At the moment everybody is talking about the Estonian language. It has to do with the question whether you can become Estonian or whether this is only possible by birth. A lot has been written during the last days about this question and almost every time the Estonian language has been mentioned. A hot topic.
When a young person today ponders about which language to learn normally any reasonable person would suggest that they learn Hindi, Mandarin or Spanish. These languages will help with your career because they are widely spoken. Nobody would encourage young people to learn a language that has roughly only one million speakers. Maybe they would do so if this language would have a big influence or would be necessary for the next big innovation. But otherwise Estonian language can be neglected.
But people in Estonia think otherwise. The language is mandatory for many people that live in this country or migrated to it. You need it for your residency permit, for being a teacher, your change of citizenship and sometimes for your work. Though funny enough the working language in a lot of praised Estonian companies is English.
There is a deep cultural background and it comes with tradition and history. And I totally understand that. So if this language is so important why is it so complicated to learn this language?
- Why is there no decent language learning environment?
- Why are there only a few dates for the official examinations per year?
- Why is it like winning the lottery to get into these exams or a free language course?
- Why is teaching Estonian not standardized?
- Why isn’t there a list of teachers or schools?
I personally would love to learn the language and I try until today but it is not that easy:
First I tried to get into a course of Settle in Estonia. It is like buying tickets for a famous rock star. You have to sit at your computer at the right time and have to hope for a fast internet connection.
I managed to get in because I decided for not so popular times and online. But: my teacher was Russian and so were most of the participants. So it was impossible for me to learn a foreign language through another foreign language. The accent of the teacher was also very heavy but that seems to be no problem because most of the teacher do not care about pronunciation at all.
After some complaining and writing to different persons at different organizations I could change the course. Yes, I did finish the course and I have my certificate. Let’s not talk about data protection here. That is another story. But can I talk? No. When I try to speak Estonian as all the teachers encourage you to do so, most people answer me in English.
There is also the online platfrom Keeleklik. Have you been on it lately? The videos are from the nineties and so are the fashion and the hairdos. Not to mention the prices given in the shopping dialogs. This competes with the look and feel of Instagram and tiktok in 2026.
My next teacher mistook me for a kidergarden child and asked me to put my hands to my ears, nose and mouth while saying the Estonian verbs for seeing, smelling and speaking. This is not what I expect from someone who teaches adults. The learning material she gave us were very badly smartphone photographed language books. And I am not sure whether they were really capable of teaching Estonian to foreigners.
Currently I am trying to proceed with my studies and face the following challenges: How to find a teacher? I really wish there would be a list from the government. So you ask friends and colleagues for a recommendation. Expatgroups on Facebook are full of questions and suggestions. I contacted a dozen teachers during the last weeks. Most of them decline as soon as you ask for an invoice. Some only work for companies and others have courses that start at a certain date and last for months.
So let’s talk about how we, who want to, can learn Estonian. Unfortunately at the moment I can only discuss it in English though.