Who else thinks that the Finnish language is kind of sweet and poetic? I was trying to learn it a while ago, but sadly gave up. Watching this film makes me wants to try again.
Minä haluan opetella suomea!
I thought I could oooooorganise freedom
hoooooooow Scandinavian of meeee ...
"I thought I could oooooorganise freedom
hoooooooow Scandinavian of meeee..."
Thats one of my favourite Bjork-quotes. Its so scandinavian thing to say and it says so much about scandinavian ideology: being liberal and free... with high central control, like alcohol phohibition etc.
Of cource it goes deeper then that.
One question about finnish language: Do you think that Patrik Antonius (the finnish poker player) has a cool english accent? Cause I think its allways so funny to hear finn-english, even from smart people.
I don't know much about Scandinavian ideology. I know that the Scandinavian countries are known for being very liberal and having some of the highest standards of living in the world. Myself, I've always been interested in the Scandinavian countries and languages in general, and it's my dream to live in Norway for a few years. Iceland would be great as well. I'm a big fan of Björk too. She's very quotable, she makes great music and seems to have a lovely, while slightly eccentric, personality.
Before reading your post, I hadn't heard of Patrik Antonius. After looking up some clips of him on youtube, I agree he has a nice accent. I'm not generally a fan of the Finnish accent, although I think the language is extremely pleasant, both phonetically and grammatically. Phonetically, as I've already said, it just sounds poetic. Like people say that French is romantic, Finnish does it for me. The limited use of consonants, liberal use of vowels, and the near 50/50 vowel/consonant ratio makes Finnish quite unique, at least among European languages. Grammatically, on the surface it seems logical enough to be an artificial language, but upon further reading it's easy to see why it's considered one of the most difficult languages, at least in Europe.
I guess one of the great things about English is it's easy to find people of virtually every culture and language, speaking English fluently as a second language. It's always a joy to hear, and it's not really surprising. I wonder how it must seem to, for example, a Finn, hearing a foreigner attempting to speak Finnish. Do you hear it often? What do you think of foreigners attempting Finnish?
I thought I could oooooorganise freedom
hoooooooow Scandinavian of meeee ...
In my point of viev as a finnish person finnish language is (as in arts) only good for romanticing melancholy. Guess the beauty of it is that it can make death and suffering sound such a nice thing.
Ps. keep it up. Finnish is a hard language (at least they say so), but if you really want to master it you have to work hard ;)
I am of Finnish descent, though I don't speak the language at all. I've heard it spoken quite a bit from my grandmother and her sister, and my great-grandfather when he was alive. I agree with you - it has a definite lyrical quality to it, a certain amount of the sing-song due to the fairly definite stress on the first syllable of each word, and so on.
For a real treat, try to listen to the recordings of older Suomi and Sammi speakers chanting (really, more like singing) the Kalevala, the Finnish creation story (for lack of a better description). The language sounds very Asian, which makes sense, since it is clearly *not* an Indo-European language, and probably pre-dates many of those languages by a millennium or more.
I've tried learning Hungarian, because a.) it is (distantly) related to Finnish; b.) I am a mathematician and have known a great many fellow mathematicians who are Hungarian; and c.) though difficult, I suspect Hungarian is still a shade easier to acquire, so I'm using it as a "starter kit" before tackling Finnish :-).
Good luck with your Finnish studies, should you decide to re-engage the language. It's well worth it, I'm sure!
I am really into music from Finland. I came across Indica's English stuff, I thought "not bad... but it's average" then I saw their Finnish stuff. I thought after that "The language is divine to listen to."
I love Finnish music so much I decided to learn the language (that would be obvious due to my signature - I translated one of the quotes from my favourite film into Finnish) I'm a novice after learning for about a year or so. I'm still continuing though.
Minun Suomalia on en hyvä!
Kaikki menee jonnekin ja menen kaikkialle
Thanks for your reply to my old thread. I've heard a little of Indica's music, not much though. I'll check it out. I've recently gotten into a Finnish folk band called Värttinä. I thorougly recommend them. I haven't restarted learning Finnish unfortunately (concentrating on other languages) though I tend to remember most of what I learnt before.
I'm not sure about your signature. Does it mean "Everything goes somewhere and I go everywhere"? I'm not sure about jonnekin, maybe johonkin is better. I don't know though, since my level of Finnish is very poor.
As for your other Finnish sentence, I believe it should read "Minun suomeni ei ole hyvä" - "My finnish isn't good."
Good luck with your Finnish learning and enjoy the great Finnish music. Have you been to Finland? I've only been for a few days, would love to go for a bit longer though.
I thought I could oooooorganise freedom
hoooooooow Scandinavian of meeee ...
Firstly sorry for the late response. I wanted to do it naturally but I never really got around to doing it until tonight.
I've listened to 2 of Värttinä's songs. They're pretty good. Thanks for the recommendation.
To answer the question, "Have I been to Finland?" No I haven't. I was 16 when I wrote that previous post, now I'm 17. I do want to go to Finland (have been wanting to around the time I knew Poets Of The Fall - my favourite band - were from Finland), but because I'm in Australia it will be hard for me to get there.
You have your opinions I have mine.
I had heard there are some small similarities with Hungarian and noted with interest that the two languages seem to have the same word for "no": nem.
shareThere is no such a word as "nem" in Finnish. And, generally, the similarities between modern Hungarian on one hand and modern Finnish on the other, appear to be rather miniscule (it's even being disputed Hungarian belongs to the Fenno-Ugric family at all).
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan
And yet there it was in the film.
shareI don't know what you 'think' you heard, but, as said, there is no such word in Finnish, pure and simple ("net" is in Russian for "no", but I'm not sure any Russian was spoken in the film).
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan