Canberra Finnish School / Canberran Suomi-Koulu
Mondays 5.00 – 6.30pm during school terms (not on public holidays)
$20 per child, per term
The Canberra Finnish School was founded in 1981 and started with over 60 children.
The primary purpose of the school is to provide an opportunity for the children to learn and maintain the Finnish language and a forum in which to put it to use. It also promotes Finland and Finnish culture.
The school operates with assistance from the Finnish and Australian governments as well as term fees paid by parents.
The Finnish School caters mainly for school-aged children, although younger children are welcome with an attending adult.
The children may be divided into groups according to their age and language ability.
Finnish, together with Estonian, Hungarian and the languages of some ethnic minorities in Central and North Russia forms part of the Finno-Ugrian language group, whose origins can be traced back 7,000 years to the Ural Mountains region of Russia.
Modern Finnish is spoken by about six million people. It is a harmonious sounding language with numerous vowels. Unlike English, the pronunciation is entirely phonetic, with each letter having a single distinct sound. Therefore spelling is easy. Finnish is unique, because it is totally unrelated to nearly all other European languages.