Furniture Beginner Finnish Lesson Plan #2

This Beginner Finnish Lesson Plan contains some suggestions on how to approach Finnish when you’re just getting started. It’s not an exhaustive explanation, but rather meant to give you some pointers to get started. Time for a furniture beginner Finnish lesson plan!

This series will not be a step-by-step guide to learning Finnish. Just reading this article won’t magically teach you Finnish: you will need to make an effort, click the links and study the subjects mentioned in this series. All the current topics currently are part of the beginner level A1.

Furniture and Rooms

The main topic of this lesson is furniture and rooms in a house.

1. Finnish Vocabulary for Complete Beginners

As a beginner, it’s useful to start with vocabulary lists. After all, you can’t make sentences if you don’t know any vocabulary!

Please note that the vocabulary pages on my website try to offer something for learners of any proficiency. This means that even the beginner subjects will have some information for intermediate and advanced learners. Use common sense and pick the words you will need rather than blindly learning the whole list.

Vocabulary that would be useful to learn in relation to furniture:

Rooms and Furniture
The numbers (focus on part 1 on the page)
Adjectives
Colors

2. Finnish Grammar for Beginners

Below, you can find some grammar topics that will allow you to talk about furniture and rooms. It’s important to realize that you can’t learn these topics in isolation. You will need to combine them with the vocabulary topics above that you’ve learned.

Please note that grammar topics like the partitive have super many different uses. As a beginner, you should only focus on what is important for you right at the time when you’re studying. In the case of furniture, all you need is to know that the partitive is used with numbers and in negative sentences. Ignore everything else!

Minulla on -construction: in order to be able to say that you have something.
The genitive case will allow you to say that something is in someone’s possession.
Postpositions in order to say something is behind, in front, next or close by something.
The partitive: only in order to be able to say you have two/three/ten or none of something
Vowel harmony: in order to add the correct ending at the end of words
The Inessive: in order to say something is in a place

3. Combining Grammar and Vocabulary

The vocabulary related to furniture and rooms is a great example to show you how you can combine knowledge of grammar and vocabulary in order to make sentences.

Using the minulla on -construction you can express what kind of furniture you have, eg:
- Minulla on sohva. “I have a couch.”
- Meillä on televisio. “We have a television.”
Adjectives and colors allow you to give more information about your furniture, eg:
- Sohva on punainen. “The couch is red.”
- Minulla on iso televisio. “I have a large television.”
The inessive case will allow you to say what kind of furniture you have in each room, eg:
- Olohuoneessa on sohva. “There’s a couch in the living room.”
- Makuuhuoneessa on matto. “There is a carpet in the bedroom.”
The partitive case is used in combinations with the numbers, so it’s useful here as well, eg:
- Olohuoneessa on kaksi sohvaa. “There are two couches in the living room”
- Keittiössä on pöytä ja neljä tuolia. “There is a table and four chairs in the kitchen.”
The genitive case and postpositions allow you to give more info about the location of the furniture, eg:
- Pöytä on maton päällä. “The table is on top of the carpet.”
- Television vieressä on kirjahylly. “Next to the television is a book case.”

That’s it for this Furniture Beginner Finnish Lesson Plan #2 suggestion. I know this is not a complete lesson. It’s not meant to be one. The goal is to show you how grammar and vocabulary should be combined with the purpose of getting a message across, rather than just for the sake of learning individual words or grammar.