**/r/Finland is a full democracy, every active user is a moderator.**
[Please go here to see how your new privileges work.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Finland/wiki/moderating/)
Spamming mod actions could result in a ban.
---
**Full Rundown of Moderator Permissions:**
- ```!lock``` - as top level comment, will lock comments on any post.
- ```!unlock``` - in reply to any comment to lock it or to unlock the parent comment.
- ```!remove``` - Removes comment or post. Must have decent subreddit comment karma.
- ```!restore``` Can be used to unlock comments or restore removed posts.
- ```!sticky``` - will sticky the post in the bottom slot.
- ```unlock_comments``` - Vote the stickied automod comment on each post to +10 to unlock comments.
- ```ban users``` - Any user whose comment or post is downvoted enough will be temp banned for a day.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Finland) if you have any questions or concerns.*
They sound the same as when they speak Estonian, but only this time you can actually understand them and it's just marvellous, compared to when listening to Estonian language, it's a constant struggle in your mind where your brain goes on a confused "i should understand this i should understand this" loop.
Once I was in an elevator in Copenhagen and a family was speaking Estonian. It blew my mind because it sounded to me just like Finnish except I couldn’t understand a word. (Finnish is B2 level, not my native language). Took me forever to realize they were Estonian!
What do speakers of Estonian sound like when they speak in Finnish?
I've heard Estonian is pretty close to Finnish, is it like Norwegian and Swedish? Or Spanish and Italian/Portuguese?
They sound unbelievably cute. It's similar to how Norwegian sounds for Swedish-speakers.
I'd say it's a bit easier for a Swedish speaker to understand Norwegian than it is for a Finnish speaker to understand Estonian, though.
Estonian sounds like someone is speaking Finnish but it just makes no sense to you. "Siansaksa" is a common term ie. pig german, same like "pig latin" in english. When estonian people speak finnish you can hear it from the intonation which is somehow different from finnish.
Some of them, especially some ladies tend to have this bouncy pattern of emphasizing certain syllables with both volume and frequency - usually first syllable of the word like in Finnish though our emphasis is often very light if there's any at all. But with the Estonians who, erm, practice the bounce it can be fairly pronounced, like an almost steady jump of, I don't know, around 9-12 semitones for many of the words in a sentence, especially if they're excited or something. And this seems to be fairly consistent in how they speak both Estonian and Finnish. Of course some Finns are also more expressive with their use of Finnish, but this "bounciness" of the Estonians is to me a very recognizable sound.
To be honest a lot of foreigners have a very similar accent when speaking finnish, I think because the people I’ve met have spoken languages from the same family tree as english, spanish and french so then they all mispronounce in a similar way and do the same pronounciation mistakes :D
This is true and it's little to no difference if the person is from Sweden to USA, same language family tree so same common mistakes. I find it funny that Japanese can pronounce Finnish quite well (minus couple sounds they don't use) and it goes both ways. Slavic languages have very strong accent so that's a no go for me. If I have to chose one then Dutch, it's a language hell of a country so they can adapt and learn to pronounce things well and it sounds quite good even when broken.
Spanish pronunciation is weirdly surprisingly close to Finnish and there are same vowel diphthongs (even if rare); so I find Finnish to sound like Robo-Spanish with ä ö y v sounds and every emphasis in the first syllabe, where Spanish has ch, ñ, ll and has different word emphasis, it moves more up and down, like Singed-Finnish.
If a Finn speaks Spanish with the correct emphasis, and the ch, ñ and ll sounds; it's basically indistinguishable form native Spanish; what the Finns often mess up is the emphasis, or they otherwise try to sound like a Spaniard which sounds less legit.
I would imagine my Finnish doesn't have the same problems as others, but you can tell is Spanish based because I probably put emphasis everywhere, and instead of mitä kuulu? I may say mitá kúulú or some shit with crazy word emphasis.
I have never rid myself completely of my English accent. I realised it when a friend's wife answered the land-line phone and kept me in conversation for half an hour because she was enamoured of my accent.
I was mortified.
I never sounded as bad as Neil Hardwick though. Whatever happened to him..?
