How Finnish sounds for the foreign people?

[Jazmyn131992]

Finnish sounds absolutley beautiful to me.The Y sound is pretty easy for me.All the sounds come natturally,and the grammer makes sence.It's even more beautiful sung!By no means is your lanuage ugly.
English is ugly to me.
How does English sound to you?

[ferkel]

I have always thought that finnish spoken by a native speaker sounds nice, but us foreigners have a way to mangle it and make it much less pleasing to the ear.

[Hank W.]

Howcome is that? I always giggle myself silly, now repeat after me please: öylätti, yöastia, hääyöaie

[ojanm]

How does English sound to you?

Well it depends on the dialect. I like British English the best. Especially when some girl says "dirty" in a way only a native Brit can say.

And I think that English fits quite well into songs, when compared to Finnish with those strong RRR-sounds.

[kcl]

i think the funniest thing is when finns (usually women) are speaking and then suddenly breath in while they are talking, usually with the word "joo"

what's that all about?

[Timbeh]

i think the funniest thing is when finns (usually women) are speaking and then suddenly breath in while they are talking, usually with the word "joo"

what's that all about?

The words and sentences are so long that you have to inhale some of the shorter words every now and then just to maintain a decent oxygen level.

[littlefrank]

Sometimes when I hear some Finns talking, I get the feeling they're going to burst into tears, maybe it's just when they talk to me?

I hate the upper class/upper middle class English accent. I think the French have the most beautiful language.

[polamook]

Sometimes when I hear some Finns talking, I get the feeling they're going to burst into tears

It's not you, it's us. It's well been established on this board that we are the most depressed and depressing people in the world.

I hate the upper class/upper middle class English accent.

Depends. I could listen all day to the dulcet tones of Jeremy Irons, whereas Prince Charles just makes me scream. Take those plums out of your mouth, you silly horse-faced sod!

[littlefrank]

'It's not you, it's us. It's well been established on this board that we are the most depressed and depressing people in the world.'

This must make me some sort of masochist then, as all my friends are Finnish, now where did I put that razor blade?

'Take those plums out of your mouth, you silly horse-faced sod!'

From Cambridge Spies, great series.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrcNPjHo ... ed&search=

[Bonnie0022]

I think Finnish sounds like a very flowing language, and beautiful. It might sound a bit like English???

[enk]

It might sound a bit like English???

Only if spoken by an English-speaker.

-enk

[Valeroso]

I am so annoyed when people say that there is no equivalent to ö and y and in English! I am even more annoyed when websites online in the Pronunciation guide for Finnish say the following:

Y - Similar to the French u
ö - Similar to the French eu

We're English speakers, not French speakers and CLEARLY they have not looked hard enough if they're telling us to resort to French sounds. The way I teach these sounds to people is:

Y - The OO sound in kangarOO, the UE in Blue, the OO in Too

ö - The EAR in Heard, the IR in Bird, the UR in Fur!

The only difference is that the Finnish Yy is MUCH more rounded than the relatively relaxed English Y sound, and the same applies to the ö. But I wouldn't say it's a considerably large difference anyway!

And another difference is that the Yy sounds are actually more common in British/Australian accents, but I'm pretty sure Americans have the Yy also! They DON'T say "You" as "Juu". I believe they say it more like "Jyu" or something like that. And yes, "Eww" definitely has the Yy sound. As for the "ö", I will not tolerate this "French eu" stuff - English "Fur" is a good enough example!

That concludes our Finnish phonetics lessons! (and half a rant)

[Valeroso]

Oh and as for the sound of Finnish, I actually really like it! I think the "monotonous depressed stress-first-syllable-rule" is actually quite nice! I don't think the Yy and öö sounds really make the language sound any less nicer (though I do think certain words are ugly such as Käydä and Yö). Still, I think overall it sounds very nice and I'M HOPING I can be close to fluent in it one day! (Though I sadly made a mistake with the possessive suffix yesterday which made me quite frustrated - so I have a long way to go - BUT, I mastered that suffix now anyway).

As for English, I discussed this with my friends and we have NO idea how English sounds like. My friend actually said that he thinks English is the most normal sounding language out there (though that's not a very PC comment, haha). Some Swedish guy told me it sounded "nice and smooth". I'm not sure at all what it sounds like, but some people have told me they like the Australian accent, so I don't have too much to worry about I guess!

[Timbeh]

Y - The OO sound in kangarOO, the UE in Blue, the OO in Too

That must apply only to the Australian accent (possibly to some extent to British english as well). You can listen to the American versions here:
- Kangaroo
- Blue
- Too

The only difference is that the Finnish Yy is MUCH more rounded than the relatively relaxed English Y sound, and the same applies to the ö. But I wouldn't say it's a considerably large difference anyway!

You're right, it isn't. For an english speaker that is. But you see, a native Finn will most likely always hear the difference. As our brains have been schooled from the womb to hear the vowels in the finnish way so they've been wired in such a fashion that in our ears the difference is quite distinct.

But don't worry about it. The fun begins when you try to differentiate between the single and double vowels and consonant. I hear that for some foreigners it's nearly impossible. Not so much the consonants but the vowels.

As for what English sounds like? I can't really tell anymore. I've grown so accustomed to the language. "Soft" and "bendy" are the two words that first come to my mind.

[sammy]

Sometimes when I hear some Finns talking, I get the feeling they're going to burst into tears

It's not you, it's us. It's well been established on this board that we are the most depressed and depressing people in the world.

Such as in this clip, for example?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=wOcbF1eVkDI