Why is the Finnish language so hard? What is easy in Finnish? | Miksi suomi on niin vaikea kieli?
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Hello everybody!
I have seen Finnish featured among the top 10 or even top 5 most difficult languages in the world so many times... But what is it that makes it such a hard language to learn? (except for native speakers of Estonian, obviously :D) Let's find out in this video!
You will also learn about what is actually not difficult at all in this beautiful but - let's face it - quite challenging language... I hope you enjoy!
Contents of this video:
WHAT IS DIFFICULT:
1:13 Vocabulary (Finno-Ugric language family)
3:04 Case system (15 cases!!!)
5:13 Consonant gradation
6:53 Written vs. spoken language
WHAT IS EASY:
9:23 Consistent spelling system
9:50 Pronunciation and stress
10:28 No future tense
10:46 No gender, no articles
11:42 One single declension
12:11 .... the Finns! :)
*Note: These lists are by no means complete! I could have continued on and on rambling about multiple infinitives, multiple participles, dozens of word classes, bizarre verb conjugation patterns, etc. etc. etc... but I just wanted to point out which aspects are the most difficult ones for foreigners learning Finnish.
I can easily make another more detailed video on ANY of these, if you guys are interested! ;D
Actually the easiest part of speaking Finnish is that you don't have to say a word. Just stay silent and everybody thinks you're a Finn.
😂😂😂😂
It's because all the Finnish expressions are so gay and awkward that it's best to just keep quiet around strangers.
I think easiest part is to be Finn 🇫🇮
Or better yet, learn "perkele" really well and scream it loud...once. Now everyone is SURE you're a Finn...
This is more true than you'd think :D
We've found it, the first foreigner to be fluent in Finnish
There's Roman Schatz and that theater director whose name escapes me. Schatz does the "maamme-kirja" radio show (or at least used to do, if not anynore)
Oh c'mon, that's far from the truth!
Guys, it's a joke, calm down
Yupp, lived in Finland my entire life and speak like shit
We have accepted him to the pack. Welcome.
Sometimes life is like Finnish grammar. Hard and with no future.
The future is now.
That was very Finnish humor.
Would've, could've, should've...
Suomenkieli(kö) tullee kuolemaan(ko)? Eehkä... Sääli...
Yea since today it’s cool to act non-patriotic and hate your own country if you’re a Finn... :/ It’s sad
They joke saying that Finnish is the language we all will speak in Heaven, because it takes an eternity to learn it.
But Finnish children learn Finnish very easily, and they also learn to read and write in a flash at school. Many already can read and write when going to start the school.
Wow, your pronunciation is probably the best I've heard from a foreigner, even from ones living here. Great job!
Omg thank you so much! Oh and lovely dog btw :)
funny, I just watched this and was going to say the same thing!
Same here 😁
For some reason, Finnish language is considered difficult based on some internet forums and social media discussions. No language itself is difficult to learn - that is just pure mumbo jumbo. Hence, it is just false argumentation to state that Finnish is one of the hardest languages for an English speaker to learn. Same myth: one 'cannot' learn mathemathics because math is difficult and it sucks. That just depends on one's own goals and attitude to the subject. It has nothing to do that some matters in life are more difficult to learn that others. Everyone can learn whatever they want; naturally, some of the people are more talented or intellegent -> some students gain results easier and quicklier with lesser efforts than most. Of course, a good and inspiring teacher can change a lot in language learning, for example.
Can't agree more, your pronounciation is just brilliant.
it's interesting to see an outsider's point of view of the finnish language. So many rules and everything that a native speaker doesn't even think about when speaking. also, your pronounciation is hella good for a foreigner
Thanks so much for your interest and your comment! And believe me when I say that what I discussed in the video is just a fraction of what you have to be aware of when speaking Finnish as a foreigner xD But the cool thing is that it's possible, and that it's such a beautiful language that all the hard work really pays off :) Kiitos ja toivottavasti nähdään pian taas!
I was about to comment too that for a foreigner your pronounciaton is very good, most of the times foreigners speaking finish have a very strong accent
Hyvä hella.
finnish people dont care of the mistakes you say.they will honor you for even trying!
höpö höpö
As a Finnish teacher I never talk to my students about how difficult Finnish is. Of course there are a lot of rules to study in the beginning, but after that learning gets easier. The beauty of Finnish is that there are so few irregularities. Once you learn the rules they apply always.Thank you for a professional, clear and easy to follow video!
What we are not taught enough of in Finnish lessons is sentence structures. There is a lot of focus on cases and even vocabulary, but combining those into actual sentences is where I think a lot of students struggle, because they don't have a sense of what order concepts might have in a sentence or the types of sentence. As an example, noun phrases in Finnish can be very heavy, and very front heavy too, such that identifying the main verb in a sentence can actually be quite difficult, though that is usually with written Finnish rather than spoken. I think it would be very useful to teach from the beginning the kind of filler stuff and how you pop those into sentences, thinks like totta kai or niinpä etc. In English, you might get start a conversation with things like 'the funny thing is....', or 'I was just wondering....', etc. They are kind of signposts that communicate your linguistic intentions, and being able to see how those things work in Finnish would be very useful, but I just don't see them taught in any systematic way.
@@512Squared Hey, you could flip coin with every word placing and just randomize word order and probably would be understood. ball kick goal vs kick ball goal. placing object to wrong place in sentence could make it confusing, but still understandable. With added context where sentence is used, more so.
