In the City: Beginner Finnish Lesson Plan #6
This “In the City: Beginner Finnish Lesson Plan #6” 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. We’ll be focusing on beginner Finnish to talk about a city in this lesson.
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.
Talking about Places in the City
The main topic of this lesson is talking about going to and from places, especially in the city. Time to learn to form proper sentences!
1. Finnish Vocabulary for 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 pages about 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.
Useful Vocabulary for in the city Beginner Finnish:
- Places in the city: learn the words for shop, kindergarten, gas station and many more!
- Basic verbs: you can use these verbs to describe what you do in these places.
- The verb käydä: a very useful verb when visiting places
2. Finnish Grammar for Beginners
Below, you can find some grammar topics that will allow you to talk about locations. It’s important to realize that you can’t learn these topics in isolation. You will need to combine them with the vocabulary topics 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 being in the city, all you need is to know that the partitive is used with numbers and in negative sentences. Ignore everything else!
- The Finnish verbtypes: in order to conjugate verbs
- Location cases: in order to say you’re in a place, going to a place or coming from a place (missä mistä mihin).
- Vowel harmony: in order to add the correct ending at the end of words
3. Combining Grammar and Vocabulary
We can combine the vocabulary and grammar above to talk about where we go every day.
- The location cases and place names naturally fit together, eg:
- Minä menen keittiöstä makuuhuoneeseen. “I go from the kitchen to the bedroom.”
- Minä lähden kauppaan. “I go to the store.”
- Me menemme kirjastosta hotelliin. “We go from the library to the hotel.”
- You could practice places in “mistä mihin” phrases, eg:
- Minä menen kotoa kauppaan. “I go from home to the store.”
- Minä menen kaupasta kirjastoon. “I go from the store to the library.”
- Minä menen kirjastosta hotelliin. “I go from the library to the hotel.”
- Minä menen hotellista museoon. “I go from the hotel to the museum.”
- You can use the verbs you know to make sentences with different verbs, eg:
- Minä luen kirjastossa. “I read in the library.”
- Minä siivoan keittiössä. “I clean in the kitchen.”
- Me keskustelemme kahvilassa. “We chat in the cafe.”
- Minä pesen minun hampaat kylpyhuoneessa. “I brush my teeth in the bathroom.”
That’s it for this In the city: Beginner Finnish Lesson Plan 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.