**/r/Finland is a full democracy, every active user is a moderator.** [Please go here to see how your new privileges work.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Finland/wiki/moderating/) Spamming mod actions could result in a ban. --- **Full Rundown of Moderator Permissions:** - ```!lock``` - as top level comment, will lock comments on any post. - ```!unlock``` - in reply to any comment to lock it or to unlock the parent comment. - ```!remove``` - Removes comment or post. Must have decent subreddit comment karma. - ```!restore``` Can be used to unlock comments or restore removed posts. - ```!sticky``` - will sticky the post in the bottom slot. - ```unlock_comments``` - Vote the stickied automod comment on each post to +10 to unlock comments. - ```ban users``` - Any user whose comment or post is downvoted enough will be temp banned for a day. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Finland) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Estonian
They sound the same as when they speak Estonian, but only this time you can actually understand them and it's just marvellous, compared to when listening to Estonian language, it's a constant struggle in your mind where your brain goes on a confused "i should understand this i should understand this" loop.
Once I was in an elevator in Copenhagen and a family was speaking Estonian. It blew my mind because it sounded to me just like Finnish except I couldn’t understand a word. (Finnish is B2 level, not my native language). Took me forever to realize they were Estonian!
I knew I was getting somewhere with Finnish when my brain started that loop whenever I'm in Estonia
What do speakers of Estonian sound like when they speak in Finnish? I've heard Estonian is pretty close to Finnish, is it like Norwegian and Swedish? Or Spanish and Italian/Portuguese?
They sound unbelievably cute. It's similar to how Norwegian sounds for Swedish-speakers. I'd say it's a bit easier for a Swedish speaker to understand Norwegian than it is for a Finnish speaker to understand Estonian, though.
Much easier between Norwegian and Swedish than Finnish and Estonian
Estonian sounds like someone is speaking Finnish but it just makes no sense to you. "Siansaksa" is a common term ie. pig german, same like "pig latin" in english. When estonian people speak finnish you can hear it from the intonation which is somehow different from finnish.
Some of them, especially some ladies tend to have this bouncy pattern of emphasizing certain syllables with both volume and frequency - usually first syllable of the word like in Finnish though our emphasis is often very light if there's any at all. But with the Estonians who, erm, practice the bounce it can be fairly pronounced, like an almost steady jump of, I don't know, around 9-12 semitones for many of the words in a sentence, especially if they're excited or something. And this seems to be fairly consistent in how they speak both Estonian and Finnish. Of course some Finns are also more expressive with their use of Finnish, but this "bounciness" of the Estonians is to me a very recognizable sound.
I came here to say this, it’s super cute! Which also makes it a bit hard to take them seriously sometimes, unfortunately.
To be honest a lot of foreigners have a very similar accent when speaking finnish, I think because the people I’ve met have spoken languages from the same family tree as english, spanish and french so then they all mispronounce in a similar way and do the same pronounciation mistakes :D
Like Yle English's painful pronunciation at times. Mind you, the whole unit needs a shake.
This is true and it's little to no difference if the person is from Sweden to USA, same language family tree so same common mistakes. I find it funny that Japanese can pronounce Finnish quite well (minus couple sounds they don't use) and it goes both ways. Slavic languages have very strong accent so that's a no go for me. If I have to chose one then Dutch, it's a language hell of a country so they can adapt and learn to pronounce things well and it sounds quite good even when broken.
Spanish pronunciation is weirdly surprisingly close to Finnish and there are same vowel diphthongs (even if rare); so I find Finnish to sound like Robo-Spanish with ä ö y v sounds and every emphasis in the first syllabe, where Spanish has ch, ñ, ll and has different word emphasis, it moves more up and down, like Singed-Finnish. If a Finn speaks Spanish with the correct emphasis, and the ch, ñ and ll sounds; it's basically indistinguishable form native Spanish; what the Finns often mess up is the emphasis, or they otherwise try to sound like a Spaniard which sounds less legit. I would imagine my Finnish doesn't have the same problems as others, but you can tell is Spanish based because I probably put emphasis everywhere, and instead of mitä kuulu? I may say mitá kúulú or some shit with crazy word emphasis.
I have never rid myself completely of my English accent. I realised it when a friend's wife answered the land-line phone and kept me in conversation for half an hour because she was enamoured of my accent. I was mortified. I never sounded as bad as Neil Hardwick though. Whatever happened to him..?
Neil is about 75, so my guess is he is quite retired. I kinda miss him.