Reader’s opinion|The mission of the news is to provide information about current social issues to people living in Finland.
Mightily There has been an uproar over the news in Somali and Arabic that started (HS 13.9.). Opponents of the news justify their position with the fact that integration is hindered and that speakers of these languages will not learn Finnish in the future because they now receive information in their own language.
Uutiten’s job is not to act as a Finnish language teacher. The mission of the news is to provide information about current social issues to people living in Finland.
News in their own language specifically makes it easier for immigrants to integrate into Finnish society. They get information about democracy, politics, elections and other current affairs in their own language. Their content in Finnish can be very demanding. In Finnish-language news, there are a lot of words or terms that not even all native Finns necessarily understand. How then could those who speak Finnish as a second language understand these terms?
The task of the school and the Finnish language courses is to teach immigrants the Finnish language. If immigrants are able to simultaneously get information about current issues in society through the news in their own language, their understanding of Finnish society will also improve, and integration into society will be easier.
In Finland, news has been offered in Russian for years. No one has taken a stand on that in connection with this commotion. It occurs to me whether color matters when we talk about news delivered in different languages.
Markus Lyra
master of philosophy, education and linguistics, Helsinki
The reader’s opinions are speeches written by HS readers, which are selected and delivered by the HS editors. You can leave an opinion piece or familiarize yourself with the principles of the pieces at www.hs.fi/kiryotamielipidekeisuis/.
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