Estonian language resources

[The Ripper]

Hey dudes.

As you may or may not know, I'm a bit of estophile, and I've been trying to (with limited success) to improve my understanding of your language over the years on my spare time. Its been very irregular and informal, I've mainly watched Estonian films and series and tried to read Estonian texts (newspapers and other stuff) with the help of a dictionary (by far the greatest problem in understanding is my lacking vocabulary).

There are also some online resources for people interested in learning, and I thought it would be nice, in the spirit of Finno-Estonian friendship, to share such resources for people like myself. So if you know of any good/useful tools and sites for this purpose, please share them in this thread. Thank you.

Here is one which I've found quite useful:

http://users.jyu.fi/~saarinen/har/ee...algkursus.html

[EWtt]

I happened to come across this sort of thing:

“E for Estonia” provides a complete set of Estonian language learning materials for beginners. The set includes a textbook, teachers’ guidelines, an audio-CD and flashcards. The textbook has topped the bestseller lists of the leading bookstores and has been reprinted several times.

The 30 lessons cover all the major areas of everyday life, and units include:

* dialogues
* grammar sections
* exercises

The textbook also contains Estonian-Russian/English/German/Finnish glossaries.

Here's a link if you're interested...

[W. R.]

Piles of books in different languages here:

http://www.eestikeel.ru/

Alas, the metalanguage of the site is Russian. But the maintainers don't give a damn about copyrights and downloading is free.

[Guillo]

Hello guys!
You wouldn't have links to something more on the beginner level, would you? I actually work with languages, and have a passion for it. I already speak several, but with the exception of English they are all from the romance side of languages.
I have some pretty close ties to a certain estonian someone and want to start learning... I trust in my ability to teach myself with the right materials. But I'm afraid it's too rare a language... would learning Russian make it a lot easier to learn Estonian further down the road? How similar are they?

[Wyn]

would learning Russian make it a lot easier to learn Estonian further down the road? How similar are they?

Karl is going to absolutely love you.

[Äike]

Hello guys!
You wouldn't have links to something more on the beginner level, would you? I actually work with languages, and have a passion for it. I already speak several, but with the exception of English they are all from the romance side of languages.
I have some pretty close ties to a certain estonian someone and want to start learning... I trust in my ability to teach myself with the right materials. But I'm afraid it's too rare a language... would learning Russian make it a lot easier to learn Estonian further down the road? How similar are they?

Russian is more similar to Italian or Portuguese than it is to Estonian...

Karl is going to absolutely love you.

He's probably a sock-puppet.

[EWtt]

Anyhow, here's something:

http://www.speakestonian.co.uk/
http://letsspeakestonian.blogspot.co...ggestions.html

[Wyn]

He's probably a sock-puppet.

Probably, yes. Perhaps Balticus is a little bored this afternoon?

[Groenewolf]

would learning Russian make it a lot easier to learn Estonian further down the road? How similar are they?

It will help you learn Estonian easier in the same way learning French (romance) will help you learn Dutch (germanic) better.

[Terek]

Hello guys!
would learning Russian make it a lot easier to learn Estonian further down the road?

Only in the fact that they use cases. Estonian uses 14 cases for nouns and adjectives, Russian uses only half of that. If you know a language that uses this kind of structer and can let you get used to the way to think about it