Suomalaisia uutisia

Now that we have fast internet at home, I've started researching more exciting ways to learn Finnish. One thing we discovered is that Yleisradio, basically Finnish public broadcasting, offers streaming news video and sound clips. What is really cool is that the website offers "selkouutiset" (meaning: clear news), which is geared towards foreigners living in Finland that don't yet have a good grasp of Finnish. The language is greatly simplified and the reporters speak r-e-a-l-l-y slowly. The audio clips are also transcribed, so you can read the news as you are listening to it. Seems like a great way to learn - news clips tend to be short, so you don't need to have a long attention span, they use very common language, and if you are somewhat current with events it can be easy to figure out the meaning of words. For example, one of the clips today talked about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, so I was easily able to translate "asuntomarkkinat" (housing market) and "lainata" (to loan). I plan to listen to Finnish news every day. We'll see what happens, but so far I'm one for one.

I wonder if other countries have similar programs for foreigners. It seems like a great way to help non-native speakers assimilate into a new country. The Finnish program that we found is great, but I think it could be significantly improved with just a little bit more effort and resources.