Why is the Finnish language so hard? What is easy in Finnish? | Miksi suomi on niin vaikea kieli? 

Actually the easiest part of speaking Finnish is that you don't have to say a word. Just stay silent and everybody thinks you're a Finn.

We've found it, the first foreigner to be fluent in Finnish

Sometimes life is like Finnish grammar. Hard and with no future.

They joke saying that Finnish is the language we all will speak in Heaven, because it takes an eternity to learn it.

Wow, your pronunciation is probably the best I've heard from a foreigner, even from ones living here. Great job!

The spruce is on fire = Kuusi palaa The spruce returns = Kuusi palaa The number six is on fire = Kuusi palaa The number six returns = Kuusi palaa Six of them are on fire = Kuusi palaa Six of them returns = Kuusi palaa Your moon is on fire = Kuusi palaa Your moon returns = Kuusi palaa Six pieces = Kuusi palaa Well

finnish people dont care of the mistakes you say.they will honor you for even trying!

As a Finnish teacher I never talk to my students about how difficult Finnish is. Of course there are a lot of rules to study in the beginning, but after that learning gets easier. The beauty of Finnish is that there are so few irregularities. Once you learn the rules they apply always.Thank you for a professional, clear and easy to follow video!

it's interesting to see an outsider's point of view of the finnish language. So many rules and everything that a native speaker doesn't even think about when speaking. also, your pronounciation is hella good for a foreigner

Haetaan lakkaa satamasta, kun lakkaa satamasta.

As a Finnish person, I must say that your pronunciation is very impressive, and probably the best I've ever heard from a foreigner. You'd easily pass as native Finn.

Great video! A surface-level view to the Finnish language, but covers many important aspects, and you got all your facts right. Your Finnish pronunciation is also excellent.

Great video. The reason why Finns have no trouble understanding "bad Finnish" is because the word positions aren't set in stone. ("Kiveen hakattu" would be the Finnish equivalent.) For example lets translate: "The word order isn't set in stone." You can say the following: Sanajärjestys ei ole kiveen hakattu. Ei sanajärjestys ole kiveen hakattu. Ei ole sanajärjestys kiveen hakattu. Kiveen ei ole sanajärjestys hakattu. Hakattu ei ole kiveen sanajärjestys. Ei kiveen ole sanajärjestys hakattu. And so on. Even when you try to make the weirdest possible order like "Ole ei sanajärjestys hakattu kiveen" it still makes enough sense to be understood.

I began learning Finnish in 1983 and it's been a lifelong pursuit. My paternal heritage is Finnish and I knew that I was privileged to be in Finland and had the great opportunity to learn about my ancestor's culture and language and so I really dedicated myself to the task. Even though Finnish is difficult I found I learned best as I mimicked how the Finns themselves spoke. After 18 months when my time in Finland was over, I felt very fluent and comfortable with the language. I could carry on a conversation on any topic and enjoyed constantly increasing my vocabulary. I found that I didn't worry so much about all the grammar and the rules, but instead, just listened to how the Finns spoke and tried my best to emulate them. It has been 36 years since I began learning the language and, living in Western Canada there are not many opportunities to speak Finnish. So, I listen to Finnish every day. I repeat in my mind what I am hearing. If I'm alone I repeat it out loud. I find myself translating things in my head. I always wonder how would you say that in Finnish. The biggest hurdle I encountered with learning Finnish was that my mother tongue is English and English tends to be very descriptive. Finnish is not nearly as descriptive so I had to really concentrate on being less "talky" and getting to the point quicker. My wife and I along with my two brothers and their spouses travelled to Finland for a Family History Tour this past summer 2018 and although I haven't spoken much Finnish for the past 36 years I was pleasantly surprised how I was able to converse and speak. I still think that most Finns speak better English than I do Finnish my Finnish friends would always default to speaking Finnish and I would have to translate for my family. What a great opportunity to have my family (who don't speak Finnish) with me in our Ancestral Homeland to experience the culture and people that I had grown to love. I once saw a post on Facebook that read, "I speak Finnish, what's your Superpower"?

I was born in Finland but my family moved to Canada when I was two. We lived in a Finnish enclave and in 50 years, my parents never learned to speak English. The changes (and lack of changes) to the language are interesting. I speak a dialect of central osteobothnia frozen in the late 50s combined with inclusion of English words - termed "Finliska", spoken by children of 1st generation immigrants in Canada and the United states. It is deemed "quaint" by Finnish listeners and attracts puzzlement and curiosity from the normally stoic Finns on trains and in restaurants. Thank you for an interesting video.

