Elementary Estonian ESTO 102
Winter 2002
MTWThF 10:30-11:20

Instructor: Ulla Vanhatalo
E-mail: ulla@u.washington.edu
Telephone: 616-5737
Office: 226 Raitt Hall
Office hours: W 9-10; F 9-10 and by appointment, be free to e-mail and ask for help!

Required Textbook:

E nagu Eesti by Mall Pesti & Helve Ahi + tape cassette! (Available at the UW Bookstore)

Course Objectives:

This introductory course in Estonian will provide you with the tools to acquire and practice Estonian as a listener, speaker, reader, and writer in everyday contexts. This course will also introduce you to culture providing information on customs and daily life in Estonia.

Grading:

10 % Participation: Communication is our ultimate goal. Take part in class activities on an intensive and systematic basis!

20 % Homework: Daily homework will be assigned and graded with a 3, 2, 1 or 0. Late homework (not more than 3 weekdays late, and not more than 3 times per student per quarter!) will be graded with a 2, 1 or 0. You will have an average of 25 graded homeworks, 2 of which can be dropped. Homework will include exercises from textbooks, worksheets, readings, essays etc. Please copy your textbook exercises onto a separate sheet!

10 % Journal: You will be asked to keep a journal in Estonian of three entries every two weeks. Practice what you have learned, write about topics we have worked with in class. Sometimes a specific topic will be assigned. Your entries should be at least 4-6 sentences. The journal can also be a dialog. Please turn your journal in every second Thursday!

10 % Oral exam: To be arranged during the 9^th week.

15 % Quizzes: There will be a weekly quiz every Friday (except 25^th January, 15^th February and 8^th March). These quizzes will test you on the skills and topics we have covered and practiced in class and on homework assignments. One quiz can be dropped. No make-up quizzes will be given.

15 % Tests: There will be three unit tests (25^th January, 15^th February and 8^th March).

20 % Exam: Will be given in the last class of the quarter on Friday, March 15.

If you do your homework and participate in class, the quizzes, the tests, and the exam will present no surprises.

If you are ill and must miss class, please inform me before class, ulla@u.washington.edu.

Preliminary Schedule

Week 1

• Getting up in the morning and having breakfast
• Morning activities at home, rooms, clothing, breakfast, kitchen supplies
• Compound verbs (ära); partitive singular; comitative; adverbs of frequency

Week 2

• Shopping in a foodstore
• Food items, expressions of quantity
• Comparative degrees of adjective; partitive plural

Week 3

• Going to a café; ordering
• Drinks and food
• Review of genitive; partitive plural; compound nouns

Week 4

• Shopping for clothing; footwear
• Department store; various goods
• Partitive plural; ordinal numbers

Week 5

• Expecting guests; quests arrive; birthday party
• Food and drinks; recepies
• Past tense

Week 6

• Talking about youd day; telling dates; asking directions in a building
• Dates; years
• Ordinal numbers; when? on which? in which?

Week 7

• Asking for directions in town; bus and train schedule
• Buildings in a city; transportation
• Modal verbs; review of inner local cases; prepositions and postpositions (ees, juures, taga)

Week 8

• Taking a taxi; making hotel reservations; arrival at a hotel
• About hotel
• Compound verbs (edasi, tagasi)

Week 9

• Phonecalls
• About phone; numbers
• Compound verbs (sisse, välja); verb agreement

Week 10

• Writing a letter or a note; at the postoffice
• Office supplies; managing at a postoffice
• Compound verbs (ära); total and partial object

JÕUDU JA EDU!