There are much more interesting german literature than that you mentioned!
Finnish defies your prejudices
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"Isn't Finnish immensly complex, or is that just one of the common prejudices?"
Finnish is often regarded as a very difficult language to learn. Whilst it has no grammatical gender it has 15 - yes, 15 - cases. It has no definite or indefinite articles, and is an aggutinative language.
For each of the 15 cases, there are certain endings to add to words.
Here's an example:
"Talo" means "house".
The suffix "n" in Finnish is equivalent to the English "of". So "of a house" in Finnish is "Talon".
"Lontoo" means "London", so "Lontoon" means "of London".
The suffix "ksi" means "to", so "taloski" means "to a house" and "Lontooski" means "to London".
The suffix "na" means "as" so "talona" means "as a house".
The suffix "ssa" means "in" so "talossa" means "in a house", "Lontoossa" means "in London" and "Suomissa" means "in Finland".
"Sta" means "from" so "talosta" means "from a house".
"An" or "en" etc mean "into", so "Taloon" means "into a house".
"lla" means "at" or "on" so "tallolla" means "at a house".
"tta" means "without" so "tallotta" means "without a house".
And so on and so on. All this works with every noun and placename. So in order to say these phrases you need to learn all the suffixes.
Finnish is often regarded as a very difficult language to learn. Whilst it has no grammatical gender it has 15 - yes, 15 - cases. It has no definite or indefinite articles, and is an aggutinative language.
For each of the 15 cases, there are certain endings to add to words.
Here's an example:
"Talo" means "house".
The suffix "n" in Finnish is equivalent to the English "of". So "of a house" in Finnish is "Talon".
"Lontoo" means "London", so "Lontoon" means "of London".
The suffix "ksi" means "to", so "taloski" means "to a house" and "Lontooski" means "to London".
The suffix "na" means "as" so "talona" means "as a house".
The suffix "ssa" means "in" so "talossa" means "in a house", "Lontoossa" means "in London" and "Suomissa" means "in Finland".
"Sta" means "from" so "talosta" means "from a house".
"An" or "en" etc mean "into", so "Taloon" means "into a house".
"lla" means "at" or "on" so "tallolla" means "at a house".
"tta" means "without" so "tallotta" means "without a house".
And so on and so on. All this works with every noun and placename. So in order to say these phrases you need to learn all the suffixes.
Finnish always has an unusual thing called vowel harmony. This means that the vowels in the case endings that I've mentioned above have to agree with the other vowels that are already in the word. So any word that has an "a" in it CANNOT (usually) also have an "ä" in it, and any word with a "y" in it cannot also have a "u" in it.
Which means that the case endings shown above are usually spelt two ways:
e.g. the suffix "-ssa" ("in") is only "ssa" if the word it's joining onto has an "a", "o", or "u" in it. But if the word has an "ä", "ö", or "y" in it then the prefix becomes "ssä".
Likewise "lla" is also "llä" when it needs to be.
Finnish's three classes of vowel:
Front... ä ö y
Neutral..... e i
Back ...a o u
In the Finnish language, there are three classes of vowels -- front, back, and neutral, where each front vowel has a back vowel pairing.
Grammatical endings such as case and derivational endings — but not enclitics — have only archiphonemic vowels, which are realized as either A, U, O or Ä, Y, Ö, but never both, inside a single word. From vowel harmony it follows that the initial syllable of each single (non-compound) word controls the frontness or backness of the entire word.
Non-initially, the neutral vowels are transparent to and unaffected by vowel harmony. In the initial syllable:
a back vowel causes all non-initial syllables to realize with back (or neutral) vowels, e.g. pos+ahta+(t)a → posahtaa
a front vowel causes all non-initial syllables to realize with front (or neutral) vowels, e.g. räj+ahta+(t)a → räjähtää.
a neutral vowel acts like a front vowel, but does not control the frontness or backness of the word: if there are back vowels in non-initial syllables, the word acts like it began with back vowels, even if they come from derivational endings, e.g. sih+ahta+(ta) → sihahtaa cf. sih+ise+(t)a → sihistä
For example:
kaura begins with back vowel → kauralla
kuori begins with back vowel → kuorella
sieni begins without back vowels → sienellä (not *sienella)
käyrä begins without back vowels → käyrällä
tuote begins with back vowels → tuotteeseensa
kerä begins with a neutral vowel → kerällä
kera begins with a neutral vowel, but has a noninitial back vowel → keralla
Some dialects that have a sound change opening diphthong codas also permit archiphonemic vowels in the initial syllable. For example, standard 'ie' is reflected as 'ia' or 'iä', controlled by noninitial syllables, in the Tampere dialect, e.g. tiä ← tie but miakka ← miekka.
wikipedia.org
Which means that the case endings shown above are usually spelt two ways:
e.g. the suffix "-ssa" ("in") is only "ssa" if the word it's joining onto has an "a", "o", or "u" in it. But if the word has an "ä", "ö", or "y" in it then the prefix becomes "ssä".
Likewise "lla" is also "llä" when it needs to be.
