this post was submitted on 18 May 2025
156 points (92.9% liked)
Stolen from Facebook
533 readers
32 users here now
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
And then there’s Finnish, where (according to Icelandic comedian Arí Eldjárn) “I love you” sounds more like “get me the money or else”
The Finnish word for love is indeed "rakkaus" (I love you = (minä) rakastan sinua), for anyone wondering. With a hard r and two hard k's I doubt many non-natives would guess it means love
Now let a German pronounce it.
Just like all PIE-speakers, they absolutely butcher Finnish pronunciation.
It's much easier to learn to pass of as a native English speaker than it ever would to pass off as a native Finnish speaker.
German is very melodic, sing-songy, and fair, compared to Finnish.
That's funny, because that's how I would describe spoken Finnish. I guess it's all in the eye of beholder.
It's every much contextual as well.
You can achieve softness with both languages, if you so choose. Harshness as well.
Finnish in itself is about almost as varied as UK-accents. The very northern dialects do sound sing-songier to me than average German, I do admit that.
However I'm from the southern end of Finland, our dialect is kinda harsh. And some 100km NW it's even shorter and harder.
Here's a video titled "Can you recognise the Finnish accents?" in Finnish, displaying a few of the various dialects.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfReKFBfu0A