@Sinä osaat! Suomen kieltä kaikille Mulla on espanjankielinen tyttöystävä joka kovasti haluaisi oppia suomea. Vaikka oon itse aika perfektionisti, ehkä vähän asperger jopa, ja selitän aika tarkasti sanojen etymologiat, ottaen huomioon jokaisessa selityksessä ne muutkin vaihtoehdot/poikkeukset ja siinä mielessä selitän asiat kokonaisvaltaisesti enkä siis yhtä yksittäistä asiaa kerrallaan, ei mulla kuitenkaan ole mitään pedagogista koulutusta, joten haluaisin löytää hänelle hyviä resursseja ja opettajia, jotka osaavat selittää asiat perusteellisesti ja ennenkaikkea kokonaisvaltaisesti. Pystytkö auttamaan tässä tavoitteessani?
Beauty and finnish language ia an oxymoron
The big problem when learning Finnish is having teachers being natives. They usually don't get where foreigners struggle... I didn't know what cases were (ablative etc) and several times i got teachers talking about cases like if it was an obvious thing...
The spruce is on fire = Kuusi palaa The spruce returns = Kuusi palaa The number six is on fire = Kuusi palaa The number six returns = Kuusi palaa Six of them are on fire = Kuusi palaa Six of them returns = Kuusi palaa Your moon is on fire = Kuusi palaa Your moon returns = Kuusi palaa Six pieces = Kuusi palaa Well
Okei XD Nyt pitää vähän miettiä omaa kieltä! Suomi on oudompi ja koomisempi kun tajusinkaan :D
Eikö tuon "Six of them are on fire" voi suomentaa että "kuusi heistä palaa"? Kysyn vain
@@Jokke22 Ei välttämättä, jos puhuu esim. Esineistä tai tavaroista
@@onnipirinen8645 mutta eikös sitte vois sanoo että "kuusi niistä palaa"? Tai emmää tiiä :D Suomihan on vaikee ku alko aattelee xd
Soitapa palokunnalle ja kysy mitä ne tekis, jos lähetät tuollaisen hätäviestin....
Great video. The reason why Finns have no trouble understanding "bad Finnish" is because the word positions aren't set in stone. ("Kiveen hakattu" would be the Finnish equivalent.) For example lets translate: "The word order isn't set in stone." You can say the following: Sanajärjestys ei ole kiveen hakattu. Ei sanajärjestys ole kiveen hakattu. Ei ole sanajärjestys kiveen hakattu. Kiveen ei ole sanajärjestys hakattu. Hakattu ei ole kiveen sanajärjestys. Ei kiveen ole sanajärjestys hakattu. And so on. Even when you try to make the weirdest possible order like "Ole ei sanajärjestys hakattu kiveen" it still makes enough sense to be understood.
Haetaan lakkaa satamasta, kun lakkaa satamasta.
Hahah tuo on aika hyvä!
En tajunnu tota lakkaa satamasta
Kukin munkki tunki kumitunkin kunkin munkin tunkkiin.
Cloudberries or lacquer?
@@HVM_fi Lacquer makes more sense in this case
As a Finnish person, I must say that your pronunciation is very impressive, and probably the best I've ever heard from a foreigner. You'd easily pass as native Finn.
I was just thinkin about that! Mä mietin ihan samaa!
He IS Italian - and Suomi and Italian Are very close to talk ! Finns Can speak Italian too - Thanks to similarities to speak out !
You must listen to Kari Tapio - Olen suomalainen - Video on KZhead ! That IS a Song that everybody on Italy know by some other name ? Take a SEAT - and listen !
I began learning Finnish in 1983 and it's been a lifelong pursuit. My paternal heritage is Finnish and I knew that I was privileged to be in Finland and had the great opportunity to learn about my ancestor's culture and language and so I really dedicated myself to the task. Even though Finnish is difficult I found I learned best as I mimicked how the Finns themselves spoke. After 18 months when my time in Finland was over, I felt very fluent and comfortable with the language. I could carry on a conversation on any topic and enjoyed constantly increasing my vocabulary. I found that I didn't worry so much about all the grammar and the rules, but instead, just listened to how the Finns spoke and tried my best to emulate them. It has been 36 years since I began learning the language and, living in Western Canada there are not many opportunities to speak Finnish. So, I listen to Finnish every day. I repeat in my mind what I am hearing. If I'm alone I repeat it out loud. I find myself translating things in my head. I always wonder how would you say that in Finnish. The biggest hurdle I encountered with learning Finnish was that my mother tongue is English and English tends to be very descriptive. Finnish is not nearly as descriptive so I had to really concentrate on being less "talky" and getting to the point quicker. My wife and I along with my two brothers and their spouses travelled to Finland for a Family History Tour this past summer 2018 and although I haven't spoken much Finnish for the past 36 years I was pleasantly surprised how I was able to converse and speak. I still think that most Finns speak better English than I do Finnish my Finnish friends would always default to speaking Finnish and I would have to translate for my family. What a great opportunity to have my family (who don't speak Finnish) with me in our Ancestral Homeland to experience the culture and people that I had grown to love. I once saw a post on Facebook that read, "I speak Finnish, what's your Superpower"?
Fantastic story, thank you for sharing it!
Where did you start with learning finnish?
"I speak Finnish, what's your Superpower", I have seen claims that reading or talking about unfamiliar topics in Finnish is easier than in other languages because words are often delivered from related words. That could be considered an advantage if there was more content in Finnish. book = kirja letter = kirje typeface/font = kirjasin to write = kirjoittaa literature = kirjallisuus library = kirjasto scribe = kirjuri envelope = kirjekuori (compound word from letter and shell/casing/skin/crust. In spoke language short form "kuori" is possible if we assume meaning is unambiguous from context) desk = kirjoituspöytä (compound word from to writing and table. Desk could be translated to different words if primary purpose is not writing and reading. Short form "pöytä" is possible like for envelope) typewriter = kirjoituskone (compound word from writing and machine. Again short form "kone" possible but would now days be likely interpreted as a computer or as we say the knowledge machine)
Craig Mäki - you describe the superpower of having learned the universal strategy for learning any language. Kudos! I feel knowing Finnish is my superpower, too, I just didn't have that excellent term for it! I am happy that you've found Finnish so rewarding!