You pronunciation is amazing! We don't often get to hear our language spoken that clearly by a non-native speaker, thank you. Especially your "ä" sound, people have a hard time with that.

Ei onneks oo tullu raumankieli vastaan olis varmaa loppunu suomen oppinen siihen.

Suomen kieltä on kivaa mutta todella vaikea. Toivon että tulevaisuudessa voin puhua hyvin. Minä tarvitsen harjoitella lisää Koska puhe kieli ja kirja kieli on eri ja suomalaiset puhuvat nopeasti. Katsotaan tulevaisuudessa. Minua pelotta tehdä väärin

I'm having a hard time to comprehend you are native Italian speaker. Your finnish is so flawless and fluent.

I was many years without wanting to learn Finnish, simply because it sounded boring and because many spoke English. Then I change my attitude and I wanted to really work and be part of the Finnish society. I learnt the language in just two years and that was the best i ve done in this country. My life became easier as the language is the key to success in the long term.

Vedellä also means to repeatedly pull 😁 (base verb vetää)

Your pronounsiation of finnish is impeccable 👌🏻 Nice work! Suomen kielen lausuntasi on moitteetonta! 👌🏻 Hienoa työtä!

I just started learning finnish on duolingo 😀

I think a big reason why you're getting so many compliments on your pronunciation is that the stress and pitch and the relative lengths of the vowels and consonants sound *completely* natural and I'm having a hard time finding any foreign influence there. Usually when people learn languages they focus on grammar and the phonemes, but as a Finn I'm sure I make grammar mistakes all the time and lately I've come to think that there's probably quite a lot of acceptable variation in how you pronounce consonants and vowels. However, messing up the stress and pitch is almost immediately noticeable and I'm not sure that language learning resources generally put enough emphasis on that aspect of pronunciation.

Tietokone = informationmachine

Hey guys! Thanks for the views (100k???) and the comments so far! A couple of things that skipped my attention (big shout-out to the viewers who spotted them!): - "leipä" (bread) does not "derive from" but rather is "related to" Russian, as they both borrowed from the same ancient source. The main point here, though, is its similarity with other languages, rather than its etymology. - there's a "u" missing in "makuhuone" (bedroom), the correct spelling being "makuuhuone". Sorry for the inaccuracy there!

Just learn how to say this and what it means and you'll be good *''No niin''*

I found it interesting that once you started speaking finnish in this video you started to pronounce some words in english with a finnish accent. You really are a language master.

Any kind of discomfort *Exists* A fin: vittu perkele saatana helvetti

Sun suomen kielen lausuminen on todella todella hyvää! ^_^ On todella harvinaista, että ei-syntyperäinen suomalainen lausuu noin hyvin. Yleensä suomalaiset erottaa heti äänestä, jos puhuja ei ole syntyperäinen. Jopa suomenruotsalaisten puheessa kuulee vivahde-eron. Mutta sun lausuminen on todella lähellä täydellisyyttä! Voit olla todella ylpeä sun taidoista! :) Kiitos inspiroivista videoista!

Moi! Just found this video, amazing! I'm Brazilian and i am studying Finnish . I am loving it. I have two Finns friends, they help me a lot, sending me materials, hearing my pronounciation, writing me in Finnish...really really kind people. Thank you so much for this video! I will be always here to learn with you too. Kiitos! Moikka!

This man really said "epäjärjestelmällisyydellänsäkäänköhän" with ease. Even I can't do that and I'm Finnish 😂

I live in Finland, moved here 3 years ago, and I so agree with all your said. It's difficult to understand when people are speaking to me using their spoken language, while I understand when I read things in written language, but little by little it get easier to understand. When finnish people speak to me, and they know that I don't understand murre so much, then they speak slowly and they use words than I understand, but when they don't know than i don't understand murre it gets complicated. Hopefully one day I'll fully understand 😱 great video! My Italian family and friends often ask me how is it possible that I still don't speak fluently finnish after 3 years, next time it happens I'll show them this video

Finnish people appreciate anyone taking the effort to learn finnish, because for a finnish person it's as difficult to learn other languages. Then again modern day finns often speak many languages, because when you learn one foreign language, learning a second one gets easier. Finnish is a logical language and my studies in philosophy of religion did make it apparent to me that finnish can be used to express things very precisely where other languages may result in long, complex sentences. While finnish words can be long, sentences can be one word. Translating sentences to finnish often makes them shorter and translating sentences from finnish makes them longer. As a songwriter finnish is a good language for expression as sentences can be packed with meaning and different interpretations, and creating all new words and meanings by combining words is also possible in a way that is still understandable to others. Finnish language has a lot of word play and rhymes and we even have our own measure for poems, the Kalevala-mitta :)

Thanks for a great video! I think it's little bit funny how when you said "tapaamme" you had a slight accent but right after when you said "tavataan", you said it like any native speaker. Really shows how we prefer "tavataan" over "tapaamme", when foreigners are able to learn to say the first one without an accent but not the later.

you made it so fun! love it :)

Opin omaa kieltä tästä😂

Sun videot on ihan mahtavia! Jatka samaan malliin :)

Perfect! I find it very cool that you are an inspiration for everyone to try and learn new languages.

