Finnish

by Arthur H. Whitney

The book here presented covers the whole of the grammar of the present-day standard language.
The matter for study is divided into twenty lessons or sections for convenience in reference and arrangement; and each consists of a number of explanations of points in the construction and use of the language, an exercise in Finnish for translation into English, a reading in Finnish and a vocabulary.
The readings, which make up a connected simple narrative, will serve as an introduction to reading simpler than any Finnish novel could be.
The key translations will provide the student with a test of his grasp of the construction of the language if he will try to translate them back from English.

301 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1956

Reviews

[Koen Crolla · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is what I was looking for when I got Complete Finnish : a solid, traditional language course that centres grammar and teaches you vocabulary beyond things that are only useful in offensively shallow water cooler conversations. It turns out the Teach Yourself series did have it, in 1956; as far as I can tell they just decided to replace it with a crappier "modern" version, Terttu Leney's Finnish (same title, mind), in 1993, which ultimately became the version I found, Complete Finnish, in (I think) 2010.
Not that Whitney's offering is perfect, obviously: though its approach is much more productive, aspects of it are noticeably a bit old-fashioned (in terminology at the very least: e.g. consonant gradation is "consonant-mutation" or "consonant-softening", vowel harmony isn't even explicitly named; also the vocabulary covered is a bit heavy on Christianity at times), and because it is a very concise little book (300 pages compared to Complete Finnish's 350, and while they're printed more densely they're also half the size) it sacrifices some clarity and structure. And it has to be said: Complete Finnish's audio resources are really nice to have.
Apart from the audio and in spite of its flaws, though, Whitney's Finnish is in every way superior to its replacement, and the lads at Hodder made a serious mistake axing it. I understand the new way of teaching languages is more fashionable now, but this book just confirmed everything I said about Complete Finnish to me.

[Katrin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was again difficult to rate. This book is from an era, where language learning was mostly considered of consumption, not production. So this book features huge sections of grammar, then some translation exercises only finnish to english, as well as reading comprehension. No exercises otherwise, no translation into finnish, nothing that is featured in modern language learning books. To me now, who learned three (or four) languages in a modern environment, this seems absolutely absurd. But aside from this, the book is genious. Never have I seen compiled so much information on the finnish language. It is so thorough, it is almost frightening. haha. I am so happy I did not have to learn finnish with such a book, because it must have been a drag. But since I already know finnish, this was a really nice read. I checked my grammar, my vocabulary and the little story told in the reading comprehension was cute. It was like reading a finnish short story together with some refreshing grammar bits. I do recommend this book, but actually only for someone who alreadz knows finnish. Even Finns can find interesting bits in it about their language that they did not know before.

[Amanda Ure · Rating 3 out of 5]

The "started" and "finished" dates are guesses but probably fairly accurate. It's a very thorough book in the older teaching approach which I found far superior to the more recent "phrasebook" approach. It appears to cover everything. I always think it's a good sign when a language primer covers reported speech because that's very advanced.

However, there is a major flaw in this book not present in other books of the same vintage and series, which explains why I took more than thirty years to get through it: the vocabulary lists at the end of each lesson are staggeringly long. If I'm remembering this well, they seem to have something like a hundred words per lesson. That makes progress exceedingly slow through the book for most people. I don't know why this decision was made. But, if you can find a copy of this by all means use it. Don't let that put you off. Apart from that, it's utterly brilliant. Just don't expect to be able to order a coffee with it in the first year or so, but then it is Finnish.

[Christopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's amazing how long it took textbook authors to realize that the most effective way to teach a modern language would be to equip the reader how to handle himself in common everyday situations. The first incarnation of TEACH YOURSELF FINNISH, written by Arthur H. Whitney, was published in 1954 and yet is a very old school effort.

Whitney's method is giving you a huge amount of vocabulary so you can read the little Finnish stories he gives you. In Lesson 1, you'll learn such words as "clergyman", "sparrow" and "church steeple", but you'll see nothing of important initial phrases such as "Hello!" and "How are you?" There's absolutely no English-Finnish translation exercises, so you'll have no way to track your progress in producing good Finnish. The explanation of grammar assumes a good grounding in Latin, and even if you are used to classic grammatical terminology Whitney's shoddy organization of material makes it all hard going. The book is a complete disaster.

Or is it? The complete beginner in Finnish would do well to start with Terttu Leney's newer TEACH YOURSELF FINNISH and, strongly recommended but available only from Finnish shops, the SUPISUOMEA book and DVD produced by Finnish national television. However, Whitney's dinosaur textbook can still be useful for the student of Finnish. The language here is extremely old-fashioned, with every page of vocabulary containing words now obsolete in the spoken language. This makes it an excellent textbook for those who already have a good grasp of contemporary Finnish, but want to understand classic literature and old films. From the references to an antiquated telephone's hearing tube, I suspect that the book was mainly written before World War II. I know of no other learning resources for the Finnish language of this time.

Whitney's textbook only does so much with archaisms. It doesn't reach back to Agricola's time, though there is for English speakers interested in that. Nor does this textbook help you understand non-standard speech such as Savo dialect or the regionalisms in the Finnish Orthodox liturgy. Nonetheless, if you've reached an intermediate level in Finnish and want to learn more, seek this book out on the used market.