Nice maybe we are relatives as i have had relatives moving in both US and Canada back in early 1800's. The way i learned English is simply from watching TV and playing games when i was a kid, so in a way it was similar strategy what you used learning Finnish. Just listen and try to repeat, i was actually pretty good with word tests when English started in 3rd grade because of this. Now after 20 years or so English is more or less my 2nd language(sorry Sweden i still can't understand you at all), i can watch everything without need of subtitles and read anything. It is extremely rare to encounter terms or words that i do not know or understand, but thanks to silent letters i do need to sometimes use translator to get typing right.
I was born in Finland but my family moved to Canada when I was two. We lived in a Finnish enclave and in 50 years, my parents never learned to speak English. The changes (and lack of changes) to the language are interesting. I speak a dialect of central osteobothnia frozen in the late 50s combined with inclusion of English words - termed "Finliska", spoken by children of 1st generation immigrants in Canada and the United states. It is deemed "quaint" by Finnish listeners and attracts puzzlement and curiosity from the normally stoic Finns on trains and in restaurants. Thank you for an interesting video.
Kittos 🙂
We live on a farm near Lake Thunderbird in central Oklahoma. A couple of years ago, I took off work for a heart scan at a clinic in Norman, a town not far to the south. In the waiting room, I overheard a middle-aged woman and an old woman speaking in Finnish. My wife had to grab my arm to keep me from going over and disturbing them with excited questions. It's amazing to unexpectedly hear spoken nearby a language that I've studied. I have several times even overheard tribal elders conversing in native-fluent Choctaw.
Would love to hear what that would sound like? ( I speak Finnish)
There Are somany Good KZheadrs to watch - so the suomi IS getting easier to learn ! You need just to listen like a " kid " - and You learn by time ! Start today - so already tomorrow You look much SMARTER !
I'm having a hard time to comprehend you are native Italian speaker. Your finnish is so flawless and fluent.
Great video! A surface-level view to the Finnish language, but covers many important aspects, and you got all your facts right. Your Finnish pronunciation is also excellent.
Wasn't expecting you here !
Suomen kieltä on kivaa mutta todella vaikea. Toivon että tulevaisuudessa voin puhua hyvin. Minä tarvitsen harjoitella lisää Koska puhe kieli ja kirja kieli on eri ja suomalaiset puhuvat nopeasti. Katsotaan tulevaisuudessa. Minua pelotta tehdä väärin
Not bad at all. Easily understandable. Few grammar mistakes, but that doesn't disturb me. Like the first sentence: Suomen kieli on kiva, mutta vaikea. Or: Suomen kieli on kivaa, mutta vaikeaa. Second sentence is good, but I would say: Toivottavasti voin puhua hyvin tulevaisuudessa. Third sentence: Minun täytyy harjoitella lisää, koska puhekieli ja kirjakieli ovat erilaisia ja suomalaiset puhuvat nopeasti. Fourth sentence: perfect :-)
@@MrDefaultti thanks for your help. You can not imagine how it's too important for me.☺💪
@@patrickbakankumu7410 No problem. I can help you more if you want me to. I'm no teacher, but anyways :-)
@@MrDefaulttiyes I need help 💪☺ you are my angel. Kyllä, olen Illoinen mutta en tiedä miten voidaan tehdä koska minä asun Forssassa ja se on kauan, ehkä sinä asut Helsingissä?
@@patrickbakankumu7410 Juu. Asun Helsingissä, Suomenlinnassa. Kirjoituksissa voin auttaa sähköpostitse
Ei onneks oo tullu raumankieli vastaan olis varmaa loppunu suomen oppinen siihen.
Sama jos ois yrittäny ymmärtää Pori murret :D
Turkuu kummiski ny kaik ossaa kuunnel sujuvast.
Nojuu, raumaa nyt ei ymmärrä suomalainenkaan
Ei se niin vaikeeta oo. Sit ku sen oppii. 🤣Eihän sitä aina ymmärrä minäkään, mut kyl se siitä. Siinä on aika paljo ruotsin tyylisiä sanoja.
@Mike erittäin syvässä humalassa
You pronunciation is amazing! We don't often get to hear our language spoken that clearly by a non-native speaker, thank you. Especially your "ä" sound, people have a hard time with that.
Thank YOU for watching and for the super-nice comment!
But in fact Ä sound (phoneme) exists even in English, for example in "cat". Y is the tricky one
@@kisalli found the 'Y' to be easy actually i just say 'ew'. As in 'ew i just stood in s....' . Tough one is the 'R' as we don't have a hard 'R'.
@@tjdemigod but Y is very different from ew. However - it is identical to German Ü and similar to French U
@@kisalli This is true. Especially Slavic people tend to pronounce it as an "i", as their y is just a slightly differently pronounced "i" (at least to me!). People also have problems pronouncing the long vocals, as one can hear when a Finnish person tries to imitate foreigners.
I was many years without wanting to learn Finnish, simply because it sounded boring and because many spoke English. Then I change my attitude and I wanted to really work and be part of the Finnish society. I learnt the language in just two years and that was the best i ve done in this country. My life became easier as the language is the key to success in the long term.
Hienoa - että opettelit kielen ! Many foreigners say that They Dont speak in Finland !
Your pronounsiation of finnish is impeccable 👌🏻 Nice work! Suomen kielen lausuntasi on moitteetonta! 👌🏻 Hienoa työtä!
Kiitos Jere!
Sun suomi o iha spessuu!👌🏻 Mahti duunii!
