A Full Course in Learning to Speak Estonian!
For Beginners
Developed by Felix J. Oinas
Basic Estonian is an extensive introductory audio/text course in the Estonian language with a primary emphasis on everyday conversational language as used by educated Estonians. The units are divided into the following parts: basic sentences that contain Estonian words and phrases with their English equivalents, additional words in the following exercises or conversations, notes on grammar, grammar exercises with answers provided, conversations, and suggestions for conversations. The course was prepared with support from the American Council of Learned Societies as one of the projects for the development of training materials for teaching Uralic and Altaic languages.
* 28.9 hours of audio, 30 units
* 393-page text
* Getting around
* Meeting people
* What is your job?
* Family and friends
* Weather
* Getting a room
* Getting cleaned up
* Let's eat
* Seeing the sights
* Shopping
* In the bank
* Post office
* A sea voyage
* Sickness
* Victory Day celebration
* Sports
* A trip
* At the seashore
* At the dance
* Visiting a farm
* Estonian history
* Agriculture in Estonia
* Industry
* School
* Culture
About the Language
Estonian belongs to the Finnic branch of the Uralic languages, which also includes Finnish and Karelian. It is spoken natively by about 1.1 million people in Estonia, where it is the official language, and by tens of thousands in various emigrant communities. The Latin script is used as the basis of the alphabet.
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FSI: Basic Serbo-Croatian 2