Finnish stuff

he/they 🏙️ GenLing acc @kkulbeolyeonghwa 🌐 Finno-Ugric studies @ UoH🦭

[mehilaiselokuva]

I made a community

Join Finnish language community • Community on Tumblr

A place to share your progress, resources or anything related to the Finnish language! Open for both learners and teachers!

If you are learning Finnish, feel free to join!

[mehilaiselokuva]

Have you noticed the young people of Helsinki developping an "influencer accent"? With up talk at the end of sentences and generally a more loud way to speak.

Good question, yes I have!

I don't interact with "young" people much (very much confined to talking to my university professors and my classmates) but I love observing people's speech patterns especially on public transport. We also discuss this at university a lot.

I have noticed that especially young women do tend to copy English prosody in their speech. I've noted that, for example, when younger people speak Finnish (or the newer version of Stadin Slangi) the melody goes up when forming questions, just like it does in English. This is then also used in ordinary sentences, when one uses the "influencer accent", as you noted.

Young guys seem to be more influenced by the "tough guy" way to speak, and their way of speech seems to be more aggressive and "punchy". I think this is also due to the influence of the internet.

This is not a bad thing at all, but the Stadi way to speak has annoyed non-Helsinkians for a long time. Another feature which I find very common around here is the way people pronounce <s>, which is "sharper" than usual. There is even a book written about this, which I have read! It's called Stadin syntinen s.

I could talk endlessly about all the ways the language in the capital region is so unique and influenced by various different things, but this post would become way too long.

[mehilaiselokuva]

Why didn’t you learn Finnish

why are you a coin

[mehilaiselokuva]

I asked you about Finno-Ugric studies in late 2024. I began my studies in Finno-Ugristics last autumn, and I'm really grateful for that choice – it has been an amazing ride so far. I don't know if I would have realized that studying Finno-Ugric languages was an option without your blog. ыджыд аттьö!

Oh my!

I am really glad that you are liking the field! And I am very much honored to have influenced someone to start studying this, there's never too many of us! (I only know a handful of others who started studying the same thing around the time I started, and only a few of them will be getting their bachelors in this field at the same time as me, many changed their focus to other areas)

Thank you for your kind ask! :)

[mehilaiselokuva]

"There's this feature X in my target language... it makes no sense to me, so I will wait for it to magically enter my memory... Not tackling it yet!"

I've seen this mindset repeated over and over by people learning Finnish, especially when it comes to consonant gradation. I myself am a native speaker of Finnish (to the surprise of many, apparently), and most of the languages I had previously studied had nothing similar (or as difficult or "foreign" to understand), so I couldn't really say anything about it.

However, in uni, I started learning North Sámi. It also has gradation, just on a larger level and with different consonants in a different way. This allowed me to form an opinion:

If you don't get it, don't get it. Just memorize it well enough so you know how to apply it and when.

Do not wait or delay learning an important part of the language just because you are scared or confused. Do it scared and confused. If you want to learn the language, learn the language! It's that simple. You can try to start to understand the mechanics after spending 4 hours each night drilling practice questions.

I would naturally apply this to every language one wants to learn, but as I am a blog about Finnish, I'll say; if you do not understand gradation yet, pick your book up! Practice!

[mehilaiselokuva]

Back? :)

With a life update!

I've been studying at university for the last few years, and am about to start my third year (time to write my bachelor's thesis soon! yay!!) and thought it would be nice to come back (hopefully I actually remember to do that this time) to this platform!

I've been posting my linguistics ramblings on SpaceHey (https://spacehey.com/juho) if anyone is interested, but I will try to save my text about Finnish on this account for you guys!

The thing is, I still do not know what to do with this account. I have been assisting quite a few people with learning Finnish now, so feel free to reach out to me still if you are interested in a free tutor! I really want to start doing paid tutoring later in life, and I need experience...

Feel free to leave your questions as asks if you want others to see them too; I love answering them! :)

Thank you to all of you who still follow me and have taken part in the community I set up before vanishing. I will try to be more active there as well now!

For my niche group of followers who follow me because of that one Käärijä meme I made, I went to the Veikkaus Arena concert of his earlier! It was an amazing experience.

[mehilaiselokuva]

Someone reposted a post of mine with the hashtag #mummi

I don't have the heart to tell them they just tagged it with #grandmother

[mehilaiselokuva]

Some people ask me if I have recommendations for Finnish media to use for immersion. I often tell them that they can find it themselves.

Often, this leads to puzzled looks, but today I want to share my tips on immersion online (using Finnish as an example because that's kinda my thing, of course), what you should look for, and why immersion can be slower than you'd like it to be!

Think of your media consumption in your target language. Do you know what people call a post in the language? (julkaisu, postaus) Do you know the verb for to post? (julkaista, postata) Do you know how to say essential words around posting (poistaa 'remove', lisätä 'add', muokata 'edit', kirjoitus 'writing', kuva 'photo', etc.). These kinds of essential media vocabulary are things that you WILL certainly need if you are navigating social media or talking to people offline about it. Pick up words like this as soon as possible.

Now, how does one, for example, find good immersive videos for language learning? If you are an absolute beginner, you might search for '(insert language) for beginners' or '(insert language) children's shows'. This is suitable for beginners, but in many cases, people remain at this initial stage for too long. What kind of media do you usually consume in your main language? How do you say that in your target language? Instead of searching 'suomen kieli' each time you want to try immersion, search for what you ACTUALLY want to watch: 'podcast', 'harvinaiset linnut' (rare birds), 'vlogi' (vlog), 'neulominen' (knitting). This will force your brain to actually try to understand the subject faster because you actually want to know about the subject.