Any kind of discomfort *Exists* A fin: vittu perkele saatana helvetti
This man really said "epäjärjestelmällisyydellänsäkäänköhän" with ease. Even I can't do that and I'm Finnish 😂
I think a big reason why you're getting so many compliments on your pronunciation is that the stress and pitch and the relative lengths of the vowels and consonants sound *completely* natural and I'm having a hard time finding any foreign influence there. Usually when people learn languages they focus on grammar and the phonemes, but as a Finn I'm sure I make grammar mistakes all the time and lately I've come to think that there's probably quite a lot of acceptable variation in how you pronounce consonants and vowels. However, messing up the stress and pitch is almost immediately noticeable and I'm not sure that language learning resources generally put enough emphasis on that aspect of pronunciation.
Well, kiitos for one of the best compliments I've received in here, oon sanaton... It's true they don't put enough emphasis on that aspect, that's probably because it's so difficult to assess, while people (and schools, etc.) usually want gradable results.
Vedellä also means to repeatedly pull 😁 (base verb vetää)
Niinpä onkin! Hahah :D
Well it can mean many things depending on the context and dialect. Finnish is one of those languages which written form is actually just combination of 3 different languages (in Finnish case those are german, Latin and Swedish) and Finnish written language is different from vocal language, that's why context is VERY important in Finnish and saying correct words in wrong context can cause confusion. For example "Vedin hirsiä verstaalla" translates "I was sleeping in the cabin while" where "Vedin puu hirsiä verstaalla" means "I was pulling wood logs at the cabin". In Finnish, hirsi means log but also translates to sleeping, so adding word "puu" which means wood or tree will change the context of double words. oh and if you are wondering how verstaalla can mean both at the cabin and in the cabin the explanation is simple, in Finnish propositions are required only when context requires it or you wish to do so. If context itself doesn't require proposition, you can leave it out if you like
- Vetelin pulkkaa (eli jotain muuta) - Vetelin Kerttua (sitä ihtiään) - Vetelin Kyösti ja Rainer (terveisiä) - Vetelin (Vetelä, Vetelämpi, Vetelin) Voisin vedellä tähän lisääkin mutta you got the point.
Uncle Ham Vedellä sammuu
Vedellä =on the water
Hey guys! Thanks for the views (100k???) and the comments so far! A couple of things that skipped my attention (big shout-out to the viewers who spotted them!): - "leipä" (bread) does not "derive from" but rather is "related to" Russian, as they both borrowed from the same ancient source. The main point here, though, is its similarity with other languages, rather than its etymology. - there's a "u" missing in "makuhuone" (bedroom), the correct spelling being "makuuhuone". Sorry for the inaccuracy there!
"Makuhuone" sounds like a nice name for confectionery.
@@tyynymyy7770 Hahah yep, that would be a good idea! xD "The taste room"
Flavour room
@gam er I would add Korean into that group
I've picked out some tongue twisters that finnish kids use when learning to pronounce the R and S "properly". For practicing S: Vesihiisi sihisi hississä For practicing R: Ärrän kierrän ympäri orren ässän pistän taskuun Also as a bonus a small finnish conversation about bonfire - Kokko, kokoo kokoon koko kokko. - Koko kokkoko? - Koko kokko. Also have you heard about the use of "No niin" heres a link to Ismo Leikola, finnish comedian who talks about the use of No niin kzhead.info/sun/bKmQfdB7rKWunYk/bejne.html
I just started learning finnish on duolingo 😀
Great to hear that! Remember to mix it up with other resources after a while though :)
@@linguaEpassione Do you have any tips for other resources? Thanks
I found it interesting that once you started speaking finnish in this video you started to pronounce some words in english with a finnish accent. You really are a language master.
Sun suomen kielen lausuminen on todella todella hyvää! ^_^ On todella harvinaista, että ei-syntyperäinen suomalainen lausuu noin hyvin. Yleensä suomalaiset erottaa heti äänestä, jos puhuja ei ole syntyperäinen. Jopa suomenruotsalaisten puheessa kuulee vivahde-eron. Mutta sun lausuminen on todella lähellä täydellisyyttä! Voit olla todella ylpeä sun taidoista! :) Kiitos inspiroivista videoista!
Kohtuu hyvää. Tuli sillä toki virheitäkin noista muutamasta sanasta.
Samaa mieltä, erittäin hyvää ääntämistä. Suurin virhe mun korvaan oli "pankki", missä tapahtui yleinen virhe, eli lausuttu kuin "panki". Tuplakonsonantin ääntäminen tuntuu olevan vaikeaa ulkomaalaisille, ja oon itte koittanu opettaa sen niin että pitää lyhyen tauon siinä välissä, mutta niin että melkein nielaisee ensimmäisen konsonantin pois. Esim tässä tapauksessa olisi että "pan(g) -ki".
Oletko koskaan opetellut italiaa ?
Tietokone = informationmachine
And I love it! :))
@@linguaEpassione Computers were created in the U.S. in the 1940s to do calculations. These were done by people whose professional title was "computer". They created an electronic version and called it "electronic computer" which later was shortened just to "computer." When computers were introduced to Finland in the late 50s early 60s the focus had switched to processing large amounts of data instead of raw calculations. This division between super computers and mainframes still exist. The first computer was installed in a bank in 1958 and its first uses was to enable paying wages directly to bank accounts. As I understand Americans still handle pay checks.
Salmonsnake=Lohikäärme=Dragon.
Or knowledge, or info. Tieto means many things.
@@jessejones1102 info is short for information
It is mathematically clear that a complicated system can contain more information than a simple system can. This means that the complex Finnish grammar offers a great number of different possibilities to say the same thing, each with a different "colour". The simple English grammar often has no similar possibilities. There is a well-known Finnish translator, Kersti Juva, who says that Finnish is a three-dimensional language. She says that often, when translating from English, she must think very carefully which one of the number of possibilities offered by Finnish she should choose.
