The Finnish language. What is it like?
Unique, Analytical, Clear, and sometimes Tough
(I love it!)
Vowel harmony
- The Finnish language has back vowels (a, o, u) and front vowels (ä, ö, y).
- Front and back vowels cannot occur in a same word.
- Mid vowels (e, i) can occur with both back and front vowels.
(a, o, u) ja (ä, ö, y) ♥ (e, i)
KPT
Some Finnish words have a strong and a weak form.
Gradiation occurs in some of the nouns, verbs and adjectives, but not all of them.
Learn more about KPT
Many meanings in one word. Finnish is an agglutinative language.
In Finnish words meaningful parts of expression are added to the end of the word instead of constructing the meaning by prepositions.
This is the first reason Finnish has a reputation of being difficult language and having long words.
In Finnish words meaningful parts of expression are added to the end of the word instead of constructing the meaning by prepositions.
Combined words / portmanteau words
The second reason why Finnish has a reputation of having long and difficult words.
Six types of verbs.
However, most of them are types 1, 3 and 4. Okay… Some very important ones are type 2.
Many changes in letters.
Gradiation and word types are the main reason for this.
Every letter counts.
It might change the meaning dramatically.
Be aware!
Rection
Some verbs, nouns and adjectives need a specific form of the following word.
No article. No gender.
The Finnish language has been noted as a one of the most important factors in gender equality.
We are proud of that.
Rich derivation.
One word enlarges into many different forms.
A noun becomes an adjective and a verb.
A verb becomes many different forms of a noun.
Good news!
Learn the most usable and useful part of the language first. Don´t get devastated by aiming for perfection. You will learn more in time. First take a grip of the everyday language to get along in your new environment.
Spoken language.
In fact, there are two Finnish languages: the one you write and the one you speak.