"Snakker du finsk?"
Translation:Do you speak Finnish?
19 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
I just forgot one N when writing Finnish, I’m frustrated that it did not count as a typo, but at least I’ll be careful next time xD
No, but I'll probably be passable in Danish by the end of this course, well enough to get around at least.
Out of interest, I've read about how Norwegian, Danish and Swedish are sort of mutually comprehensible, can the same be said about Finnish?
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Nope. Finnish is from a completely different family of languages. Relatives are Estonian, which to a Finn sounds like "funny Finnish" with not much sense, and Hungarian which doesn't make any sense to me at least. We are Nordic but not Scandinavian. There are obviously some exchange of words due to close geographic relation. Also, Swedish is the second official language in Finland but sounds very different from Swedish-Swedish. We have Swedish as a mandatory subject in school but if not in active use, having a conversation is difficult. I have noticed some interesting words in Norwegian that sound very familiar, and that was a fun surprise. Can't think of any right now though.
How very interesting! Hungary seems a rather strange country to be in the Finnish language family, given how far away it is to Estonia and Finland. I'd always assumed that it was part of the Slavic languages. It also sounds as if Finnish-Swedish and Swedish-Swedish are have even more differences than British and American English.
I did see the paragraph in the tips section regarding Finland not being part of Scandinavia, which as a Brit I found most strange, but I figured that's a conversation for another time. Thanks for sharing that with me! :)
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No problem, just happy to share some of my special interests knowledge. :) The language family is Finno-Ugric, and Hungarian is actually a very remote relative. Finns are geographically Fennoscandian, and many Finns probably falsely think they are Scandinavian. This was a surprise to me too when I grew up. And yes, Finnish-Swedish is very different from native Swedish and also has regional dialects that seem completely incomprehensible to me. For example Grundsprååtji from Central Ostrobothnia, it looks like aliens trying to communicate with humans. :D I'm from South-Western Finland and my Finnish dialect is pretty horrible, so I get to say this. :D
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One addition. This went far off topic, I know, but I cannot leave this out. We should also consider our actual indigenous people and they speak Sami. Up north. They're not appreciated enough as they should be. Sami speakers also live in Sweden and Norway, but their language is also a relative to Finnish.
And also, if I make fun of dialects and such, let it be known that I don't mean any harm. All languages and dialects are interesting to me and I love them and all sorts of folklore. I have studied English translation and some folklore-related subjects, but never graduated. Health stuff.. Still hoping to get back though. Or I'll eventually move from norsk to samisk språk and move up north when I'm older. :-)
That's all folks.