Very nicely put indeed, thank you so much for sharing!
Just learn how to say this and what it means and you'll be good *''No niin''*
Tää oli Ismolta hyvä veto. Tuosta tuli hyvin ilmi miten yksi sana tai lause voi toimia tilanteessa kuin tilanteessa pelkästään äänensävyä muuttamalla.
@@criticalmass3993 jep
No niin no
@@damiengates7581 Niinpä
Opin omaa kieltä tästä😂
Kiva kuulla! ;)
Hukeli Opin omaa KIELTÄNI tästä !
Mäkin opin oppia opista. Opiskellessani oppipoikana.
Voi sanoa joko "opin kieltäni" tai "opin omaa kieltä". Molemmat on oikein. Sijamuoto taitaa olla genetiivi, joka ilmenee sanan lopussa -ni tai eri sanana "omaa". "Omaa kieltäni" on oikeastaan tupla genetiivi ja väärin, noin kieliopin kannalta. Kyllähän kaikki ymmärtää molemmat, mitä niillä tarkoitetaan. Puhekielihän ei paljon kieliopista välitä :D. Itse en tosin ole koskaan ollu hyvä kieliopissa, joten voin olla väärässä. :)
Jari Seppälä Minäkään en ole erityisen hyvä kieliopissa 🙄
Finnish people appreciate anyone taking the effort to learn finnish, because for a finnish person it's as difficult to learn other languages. Then again modern day finns often speak many languages, because when you learn one foreign language, learning a second one gets easier. Finnish is a logical language and my studies in philosophy of religion did make it apparent to me that finnish can be used to express things very precisely where other languages may result in long, complex sentences. While finnish words can be long, sentences can be one word. Translating sentences to finnish often makes them shorter and translating sentences from finnish makes them longer. As a songwriter finnish is a good language for expression as sentences can be packed with meaning and different interpretations, and creating all new words and meanings by combining words is also possible in a way that is still understandable to others. Finnish language has a lot of word play and rhymes and we even have our own measure for poems, the Kalevala-mitta :)
Eipä se nyt niin iso asia ole että minä esim arvostaisin
Ei tietenkään kaikki arvosta, mutta pääsitpähän pätemään :)
En ole pätenyt kerroin vaan että en nää sitä itse hirmu isona asiana
Finns are actually quite good at learning other languages when compared to many other countries. Maybe it's the educational system, or maybe it's the drive to make ourselves understood because hardly anyone out of 7 billion people on Earth understands Finnish.
I think we Finns are also exposed to lot of languages and that helps us learn them. For example the TV shows are not dubbed (unless they are for small children). From there we hear languages like Spanish, German, French and so on... A portion of our citizens use Swedish (our second official language) as their main language and we hear it all the time during our lives. From very young age we are dealing with English in TV, movies, music and on the internet and we start to learn it in school at around 9 years of age. Being exposed to a language, hearing it and actually trying to use it always makes learning a new language easier and us Finns are very well exposed, I'd say!
Thanks for a great video! I think it's little bit funny how when you said "tapaamme" you had a slight accent but right after when you said "tavataan", you said it like any native speaker. Really shows how we prefer "tavataan" over "tapaamme", when foreigners are able to learn to say the first one without an accent but not the later.
Thank you, too!
Moi! Just found this video, amazing! I'm Brazilian and i am studying Finnish . I am loving it. I have two Finns friends, they help me a lot, sending me materials, hearing my pronounciation, writing me in Finnish...really really kind people. Thank you so much for this video! I will be always here to learn with you too. Kiitos! Moikka!
Kiitos Laís! :) Tudo de bom pra você!
@Henry of Monmouth e vc é o que? Chinês?
I live in Finland, moved here 3 years ago, and I so agree with all your said. It's difficult to understand when people are speaking to me using their spoken language, while I understand when I read things in written language, but little by little it get easier to understand. When finnish people speak to me, and they know that I don't understand murre so much, then they speak slowly and they use words than I understand, but when they don't know than i don't understand murre it gets complicated. Hopefully one day I'll fully understand 😱 great video! My Italian family and friends often ask me how is it possible that I still don't speak fluently finnish after 3 years, next time it happens I'll show them this video
Hi Valentina, thank you so much for your comment and for sharing your experience! I was in that phase as well, it's perfectly normal when you've learnt written Finnish (as everybody does) but you face "puhekieli". As you confirmed, it gets clearer little by little. One day you will find yourself using those structures without even noticing :) Keep going!
You Have to Forget Your Italian ! Uuno Turhapuro metod / start with an Empty table !
linguaEpassione non in effetti quel libro non lo conosco, gli darò un occhiata, grazie :) si chattando e parlando piano piano sta andando meglio, serve tempo e costanza
Treat spoken language as a separate language. It's probably easier that way. Written Finnish is supposed to be logical and verbose "ideal Finnish", spoken Finnish is just lazy, often drunk Finns muttering whatever using the least amount of syllables possible.
@@Tinavvv Many People / Have spoken / some other Language / in Their Youth ! IT Comes Back / Dont worry !
I lived in Finland for one year when I was 28 and I did manage to learn to speak pretty well. I went to the university in Helsinki 3 times a week and lived with a Finnish family who didn't speak any English. Total immersion! Yes, Finnish is difficult, no getting away from that. But there is a certain order to the language that you pick up as you're learning. And I 100% agree that the Finns are terrific! They WILL help you!! I made lots of mistakes, and some of those mistakes were hilarious, but they gently corrected me and I would learn. So I would like to say to the Finnish people - Kiitos kaikesta!!! Maanne on kaunista!
Finnish has a lot of grammar but it's regular, there's not many exceptions. And it's pronounced as written and of course, lots of vowels that help in pronunciation. Your pronunciation is good!
