Difficult pronounciation?

[Helmi]

Just out of interest, which Finnish word to you find hardest to pronounce?

Im curious

[Hank W.]

It depends really.

Sanoja, jotka on vaikea lausua jurrissa:

* Suuryritysrypäs;
* Kulttuuriministeriö;
* Prikaatinkenraali;
* Karnevaalikaravaani;
* Keskuskauppakamari.

Sanoja, jotka on h y v i n vaikea lausua jurrissa:

* Spesialistipsykologi;
* Cogito ergo sum;
* Objektiviteettiperiaate;
* Konstitutionalismi;
* Porfyyrigraniittiroso;
* Transsendentaalifilosofia;
* Bronkopneumonia.

Sanoja, joita on liki mahdoton sanoa jurrissa:

* Kiitos: en halua seksiä;
* Ei enää viinaa minulle;
* Ikävä kyllä et ole tyyppiäni;
* Iltaa, konstaapeli: anteeksi aiheuttamani häiriö;
* Ei, ei: en minä osaa laulaa!

[PeterF]

The question could be which Finnish words do you find it most difficult to pronounce and/or hear and recognise the difference.

e.g Soft and Dark
Pehmeä... pimeä
I often refer to Leipävaara instead of Leppävaara..
Hank could give you a long list of my errors which have caused him to snort his beer onto the bar.
But I still insist that i did ask the girl if it was free of charge not if she was without sex.
Imaiseksi ..Ilmansexsi

[laika]

Sanoja, joita on liki mahdoton sanoa jurrissa:

* Kiitos: en halua seksiä;
* Ei enää viinaa minulle;
* Ikävä kyllä et ole tyyppiäni;
* Iltaa, konstaapeli: anteeksi aiheuttamani häiriö;
* Ei, ei: en minä osaa laulaa!

Absolutely fabulous! Ha ha ha ha ha.. I'll be chuckling for the rest of the week remembering these.. :thumb_up:

cordially,
Laura

[Samppa]

I can't say "ä" I can't even distinguish it in a word unless I know that word...

äijänpää

Riihimäellä

[Tom and Jerry]

I can't say "ä" I can't even distinguish it in a word unless I know that word...

äijänpää

Riihimäellä

You're not the only one. Back to the title of this: 'difficult pronounciation'

The difference between ä and e
The difference between i and e

is for English speaking always difficult.

Then, these are classical examples:

tuli, tulli, tuuli, tule, tulee

or these ones:
kukka, kukan, kuka

[Guest]

Teach them Dutch and try to learn them the difference between i and ie.
That's going to be torture

[Samppa]

Then, these are classical examples:

tuli, tulli, tuuli, tule, tulee

or these ones:
kukka, kukan, kuka

Nope. These ones are actually relatively easy.

Another HUGE difficulty for me is a Finnish intonation... Which as you know is always going down. In Hebrew the intonation is always rising. I can't even speak with Finnish intonation... It starts to feel like I'm horribly ill and going to die soon
And when I forget to speak "in a Finnish way", i.e., "calmly", with a Finnish going down, "depression" intonation, and move to my "normal", rising intonation, Finns think that I yell at them!

[Samppa]

Sanoja, joita on liki mahdoton sanoa jurrissa:

* Kiitos: en halua seksiä;
* Ei enää viinaa minulle;
* Ikävä kyllä et ole tyyppiäni;
* Iltaa, konstaapeli: anteeksi aiheuttamani häiriö;
* Ei, ei: en minä osaa laulaa!

Words, which are impossible to say when you're drunk:

* Thank you, but I don't want sex
* No more booze for me
* I'm sorry, but you're not my type
* Good evening, officer. I'm sorry about the disturbance I've caused
* No, no, I cannot sing



(Being honest, I needed some help to translate it)

[ajdias]

You can listen to those words using a speech synthetyzeer:

There is a Finnish speech synthesizer at :

http://www.mikropuhe.com/demo.asp

This speech synthesizer can also sing for you if you want it to !

[Samppa]

You can listen to those words using a speech synthetyzeer:

There is a Finnish speech synthesizer at :

http://www.mikropuhe.com/demo.asp

This speech synthesizer can also sing for you if you want it to !

That's great!

[sy]

It took me more than a year to pronounce the letter r properly. Still the word 'kirurgi' brings extra difficulty to me.

I'm quite OK with the short and long consonants, but I still can't distinguish the difference between three pairs of consonants: t/d, p/b, k/g. I'll pronounce 'bussi' and 'pussi' in the same way.

[eashton]

You're not the only one. Back to the title of this: 'difficult pronounciation'

The difference between ä and e
The difference between i and e

is for English speaking always difficult.

Then, these are classical examples:

tuli, tulli, tuuli, tule, tulee

or these ones:
kukka, kukan, kuka

There's a really good book from FinnLectura titled "Mitä Kuuluu?" which has a CD and exercises for just this sort of problem.

[Hank W.]

I'm quite OK with the short and long consonants, but I still can't distinguish the difference between three pairs of consonants: t/d, p/b, k/g. I'll pronounce 'bussi' and 'pussi' in the same way.

Thats actually not bad - in some dialects you don't have a difference at all.

"Lähreks pussil? Otas tää pussi mukaas, siin on panaanei ja kreippi".

"Ja he tulivat Juuttaan maan Taavetin kaupunkiin ja menivät kuninkas Heroteksen luo..."


If I teach people the alphabet and try to de-program them I use
aa
pee
see
tee
ee
ähvä
kee...

Learning them fancy & unnecessary letters (as Phil what he owes for such ) is then nuances. Its much more important to get the distinction between the long&short + intonation.

[Mai]

This sentence is almost impossible to pronounce even to finnish person, unless you do it extremely slow:

Itsekseskös itkeskelet, yksikseskös yskiskelet?