How Finnish sounds for the foreign people?

[A.S.]

English is ugly to me.
How does English sound to you?

I don't know all the languages in the world, but to me English and French are THE languages. Those are the beautiful languages to me. Italy is nice too.

Of course it depense also very much how you speak English. I like to watch (listen) BBC more than CNN.

[Nightwish]

For me it sounds interesting haha it has an accent a bit like Italian (Violetti xD), and I like it has the RR sound of Spanish (My Language).

The only thing I don't like a lot is ä and ö haha I don't know if I would be understood if I pronounce them bad xD

Salu2!

Emanuel

[sammy]

This silly introductory video is slightly off-topic... as it deals with Russian instead of Finnish...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKLK2p2FqDU

...hmm, Russian DOES indeed sound a bit like Swedish!

(It's a great anthem btw - a sweeping melody - I hope no-one is offended by the doctored version )

Now, to get back to the topic - does anyone know if such humorous "misheard lyrics presentations" have been made of some Finnish-language songs...?

Regering... en viking... hans fot sa: "saliv"

[peppetto]

yes ,the Finnish ,like estonian and hungarian languages are sounds like song-it is really pleasure one!

[Matula]

Do you native Finns speak the British, American, Australian, English? (Canadian English is almost exactly like the American English, and the New Zealand is like the Australian accent??...)

Finnish accent. Try finding some interviews of Mika Häkkinen or Tommi Mäkinen and you'll get the picture.

[Hank W.]

On the many definitions of "speak" Kimi mumbles incomprehensibly even in Finnish though. But he has the distinct "Finnish accent" there.

It depends a lot of your teacher when you are young what "twang" you get. or if you end up somewhere as an exchange student. But it depends, here for example is this "Lordi" interview. The interviewer is Finnish, and Mr.Lordi is Finnish... a few "distinct" things there but you need to know what to listen for... s, sh, ch, th, w... all the "weird sounds" for Finns.

Now people that use the language a lot like Ville Valo doesn't have any distinct "Finnish twang" there.

And then you have the classic rally driver speak

Which is then not as bad as politician speech, that can be tankeros...

[E Maya]

Most of those links are to examples of Kimi's talent with language.

[Hank W.]

"Most" being 1 out of 5?

[E Maya]

At least both Lordi and Ville Valo look like Kimi.

So that makes it 4 out of 6!

[llewellyn]

I've always loved the phrase: "alavilla mailla hallan vaara" - also the Finnish (otherwise nonsensical) title for Master and Marguerita "Saatana saapuu Moskovaan" has lovely rhythm. Finnish has actually more vowel than consonant sounds which makes it quite a rare language. I believe all the major Indo-European languages (except for Italian) have more consonant sounds than Finnish.

[peppetto]

I have heard,these words"Saatana,perkelle" once ,when I woke up my ex-finnish girl-friend instead"Hyvaa huomenta" as I expected from her!

[EP]

I believe all the major Indo-European languages (except for Italian) have more consonant sounds than Finnish

Nope, also Italian has more consonants.

[Matula]

I've always loved the phrase: "alavilla mailla hallan vaara" - also the Finnish (otherwise nonsensical) title for Master and Marguerita "Saatana saapuu Moskovaan" has lovely rhythm. Finnish has actually more vowel than consonant sounds which makes it quite a rare language. I believe all the major Indo-European languages (except for Italian) have more consonant sounds than Finnish.

Yet some people say that Finnish is like Polish ie. has no vowels at all.

[llewellyn]

I've always loved the phrase: "alavilla mailla hallan vaara" - also the Finnish (otherwise nonsensical) title for Master and Marguerita "Saatana saapuu Moskovaan" has lovely rhythm. Finnish has actually more vowel than consonant sounds which makes it quite a rare language. I believe all the major Indo-European languages (except for Italian) have more consonant sounds than Finnish.

Yet some people say that Finnish is like Polish ie. has no vowels at all.

Well, apart from the kinds of rules that there can only be consonants s,n and t as endings of words and that there can't be several consecutive consonant sounds in the same syllable (with some exceptions), it probably really can be said so. Few examples below as compared with Swedish:

post>posti
guld>kulta
krut>ruuti
adel>aateli
stol>tuoli
vild>villi
knäck>näkki

etc.

edit: Brief googling didn't return any comparative data - I noticed that most modern citations have 50/50 for vowel/consonant share in Finnish - and why oh why am I talking about this subject at half eleven Saturday night...

[peppetto]

yes, it is a pleasure for the ear to listen to two finnish speak each-other.And the most intersesting foe myself,is when I am in Finland ,I feel like I am not in Europe-because I understand no one word.And this is the one of the reason I to have a desire to move to live in Finland.You may ask why I do not wish to move to Estonia or Hungary...,I have never beein in Estonia,but and the hungarian people are as friendly as finnish one!