Icelandic only has 4 cases, but it's so much harder to actually learn them. There are so many different patterns and it's also not obvious at all when to use a specific case.
Actually, leipä does not come from russian, but from Proto-Finnic *laipa, which was borrowed from Proto-Germanic. The slavic word was also borrowed from that same source.
Thank you for pointing this out! I shouldn't have said "derived from", here, but rather "similar / related to" - kiitos!
It could be either, since the indo-european waters are murky.
It's a good guess anyhow
@@NotOrdinaryInGames Finnish has hundreds of words loaned from Proto-Germanic still in use, so it's more probable that "Leipä" is also borrowed from there, since Finnish doesn't really have loanwords from Russian
@@user-su6wy3bj4v : But spoken Finnish especially around Helsinki has a lot of slang words derived from either Russian or Swedish. The original 'Stadin slangi' is slowly disappearing though, and the spoken language overall is rapidly changing.
Oh, how pleasant it is to hear you talking in fluent English - and then switch it to smoooooth Finnish! Your Finnish pronunciation is quite beautiful and very pleasant to listen. You have done a great job and how nice of you to share your views and knowledge of Finnish language to help others. 👏🏻😄 It is also interesting to us, who speak Finnish as a native tongue, to see how Finnish language is viewed by others. I have always thought that one of the perks of Finnish language is that words are pronounced as they are written, there is no silent letters or rules that some vowels should be pronounced in different way after some consonants etc. It is very honest language in that regard. 😊 Hope you are well! Happy summer! ☀️😎
Kiitos Jenny ihanasta kommentista! :) Ja hauskaa kesää itsellesi!
you made it so fun! love it :)
Your accent is perfect. So rarely we get to hear such mastery of the flatness. There's no extra "h" sound that usually pushes through. Great job! I mean it!
I like Finnish because it retains words so well. For example "kuningas" "kuningaz*" in Proto-Germanic which means "king"; or "kampa", PG "kampaz", "comb". Proto-Germanic was spoken thousands of years ago and look how well these words have kept their shape!
Tai sitten vaan kingi, kunkku, ja tietty runkuksikin kutsutaan noita ihmisturhuuksia jotka kaipaavat suuresti ihailua.
One must remember that proto-languages are reconstructed and always come with a certain amount of uncertainty. Ie. we have no written records or audio recordings of these.
Wonderful, thank you. I love the Finnish language even though I don't speak or understand it, except for a couple words. Some of the vowels are similar to Hungarian, (Finno-UGRIC, duh). I met the group Värttinä when my band opened for them way back in the 90s in Chicago and ever since then when I hear Finnish I recognize it and listen carefully. I may even want to be a Finn in my next life.
When Do You Start - Your NEXT LIFE ?
Thank you for that video! Good job.
Perfect! I find it very cool that you are an inspiration for everyone to try and learn new languages.
Sun videot on ihan mahtavia! Jatka samaan malliin :)
And if someone instructs or corrects a person learning Finnish, it is actually only a compliment (you are doing WELL, you have hope ;). Certainly not to strike down or to say "aha! this is what you still got wrong!", rather revealing whatever still remains secret or unknown, what would be the logical linear next step to comprehend, or just to provide examples to certify that whatever has thus far been learned, is indeed correct. Nice video.
Todella hyvä video propsit sinulle bro
This is the most amazing thing ever, literally you read my mind with the last quote :), the only reason why I like to watch videos about people learning my language is that thing.
Todella hyvin puhuttu. Olen itse kyllä syntynyt suomessa, mutta vanhempani ovat intiasta. Mutta en voinut edes kuvitella, kuinka hyvä aksentti sinulla on ja otit vastaan yhen maailman vaikeimmista kielistä. BRAVO!
I think one thing that also could help learning Finnish is that we have pretty small vocabulary compairing to English example. That can make it a challenge too though since one word can be used in so many ways and you have to pick the meaning from where it is used. But we often have the one basic word and everything that is connected to it uses it as part of the new word. Like if you take word book which is kirja in Finnish. Library is kirjasto, bookcase is kirjahylly etc. So when you know the system you already know the start of the word in many cases. With my quest to trying to learn English this is something I have had to face in opposite way because in English there is often ten different words to one thing and what you use changes the shade of the meaning sometimes just little bit but enough to make you misunderstood if you pick wrong word. Where in Finnish I don't have to worry about that most of the time because we have just one way to say it. That probably also is why Finns are said to be blunt and direct. Part of that comes from our language and it translates to other languages when we use them too, and part of that is because of the culture too. But getting back to that English. It has been also interesting to notice that on these days I also get sometimes frustrated with Finnish language because I can not give those little nuances with my words that I can in English. There is things that you can not say in Finnish because we simply don't have words to express the things and that is also good thing to remember. Sometimes it is not because you don't know the language sometimes it is because there just is no language what to use.
Hyvä klippi, tarkkoja faktoja, kiitos!
Hyvä video! Kiitos! 😀 👍
I'm not even 7 minutes in, and I already think this is the best brief explanation on Finnish that I've ever seen. BTW, consonant gradation is something that children born in Finland may struggle with some words. Mine don't get some fairly easy ones right because they're confused by other similar words working seemingly in a different way.
Thank you so much! Yep, I know, I also witnessed some very funny "mistakes" by children such as: - Parent: "Tää on miehen nimi", - Child: "Ah, sitten tää on miehi!" :D
I am a Swedish person with a Finnish mom. I have learned a little bit of Finnish, but yes, it is a pretty hard language. It can be quite hard to communicate with the Finnish side of my family sometimes.
Hej Stefan, thank you for sharing this - the good thing though is that usually Finnish people are very willing to use Finnish with you if they see you're making an effort to learn and use the language, well at least in my experience obviously
Constant exposure is the key. Stress people, make 'em to speak Finnnish!
