The Finnish language is renowned for being, let’s say, difficult for foreigners to master (some would argue that it is impossible). However, those who challenge the stereotype and choose to learn Finnish will soon be amazed by its beauty and harmonious qualities, as well as the logic that lies in its difficult grammar.
Background
A lot of people believe that Finnish is closely associated with Swedish or Russian since Sweden as well as Russia are both important neighboring countries. But that’s not the situation. Swedish and Russian are Indo-European languages. Finnish is part of the Finno-Ugric branch of the Uralic group of languages.
The Finno-Ugric language family comprises Estonian, Sami, and Hungarian in addition to the various language spoken throughout the Russian Federation, like Karelian and Mari. There are around Five million Finnish people around the world.
The majority of Finnish people live in Finland but some are across Sweden, Estonia, Norway, Russia, and North America. This is one of the reasons that motivate professional danish translation services to offer Finnish in their language translation portfolio.
Finnish is among the two official languages of Finland (the other one being Swedish) and is one of the languages that are official in the European Union. Also, it has the status of a minority language in Sweden.
Now that we have discussed some background about the Finnish language, let us discuss certain factors that make it an interesting language to learn;
1. Finnish Is Gender Neutral
Finnish doesn’t have the grammatical gender of other European languages, which means it’s not necessary to know the difference between masculine and feminine.
Additionally, there’s no need to develop a gender-neutral pronoun in Finnish because it’s already there. Furthermore, this is the only alternative for Finnish: for Finnish, this singular form of the word third (usually he or it when used with English) has the form known as han and is able to refer to anyone from any gender. All other pronouns are gender-specific or in this regard, Finnish learners have it simple!
This little intricacy of the Finnish language is well understood by Finnish translation services. Hence, if you want to translate your documents into the Finnish language, do take assistance from Professional Translation Services.
2. There Is No Future Tense In Finnish
The future tense doesn’t exist in Finnish. You just use the present tense. This is much more sensible than it may be: in the event of a possibility of confusion, can simply include words like the word varmaan(“probably”) (or “probably” or (“soon”), the word huomenna (“tomorrow”) as well as kun lehmat-lentavat (“when the cows are flying” – Finnish applies to cows and pork in this instance) to clarify that the act is (or is) occurring in the near future. It is also possible to employ a verb like Aikoa (“to plan”) to intend to make it crystal and clear.
3. East Versus West
Finnish is a language with a variety of mutually understandable dialects that are broadly classified into two categories: Western and Eastern. They differ with respect to their vocabulary and intonation, however, there are differences in grammar and morphology.
One thing a Finnish learner will be able to notice quickly is that different dialects have different pronouns “I” can be ma (Helsinki) maa (Tampere) or the mnaa (Rauma) and mia (Kuopio) as well as mia (Kotka). In normal Finnish the word is mina.
4. Finnish Is Pronounced The Same Way As It’s Written
Finnish has a very consistent pronunciation. In general, it’s close to 100 of correspondence between sounds and letters. But, there are some sounds that are difficult for Finnish students to understand. While studying Finnish, or the Finnish language, here are the things to be aware of about sounds and letters:
- Finnish is a language with the vowels of eight: A O, u and i, and y.
- Vowels are pronounced in the same way as written consonants, and so are the majority of consonants.
- Words are stressed always on the first word. But, stressing does not make the word length.
- Vowels and consonants are short (written using only one letter) or lengthy (written using the use of two letters). Consonants of different lengths or vowels could alter their meaning. For instance, lakki (“cap”) is the long k while the word laki (“law”) is an elongated version.
- Like the other Finno-Ugric languages Finnish is a language with vowel harmony (you can’t have front and back vowels in the same sentence).
5. Finnish Contains 18 Diphthongs
Finnish is awash with diphthongs and floating vowels (two adjacent vowels within the exact same syllable). Certain of them are frequent across other languages such as the ai in Aika (“time”) as well as the oi of poika (“boy”) while others could be initially viewed as being a punishment for having the courage to learn a different language, such as ay/aeY in the taysi (“full”) and the yo in syoda (“to take a bite of”).
One instance of a Finnish diphthong can be found in its name: suomi (“Finnish”). Another is in the word that is Finnish that you are already familiar with: sauna. It is just a matter of saying it using the Finnish accent and saying “sauna”.
Conclusion
In this article, we discussed some factors that make Finnish an interesting language to learn.
On the other hand, if an organization aims to offer its product or service to the Finnish-speaking community, then taking assistance from the top language translation services providers, such as CCJK, is a viable option.