This brings up another point; you won't know how to talk in everyday conversation if you do not consume the language like a native. A native speaker can talk about local political parties (what is a 'persu'? What does your friend mean by 'SDP'?), switch to talking about recent TV shows (What kind of show is 'uutiset'? When does 'Pikku Kakkonen' start?), and end the sentence by talking about their study goals (What does it mean to have 5 'opintopistettä'? What is 'yliopisto'?) If you want to actually have a fluent and fruitful conversation in your target language, you must consume non-learner material. Otherwise, you will not relate to your native friend as much.

Studying two new languages at uni so far (North Sámi and Hungarian), I have utilized immersion in both. I have a habit of watching and reading the news in Sámi and watching local TikTok content in the language. In Hungarian, I have been consuming YouTube content and watching lectures on linguistics. I often write down words I don't know and use them for conjugation and declension practice. It works wonders for me!

[mehilaiselokuva]

Why did you learn Finnish?

To communicate with my parents and extended family. At age 1 I started to feel a bit hungry and decided I should start speaking so that my parents would feed me.

Hope this helps!

[jasminuwu]

Did you Finnish learning it or did you give up when you discovered it's a fictional language?

[mehilaiselokuva]

This would have genuinely made me want to learn it more, I want the comfort of knowing that Finnish is a conlang and that it can't hurt me

[mehilaiselokuva]

Linguistical observation in the wild!

Visiting friends in Turku, we came across two street names.

Tarkk'ampujankatu and Tarkkàmpujankatu (both Skarpskyttegatan in Swedish!)

The first compound word in this street name is the old form of the word tarkka-ampuja (sniper). Even so, these street names are written differently from each other!

This is a word that has had multiple spellings throughout its history. If we look at the Wiktionary entry for this word, we can see that 'tarkkampuja' and 'tarkk'ampuja' are given as alternative forms.

This blog dives deeper into the word and how its meaning may change depending on its written form.

Googling alternative forms for this word uncovers more non-standard spellings; 'tarkkámpuja' and 'tarkkàmpuja' both give results (the version with á was even used in a scientific text)

Helsinki also has a Tarkk'ampujankatu, however, it does not have alternative spellings. It is also very short and lowkey irrelevant for me so I cannot be bothered to go outside to get pictures of the road signs there...

Here is a screenshot from Google Maps.

[mehilaiselokuva]

Title

got a boyfriend who started learning finnish without me even asking

[mehilaiselokuva]

hi!

i have been taking a little break unexpectedly, but I will try to come back especially now that the academic year is starting in the next few months. I have been thinking of what to post and I cannot think of anything...

[mehilaiselokuva]

a võro keelen om vabahelükokkokõla JA õ JA korge õ(y) JA kakkõhelü (hõq) ja soomõ kiil või kõgõst tuust õnnõ und nätäq <3

i guess you are right... maybe finnish has something to learn from võro afterall

I will nominate nganasan as the best uralic language, though. nothing can top it!

[mehilaiselokuva]

i'm loving the war youve started with eestiblr

it had to be done

and I am grateful for all the asks, messages and reposts I am getting about this in Estonian, I have to translate every message

[mehilaiselokuva]

ur just jealous we have õ and u dont >:(

we have vowel harmony and you don't...

our 'ei' is also a verb which is CONJUGATED and yours is not...

FAKE uralic language... :/

[mehilaiselokuva]

I feel like i need to clarify that i have absolutely no beef with the unrounded back vowel /ɤ/ but it just makes no sense that it appears in estonian and võro

and it in fact does make sense in skolt sámi do not fight me because I am right

[mehilaiselokuva]

Pls tell me intresting estonian (language) facts

Hi (and sorry for the wait, I have been busy with some early exams)

(And also sorry for what I'm about to deliver; you just asked a Finnish university student about Estonian, and it will unavoidably turn into slander. We Finns have a thing where we always bully the Estonians for their language since it makes no sense, and they try to bully us back, but there are just too many inconsistencies in their language to accept this.)

The letter õ exists in Estonian (and in Võro), but it makes no sense why it exists. There is no reason why Proto-Uralic would produce this letter. The Skolt Sami õ is not even related to it. Estonian has a -ga comitative, which does not exist in Finnish but does exist in most of the smaller Finnic languages in the area. Ingrian uses the -kA suffix with the genitive, Votic uses the -ka suffix with the genitive, Tver Karelian and Veps use -ke, and Võro uses -gAq. For once, Estonian is not completely alone! Estonian is one of the few Uralic languages where the verb for "no" is not conjugated according to person. While the Finns would say things like "Minä en osaa viroa." (ei > en; 1ps) the Estonians say "Ma ei oska eesti keelt." (ei stays unchanged). Most of the other Uralic languages function similarly to Finnish, so I have no idea what the Estonians are on The Estonians have set many interesting rules for their language; for example, the letters a, e, i, and u are the only vowels that are permitted outside of the first syllable for some reason. Ä, õ, ö, and ü are not allowed outside of the first syllable, and o is kind of in the middle where it's allowed to be wherever in certain situations. Estonian does not have vowel harmony, unlike some of its siblings in the Uralic family. (BORING!) An extra fact: Some Estonians do not recognize the Võro language at all, calling it a dialect. It is spoken in South Estonia, has its own written standard, and is recognized by most scholars in the field. This language is pretty fun and unique in my opinion: they use the letter <q> for the glottal stop, which in my opinion should be more used (maybe Finnish will pick it up in the year 3000...) This language looks so cute in my opinion: compare Võro "maq tulõ-õiq" to Estonian "ma ei tule" (I do not come).

Thanks for reading all that, and sorry to the 1 Estonian online.