Awesome video and you have very clear way to pronounce english and finnish both, it is very easy to understand and follow :) Greetings from Finland
Suomalaiset eivät osaa puhua hitaasti ja selkeästi vaan ne aina vaihtavat englanniksi. Jos puhut niin kuin kirja, niiden vastaus taitaa tulla englanniks. Mä voin aina ymmärrä kaikki mitä opettaja kurssissa sanoo mut sit kadulla mä ymmärrän vähemmän kuin 80 % ja se ei oo mukava keskustelu mulle. Siksi mä hoidan tärkeät asiat englanniks. Mut jos sulla on silti riittävästi sisua, sä voit joskus tulevaisuudessa puhua suomeksi ilman ongelmia. Tulin Suomeen kaks vuotta sitten.
This is so fun to watch! when I was learning Finnish spoken and written really messed me up! I study for like 9 weeks before I got to Finland and I quickly felt like I learned the wrong language 😂😂
hahaha
Finnish cases are extremely simple because most of them are "semantic" cases (they are like prepositions which have their distinct meanings), unlike languages like Russian or even German where cases have neither meaning nor distinct rules to ascribe them to nouns. In Finnish, it's relatively simple to memorize cases by their meanings. In Russian, the only way to memorize is to drill
I never could have guessed, that it would be so interesting to watch videos about my own language. Thanks!
Nice upload :) enjoying seeing your updates - keep going
Thank you David, it's always a pleasure to hear from you! ;D
your pronounciation is AMAZING!
Kiitos paljon sinulle itsellesi. Olet tosi mukava:)
Ihan mahtavaa lausumista, props to you for learning to do it so well!!
I needed a positive video on the language. Want to learn, but learning at the speed of a glacier mostly due to bad habits.
I just watched the video and I learned a lot! Thank you teacher! :) Jan
Hahah thank you for watching, pupil! :D
Great video! I started learning Finnish with Duolingo about 2 weeks ago. I look forward to more videos from you. Kiitos ja paljon onnea! Jee!
Astonishing, to say the least! - Well done! - You have totally nailed the Finnish language. What a nice video. - I stumbled upon it by happenstance, but I can safely say that it made my day. Entertaining, heart-warming and crammed with accurate information. Kiitos Sinulle, ja oikein hyvää jatkoa!
Finnish is quite an easy language to be spoken on a level that peoples know what your trying to say, but to actually give words the real meanings is a whole different story. But there is also quite a lot of dialects which makes it even harder for foreigner. Täytyy kuitenkin myöntää, että vaikka tätä on koko ikänsä puhunut ja kirjoittanut, ei se todellakaan ole aina helppoa. Etenkään kirjoittamisen osalta, kun on niin tottunut puhekieleen ja murteisiin, sekä yleensä kirjoittaa enemmän englanniksi, niin pääsee siinä oman kielen kirjoitustaito kärsimään. Siinä missä internet ja kansainvälistyminen/verkostoituminen on hienoa, tuhoaa se kuitenkin pikkuhiljaa tätä hienoa kieltä, juurikin edellämainitusta syystä. Toki on ihmisiä jotka ei niinkään internettiä yms käytä, mutta heidänkin määrä vähenee jatkuvasti, koska nykyään lähes jokainen on lapsesta pitäen tekemisissä erilaisten medialaitteiden kanssa ja "altistuvat" huomattavasti enemmän englanninkieliselle sisällölle. Henkilökohtaisellakin tasolla miettien, en kirjoita suomen kieltä juuri muualla kuin sosiaalisen median alustoilla ja pikaviestisovelluksissa, jolloin se hyvinkin monesti on puhekieltä. Tämä kommentti sisältää varmaan enemmän edes jossain määrin oikeaoppista suomen kieltä, kuin mitä olen moneen kuukauteen kirjoittanut mihinkään.
Loistava kommentti, en voi sanoa muuta!
Sama huolenaihe minullakin, että tämä meidän suunnattoman rikas kielemme hissukseen köyhtyy.
All you need to say is " no niin " and you got it.
No niin... :D
Your pronunciation is so great! It always makes me happy when i hear people from other countries speak my language! (though it might be difficult). Kiitos!
mahtava video! tosi hyvin osasit selittää suomen kielen monimutkaisia sääntöjä😄ja lausut niin uskomattoman hyvin! 👏
Kiitos mielenkiintoisesta ja hyvin tehdystä videosta! Grazie per il video molto interessante e ben fatto!
Kiitos itsellesi, että jaksoit katsoa! :) Grazie mille a te per la visione!
Sinun kannattaisi olla kieltenopettaja koulussa, uskoisin että oppisivat tekniikallasi :) Suomen kieli on niin rikas, ettei kaikkia sanontoja voi edes kääntää esim englanniksi.
Very good video, didnt miss anything!
nice to hear you have positive understanding from finns!
Die vorigen Kommentare habe ich geschrieben während ich das Video angeschaut habe eigentlich. Interessantes Video, jetzt bin ich ruhig, weil diese Schwierigkeiten nicht so schlimm sind. Ich dachte es wäre schlimmer. Kannst du irgendwann ein Video aufnehmen, das mit dem Deutschen handelt? Grüße aus winterlichem Israel und ich freue mich darauf, einen weiteren Unterricht mit dir zu haben :)
That's so interesting! A lot of crazy rules and so, but after all well... It seems logical! Once you wrote me that you gonna be learning Georgian, and, to be honest, as you already know Finnish and you find yourself in it's grammar labirynth, you are going to speak Georgian faster than me! 😄
Heheh I really don't know about Georgian, that's so different that I guess it could be a completely different story... We'll see! :) Thanks so much for your nice comment! Anzi, parli benissimo l'italiano, quindi: apprezzo molto che tu sia passato di nuovo a trovarmi!