This is the most amazing thing ever, literally you read my mind with the last quote :), the only reason why I like to watch videos about people learning my language is that thing.

Nice upload :) enjoying seeing your updates - keep going

Oh, how pleasant it is to hear you talking in fluent English - and then switch it to smoooooth Finnish! Your Finnish pronunciation is quite beautiful and very pleasant to listen. You have done a great job and how nice of you to share your views and knowledge of Finnish language to help others. 👏🏻😄 It is also interesting to us, who speak Finnish as a native tongue, to see how Finnish language is viewed by others. I have always thought that one of the perks of Finnish language is that words are pronounced as they are written, there is no silent letters or rules that some vowels should be pronounced in different way after some consonants etc. It is very honest language in that regard. 😊 Hope you are well! Happy summer! ☀️😎

Todella hyvä video propsit sinulle bro

I lived in Finland for one year when I was 28 and I did manage to learn to speak pretty well. I went to the university in Helsinki 3 times a week and lived with a Finnish family who didn't speak any English. Total immersion! Yes, Finnish is difficult, no getting away from that. But there is a certain order to the language that you pick up as you're learning. And I 100% agree that the Finns are terrific! They WILL help you!! I made lots of mistakes, and some of those mistakes were hilarious, but they gently corrected me and I would learn. So I would like to say to the Finnish people - Kiitos kaikesta!!! Maanne on kaunista!

Finnish has a lot of grammar but it's regular, there's not many exceptions. And it's pronounced as written and of course, lots of vowels that help in pronunciation. Your pronunciation is good!

Wonderful, thank you. I love the Finnish language even though I don't speak or understand it, except for a couple words. Some of the vowels are similar to Hungarian, (Finno-UGRIC, duh). I met the group Värttinä when my band opened for them way back in the 90s in Chicago and ever since then when I hear Finnish I recognize it and listen carefully. I may even want to be a Finn in my next life.

Awesome video and you have very clear way to pronounce english and finnish both, it is very easy to understand and follow :) Greetings from Finland

mahtava video! tosi hyvin osasit selittää suomen kielen monimutkaisia sääntöjä😄ja lausut niin uskomattoman hyvin! 👏

It is mathematically clear that a complicated system can contain more information than a simple system can. This means that the complex Finnish grammar offers a great number of different possibilities to say the same thing, each with a different "colour". The simple English grammar often has no similar possibilities. There is a well-known Finnish translator, Kersti Juva, who says that Finnish is a three-dimensional language. She says that often, when translating from English, she must think very carefully which one of the number of possibilities offered by Finnish she should choose.

I just watched the video and I learned a lot! Thank you teacher! :) Jan

Tosi kiva video. Hyvin lausut suomea. Kiitos kauniista sanoistasi myöskin. :)

Congratulations for mastering our language! Onnittelut, upeaa kuulla että joku osaa noin hyvin kielemme! :)

Kiitos mielenkiintoisesta ja hyvin tehdystä videosta! Grazie per il video molto interessante e ben fatto!

That's so interesting! A lot of crazy rules and so, but after all well... It seems logical! Once you wrote me that you gonna be learning Georgian, and, to be honest, as you already know Finnish and you find yourself in it's grammar labirynth, you are going to speak Georgian faster than me! 😄

Kiitos paljon! Hieno video! :D

Kiitos tästä videosta, tätä oli jopa suomalaisen hauska katsoa 😊

I like Finnish because it retains words so well. For example "kuningas" "kuningaz*" in Proto-Germanic which means "king"; or "kampa", PG "kampaz", "comb". Proto-Germanic was spoken thousands of years ago and look how well these words have kept their shape!

Your accent is perfect. So rarely we get to hear such mastery of the flatness. There's no extra "h" sound that usually pushes through. Great job! I mean it!

Ihan mahtavaa lausumista, props to you for learning to do it so well!!

