And conlangs!Its influence went beyond Finland and was claimed by J.R.R. Tolkien to have been the inspiration for some of the characters and themes in “Silmarillion” and “Lord of the Rings”
There are also other movies with Haapasalo, though there's not much Finnish in them.Movies in Finnish can also provide a helpful diversion for students learning Finnish. A couple of noteworthy directors are Aki Kaurismäki and Timo Koivusalo. For someone interested in Finnish and its related languages, watching the Estonian film “Kinnunen” (2007) or the Russian film “Kukushka” (2002) may be worthwhile. The former deals with differences between Estonian and Finnish as well as stereotypes held between Estonians and Finns. The latter deals with two soldiers who are taken in by a nomad even though each person speaks a different language: Finnish, Northern Saami and Russian.
A music lover who is learning Finnish can use Finnish songs to enhance understanding of the language, while also enjoying the creative efforts of Finnish musicians. Fans of classical music may take a liking to music by Sibelius or Rautavaara, while fans of rock or heavy metal may enjoy bands such as The Rasmus, HIM, Lordi, Apocalyptica and Nightwish. Prominent Finns active in dance or electronic music include Ville Virtanen (a.k.a. Darude), Harri Andersson (a.k.a. DJ Proteus), and Tapio Hakanen (a.k.a. Orkidea).
There's a list here.
I'd also wholeheartedly recommend Apocalyptica to fans of classical music though
a bit harsh imo. given how many people seem to prefer info in video or audio form, I'd just focus on how the audio has way less Finnish content than you might expect.(with all due respect, does he think that learners are illiterate or dying to hear his chattering?)
11) Kato hei! (Maarit Berg & Leena Silfverberg)
- This is a course for beginners in colloquial Finnish and comprises a textbook and CD. The cost altogether is about 100 Euros.
I bought it much cheaper without the CD. The CD is not needed if you have access to any informal content.
As for dictionaries, it can be mentioned that wiktionary is very comprehensive for Finnish and contains the inflected forms.
***If you need to buy Finnish books, you have a choice between Suomalainen kirjakauppa (“Finnish Bookstore”), Akateeminen kirjakauppa (“Academic Bookstore”), Adlibris.com, Bookplus.fi, Info.fi and Ruslania.com. All of these offer online purchasing but beware of shipping costs (see below for more information). Adlibris is a Swedish bookseller which does business throughout Scandinavia while Bookplus.fi, Info.fi and Ruslania.com are Finnish operations. Info.fi sometimes offers dictionaries at lower prices than the competition and was also where I bought a copy of Gummerus' new and large English-Finnish dictionary for 17 Euros rather than the regular price of approximately 80 Euros. Despite its name and focus on selling Russian books, Ruslania also carries Finnish books. Shipping costs to places outside the EU may be high, and combined with customs could make securing Finnish materials more expensive than one would anticipate. In the UK, Bay Foreign Language Books Ltd. carries some Finnish learning materials while in the USA, Schoenhof’s and North Wind Books carry such material. See the subsection “Online material and links to information of interest” below for the URLs of these shops
If you travel to Finland, you can also order books and pick them up from the store or sometimes from an R-kiosk (Adlibris offers this at least). Make sure to allocate enough time for delivering your order. You can also order CD's via Levykauppa Äx. Suomalainen.com and Levykauppax.fi allow you to check the availability of a product in all their stores.
(can you check this for your recs, Chung? as of 2011 is a bit old...)
also the Akateeminen online store is closed. they have a new Swedish owner (and a better selection of books in Swedish, yay), so idk if this has been abandoned completely or they're planning to bring it back.
- A SUPERB website with notes on Finnish grammar, thematic lists of vocabulary, and reviews and bibliographical information of various courses and dictionaries published in Finland.
maybe it should be higher on the list?
Bookdepository has some stuff in Finnish and has free shipping to most countries. (not Russia anymore though... nor Belarus)
FILI's list of the most translated books from Finland