Really cool and concise video. This something I could recommend to anyone even with a mild interest on Finnish language.
It's interesting that as an native Finnish speaker I had never thought this until I saw your video... So well done! :)
Holy shit this is cool. I'd like to see you exploring the finnish language further and especially some of the extra-hard or unusual rules which this language has :)
Thank you so much!!! Got it, I will make more videos and explore deeper - it's gonna be fun! :)
Awesome video, Stefano! :) it reminded me of me ages ago, trying to learn some Finnish and giving up after two weeks, after I found out the word for "email" had... how many letters? :D :D I really like your way of describing the language! Liebe Grüße aus Nürnberg! :)
Danke Marija! Do you mean "sähköposti"? It is quite long but there's much worse :)) Liebe Grüße aus Mailand (im Urlaub!!!) :)
Email comes from electricity + mail; exactly like sähköposti. But you will be understood if stack with email. "Meili" for e-mail is commonly used in spoken language.
Two weeks - I would say that - You won't learn any Language in two weeks ! Learning something - IS to forget something else ! In a Year - puhuisit suomea ! Suomessa asuessa oppii paljon nopeammin ! Alles Gut aus Nürnberg ?
One thing I've noticed in 20 years of helping foreingers is that PRACTICALLY you can get yourself understood by only using base forms of the words, in what ever order, making Finnish "very" easy to start with. Combined with write-as-you-pronounce and pronounce-every-letter. Any native Finn will understand what you are trying to tell if you use base form of the words, as long as you use all of them. The step 1 in teaching should get the hell away from 15 cases, and teach all useful words in base form. The cases become naturally when you can get yourself understood and can use the language. In fact wrong case only effects the message negatively more than having none.
Tosi kiva video. Hyvin lausut suomea. Kiitos kauniista sanoistasi myöskin. :)
I am definitely interested in your uploading more videos on Finnish. You have a excellent presentation skills. Thank you so much for the video.
Thank you, Rosa, for the super kind comment! I will do my best to keep it up!
Fantastic video. Thanks for making it (by the way, you're not a native English speaker but you held your own and did brilliantly)!
Kiitos paljon! Hieno video! :D
Kiitos itsellesi katsomisesta, Esa!
You speak perfect Finnish, Stefano. I am truly inspired by your channel. I speak Finnish, English, German and some Swedish. I am learning Turkish at the moment and I find it more difficult to learn now as an adult than what I did as a child, I feel like English was no problem to learn as I started when I was 7 years old. My other problem is to maintain my German skills as I really rarely use it. I have been watching your videos today a lot and I got some great tips from you. Good luck on learning more languages! :)
I'm not even at the half point of the video, but I'm so amazed that someone has explored and learned our (not wide spread) language so well! You are teaching the Finnish language better than 90% of Finnish people ever could. Keep up the good work my man! I have always thought foreign languages to be interesting, but I've never really learned anything but English. Maybe it's because I'll rather be a "master of one" than "ace of many". You just earned a new subscriber :)
Update: I watched the whole video. It didn't disappoint. I have a question tho, because this is something i feel is a "problem" when Finnish people speak English... Do you feel like us Finns sound "emotionless" when we speak English for example? I've had problems in the past when i talk to my foreign colleagues or friends... They think i sound indifferent or cold, even though I pronounciate the words almost perfectly. Even when i try to emphasize the correct letters, i end up sounding like a psychopath. I know this question is pointless and you can't possibly help with fixing the Finnish accent, but I'd like hear your thoughts about how we Finns sound in general when speaking English. (Sorry if there are any grammar mistakes, it's 4 A.M. and I'm slightly intoxicated.).
'Mennään', 'tavataan', 'ollaan', etc. are not only spoken variants of plural first person, they are also spoken and written forms of _indefinite_ person, sometimes also called asubjective. In some older grammars that form can be called also passive, but indefinite person is different category and doesn't easily translate into varieties of Indo-european passive voice. A main difference is that Finnish sentence does not require grammatical subject, and asubjective sentence in indefinite person can consist only of a verb, e.g.: Ollaan. This ability to speak before subject-object division arises makes Finnish philosophically interesting, we could e.g. claim that Finnish can speak naturally Buddhism /advaita.
Thank you for this important information...
WOW!! Your pronunciation is amazing!! I'm a Finn living in Germany and you just gave me lots of motivation to learn German, kiitos!!
Really happy to see stuff like this. As a finn I keep repeating how difficult the language is, but this has really helped me grasp what the major obstacles and challenges are. It's also great to see the things I always use as an example of the positive sides of finnish, the lack of genders in the spoken language, be expanded upon and to see other positive sides brought up. Hieno video, kaikin puolin!
Vautsi, on tosi jees lukea tällaisia kommentteja, koska näitten kautta näen kuinka siitä, mitä teen, voi olla hyötyä sekä suomen kielen opiskelijoille että ihan suomalaisille :)) KIITOS!
I have just starting my journey in learning Finnish and I have found it difficult but it's motivated me more to learn it. I'm very hungry to learn it but the way it's taught in Finland is really hard from a English speaker. I'm in the Finnish language class where the teacher only speaks Finnish even if you ask a question they will tell you the answer in Finnish and it's nearly impossible to know what the f is happening. I have learnt more from YT from people like linguaEpassione.
Helppoa se on jos on suomalainen
Kaikki on suhteellista, after all :D Kiitos katsomisesta, myös koiralle!
Jorisee vaa menemää. Jo lapsena osasin
emmä osaa viäkää
@@gJonii ismo
@@jussivalter harmi
Your pronounciation is absolutely spot on. This is something many foreigners don't ever get right, even if their grammar is correct.
As a Finn I found this very entertaining and on point. Also, your Finnish sounds really good :)