Dear Wonderful Librarian:
I am an English-speaking student studying Finnish, and I was wondering if you could direct me to a list of books suitable for a learner at the European B1-B2 level. Perhaps there is a literacy organization or a school that has already compiled such a list. Children's books are acceptable, as are simplified language books. If no such list exists (yet), I would welcome a few suggestions, to get me started.
Thank you!
A librarian's daughter
Answer
I presume that you are writing from Minnesota. If so, how do you intend to acquire these books? We have an interlibrary loans department here in the Helsinki City Library. You can go to your local library and asked them are they willing to make these interlibrary loan requests from Finland. Postal costs can be inhibitive but if you are willing to make that investment, we are more than willing to send you these books. We have no ready list of these books, but books that would fall within the scope you described are called “selkokirjat” in Finnish, in other words, books with somewhat simplified syntax and vocabulary. You can go to our bibliographic database and by using the advanced search and write in the search field selkokirjat, then choose the material type “books” and the language Finnish and you will get the list of books written in this somewhat simplified manner. The web-address is: http://www.helmet.fi/search~S9/X.
As for the “ulkomaalaiskirjasto, it is now called Monkielinen kirjasto / Multilingual library and the current web-address is: http://www.lib.hel.fi/en-GB/monikielinenkirjasto/
Once you have browsed through our collection, you can either try to make an interlibrary loan request or if you would rather buy the books, you can contact the following major bookstore in Finland: https://www.akateeminenkirjakauppa.fi/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/TopCate…
Should you have any more questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch.
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