Astonishing, to say the least! - Well done! - You have totally nailed the Finnish language. What a nice video. - I stumbled upon it by happenstance, but I can safely say that it made my day. Entertaining, heart-warming and crammed with accurate information. Kiitos Sinulle, ja oikein hyvää jatkoa!

Holy shit this is cool. I'd like to see you exploring the finnish language further and especially some of the extra-hard or unusual rules which this language has :)

I think one thing that also could help learning Finnish is that we have pretty small vocabulary compairing to English example. That can make it a challenge too though since one word can be used in so many ways and you have to pick the meaning from where it is used. But we often have the one basic word and everything that is connected to it uses it as part of the new word. Like if you take word book which is kirja in Finnish. Library is kirjasto, bookcase is kirjahylly etc. So when you know the system you already know the start of the word in many cases. With my quest to trying to learn English this is something I have had to face in opposite way because in English there is often ten different words to one thing and what you use changes the shade of the meaning sometimes just little bit but enough to make you misunderstood if you pick wrong word. Where in Finnish I don't have to worry about that most of the time because we have just one way to say it. That probably also is why Finns are said to be blunt and direct. Part of that comes from our language and it translates to other languages when we use them too, and part of that is because of the culture too. But getting back to that English. It has been also interesting to notice that on these days I also get sometimes frustrated with Finnish language because I can not give those little nuances with my words that I can in English. There is things that you can not say in Finnish because we simply don't have words to express the things and that is also good thing to remember. Sometimes it is not because you don't know the language sometimes it is because there just is no language what to use.

Your pronunciation is so great! It always makes me happy when i hear people from other countries speak my language! (though it might be difficult). Kiitos!

Hyvä klippi, tarkkoja faktoja, kiitos!

Really happy to see stuff like this. As a finn I keep repeating how difficult the language is, but this has really helped me grasp what the major obstacles and challenges are. It's also great to see the things I always use as an example of the positive sides of finnish, the lack of genders in the spoken language, be expanded upon and to see other positive sides brought up. Hieno video, kaikin puolin!

your pronounciation is AMAZING!

Kiitos paljon sinulle itsellesi. Olet tosi mukava:)

Thank you for that video! Good job.

And if someone instructs or corrects a person learning Finnish, it is actually only a compliment (you are doing WELL, you have hope ;). Certainly not to strike down or to say "aha! this is what you still got wrong!", rather revealing whatever still remains secret or unknown, what would be the logical linear next step to comprehend, or just to provide examples to certify that whatever has thus far been learned, is indeed correct. Nice video.

I am definitely interested in your uploading more videos on Finnish. You have a excellent presentation skills. Thank you so much for the video.

Great video! I started learning Finnish with Duolingo about 2 weeks ago. I look forward to more videos from you. Kiitos ja paljon onnea! Jee!

I’m impressed of your skills, Stefano👊🏼

Fantastic video. Thanks for making it (by the way, you're not a native English speaker but you held your own and did brilliantly)!

Todella hyvin puhuttu. Olen itse kyllä syntynyt suomessa, mutta vanhempani ovat intiasta. Mutta en voinut edes kuvitella, kuinka hyvä aksentti sinulla on ja otit vastaan yhen maailman vaikeimmista kielistä. BRAVO!

WOW!! Your pronunciation is amazing!! I'm a Finn living in Germany and you just gave me lots of motivation to learn German, kiitos!!

bless you! sharing with those very few whom I know are trying to master this exceptional language!

Awesome video, Stefano! :) it reminded me of me ages ago, trying to learn some Finnish and giving up after two weeks, after I found out the word for "email" had... how many letters? :D :D I really like your way of describing the language! Liebe Grüße aus Nürnberg! :)

Excellent analysis!! Your pronunciation is also exceptionally good. I do agree (and feel it isn't stressed enough in the teaching context) with your point about the discrepancies between spoken and written language. Your examples were somewhat tame, though, but I guess that was intentional just to get the point across. I'd imagine there is a lot of trouble ahead when you get involved with regional dialects, as something as trivial as "menemmekö me tuonne juoksemaan?" becomes "mennääks me ton juoksee?" in various dialects. Keep up the good work!!

Hyvä video! Kiitos! 😀 👍

Grazie infinitamente per aver fatto questo video! Lo apprezzo davvero.😊

Actually, leipä does not come from russian, but from Proto-Finnic *laipa, which was borrowed from Proto-Germanic. The slavic word was also borrowed from that same source.

