THE UNIVERSITY of EDINBURGH

DEGREE REGULATIONS & PROGRAMMES OF STUDY 2024/2025

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DRPS : Course Catalogue : School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures : European Languages and Cultures - Common Courses

Undergraduate Course: Foundation Finnish Language 2 (ELCC07002)

Course Outline
SchoolSchool of Literatures, Languages and Cultures CollegeCollege of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
Credit level (Normal year taken)SCQF Level 7 (Year 1 Undergraduate) AvailabilityAvailable to all students
SCQF Credits20 ECTS Credits10
SummaryThis course is a continuation of Foundation Finnish Language 1. It is designed to build on the level of spoken and written knowledge developed in the first course. As such, it requires previous knowledge of Finnish to approximately level A1 on the CEFR scale. On successful completion of this course, students will have progressed to level A2 on the CEFR scale. All students will take all elements of assessment, including the centrally arranged examination. Auditing (Class Only participation) is not permitted on any Foundation Language course, with no exceptions.
Course description Finland is the easternmost country in Scandinavia, sharing a land border with Sweden to the west, Norway to the north and Russia to the east. The country is famous for its forests and nicknamed the ¿the land of thousand lakes¿. Finland was ranked as the #1 happiest in the world in the UN World Happiness report 2020.

What sets Finland apart from the other Nordic countries (Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Iceland) is its language. Unlike the vast majority of languages spoken in Europe, this is not part of the Indo-European language family. Instead, Finnish is a Uralic language, related to Estonian and Hungarian. It is an agglutinating language with a well-developed case system, but also one of the most straightforward writing systems in Europe. Learning Finnish will give you an insight into a language that functions differently to Indo-European languages, but is still part of the European cultural sphere, which is attested by numerous loan words. It will also give you access the wealth of Finnish literature and culture, and provide a gateway to the fuller understanding of the Finnish landscape and people.

In Foundation Finnish Language 2, you will learn to use grammatical features such as the correct object cases for nouns, and the simple past tense of verbs. You will also expand your vocabulary and communication skills through a series of learning activities designed to boost your speaking confidence and refine your reading and listening skills. At the same time, the thread of modern Finnish culture will continue to be woven around the linguistic aspects of the course, giving you an insight into the country and its people as well as their mother tongue.

Over the course of 10 weeks, Foundation Finnish 2 will help you improve your Finnish pronunciation, master new expressions, and move beyond basic conversation. You¿ll learn how to express your opinions on all sorts of everyday matters, speak more richly about yourself and your background, and deal with more complex interactions. You will also be learn to interact in routine situations and talk more about your immediate needs, as described in the CEFR at level A2.1
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations Other requirements None
Additional Costs Course Book
Information for Visiting Students
Pre-requisitesNone
Course Delivery Information
Not being delivered
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
  1. Understand sentences and frequently used expressions related to areas of personal relevance, such as personal information, local geography, employment/ study; Communicate successfully in routine tasks requiring a simple and direct exchange of information on familiar and routine matters; describe in simple terms aspects of her/ his background and immediate environment
  2. Demonstrate Finnish language competence at CEFR Level A2/1. Can have short conversations and ask and answer simple questions about familiar topics. Can ask and answer simple questions about things in the past. (e.g., yesterday, last week, last year). Understand short, simple texts on familiar subjects, which consist of high-frequency, everyday or job-related language. Write about things and people s/he knows well using simple language, for example descriptions of friends, what happened during the day.
  3. Produce and read texts on basic everyday themes; listen, speak and write at A2/1 level.
  4. Make effective use of reliable language resources both printed and/or digital (e.g. bilingual dictionaries, grammar books, translation tools).
Reading List
Suggested reading materials include:



Essential:

* Suomen mestari 2 (Gehring, Sonja & Heinzmann, Sanni. 2019. Helsinki: Finn Lectura). ISBN: 978-951-1-35579-3



Recommended:

* Suomen mestari 1 Uudistettu (Gehring, Sonja & Heinzmann, Sanni. 2020.[new edition] Helsinki: Finn Lectura). ISBN 978-951-1-33423-1

Further reading:

A Grammar Book of Finnish (White, Leila. 2011. Porvoo: Finn Lectura) ISNB 978-951-792-146-6

Suggested online materials (as at 05/02/20) include:

* Dictionaries: https://www.kielitoimistonsanakirja.fi/

Further worksheets, written and av materials will be provided via the course LEARN page.
Additional Information
Graduate Attributes and Skills Students will be encouraged to develop positive study-habits which will be of use to them in other disciplines, particularly in the further development of Finnish but also in the acquisition of other new languages. Where relevant, students will be able to continue their study of Finnish in any other University at CEFR level A2.1.

The students will acquire the following transferable skills in each element of the course:

Writing
The students will learn how to be accurate with unfamiliar orthography and this will teach them the value of care and precision.

Listening and Reading
The students will learn how to extract essential information from a simple body of unfamiliar written or spoken language, even though there might not be total comprehension. The students will develop the skill of using known material in these language sources to make appropriate deductions and informed guesses about the meaning of material that is new to them.

Speaking
The students will develop the ability to progress from learned formulaic responses towards a more spontaneous generation of language. The development of this creativity is one of the most important elements of language learning.

General
In addition to the specific skills mentioned in a) to c), students will learn the skills of using a dictionary intelligently, learning vocabulary systematically, and understanding the rules - and exceptions - of grammar.
KeywordsFinnish,Finland,Nordic,Scandinavia,linguistics,geography
Contacts
Course organiserDr Alan MacNiven
Tel: (0131 6)50 3279
Email: alan.macniven@ed.ac.uk
Course secretaryMiss Gillian Paterson
Tel: (0131 6)50 3646
Email: Gillian.Paterson@ed.ac.uk
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