Course overview
Learn Estonian from the ground up through practical situations you are likely to encounter while living, working, studying, or travelling in Estonia.
This course is designed for complete beginners and teaches Estonian through English. Instead of overwhelming you with grammar tables and all 14 Estonian cases at once, the course introduces vocabulary and grammar gradually through useful conversations and real-life situations.
You will begin with pronunciation, greetings, introductions, and simple sentence building. From there, you will learn how to talk about yourself and your family, understand numbers and time, shop for groceries, order food, navigate a city, use public transport, communicate at work, describe health problems, make appointments, and handle common everyday services.
Grammar is introduced when it becomes useful. You will learn the essential noun forms, common cases, verb conjugation, present and past tense, questions, location expressions, and other important patterns through examples you can immediately use.
Throughout the course, you will practice:
- Estonian pronunciation and sound length
- Everyday vocabulary and useful expressions
- Greetings and introductions
- Building natural Estonian sentences
- Essential noun forms and cases
- Common verbs and verb conjugation
- Numbers, dates, prices, and time
- Family and personal information
- Food, cafés, and restaurants
- Shopping and supermarkets
- Home and city vocabulary
- Directions and public transport
- Workplace conversations
- Healthcare and emergencies
- Weather and everyday small talk
- Talking about past events and future plans
- Common spoken Estonian
- Real-world dialogues and practical exercises
Rather than memorizing isolated vocabulary, you will learn words inside useful expressions and sentences. You will also gradually learn the important forms of Estonian words so that you can understand how the language actually works.
By the end of the course, you should be able to handle many basic everyday interactions in Estonian, understand common signs and expressions, introduce yourself, ask and answer simple questions, and participate in straightforward conversations when the other person speaks clearly.
The course aims to build a strong CEFR A1 foundation with preparation for early A2, giving you the skills and confidence needed to continue toward independent Estonian.
No previous knowledge of Estonian is required.