Finnish is a highly synthetic language. This means that a word can be made by juxtaposing inflected verbs, nouns, and adjectives, depending on each word's role in the sentence. Prepositions often appear as suffixes attached to nouns, and other particles can be added to express nuance.
Finnish is one of the most difficult languages for English speakers to learn because of the major linguistic differences between the two languages. Finnish shares almost none of the same vocabulary as English. It also has a complex grammatical structure that's quite different from English.
Finnish has a reputation of being a difficult language to learn. But is Finnish hard to learn, really? The Foreign Service Institute (FSI) has come up with a difficulty ranking for language-learning based on how different each language is from English. Using this system, FSI has placed Finnish in category IV.
Learning and becoming comfortable with the Cyrillic alphabet is another difficulty but that one is minor compared to the inflections of the grammatical cases. The foreign service Institute ranks both Finnish and Russian in the same difficulty category.
Finnish is often regarded as one of the most difficult languages to learn. With its verb conjugation, case system, consonant gradation, and clitics it might feel quite difficult sure. However, the difficulty of the language depends a lot on your point of view.
Lentokonesuihkuturbiinimoottoriapumekaanikkoaliupseerioppilas – This supposedly is the longest Finnish word with 61 letters, and it means an airplane jet turbine engine auxiliary mechanic non-commissioned officer student.
Finnish belongs to the Baltic-Finnic branch of the Finno-Ugric languages, being most closely related to Estonian, Livonian, Votic, Karelian, Veps, and Ingrian.
Finnish is one of the 24 official languages of the European Union, yet it is also one of the least widespread with only around 5 million native speakers, about one percent of the EU population.
The Finnish language (native name: suomi, suomen kieli) has its roots in the Uralic language family. With 5.18 million native speakers, Finnish has the highest prevalence in Finland. A total of about 5.4 million people worldwide speak Finnish as their mother tongue.
Official status. Today, Finnish is one of two official languages of Finland (the other being Swedish), and has been an official language of the European Union since 1995.
In a nutshell, it is absolutely possible to live in Finland without speaking Finnish and not feeling like a “luuseri”, and it is not about survival but rather about enjoying your life to the fullest! But if you ask me, I would highly approve of your decision to learn the language, it's really worth it.
This means that, based on the differences between English and Finnish, Finnish is one of the harder languages for English speakers to learn. According to this ranking, it should take approximately 1100 hours or 44 weeks on average for an English-speaking learner to reach a general proficiency level in Finnish.
Sisu is a Finnish concept described as stoic determination, tenacity of purpose, grit, bravery, resilience, and hardiness, and is held by Finns themselves to express their national character.
The Finns learn to speak Japanese quite easily. The sounds are easy, and the grammar is reminiscent of Finnish. Writing is more challenging, but you learn it little by little.
The Finnish grammar and most Finnish words are very different from those in other European languages, because Finnish is not an Indo-European language. The two other national languages that are Uralic languages as Finnish are Estonian and Hungarian.
The Karelian language, spoken in Finland and Russia, is the closest linguistic relative to Finnish and must not be mixed up with the Karelian (south-eastern) dialects of Finnish. There are less than 100,000 speakers of the various forms of Karelian. In Finland, their estimated number is about 5,000.
The Finns are said to use 70-140 words per minute, while the Americans produce 125-150 words/min and the word-per-minute rate for the English people is as high as 150-190.
The Russian language is the most spoken immigrant language in Finland (1.6%). The Russian language has no official minority language status in Finland, though historically it served as the third co-official language with Finnish and Swedish for a very short period between 1900 and 1917.
There are only a little over twenty thousand native speakers of English in Finland, but due to being a competitive and educated nations, the majority of Finns speak it as their second language. 70% of the population can speak English fluently.
The first people to arrive in Finland at the end of the Ice Age were thus the genetic ancestors of today's inhabitants, in other words they were “Finns” who, in the light of the preceding, lived during the Ice Age south of the margin of the ice sheet, in other words in Central Russia (see the Desna, Kostenki-Avdeevo ...
Hungarian is the major Uralic language spoken in Europe, but sadly Finns and Hungarians are not able to understand each-others. They only share approximately 200 common words. Estonians are luckier, they can usually understand a basic conversation in Finnish.
Answer and Explanation:
The Finnish equivalent of ''no'' is ei (pronounced: /ey/). This expression can be used on its own, as an interjection, or placed in front of a noun to indicate negation. For example: Ei kesta. (''No problem.
Loud speaking and loud laughing is not common in Finland and may irritate some Finns. Occasional silence is considered a part of the conversation, not a sign of hostility or irritation. All that said, Finns are generally helpful and polite, and glad to help confused tourists if asked.