This guide to learn Estonian will give you the blueprint to one of Europe’s most unique languages and a window into one of Europe’s most charming and historical countries. As a Uralic language, Estonian is unrelated to all the language in the region except for Finnish and Hungarian.
The language is difficult with it’s long words and complicated case endings, and resouces are not as rich as the bigger European languages, but this guide will give you all the options you need to start your language learning journey.
Language Facts:
Family: Finno-Uralic
Status: Official in Estonia
- Base word order is Subject-Object-Verb, but Topic-Comment word order can be more common.
- Estonian has 14 noun cases. 14. This will be the most difficult part of learning Estonian Grammar. And in a not so common twist, it lacks an accusative case and direct objects are described using a variety of cases.
- To make up for the cases, nouns have no gender and no articles.
Learn Estonian:
Quality of Resources:
Honestly, not too bad for a language of this size. A handful of options for apps, a few online university courses and the Keeleklikk course is more than enough to get started. There’s a distinct lack of books for more formal grammar study, and not too many Italki tutors.
Books:
Complete Teach Yourself: Estonian – great starting book
Estonian Textbook : one of the few English language text books to learn Estonian Grammar and structure.
Youtube:
Online:
Ling – app based course for Estonian. Great for beginners.
Lingvist – Another app based course for Estonian.
Speakly – phrases and vocabulary, this app will be the best way to learn the most common words the quickest.
Italki – private lessons with native speakers. By far the best way to improve your speaking and conversation skills in Estonian. There aren’t very many for the language, but enough to find one that works for you.