A factual text follows the language norms of the general Finnish language, i.e., the literary language. Language maintenance maintains the norms of a comprehensible common language. It is important that we have a common language for everyone. If people were to write without any rules, it would make it much more difficult to communicate and take care of everyday things. Everyday language use varies in both spoken and written texts and is not as strict in form than literary language. We all use language, written and spoken in many different ways, during our day. Common language norms have been learned by each of us since elementary school. Even small schoolchildren practice using uppercase and lowercase letters and writing words together and separately.
Language maintenance refers to the maintenance of spelling, inflection, vocabulary, structures and nomenclature, the maintenance of complete texts, and the maintenance of language policy. In Finland, language management recommendations are issued by the Finnish Language Board (Finnish Language Center 2020). Recommendations can include punctuation, vocabulary or how to type names. Recommendations focus on common language, not spoken language. Language management recommendations change over time. A good example is the 2014 recommendation that "alkaa tekemään" and "alkaa tehdä" are both commonly accepted forms. The new recommendation highlighted how emotionally and even passionately we approach the language. Some felt the new recommendation was a sign of decay, and some welcomed the recommendation.
Kotus' website is a good place to find information if you're interested in the Finnish language and related phenomena. The site contains current texts such as vocabulary, language changes and many other issues. Kotus can be found at Twitter @Kotus_information
Use language and word processing tools!
Language management is part of factual writing. Text full of grammatical and typing errors is difficult to read and gives a sloppy impression. In some types of text, language management may play a crucial role in convincing the reader. For example, many recruiters immediately disregard job and internship applications with multiple grammatical errors. Not correcting your own text makes you seem like you don't care about the things you write. A bulletin or advertisement about an event, full of grammatical errors, makes the reader easily ignore the entire text.
It is important that during your studies you learn to check your own text and use various language and text support tools. Best of all, many of these tools are free and available to everyone!
Office365: Spell check
Many are accustomed to using grammar checking or proofreading in Office365. This checker is handy because it picks up many errors related to initials, commas, and conjunctions, as well as congruence between subject and predicate. The program allows you to quickly correct typing errors. However, the program does not recognize all errors, so always check the text yourself. You can make your own choices in the program that affect what the program checks.
For instructions on checking your grammar, visit the Microsoft Office website.
Kotus' Help Bank
The language office's help bank is an electronic search service that contains instructions on the Finnish language vocabulary, spelling, form and sentence structure.
The instructions in the Help Bank are classified by topic. You can immediately check the use of punctuation, the spelling of names, the spelling of conjunctions, the use of uppercase and lowercase letters, and the use of passives from the bank.
The Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish is a general Finnish dictionary
You can use dictionaries in different ways to write text and check text. For example, the dictionary can be used to check word style, spelling, and inflection. There are two dictionaries of the Language Office:
The dictionary, published in 2018, contains more than 100,000 words. It also provides information on the inflection and style of words.
The dictionary, released in 2020, is an updated version of the dictionary that adapts to screen size. Only keywords can be searched in this dictionary. Other features will be updated later.
You can find other useful tools here: