Language


Finnish is a Finno-Ugric language, related to Estonian and Saami language and more distantly to Hungarian. Its grammatical structure differs widely from that of Indo-European languages, but it has its own logic. There are 15 cases, suffixes on the ends of words, most of which correspond to prepositions in some other languages.

There are other suffixes too: Finnish loves them! Adding a suffix usually affects the sound of the basic word in ways that can get quite complicated. There are no articles; and there is no grammatical gender either, so there is no difference between "he" and "she": both are "hän" in written language. As a matter of fact, in spoken language there is no difference between "he", "she" and "it": they all are referred to by using the word "se".

The spoken language is also in other ways simpler than the written form. The pronunciation is easy: every letter is always pronounced the same way. The stress is always on the first syllable of a word.

Partly because of all the suffixes, and because new words are made by joining existing ones together, Finnish words tend to be rather long. But when you begin to recognise where one bit stops and another starts, things get easier. The vocabulary contains lots of loan-words from languages that are probably more familiar to you (like pankki "bank", shekki "cheque"), but some of these loans come in less familiar shapes, with sounds missing or changed (koulu is "school"; kauppa is "shop", from German kaufen "to buy").


A few words of Finnish

yes - kyllä
no - ei
thank you - kiitos
hello - hi moi/hei/terve/päivää
good morning - hyvää huomenta
good evening - hyvää iltaa
good night - hyvää yötä
goodbye - näkemiin/hei hei
how are you? - mitä kuuluu?
sorry - anteeksi
my name is - nimeni on
I don't understand - en ymmärrä
how much? - kuinka paljon?
where is/are? - missä on?
road - tie
street - katu

Etunimi - first name
Sukunimi - last name
Syntymävuosi - birth year
Lähiosoite - Street addy
Postinro - Post number
Postitoimipaikka - place where you live
Sähköposti - email addy
Puhelin - phone number
Sähköpostilla - by e-mail
Kirjeellä - by letter
Tekstiviestillä - by SMS