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Good evening!

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Let’s talk about Finnish
language for a moment.

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More specifically,

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let’s focus on the phonemes
of the Finnish language.

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In Finnish,
there are eight vowels:

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a, e, i, o,
u, y, ä and ö.

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Each of these vowels is always
spelled with the same letter,

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so when you read
this symbol, ⟨o⟩,

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it is always
pronounced /o/.

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No exceptions.

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Sometimes there can be two
of these letters in row,

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like this: ⟨oo⟩.

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This means a long vowel.

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Basically you just stretch
the vowel a bit: /oː/.

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The length is
not exact science.

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What is important is that
the vowel sound does not change.

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For instance, it does
not become /oʊ/.

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If you pronounce the long
vowel as a diphthong,

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your foreign background
is exposed sooner –

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than you can close your mouth.

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Thus, Finnish has short
vowels and long vowels.

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a, aa, e, ee, i, ii, o, oo,
u, uu, y, yy, ä, ää, ö, öö.

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When two different vowels
come in sequence,

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like in the word “koe”,

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the two vowels are both
pronounced individually.

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“Koe”.

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In real life though,
Finnish has many diphtongs,

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but these are spontaneous
observations rather than rules,

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and it is perfectly
fine to ignore them.

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We can also ignore
the long vowels,

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because it is basically
just the same vowel –

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repeated twice in a row,
making it twice as long.

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As a general rule,

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the vowel sound is unaffected
by the consonant –

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that precedes or follows it.

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If you nasalize the vowel
right before a consonant,

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your Swedish background
becomes immediately apparent.

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The rest of phonemes
are consonants.

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The only trill
consonant is r.

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The approximants
are v, l and j.

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The nasal consonants
are n and m,

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but there is also
the ng sound /ŋ/,

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which is an exception,

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because it is the only
sound in Finnish –

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that is denoted by a
sequence of two letters –

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and does not have
its own symbol.

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The fricative consonants
are s and h.

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The phoneme f occurs
in loan words,

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but it is not natively
a part of Finnish.

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There is just
one sibilant,

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and it is the voiceless
alveolar sibilant, /s/.

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The post-alveolar sibilant /ʃ/
occurs in some loan words,

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and there is actually a letter
in the Finnish alphabet for it,

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but most Finns cannot pronounce
this sound without practice.

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The sibilant sounds
are never voiced.

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Most Finns cannot even pronounce
sounds like /z/ and /ʒ/ –

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without practice.

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If you use those sounds,

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the listener immediately guesses
your background is Slavic.

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All of the above
are like vowels,

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in that they can be
either short or long.

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For example, keno, kenno,
kisa, kissa, tuli, and tulli –

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are different words,

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These six words all
have different meanings –

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that have nothing in common.

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Again, the length
is not exact science;

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as long as it is clear
from your speech,

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that the phoneme is
slightly longer than normal,

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it counts as a long phoneme.

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It is important to note —

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that it is entirely
a timing issue,

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not an emphasis
or stress issue.

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Well, there are no words
with a long v or a long j,

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but if there were,

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all Finns would know
how to pronounce them.

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Finally there are
plosive consonants:

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The unvoiced k, p, and t,

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and their voiced counterparts,
g, b, and d.

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However, b and g sounds only
occur in words of foreign origin,

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and some dialects do not
recognize the voiced plosives at all.

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In Finnish, the plosives
are not aspirated,

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so instead of khaptheeni,
you would say kapteeni.

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If you aspirate your consonants,

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the listener immediately guesses
your background is English.

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The plosives can also
be short or long.

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For example, kuka, kukka,
mato, matto, rapu and rappu –

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are all different words,

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with meanings that
have nothing in common.

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Because the plosive consonants
are characterized –

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by a sudden sound that
follows a silence,

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the difference between
a short and long plosive –

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is how long the air
is held before released.

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Finally there is the
glottal stop, /ʔ/.

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This sound occurs sometimes
before a vowel –

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when the speaker
wants to be clear –

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where the syllable break
or word break is,

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or to emphasize
the beginning of a word.

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Example, “mä en halua”
means I don’t want,

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but “mä’en halua” means
I really don’t want.

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Sometimes the exact quality
of the consonant can change –

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depending on the
following phonemes.

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For example, if an "n" letter
is followed by a "p" letter,

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almost everyone pronounces
it as "m" instead of "n".

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For example, "kumpa"
instead of "kunpa".

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If the "n" letter is followed
by a "k" letter instead,

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most readers pronounce
it as "ng",

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for example "ongko"
instead of "onko".

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The “h” letter can be pronounced
in a number of different ways –

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depending on the
surrounding vowels.

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Examples: “pehmeä”, “lahja”, “pihvi”.

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Each of these were articulated
in a different part of the mouth.

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These three phonemes are called
allophones for the phoneme “h”,

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and most native speakers are
not even aware of the differences.

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Again, these are spontaneously
arising phenomena rather than rules.

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Note, that unlike in
Hebrew and English,

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if there is a “h” in the text,

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it’s a consonant, and it is
always pronounced as “h”.

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There are no silent letters in Finnish.

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There is one curious exception,
namely gemination.

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In some cases,

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a consonant is pronounced long
even if it’s written short.

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For example, instead of “syö hernekeittoa”
you would say “syö hhernekkeittoa”.

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I’m not totally sure why this happens.

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It just does.

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It is not something that could cause
misunderstandings either way,

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but a curious detail nonetheless.

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Note that you can’t just go randomly
duplicating phonemes.

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If you pronounced “älä menekkään”
as “älämmenekkään”,

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the listener would have to do –

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a double take to understand
what you just said.

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A little bit about timings.

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Different languages have different ideas
about how speech is timed.

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In English and Swedish,
for example,

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the time between consecutive
stressed syllables is fairly constant.

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In French, each syllable takes
roughly the same time.

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In Japanese, each syllable also
takes roughly the same time,

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except that syllables with a long vowel are
pronounced twice as long as regular syllables.

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But Finnish is not like that.

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Finnish is different.

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Basically, each phoneme,
represented by a single letter,

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takes a constant time.

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Long phonemes are represented by two letters,
and they take twice the time.

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There are a few exceptions though.

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Again, things that just rise
spontaneously from practice.

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So, to recap:

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Eight vowels,
and about twelve consonants.

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Phonetically Finnish is quite
a simple language.

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This is the phonetic vocabulary
that a Finnish person has,

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when they speak
any foreign language.

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As I explained
in another video,

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whichever phonetic background a person
has from their native language –

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largely determines what
kind of accent they have –

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when speaking another language.

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The simplicity of Finnish phonetics
contributes to –

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the quite recognizable accent
that Finnish people often have –

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when they speak a language –

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that has phonetically a
significantly different makeup,

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such as English.

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We may be revisiting this topic
soon in another video.

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Stay tuned, and have
a shalom in your life.