I'm not even 7 minutes in, and I already think this is the best brief explanation on Finnish that I've ever seen. BTW, consonant gradation is something that children born in Finland may struggle with some words. Mine don't get some fairly easy ones right because they're confused by other similar words working seemingly in a different way.

Had to bookmark this video for future reference. You explain the different aspects of the language really well, and point out things native speakers never think about, but just innately know. Next time I need to explain this to a foreigner, this video will be of huge value.

You speak perfect Finnish, Stefano. I am truly inspired by your channel. I speak Finnish, English, German and some Swedish. I am learning Turkish at the moment and I find it more difficult to learn now as an adult than what I did as a child, I feel like English was no problem to learn as I started when I was 7 years old. My other problem is to maintain my German skills as I really rarely use it. I have been watching your videos today a lot and I got some great tips from you. Good luck on learning more languages! :)

All you need to say is " no niin " and you got it.

It's eye opening to see the obstacles that us native speakers just about never even think of, but you can clearly hear these difficulties when listening to some non native finnish speaker :) Keep it up! (also excellent pronunciation!) Will be sharing this to my dutch friend who is thinking about moving to Finland :)

You explained everything so well and your pronunciation is so good! Keep it up! Aina jännittävää ja mukava kuulla, kun joku jaksaa tätä kieltä opiskella jostain mysteerisestä syystä. Onnea opiskeluihin! :)

Complimenti per la pronuncia Stefano! In questo video si intravede tutto il tuo impegno. Erinomaista työtä, jatka samaan malliin :)

This is so fun to watch! when I was learning Finnish spoken and written really messed me up! I study for like 9 weeks before I got to Finland and I quickly felt like I learned the wrong language 😂😂

I'm not even at the half point of the video, but I'm so amazed that someone has explored and learned our (not wide spread) language so well! You are teaching the Finnish language better than 90% of Finnish people ever could. Keep up the good work my man! I have always thought foreign languages to be interesting, but I've never really learned anything but English. Maybe it's because I'll rather be a "master of one" than "ace of many". You just earned a new subscriber :)

Mallisuoritus ääntämisestä, kiitos hyvästä videosta!

Il video di cui avevo bisogno per darmi una bella dose di ottimismo e motivazione! Ho iniziato anch'io a studiarlo per curiosità da circa un mese e lo trovo affascinante per questa mescolanza di aspetti facili e difficili, e incredibilmente musicale. Ho un insegnante con cui faccio una lezione a settimana ma sto usando anche il teach yourself e libri di testo finlandesi per principianti con spiegazioni in inglese. Non so fino a che punto arriverò, ma mi piacerebbe almeno acquisire un buon livello passivo per poter leggere un giornale, qualche libro di storia e cultura finlandese o ascoltare dei podcast in lingua standard alla radio. E sicuramente continuerò a seguirti con attenzione. Kiitos paljon!

Moi Stefano, hieno video, kiitos paljon! Mä opiskelen suomea, koska rakastan suomen kansallismusiikkia ja minusta suomi on kaunein kieli maailman. Tosi vaikea, mutta niin kiinnostava! Tervehdys Madridista :)

Die vorigen Kommentare habe ich geschrieben während ich das Video angeschaut habe eigentlich. Interessantes Video, jetzt bin ich ruhig, weil diese Schwierigkeiten nicht so schlimm sind. Ich dachte es wäre schlimmer. Kannst du irgendwann ein Video aufnehmen, das mit dem Deutschen handelt? Grüße aus winterlichem Israel und ich freue mich darauf, einen weiteren Unterricht mit dir zu haben :)

Excellent pronounciation and video overall. Thank you Stefano!

Your pronunciation is amazing!

Some time ago I started loving this language, and the fact that is so difficult to manage made it even more attractive to me.. it has a very unique and lovely melody to my ears.. To start, I completed it in Duolingo and keep on practicing there, but because of puhekieli I feel like I have to learn almost two languages in one from now on.. that's very interesting and I understand it may frustrate.. Thank you for your video, the way you could made Finnish yours, it's a great inspiration!

Hyvää joulua!

I never could have guessed, that it would be so interesting to watch videos about my own language. Thanks!

Nyt oli kyllä hyvä koonti pääasioista - ihan mahtava video! :) I´ve heard a that finnish might be easier if you are good at mathematics or "that" mathematical sort of thinking, because in the forming the words and creating them to sentences you need the same sort of thinking. Btw palindromes in finnish are always so in writing, but at the same time in the spoken language. For fun you can try reading some examples on a tape, and then playing them from the end to start: "Elli, viiliä jäi liiville", "Ai! Voi! Salaa mallimimmi Milla maalasi ovia". :D