Finnish for care work
Finnish for care work is a free, beginner online course from Herizon.
Finnish for a care assistant's shift in elder care: greeting residents, saying what you do before you do it, listening, mealtimes, Easy Finnish, reporting to the nurse, writing the note, speaking with relatives and calling for help, with every medicine question passed on.
You finish with Finnish, Workplace Communication and Active Listening added to your Herizon profile.
Free · 1 h 2 min read · certificate when you pass the quiz · part of Working in Finland · last updated 9 November 2026
Free account, about two minutes. You can join if you live in the EU, EEA, UK or Switzerland, or a partner organisation invited you.
Already have an account? Open it in the portalA look inside the course
Anjali is a care assistant, a *hoiva-avustaja*, from Kerala in India. She has lived in Finland for 18 months and is in her first weeks at Hoivakoti Tervaslehto in Jyväskylä. She reads Finnish at about B1 and speaks at about A2. Anjali and everyone you meet in this course are worked examples, not real people, and Tervaslehto is an invented care home.
It takes about 1 h 2 min of reading, plus exercises, a short quiz and a practice task. It teaches Finnish, Workplace Communication and Active Listening. Pass the short quiz at the end to get a certificate.
What you will be able to do
- Who does what on the unit, and the sentence that keeps you inside your role
- Greeting a resident, and choosing *te* or *sinä*
- Saying what happens next before you do it, and accepting a no
- Asking how someone feels, and listening without deciding what it means
- Meals, drinks and the words for how much someone ate
- Easy Finnish (*selkokieli*) for people with memory or hearing problems
- The spoken and regional Finnish residents use with you
- Medication words you only recognise and pass on
- Telling the nurse what you saw and heard, and writing the note
- Speaking with relatives, and calling for help fast
- Which Finnish each care role needs, and who sets that
Who it is for
Members who work in elder care in Finland, or want to. You need roughly A2 Finnish to start, and the course goes up to about B1. All the explanations are in English. If you are starting from nothing, take Finnish from zero first. This is a language course. It teaches no care methods, no medicine and no first aid: your unit and your training do that. It does not make anyone safe or sufficient for care work, it does not meet any legal or employer language requirement, and it is not YKI preparation. Real people stay out of it. Never put a real resident's name, room or health details into an exercise, a chat with Floria, a translator or an AI tool. Page 10 explains why, and it replaces what our other Finnish courses say about translators for anything to do with a resident.
The situation you work through
Anjali, a care assistant (hoiva-avustaja) from Kerala in India, is in her first weeks at Hoivakoti Tervaslehto, an invented care home in Jyväskylä. Over one Tuesday morning shift she helps a resident, Eila, notices that Eila ate half of her lunch and says her leg hurts, tells the nurse Riikka, writes the note, and passes Eila's daughter's question about medicine to the nurse. Anjali is a worked example. She never decides anything about care or medicine.
Your practice task
Prepare the Finnish for one invented shift in a care setting, in one week. Use only an invented resident and never a real person's name, room or health details. Submit five things: a greeting in the te form with your name and title, two sentences said before helping with a daily task, a four-part report to a nurse about something you noticed, a three-line factual note, and your reply to a relative who asks about medicine. Say the greeting and the report aloud to a person or to Floria, and write two sentences on what was hardest and what you will practise next.
Key topics
- Who does what on the unit
- Greeting a resident
- Say it before you do it
- How do you feel?
- Mealtime and drinks
- Easy Finnish for hard moments
and 8 more pages
What you get when you pass
A certificate with your name, the course and the date. Sharing it is your choice. If you share it, it has a public link that anyone can open to check it, and you can add it to LinkedIn.
Common questions about Finnish for care work
- Is Finnish for care work free?
- Yes. The course is free with a Herizon account, and the account is free too.
- How long does Finnish for care work take?
- It takes about 1 h 2 min of reading, plus exercises, a short quiz and a practice task. You can stop and continue later, because the portal keeps your place.
- Do I get a certificate?
- Yes. Pass the short quiz at the end to get a certificate you can share, for example on LinkedIn.
- What do I need to start?
- A free Herizon account. The course is written at beginner level.
- Who can join Herizon?
- You can join if you live in the EU, EEA, UK or Switzerland, or a partner organisation invited you.
- Who is Finnish for care work for?
- Members who work in elder care in Finland, or want to. You need roughly A2 Finnish to start, and the course goes up to about B1. All the explanations are in English. If you are starting from nothing, take Finnish from zero first. This is a language course. It teaches no care methods, no medicine and no first aid: your unit and your training do that. It does not make anyone safe or sufficient for care work, it does not meet any legal or employer language requirement, and it is not YKI preparation. Real people stay out of it. Never put a real resident's name, room or health details into an exercise, a chat with Floria, a translator or an AI tool. Page 10 explains why, and it replaces what our other Finnish courses say about translators for anything to do with a resident.
Start Finnish for care work free
Start this course freeCommon questions about Finnish for care work
- Is Finnish for care work free?
- Yes. The course is free with a Herizon account, and the account is free too.
- How long does Finnish for care work take?
- It takes about 1 h 2 min of reading, plus exercises, a short quiz and a practice task. You can stop and continue later, because the portal keeps your place.
- Do I get a certificate?
- Yes. Pass the short quiz at the end to get a certificate you can share, for example on LinkedIn.
- What do I need to start?
- A free Herizon account. The course is written at beginner level.
- Who can join Herizon?
- You can join if you live in the EU, EEA, UK or Switzerland, or a partner organisation invited you.
- Who is Finnish for care work for?
- Members who work in elder care in Finland, or want to. You need roughly A2 Finnish to start, and the course goes up to about B1. All the explanations are in English. If you are starting from nothing, take Finnish from zero first. This is a language course. It teaches no care methods, no medicine and no first aid: your unit and your training do that. It does not make anyone safe or sufficient for care work, it does not meet any legal or employer language requirement, and it is not YKI preparation. Real people stay out of it. Never put a real resident's name, room or health details into an exercise, a chat with Floria, a translator or an AI tool. Page 10 explains why, and it replaces what our other Finnish courses say about translators for anything to do with a resident.
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