Estonian language courses for PhD students

TalTech offers Estonian language trainings for foreign PhD students with the aim to help our international PhD students to settle in more quickly and to run their daily errands. 
The courses are built on the material called “Keeleklikk”. 

"KEELEKLIKK":

• Is a modern online Estonian course for intermediate learners that is suitable for individual study and for classroom use

• Targets adult learners who want to learn to communicate in every- day situations

• The methodology used in the course is suitable for both beginners and those who have already acquired basic knowledge of Estonian

• The course helps to better perceive and understand Estonians

Benefits to the learner: understanding some Estonian language helps you to adapt more quickly to a new environment and settle in faster.

Within one year, over 40 international PhD students from all the schools of TalTech participated in the A1 level Estonian language course.

The pilot courses received highly positive feedback in terms of both the content of the course as well as teaching (the score 9.6 out of 10 was given for the content and the teacher received the score 10 out of 10).
The participants have given following feedback:

• Free atmosphere, nice teacher. Variety of methods
• The teacher was amazing and supportive
• The course was well-designed, amazing teaching methods

Courses offered in autumn 2022

 A1 level (beginners), two groups:

• Tuesday: 09.00-10.30 or 11.00-12.30 (via Zoom)*
• Thursday: 09.00-10.30 (via Zoom)*
• Friday: 10.00-11.30 or 12.00-13.30 (classroom)*

 
A2 level​​, one group:

• Tuesday: 09.00-10.30 or 11.00-12.30 (via Zoom)*
• Thursday: 09.00-10.30 (via Zoom)*
• Friday: 10.00-11.30 or 12.00-13.30 (classroom)*

* Final schedule will be announced after we gather participants' preferences. Courses will start in October.

Courses consist of 26 academic hours contact learning (both via Zoom & classroom). 
The participant should be aware that in addition to time of contact lessons, the homework could take 1-3 hours per week.
To complete the course the participation rate should be at least 75% of contact learning and passing the test in final lesson. E.g. on A1 level – the course consists of 13 lessons – to complete the course –  a participant can miss max 3 lessons.
The maximum number of participants is 15.

The deadline for registration for the fall course is to be announced. 

• There are almost 1.1 million Estonian people who´s native language is Estonian
• Estonian uses the Roman alphabet, like English, with the addition of letters like õ, ä, ö, and ü
• Estonian is hard! It has 14 noun cases along with short and long consonants and vowels, which explains why it has been named the world's 5th toughest language to learn for English speakers after Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Arabic
• There are no genders and no future tense in the Estonian language
• It does have plenty of tongue twisters and it's possible to build dizzyingly long compound words, like the 24-letter long "kuulilennuteetunneliluuk". It means "the hatch a bullet flies out of when exiting a tunnel" and is also a palindrome -  it can be read from both ends and it looks exactly the same. 
• The most Estonian word is "sõnajalaõis" (fern blossom), as chosen by Estonian National Broadcasting
• There are dialects in different regions of Estonia. For example, the Setos in southern Estonia have their own dialect, with about 12,000 speakers. Võru also has its own dialect with about 75,000 speakers. Both dialects are on the UNESCO list of threatened dialects