Finnish's three classes of vowel:
Front... ä ö y
Neutral..... e i
Back ...a o u
In the Finnish language, there are three classes of vowels -- front, back, and neutral, where each front vowel has a back vowel pairing.
Grammatical endings such as case and derivational endings — but not enclitics — have only archiphonemic vowels, which are realized as either A, U, O or Ä, Y, Ö, but never both, inside a single word. From vowel harmony it follows that the initial syllable of each single (non-compound) word controls the frontness or backness of the entire word.
Non-initially, the neutral vowels are transparent to and unaffected by vowel harmony. In the initial syllable:
a back vowel causes all non-initial syllables to realize with back (or neutral) vowels, e.g. pos+ahta+(t)a → posahtaa
a front vowel causes all non-initial syllables to realize with front (or neutral) vowels, e.g. räj+ahta+(t)a → räjähtää.
a neutral vowel acts like a front vowel, but does not control the frontness or backness of the word: if there are back vowels in non-initial syllables, the word acts like it began with back vowels, even if they come from derivational endings, e.g. sih+ahta+(ta) → sihahtaa cf. sih+ise+(t)a → sihistä
For example:
kaura begins with back vowel → kauralla
kuori begins with back vowel → kuorella
sieni begins without back vowels → sienellä (not *sienella)
käyrä begins without back vowels → käyrällä
tuote begins with back vowels → tuotteeseensa
kerä begins with a neutral vowel → kerällä
kera begins with a neutral vowel, but has a noninitial back vowel → keralla
Some dialects that have a sound change opening diphthong codas also permit archiphonemic vowels in the initial syllable. For example, standard 'ie' is reflected as 'ia' or 'iä', controlled by noninitial syllables, in the Tampere dialect, e.g. tiä ← tie but miakka ← miekka.
wikipedia.org
To make it easier to understand:
Front... ä ö y
Neutral..... e i
Back ...a o u
kaura begins with back vowel → kauralla
kuori begins with back vowel → kuorella
sieni begins without back vowels → sienellä (not *sienella)
The word "kaura" has three vowels, all of which are back vowels (back and front vowels cannot appear in the same word) so its suffixes all have to be spelt with back vowels.
So the suffix "-lla" (in English it means "at") can be added to "kaura" to make "kaurall") ("at...whatever kaura means).
The word "sieni" has two vowels which are NOT back vowels, so its suffixes cannot have back vowels in them. So "lla" (at) has to become "llä with its front vowel "ä".
Front... ä ö y
Neutral..... e i
Back ...a o u
kaura begins with back vowel → kauralla
kuori begins with back vowel → kuorella
sieni begins without back vowels → sienellä (not *sienella)
The word "kaura" has three vowels, all of which are back vowels (back and front vowels cannot appear in the same word) so its suffixes all have to be spelt with back vowels.
So the suffix "-lla" (in English it means "at") can be added to "kaura" to make "kaurall") ("at...whatever kaura means).
The word "sieni" has two vowels which are NOT back vowels, so its suffixes cannot have back vowels in them. So "lla" (at) has to become "llä with its front vowel "ä".
And I'm a fan of the Finnish language. As I've said before it looks completely different to any other European language. Klingon probably has more resemblences to other European languages than Finnish has.
Good day! - Hyvää päivää!
I work as a translator - Työskentelen kääntäjänä
I would like to visit Finland one day - Haluaisin matkustaa suomeen joskus
Is there someone hear who speaks English? - Puhuuko kukaan täällä englantia?
Please check out my web page - Tervetuloa verkkosivulleni osoitteessa
Well, how many of your uncles commited suicide this year? - No, moniko sinun sedistäsi on tehnyt itsemurhan tänä vuonna?
Good day! - Hyvää päivää!
I work as a translator - Työskentelen kääntäjänä
I would like to visit Finland one day - Haluaisin matkustaa suomeen joskus
Is there someone hear who speaks English? - Puhuuko kukaan täällä englantia?
Please check out my web page - Tervetuloa verkkosivulleni osoitteessa
Well, how many of your uncles commited suicide this year? - No, moniko sinun sedistäsi on tehnyt itsemurhan tänä vuonna?
Learning Finnish seems a challenge but also funny. Sadly there is not material available to learn it by yourself here in Spain. Is phonetics very difficult? Does it has many vowels? I heard that Finnish is a very phonetic language.
Guest, bon vespre,
"Here in Spain" quiere decir, supongo, que eres español.
Te recomiendo que adquieras "Le finnois sans peine", de Assimil, libro y DVDs. Yo lo tengo. La lengua de base es el francés, pero no creo que eso sea problema para tí.
Si te propones aprender el finlandés, ponte bien con Dios, porque es una lengua que se las trae, aunque resulta apasionante. Un desafío
"Here in Spain" quiere decir, supongo, que eres español.
Te recomiendo que adquieras "Le finnois sans peine", de Assimil, libro y DVDs. Yo lo tengo. La lengua de base es el francés, pero no creo que eso sea problema para tí.
Si te propones aprender el finlandés, ponte bien con Dios, porque es una lengua que se las trae, aunque resulta apasionante. Un desafío
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