, starting on 13.9.202
LEVEL 2 (FI2) – Mondays 18.00-19.30, starting on 12.9.2022
LEVEL 3 (FI3) – Tuesdays 19.45-21.15, starting on 13.9.2022
LEVEL 4 (FI4) – Thursdays 18:00–19:30, starting on 15.9.2022
LEVEL 5 (FI5) – Wednesdays, time to be announced starting on 14.9.2022
LEVEL 6 (FI6) – Thursdays, 19:45–21:15, starting on 15.9.2022
Location
All our courses are held online, using Zoom. Before enrolling in the course, please check that your computer’s video and sound elements are working, allowing active participation in lessons. Please note that the lessons are not recorded.
Course Fee
The course fee is 250 EUR/term.
Payment must be made before the start of the course to the account of The Finnish Cultural Institute for the Benelux. You will receive the payment details after signing up. Please note the course book is not included in the course fee. The courses take place when there are at least 5 enrolled students per course.
Our Teachers
Merja Heikkinen: I am Merja, originally from the northern wilderness, but I studied Finnish language and literature in Helsinki. I live now in Flanders with my Belgian partner, bilingual children and monolingual chickens. I like to create a relaxing atmosphere for my lessons and share strange little anecdotes about Finnish culture and language. My favourite words in Finnish and any language are words that are hard to translate into other languages – like “hankikanto” or “tykkylumi”.
Kaija Kauppinen: My name is Kaija. I studied Finnish language and comparative literature in Turku, Finland. I arrived in Brussels in late August 2022, to volunteer at Finnish Seamen’s Mission for a year. Meanwhile, I’ve been networking and looking for different ways of collaboration in the field of Finnish language and culture and social community. I’m very excited about the opportunity to teach at the Institute. My goal is to create a joyful and encouraging learning environment in my lessons, so that everyone could express themself without hesitation. One of my favorite words in Finnish is yökyöpeli, because it is idiomatic and poetic, and its pronunciation might be a bit challenging for a foreign student.
Sanna Joutsijoki
Private Lessons
We also organise private Finnish lessons for 550 EUR/10 lessons (one lesson lasts 45 minutes). Get in touch with our Head of Administration, Eeva-Maria Viitanen for more information at eeva-maria.viitanen@finncult.be