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Originally posted by wormwood
one thing that always seems very odd, is that english speakers never seem to say anything when they hang up. they just finish what they had to say, pause, and then it's *click*. in finland you always absolutely need to end it with something like "okay, bye", or you're leaving the impression of being a dick.
never come across with what you just described there... it's common in the UK, too. almost always people end their phone conversation with 'something' other than *click*... be it 'cheers' or 'laters' or 'see ya/around' or 'bye', or 'was nice talking to you', or 'right, gotta dash/go' etc etc...

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Seitse on vaca?

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Originally posted by wormwood
yeah, better start right now before you move here.

differences to indo-european languages (ie. 99% of western languages):
- no common vocabulary
- no linguistic relation to latin/greek/sanskrit
- totally different syntax/grammar
- vowel harmony, 'front' and 'back vowels' can never be mixed inside a word.

on the plus side:
+ word order is mostly the essence of finnish lies right there, so pay extra attention to understanding them.
Haven't been on the site for some days.

Wow, what an extensive and detalied reply. One can hardly hope to get so serious, and helpful response on online forum. And for free. Thank you very much!!!

I guess I'll have to put a lot of effort in it, even more than I initially thought, but it should pay off. Since I go there for study, I will in great handicap when picking subjects I want to attend until I learn Finnish, ( most of the collegiums are being taught in Finnish or Swedish. ) I already purchased some tutorial programs online so it is time to start !

Just for curiosity, I found Finnish to be pretty new and pleasant to my ear, it has quite different sound than any language I heard before, but it is somewhat melodic in its own way. I enjoyed my trip with train between Tampere and Helsinki when one elderly men went mad about someone sitting on his reserved seat so he was yelling in Finnish for quite a long time. It was a very good opportunity to listen the sound of the language since he was so enthusiastic. 🙂

Thanks again !

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Originally posted by ivan2908
Haven't been on the site for some days.

Wow, what an extensive and detalied reply. One can hardly hope to get so serious, and helpful response on online forum. And for free. Thank you very much!!!

I guess I'll have to put a lot of effort in it, even more than I initially thought, but it should pay off. Since I go there for study, I will in great han ...[text shortened]... rtunity to listen the sound of the language since he was so enthusiastic. 🙂

Thanks again !
Did you see this site?:

http://www.squidoo.com/how-do-I-say-it-in-finnish

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Originally posted by sonhouse
Did you see this site?:

http://www.squidoo.com/how-do-I-say-it-in-finnish
thanks, downloaded software from it and learning colors.

Vaalean puinanen etc, LOL, difficult and unfamiliar with any other language I know.

Kiitos !

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Originally posted by ivan2908
thanks, downloaded software from it and learning colors.

Vaalean puinanen etc, LOL, difficult and unfamiliar with any other language I know.

Kiitos !
tip: all finnish compound words are written as one word. so, 'vaaleanpunainen' (ie. 'lightlyred'😉.

also, the stress is always on the first syllable. getting that right will make a huge difference in being understood.

another, hard thing, is the doubling of consonant at the end of some words that have lost their ending consonant. the lost consonant is still voiced, but never written. it's voiced when the next word begins with a consonant, so together that makes a double consonant between the words. - it's not a big thing, but foreigners never get it right, which makes them sound weird. so if you think you hear a double consonant even if it's not written, it's there. just ape it, and slowly you'll get the feel when there is one and when (usually) there isn't.

example:

'tule tänne' (come here) is pronounced 'tulet tänne'.

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it seems to me that every Finnish word has at least 3 a's and 2 i's, is this correct or just an urban myth?

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Originally posted by orion25
it seems to me that every Finnish word has at least 3 a's and 2 i's, is this correct or just an urban myth?
It's an urban myth. Lots of Finnish words don't have any a's, but about 7 ä's instead.

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Originally posted by orion25
it seems to me that every Finnish word has at least 3 a's and 2 i's, is this correct or just an urban myth?
vowel harmony:

'front vowels': ä,ö,y
'back vowels': a,o,u
'neutral vowels': i,e

the rule: there can never be both front- and back vowels present in the same word.

so if there's an 'a' in a word, the rest of the vowels are restricted to a,e,i,o,u. that somewhat increases the frequency of multiple a's. also long vowels are written with 2 vowels. like: raato, muutto, kuu, maa... in english for example they're not. they exist, like in 'bird' [bööd], heart [haart] etc, but they're just written in a silly way without using double vowels.

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Originally posted by wormwood
vowel harmony:

'front vowels': ä,ö,y
'back vowels': a,o,u
'neutral vowels': i,e

the rule: there can never be both front- and back vowels present in the same word.

so if there's an 'a' in a word, the rest of the vowels are restricted to a,e,i,o,u. that somewhat increases the frequency of multiple a's. also long vowels are written with 2 vowels. li ...[text shortened]... [haart] etc, but they're just written in a silly way without using double vowels.
Yes, I prefer double vowels also, makes more sense. Better than that is using common accents like á or ã or ê for shorter sentences and easier reading/learning.

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Originally posted by orion25
Yes, I prefer double vowels also, makes more sense. Better than that is using common accents like á or ã or ê for shorter sentences and easier reading/learning.
That doesn't work all that well with umlauts.

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Originally posted by orion25
Yes, I prefer double vowels also, makes more sense. Better than that is using common accents like á or ã or ê for shorter sentences and easier reading/learning.
if acute, tilde and caret would be used to denote double vowels, what would you use to denote accent, tilde and caret then? 🙂

not to mention what a huge mess it would to use them on top of ä,ö,å and ü.

furthermore, abreviations only tend to make things less readable anyway...

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Originally posted by wormwood
if acute, tilde and caret would be used to denote double vowels, what would you use to denote accent, tilde and caret then? 🙂

not to mention what a huge mess it would to use them on top of ä,ö,å and ü.

furthermore, abreviations only tend to make things less readable anyway...
You'd get something that looks like Vietnamese. 🙂 http://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ti%E1%BA%BFng_Vi%E1%BB%87t

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Originally posted by Nordlys
You'd get something that looks like Vietnamese. 🙂 http://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ti%E1%BA%BFng_Vi%E1%BB%87t
doesn't look like vietnamese at all though. 🙂 what's that mess called, romanized vietnamese?


where's the resident viet bozo the one time we actually need him? 🙂

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Originally posted by wormwood
doesn't look like vietnamese at all though. 🙂 what's that mess called, romanized vietnamese?
It's called Vietnamese. They have been using it for quite a while.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_language#Writing_system

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