Jump to content

Help - I don't have none good pronunciation skillz


ariScotle

Recommended Posts

Need help

English speaker seeks proper pronunciation of the word "Suomi"

someone break it down phonetically for me?

Would be greatly appreciated.

 

(been listening to Not My Cup of Tea comp all night, and finally just have to know)

 

 

Cheers

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As long as it's suomi, how do you guys pronounce "Yöjalka"?

Is the J like in Jerry, and the A like in Amber or is it like Jodeln just whit an ö and an A ....:D?

I don't know is it's correct, but I pronounce it as Yo-ya-lka.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Finnish "y" is strictly a vowel, practically like German "ü".

Finnish "ö" is the same as German ö.

 

Swedish, other Nordic languages and Estonian use similar vowels. (This is not a coincidence, because Finnish written language was derived from German and neighbouring languages in the 16th century.)

 

Both of these vowels can be tricky for foreigners, because they don't exist at all in many European languages. Also, Finnish frontal y, ä and ö are completely separate from their back vowel counterparts u, a and o. Mixing them up will make entirely different words (or usually gibberish). Therefore "skipping the dots" is far worse than forgetting an accent in other languages, for example. It's changing from a vowel to another, plain and simple. Also, the German alternate spellings ue, ae and oe are never used.

 

This is quite important, because Finnish is vowel heavy. All eight of them are always pronounced clearly and distinctly - never skipped, shortened or altered.

 

That was the hard part. "Yö" means night, and consists of two potentially difficult vowels.

 

"Jalka" (foot) is easier. You can start much like in "young" for the "ja" part, and the remaining letters are generally like in most civilised (Latin-based) languages. In fact, most Finnish letters apart from those extra front vowels can be pronounced like in Latin.

 

 

As for the meaning of "nightfoot"...it's actually a sort of pun (like many Finnish psy artist names). The basic, nominative case is rarely used. "Yöjalassa" or "yöjalalla" (being in/on nightfoot) is an old phrase, which means sneaking in the night for romantic intents.

 

Is there still something you need to know?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

...

Dolmot said it all, I'm baffled and glad you did such an effort for such a deep and insightful post for the topic starter. Even being a 'fun', didn't know about the meaning of Yöjalka before heh...
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Suomi is a former part of Russian Empire , say thanks to the jewish fuckers who made it go that terreble way in 1917 when Finland became an independent land lol

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Suomi is a former part of Russian Empire , say thanks to the jewish fuckers who made it go that terreble way in 1917 when Finland became an independent land lol

Quote of the year. Almost good enough to make it enter rino's infamous "my signature is irreplacable" competition.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Suomi is a former part of Russian Empire , say thanks to the jewish fuckers who made it go that terreble way in 1917 when Finland became an independent land lol

We were a part of Sweden too :(

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...