Fred Karlsson

This book is exhaustive and written in plain language (minus the inescapable grammar terminology). I have referred to this book for 20 years. It is a joy to go back to every single time.

Pay whatever it costs because the value far outweighs the price.

I have the second edition from 1987. My dad bought it back then in the hope of learning the Finnish language (he'd married a Finn). He did not, however, and it sat on the bookshelf until I picked it up in 2009 and packed it when I moved to Finland. Thank goodness I did. This book taught me the basics of Finnish grammar. It prepared me for the courses I took and I still use it as a reference tool. It has plenty of examples to help you gather the context of things which is quite difficult as show more the different word orders in Finnish can mean completely different things. I would have been lost without it. Highly recommended to the newly ex-/re-patriated person. show less

The title of this book truly isn't exaggerating-- this really is an essential grammar guide for those interested in or learning Finnish: I found it much more useful than pretty much anything else out there written in English (not that there IS much out there). My one reservation in recommending it would be that it is very technical: unless fairly familiar with grammatical terms, readers might have some difficulty fully understanding it. Honestly, though, that's what makes it so great, too, show more and Finnish is a language where it's necessary to learn those terms anyway unless learning by immersion solely. show less